<p><em>Conservancy must move to a 

Supporter-driven organization so we can focus on critical free software 

issues that nobody else is tackling.  Stand up for the GPL, support great 

member projects, and make your voice heard in support of free software.  

<a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">Donate today!</a></em></p>

<!--- FIXME scale this properly like on VMware page -->

<a href="/img/member-project-logos.png"><img class="appeal-left" src="/img/member-project-logos.png"/></a>

<p>

The world today is powered increasingly by Free Software. But what many

people don't realize is how much support is needed to keep all of these

projects free and open. The work that we do every day ensures the success and

the continued freedom of the projects that the developers of our member

projects dedicate themselves to. Projects like Git, Samba,

Wine, BusyBox, QEMU, Inkscape, Selenium, and dozens more.</p>

<p>We are asking for you

  to <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">join us and become a

    Conservancy Supporter</a> but this is more than our usual annual

  fundraising appeal.  As described in more detail below, after the events 

  of 2015, we must substantially increase our individual support to be able 

  to continue defending software freedom for our member projects and the 

  we will be forced to radically restructure and wind down a substantial portion

  of our operations.</p>

<br clear="left"/>

<h4>2015 successes</h4>

<a href="/img/conservancy-staff-photo.jpg"><img class="appeal-right" src="/img/conservancy-staff-photo.jpg"/></a>

<p>

Software Freedom Conservancy has had a lot of major successes this year:

<ul>

<li>We brought four new projects under the protection of 

Conservancy: <a href="/news/2015/jul/23/qemu-joins/">QEMU</a>,

  the generic machine emulator and

virtualizer, <a href="https://www.bro.org/">The Bro Network Security

Monitor</a>, the <a href="http://www.godotengine.org/">Godot Game Engine</a>,

and <a href="http://outreachy.org">Outreachy</a>, a program dedicated to

helping people from underrepresented groups get involved in free and open

source software. We also worked with the Debian community to launch

the <a href="/news/2015/aug/17/debian/">Debian

Copyright Aggregation Project</a> at their request.</li>

<li>We <a href="/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">supported

the lawsuit</a> Christoph Hellwig has brought against VMware in Germany, the

interviews and <a href="/blog/">blogposts</a>, and

Bradley and Karen published episodes of <a href="http://faif.us/">Free as in

Freedom</a>, dedicated to discussing the important issues in software

freedom.</li>

</ul>

<p>And we did <strong>all of this</strong> with <strong>only three full time employees</strong>.</p>

<p>We are focused on the most important ethical issues in software

freedom. We work tirelessly and don't shy away from difficult issues.</p>

<p>We're a unique organization &mdash; a staunch defender of copyleft (for Linux,

Debian and many of our member projects), a source of education and champions

of diversity for the community via Outreachy and other programs, and are the

legal home to over 30 member projects that are essential to developing free

software.</p>

<p>We undertake these critical programs because they are essential to the

future of technology. We do them because they are right. <strong>But we cannot do

them without you</strong>. If we do not meet our fundraising goals, we will be

forced to radically restructure.</p>

<p>Our fiscal sponsorship model is not financially self-sustaining by itself:

we cannot afford even one staff member and basic overhead with the revenue we

copyright and licensing advice, and license enforcement, we need even more

resources.  That's why our final target is 2,500 Supporters.  If you use

or care about our <a href="/members/current/">member projects</a>, which

include some of the most widely used free software, you can help them all

by <a href="#donate-box" class="donate-now">signing up as a Supporter

today</a>.</p>

<h4>Fighting for the GPL</h4>

<a href="/img/gpl-heart.png"><img class="appeal-right"  src="/img/gpl-heart.png"/></a>

<p>Many consider our GPL compliance and enforcement controversial.   We don't

think it is:  we stand up for

the GPL at the request of the Linux kernel community, the Debian community, 

and our member projects. Most recently, that has resulted in our funding

of the <a href="/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">suit

against VMware</a>, which is the first lawsuit on derivative works and the

GPL. While this work is extremely important to the continued long-term

success of software freedom and copyleft not to mention in the long term 

interest of the industry as a whole, it makes fundraising from companies

very difficult.  Some companies 

have withdrawn from funding us and some have even successfully pressured 

conferences to cancel or prevent talks on our enforcement work. We do

this work because we think that it is good for everyone in the long run,