from django.contrib import admin

from .models import Entry, EntryTag

@admin.register(EntryTag)

class EntryTagAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):

    prepopulated_fields = {'slug': ('label',)}

@admin.register(Entry)

class EntryAdmin(admin.ModelAdmin):

    list_display = ('pub_date', 'headline', 'author')

    list_filter = ['pub_date']

    date_hierarchy = 'pub_date'

    search_fields = ['headline', 'summary', 'body']

    prepopulated_fields = {'slug': ("headline",)}

    filter_horizontal = ('tags',)

from datetime import datetime

from functools import reduce

from django.core.paginator import EmptyPage, PageNotAnInteger, Paginator

from django.shortcuts import get_object_or_404, render

from django.views.generic.dates import (

    DateDetailView,

    DayArchiveView,

    MonthArchiveView,

    YearArchiveView,

)

from ..staff.models import Person

from .models import EntryTag

def OR_filter(field_name, objs):

    from django.db.models import Q

    return reduce(lambda x, y: x | y,

                  [Q(**{field_name: x.id}) for x in objs])

def last_name(person):

    return person.formal_name.rpartition(' ')[2]

def custom_index(request, queryset, *args, **kwargs):

    """Blog list view that allows scrolling and also shows an index by

    year.

    """

    extra_context = kwargs.get('extra_context', {}).copy()

    date_field = kwargs['date_field']

    if not kwargs.get('allow_future', False):

        queryset = queryset.filter(**{'%s__lte' % date_field: datetime.now()})

    authors = []

    if 'author' in request.GET:

        authors = [get_object_or_404(Person, username=author)

                   for author in request.GET.getlist('author')]

        extra_context['authors'] = authors

        queryset = queryset.filter(OR_filter('author', authors))

    tags = []

    if 'tag' in request.GET:

        tags = [get_object_or_404(EntryTag, slug=tag)

                for tag in request.GET.getlist('tag')]

        extra_context['tags'] = tags

        queryset = queryset.filter(OR_filter('tags', tags))

    if authors or tags:

        query_string = '&'.join(['author=%s' % a.username for a in authors]

                                + ['tag=%s' % t.slug for t in tags])

        extra_context['query_string'] = query_string

    else:

        date_list = queryset.dates(date_field, 'year')

        extra_context['date_list'] = date_list

    paginate_by = kwargs.get('paginate_by', 6)  # Show 6 news items per page, by default

    paginator = Paginator(queryset, paginate_by)

    page = request.GET.get('page')

    try:

        blog_entries = paginator.page(page)

    except PageNotAnInteger:

        # If page is not an integer, deliver first page.

        blog_entries = paginator.page(1)

    except EmptyPage:

        # If page is out of range (e.g. 9999), deliver last page of results.

        blog_entries = paginator.page(paginator.num_pages)

    extra_context['blog_entries'] = blog_entries

    return render(request, 'blog/entry_list.html', extra_context)

def techblog_redirect(request):

    """Redirect from the old 'techblog' to the new blog

    """

    path = request.path[len('/technology'):]

    if path == '/blog/':

        path += "?author=bkuhn"

    return relative_redirect(request, path)

def query(request):

    """Page to query the blog based on authors and tags

    """

    if request.GET:

        d = request.GET.copy()

        if 'authors' in d.getlist('all'):

            d.setlist('author', []) # remove author queries

        if 'tags' in d.getlist('all'):

            d.setlist('tag', []) # remove tag queries

        d.setlist('all', []) # remove "all" from the query string

        base_url = '/blog/'

        if 'rss' in d:

            base_url = '/feeds/blog/'

            d.setlist('rss', []) # remove it

        query_string = d.urlencode()

        return relative_redirect(request, '{}{}{}'.format(base_url, '?' if query_string else '', query_string))

    else:

        authors = sorted(Person.objects.filter(currently_employed=True,

                                               entry__isnull=False).distinct(),

                         key=last_name)

        tags = EntryTag.objects.all().order_by('label')

        return render(request, 'blog/query.html', {'authors': authors, 'tags': tags})

def relative_redirect(request, path):

    from django import http

    host = request.get_host()

    url = "{}://{}{}".format(request.is_secure() and 'https' or 'http', host, path)

    return http.HttpResponseRedirect(url)

class BlogYearArchiveView(YearArchiveView):

    make_object_list = True

    allow_future = True

    extra_context = {}

    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):

        context = super().get_context_data(**kwargs)

        context.update(self.extra_context)

        return context

class BlogMonthArchiveView(MonthArchiveView):

    allow_future = True

    extra_context = {}

    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):

        context = super().get_context_data(**kwargs)

        context.update(self.extra_context)

        return context

class BlogDayArchiveView(DayArchiveView):

    allow_future = True

    extra_context = {}

    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):

        context = super().get_context_data(**kwargs)

        context.update(self.extra_context)

        return context

class BlogDateDetailView(DateDetailView):

    allow_future = True

    extra_context = {}

    def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):

        context = super().get_context_data(**kwargs)

        context.update(self.extra_context)

        return context

{% extends "base_about.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}Directors - {% endblock %}

{% block submenuselection %}Directors{% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<h1>Directors</h1>

<p>Like many non-profits, Conservancy is directed by a

self-perpetuating Board of Directors, who

appoint the <a href="/about/staff/">Executive Director and staff</a> to carry out the

day-to-day operations of the organization.  The Directorship of the

Conservancy includes both talented non-profit managers and experienced

FLOSS project leaders who can both guide the administrative operations of

the organization as well as mentor member project leaders as needed.  Our

Directors constantly search for additional directors who can contribute a

variety of expertise and perspective related to the Conservancy's

mission.</p>

<p>Currently, the directors of Conservancy are:</p>

<h2 id="jeremy">Jeremy Allison</h2>

<p>Jeremy Allison is one of the lead developers on the Samba Team, a

group of programmers developing an Open Source Windows compatible file

and print server product for UNIX systems. Developed over the Internet

in a distributed manner similar to the Linux system, Samba is used by

all Linux distributions as well as many thousands of corporations and

products worldwide. Jeremy handles the co-ordination of Samba

development efforts and acts as a corporate liaison to companies using

the Samba code commercially.</p>

<p>He works for CIQ as a Distinguished Engineer, working on Open

Source code.</p>

<h2 id="laura">Dr. Laura Fortunato</h2>

<p><a href="http://www.santafe.edu/~fortunato/">Dr. Laura Fortunato</a>

is a professor of evolutionary anthropology at the University

of Oxford, where she researches the evolution of human social and

cultural behavior, working at the interface of anthropology and

biology. An advocate of reproducible computational methods in

research, including the use of Free/Open-Source tools, she founded the

<a href="https://rroxford.github.io/">Reproducible Research Oxford</a>

project, with the aim to foster a culture of reproducibility and open

research at Oxford.</p>

<p>Laura holds a degree in Biological Sciences from the University of

Padova and masters and PhD in Anthropology from University College

London. Before joining Oxford she was an Omidyar fellow at the <a

href="http://www.santafe.edu/">Santa Fe Institute</a>, where she is

currently an External Professor and a member of the Science Steering

Committee. She is also a member of the steering group of the <a

href="http://www.ukrn.org/">UK Reproducibility Network</a>, a peer-led

consortium that aims to promote robust research practice in the UK.</p>

<h2 id="mark">Dr. Mark Galassi</h2>

<p>Mark Galassi has been involved in the GNU project since 1984. He

currently works as a researcher in the International, Space, and Response

division at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he has worked on the

HETE-2 satellite, ISIS/Genie, the Raptor telescope, the Swift satellite,

and the muon tomography project. In 1997 Mark took a couple of years off

from Los Alamos (where he was previously in the ISR division and the

Theoretical Astrophysics group) to work for Cygnus (now a part of Red Hat)

writing software and books for eCos, although he continued working on the

HETE-2 satellite (an astrophysical Gamma Ray Burst mission) part

time. Mark earned his BA in Physics at Reed College and a PhD from the

Institute for Theoretical Physics at Stony Brook. </p>

<h2 id="bdale">Bdale Garbee</h2>

<p><a href="https://gag.com/bdale/">Bdale Garbee</a> has been a contributor

to the Free Software community since 1979.  Bdale's background also includes

many years of hardware design, Unix internals, and embedded systems work.

He was an early participant in the Debian project, helped port Debian

GNU/Linux to 5 architectures, served as Debian Project Leader, then

chairman of the Debian Technical Committee for nearly a decade, and remains

active in the Debian community.</p>

<p>Bdale served as an HP Fellow in the Office of the CTO until 2016 where

he led HP's open source strategy work.  Bdale served as President of

Software in the Public Interest for a decade.  He served nearly as long on

the board of directors of the Linux Foundation representing individual

affiliates and the developer community.  Bdale currently serves on the

boards of the Freedombox Foundation, Linux Professional Institute, and

Aleph Objects.</p>

<h2 id="bkuhn">Bradley M. Kuhn</h2>

<p><a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley M. Kuhn</a> is

the <a href="/about/staff/#bkuhn">Policy Fellow and Hacker-in-Residence</a>

at <a href="/">Software Freedom Conservancy</a> and editor-in-chief

of <a href="https://copyleft.org">copyleft.org</a>. Kuhn began his work in

the software freedom movement as a volunteer in 1992, when he became an early

adopter of Linux-based systems, and began contributing to various Free

Software projects, including Perl.  He worked during the 1990s as a system

administrator and software developer for various companies, and taught AP

Computer Science at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati.  Kuhn's

non-profit career began in 2000, when he was hired by the FSF.  As FSF's

Executive Director from 2001–2005, Kuhn

led <a href="https://www.fsf.org/licensing">FSF's GPL enforcement</a>,

launched <a href="https://www.fsf.org/associate/">its Associate Member

program</a>, and invented

the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html">Affero GPL</a>.  Kuhn

was appointed President of Software Freedom Conservancy in April 2006, was

Conservancy's primary volunteer from 2006–2010, and has been a

full-time staffer since early 2011.  Kuhn holds a summa cum laude B.S. in

Computer Science

from <a href="http://www.loyola.edu/academic/computerscience">Loyola

University in Maryland</a>, and an M.S. in Computer Science from

the <a href="http://www.cs.uc.edu/">University of

Cincinnati</a>.  <a href="http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/articles/thesis/">Kuhn's

Master's thesis</a> discussed methods for dynamic interoperability of Free

Software programming languages.  Kuhn received

the <a href="http://www.oscon.com/oscon2012/public/schedule/detail/25039">O'Reilly

Open Source Award in 2012</a>, in recognition for his lifelong policy work on

copyleft licensing.  Kuhn has <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/">a

blog</a> and co-hosts

the audcast, <a href="http://faif.us/"><cite>Free as in Freedom</cite></a>.</p>

<h2 id="allison">Dr. Allison Randal - Chair of the Board</h2>

<p> Over the course of multiple decades as a free software developer,

 Allison has worked in a wide variety of projects and domains, from

 games, linguistic analysis tools, websites, mobile apps, shipping

 fulfillment, and talking smart-home appliances, to programming language

 design, compilers, hypervisors, containers, deployment automation,

 database replication, operating systems and kernels, and hardware

 architectures and microarchitectures.</p>

<p>She is a board member at the Open Infrastructure Foundation, vice chair

 of the Microarchitecture Side Channels (Security) SIG at RISC-V

 International, and co-founder of the FLOSS Foundations group for free

 software community leaders. At various points in the past she has served

 as chair of the board at the Open Infrastructure Foundation, president

 and board member of the Open Source Initiative, president and board

 member of the Perl Foundation, board member of the Python Software

 Foundation, chair of the board at the Parrot Foundation, chief architect

 of the Parrot virtual machine, Open Source Evangelist at O’Reilly Media,

 conference chair of OSCON, Technical Architect of Ubuntu, Open Source

 Advisor at Canonical, Distinguished Technologist and Open Source

 Strategist at HP, and Distinguished Engineer at SUSE. She collaborates

 in the Debian and RISC-V projects, and currently works on free software

 and open hardware at Rivos.</p>

<h2 id="tony">Tony Sebro</h2>

<p>Tony currently serves as the Deputy General Counsel for

    the <a href="https://foundation.wikimedia.org/wiki/Home">Wikimedia

    Foundation</a>, where he manages the day-to-day operations of Wikimedia's

    legal department, and provide specific expertise on free and open source

    licensing, intellectual property, non-profit law, and privacy matters.

    Tony is also an organizer of

    Conservancy's <a href="https://outreachy.org">Outreachy</a> project,

    which provides paid internships in free and open source for people from

    groups traditionally underrepresented in tech.  Prior to joining

    Wikimedia, Tony served as General Counsel (and “Employee #2”)

    of Software Freedom Conservancy for over six years.  Tony has also spent

    time in the private sector with PCT Law Group and Kenyon & Kenyon, and as

    an intellectual property licensing and business development professional

    with IBM.  Tony received an O'Reilly Open Source Award in 2017.  Tony is

    an active participant in and supporter of the non-profit community, and

    lives in the Bay Area with his family.</p>

{% endblock %}

{% extends "base_about.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}Staff - {% endblock %}

{% block submenuselection %}Staff{% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<h1>Staff</h1>

<p>The staff are listed alphabetically by surname.</p>

<h2 id="dimesio">Rosanne DiMesio - Technical Bookkeeper</h2>

<p>Rosanne DiMesio is the Technical Bookkeeper at the Software Freedom

Conservancy where she handles incoming and outgoing accounting

activities for all its member projects as well as financial operations

for Conservancy itself. Rosanne has been volunteering with the Wine

Project since 2008 where she focuses on user support and documentation.

She has worked as an English teacher, a freelance writer and as IT

support. She is passionate about helping free software projects improve

their user experience. Rosanne received her Masters in Communication &

Theater at the University of Illinois at Chicago and her Bachelor’s

degree in English from the University of Chicago.</p>

<h2 id="denver">Denver Gingerich - Director of Compliance</h2>

<p>Denver manages SFC's license compliance work, including its technical parts

(such as triaging new reports and verifying complete corresponding source) as

well as planning and carrying out our enforcement strategy (with advice and

input from SFC's Executive Director and Policy Fellow).  Outside of SFC, Denver

also co-runs a FOSS business. Previously, Denver authored financial trading

software on Linux.  Denver writes free software in his spare time: his patches

have been accepted into Wine, Linux, and wdiff.  Denver received his BMath in

Computer Science from the University of Waterloo.  He gives presentations about

digital civil rights and how to ensure FOSS remains sustainable as a community

and financially, having spoken at conferences such as LinuxCon North America,

Texas Linux Fest, LibrePlanet, CopyCamp Toronto, FOSSLC's Summercamp,

CopyleftConf, and the Open Video Conference.</p>

<h2 id="tracy">Tracy Homer - Operations Manager</h2>

Bringing her super-skills of organization and love of bureaucracy,

she helps things run at SFC smoothly behind the scenes.

Tracy also serves on the board of her local hackerspace, an organization

committed to teaching and promoting open technology exclusively.

She feels that open techonology allows people to express their creativity

regardless of their financial situation or technical background.

Tracy is currently persuing a degree in GIS from the University of Tennessee.</p>

<h2 id="bkuhn">Bradley M. Kuhn - Policy Fellow and Hacker-in-Residence</h2>

<p><a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/">Bradley M. Kuhn</a> is

the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/about/staff/#bkuhn">Policy Fellow and

Hacker-in-Residence</a> at <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/">Software Freedom

Conservancy</a> and editor-in-chief

of <a href="https://copyleft.org">copyleft.org</a>. Kuhn began his work in

the software freedom movement as a volunteer in 1992, when he became an early

adopter of Linux-based systems, and began contributing to various Free

Software projects, including Perl.  He worked during the 1990s as a system

administrator and software developer for various companies, and taught AP

Computer Science at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati.  Kuhn's

non-profit career began in 2000, when he was hired by the FSF.  As FSF's

Executive Director from 2001–2005, Kuhn

led <a href="https://www.fsf.org/licensing">FSF's GPL enforcement</a>,

launched <a href="https://www.fsf.org/associate/">its Associate Member

program</a>, and invented

the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.html">Affero GPL</a>.  Kuhn

began as Conservancy's primary volunteer from 2006–2010, and became its first

staff person in 2011.  Kuhn holds a summa cum laude B.S. in Computer Science

from <a href="http://www.loyola.edu/academic/computerscience">Loyola

University in Maryland</a>, and an M.S. in Computer Science from

the <a href="http://www.cs.uc.edu/">University of

Cincinnati</a>.  <a href="http://www.ebb.org/bkuhn/articles/thesis/">Kuhn's

Master's thesis</a> discussed methods for dynamic interoperability of Free

Software programming languages.  Kuhn received

the <a href="http://www.oscon.com/oscon2012/public/schedule/detail/25039">O'Reilly

Open Source Award in 2012</a>, in recognition for his lifelong policy work on

copyleft licensing.  Kuhn has <a href="http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/">a

blog</a> and co-hosts

the audcast, <a href="http://faif.us/"><cite>Free as in

Freedom</cite></a>.</p>

<h2 id="rick">Rick Sanders - General Counsel</h2>

<p>Rick Sanders, has over 20 years' experience as a intellectual-property

litigator. He started his legal career at Fenwick & West's Silicon Valley

office, then moved to Nashville to join Waller,   before co-founding Aaron &

Sanders, with the goal of providing sophisticated legal services to technology

clients in Middle Tennessee. Rick also taught copyright law at Vanderbilt

University School of Law, and he co-produced The Copyright Office   Comes to

Music City for many years. He is also a past chair of the American Bar

Association's Trademarks and the Internet   committee, and the Nashville Bar

Association's Intellectual Property Section. He is admitted to the bar of the

States of California and Tennessee, as well as the U.S. Court of Appeal for the

Sixth and Ninth Circuits and all U.S. District Courts in California and

Tennessee. Before becoming a lawyer, Rick was a college instructor in English

composition and literature, especially Shakespeare. He is a native of Mountain

View, California and now lives in Nashville.</p>

<h2 id="karen">Karen M. Sandler - Executive Director</h2>

<p>Karen M. Sandler is an attorney and the executive director of Software Freedom

Conservancy, a 501c3 nonprofit organization focused on ethical technology. As

a patient deeply concerned with the technology in her own body, Karen is known

as a cyborg lawyer for her advocacy for free software as a life-or-death

issue, particularly in relation to the software on medical devices. She

co-organizes Outreachy, the award-winning outreach program for people who face

under-representation, systemic bias, or discrimination in tech. She is an

adjunct Lecturer-In-Law of Columbia Law School and a visiting scholar at

University of California Santa Cruz.</p>

<p>Prior to joining Software Freedom Conservancy, Karen was the executive

director of the GNOME Foundation. Before that, she was the general counsel of

the Software Freedom Law Center. She began her career as a lawyer at Clifford

Chance and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP.</p>

<p>Karen received her law degree from Columbia Law School where she was a James

Kent Scholar and co-founder of the Columbia Science and Technology Law Review.

She also holds a bachelor of science in engineering from

The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art.</p>

<p>Sandler has won awards for her work on behalf of software freedom, including

the O’Reilly Open Source Award in 2011. She received an honorary doctorate

from KU Leuven in 2023.</p>

<h2 id="sage">Sage Sharp - Senior Director of Diversity & Inclusion</h2>

<p>Sage Sharp is the Senior Director of Diversity & Inclusion at the Software

Freedom Conservancy. Sage runs Outreachy, which is Conservancy's diversity

initiative that provides paid, remote internships to people who are subject to

systemic bias or impacted by underrepresentation in tech. Sage is a

long-standing free software contributor, and is known for their work as a

Linux kernel maintainer for seven years. They also founded their own company,

Otter Tech, which has trained over 400 people on how to enforce a Code of

Conduct.</p>

<h2 id="pono">Daniel Pono Takamori - Community Organizer & Non-Profit Problem Solver</h2>

<p>Pono joined Conservancy to help fill a community need for bridging technical

and non-technical roles. Having worked at FOSS foundations and organizations

for over a decade, his background in FOSS infrastructure led him to think more

deeply about how to better use community intelligence instead of technology

to solve governance questions. He is passionate about making FOSS a more

equitable and inclusive space. With a background in mathematics and physics,

he looks forward to mobilizing social intelligence and community goveranance

as a basis for solving both technical and non-technical problems.</p>

<h2 id="paul">Paul Visscher - Systems Administrator</h2>

<p>Paul has been using Linux and FOSS for over 26 years and working as a sysadmin

for over 20 years. Having fallen in love with computers at a young age, he

found it intellectually intersting and found the FOSS world an incredible

and natural place to learn. He brings a passion for how free and open source

software can make our society a much more equitable place, and work for us

rather than against us. </p>

{% endblock %}

{% extends "base_compliance.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}Copyleft Compliance Projects - {% endblock %}

{% block submenuselection %}CopyleftCompliance{% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<h1 id="ourwork">Conservancy's Copyleft Compliance Projects</h1>

<p>As existing donors and sustainers know, the Software Freedom Conservancy

  is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity registered in New York, and Conservancy

  helps people take control of their computing by growing the software

  freedom movement, supporting community-driven alternatives to proprietary

  software, and defending free software with practical initiatives.

  Conservancy accomplishes these goals with various initiatives, including

  defending and upholding the rights of software users and consumers under

  copyleft licenses, such as the GPL.</p>

<p>Free and open source software (FOSS) is everywhere and in everything; yet

our software freedom is constantly eroded.  With the help of its

volunteers, <a href="/members/current/">member projects</a>,

and <a href="/about/staff/">staff</a>, Conservancy stands up for users'

software freedom via its copyleft compliance work.</p>

<p>Conservancy's primary work in copyleft compliance currently focuses on

our <a href="/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-strategy.html">Strategic GPL

Enforcement Initiative</a>.  This initiative, <a href="/news/2020/oct/01/new-copyleft-strategy-launched-with-ARDC-grant/">launched in October 2020</a>,

represents the culmination of nearly 15 years of compliance work of

Conservancy spanning ten different fiscally sponsored projects, past lawsuits

against more than a dozen defendants, and hundreds of non-litigation

compliance actions.</p>

<p>For these many years, Conservancy has always given the benefit of the

  doubt to companies who exploited our good nature and ultimately simply

  ignore the rights of users and consumers.  In that time, the compliance

  industrial complex has risen to a multi-million-dollar industry —

  selling (mostly proprietary) products, services, and consulting to

  companies.  Yet, these compliance efforts ignore consistently the most

  essential promise of copyleft — the complete, Corresponding Source

  and “the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the

  executable&rdquo;.</p>

<p>We encourage our sustainers and software freedom enthusiasts everywhere to

  <a href="/copyleft-compliance/enforcement-strategy.html">read our detailed

  strategic plan for GPL enforcement</a> and its companion

  project, <a href="/copyleft-compliance/firmware-liberation.html">our

    Firmware Liberation Project</a>.</p>

<h2 id="projects">Compliance Relationship to Fiscally Sponsored Projects</h2>

<p>Historically, Conservancy was well-known for its ongoing license

compliance efforts on behalf of its BusyBox member project.  Today,

Conservancy does semi-regular compliance work for its BusyBox, Git, Inkscape,

Mercurial, Samba, QEMU and Wine member projects.  If you are a copyright

holder in any member project of Conservancy, please contact the project's

leadership committtee,

via <a href="mailto:PROJECTNAME@sfconservancy.org">&lt;PROJECTNAME@sfconservancy.org&gt;</a>

for more information on getting involved in compliance efforts in that

project.

</p>

<h2 id="linux">GPL Compliance Project For Linux Developers</h2>

<p>In May

2012, <a href="/news/2012/may/29/compliance/">Conservancy

launched</a> the <cite>GPL

Compliance Project for Linux Developers</cite>, which handles compliance and

enforcement activities on behalf of more than a dozen Linux copyright

holders.</p>

<p>The GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers is comprised of copyright

holders in the kernel, Linux, who have contributed to Linux under its

license, <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-2.0.html">the

GPLv2</a>. These copyright holders have formally asked Conservancy to engage

in compliance efforts for their copyrights in the Linux kernel.  In addition,

some developers have directly assigned their copyrights on Linux to Conservancy,

so Conservancy also enforces the GPL on Linux via its own copyrights in Linux.</p>

<p>Linux copyright holders who wish to assign copyright to or sign an enforcement agreement with

Conservancy should

  contact <a href="mailto:linux-services@sfconservancy.org">&lt;linux-services@sfconservancy.org&gt;</a>.

  In 2016,

  Conservancy <a href="/news/2016/nov/03/linux-compliance-agreements/">made

    public the template agreements used as part of this project</a>; both the

  <a href="/docs/blank_linux-enforcement-agreement.pdf">non-anonymous</a> and

  <a href="/docs/blank_anonymous-linux-enforcement-agreement.pdf">anonymous</a>

  versions are available.  However, please <strong>do not</strong> sign these

  unilaterally without contacting and discussing

  with <a href="mailto:linux-services@sfconservancy.org">&lt;linux-services@sfconservancy.org&gt;</a>

  first.</p>

<h2 id="debian">The Debian Copyright Aggregation Project</h2>

<p>In August 2015, <a href="/news/2015/aug/17/debian/">Conservancy announced the Debian Copyright Aggregation

Project</a>.  This project allows Debian contributors to assign copyrights to

Conservancy, or sign enforcement agreements allowing Conservancy to enforce

Free and Open Source (FOSS) licenses on their behalf.  Many Debian contributors

have chosen each of these options already, and more continue to join.</p>

<p>Debian contributors who wish to assign copyright to or sign an enforcement agreement with

Conservancy should contact <a href="mailto:debian-services@sfconservancy.org">&lt;debian-services@sfconservancy.org&gt;</a>.</p>

<h2 id="commitment">Conservancy's Commitment to Copyleft License Compliance</h2>

<p>Conservancy is dedicated to encouraging all users of software to comply

  with Free Software licenses. Toward this goal, in its compliance efforts,

  Conservancy helps distributors of Free Software in a friendly spirit of

  cooperation and participation.  In this spirit, Conservancy has co-published,

  with the Free Software Foundation (FSF), <a href="/copyleft-compliance/principles.html">the principles that both organizations

  follow in their compliance efforts</a>.

  </p>

{% endblock %}

{% extends "base_compliance.html" %}

{% block subtitle %}Copyleft Compliance Projects - {% endblock %}

{% block submenuselection %}EnforcementStrategy{% endblock %}

{% block content %}

<h1 id="strategic-gpl-enforcement-initiative">The Strategic GPL Enforcement Initiative</h1>

<p>As existing donors and sustainers know, the Software Freedom Conservancy

  is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity registered in New York, and Conservancy

  helps people take control of their computing by growing the software

  freedom movement, supporting community-driven alternatives to proprietary

  software, and defending free software with practical initiatives.

  Conservancy accomplishes these goals with various initiatives, including

  defending and upholding the rights of software users and consumers under

  copyleft licenses, such as the <acronym title="General Public License">GPL</acronym>.</p>

<h2 id="brief-history-of-user-focused-gpl-enforcement">Brief History of

  User-Focused GPL Enforcement</h2>

<p>The spring of 2003 was a watershed moment for software freedom on

  electronic devices. 802.11 wireless technology had finally reached the

  mainstream, and wireless routers for home use had flooded the market

  earlier in the year. By June

  2003, <a href="https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/03/06/08/1749217/is-linksys-violating-the-GPL">the

  general public knew that Linksys (a division of Cisco) was violating the

  GPL</a> on their WRT54G model wireless routers. Hobbyists discovered

  (rather easily) that Linux and BusyBox were included in the router, but

  Linksys and Cisco had failed to provide source code or any offer for source

  code to its customers.</p>

<p>A coalition formed made up of organizations and individuals — including

  Erik Andersen (major contributor to and former leader of the BusyBox

  project) and Harald Welte (major contributor to Linux’s netfilter

  subsystem) — to enforce the

  GPL. <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/about/staff/#bkuhn">Bradley

  M. Kuhn</a>, who is now Conservancy’s Policy Fellow and

  Hacker-in-Residence, led and coordinated that coalition (when he was

  Executive Director of the <acronym title="Free Software Foundation">FSF</acronym>). By early 2004, this coalition, through the

  process of GPL enforcement, compelled Linksys to release an

  almost-GPL-compliant source release for the

  WRT54G. A <a href="https://openwrt.org/about/history">group of volunteers

  quickly built a new project, called OpenWrt</a> based on that source

  release. In the years that have followed, OpenWrt has been ported to almost

  every major wireless router product.  Now, more than 15 years later, the

  OpenWrt project routinely utilizes GPL source releases to build, improve

  and port OpenWrt.  The project has also joined coalitions to fight the FCC

  to ensure that consumers have and deserve rights to install modified

  firmwares on their devices and that such hobbyist improvements are no

  threat to spectrum regulation.</p>

<p>Recently, <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/news/2020/sep/10/openwrt-joins/">OpenWrt joined Conservancy as one its member projects</a>,

  and Conservancy has committed to long-term assistance to this project.</p>

<p>OpenWrt has spurred companies to create better routers and other wireless

  devices than such companies would otherwise have designed because they now need to

  either compete with hobbyists, or (better still) cooperate with those hobbyists to

  create hardware that fully supports OpenWrt’s features and improvements

  (such as dealing

  with <a href="https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/traffic-shaping/sqm">the

  dreaded “bufferbloat” bugs</a>). This interplay between the hobbyist

  community and for-profit ventures promotes innovation in

  technology. Without both permission <em>and</em> the ability to build and

  modify the software on their devices, the hobbyist community

  shrinks. Without intervention to ensure companies respect the hobbyist

  community, hobbyists are limited by the oft-arbitrary manufacturer-imposed

  restraints in the OEM firmware. OpenWrt saved the wireless router market

  from this disaster; we seek to help other embedded electronic subindustries

  avoid that fate. The authors of GPL’d software chose that license so its

  source is usable and readily available to hobbyists. It is our duty, as

  activists for the software freedom of hobbyists, to ensure these legally

  mandated rights are never curtailed.</p>

<p>(More on the OpenWrt project’s history and its connection to GPL

  enforcement can be found

  in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4lCMx-EI1s">Kuhn’s talk

    at <em>OpenWrt Summit 2016</em></a>.)</p>

<p>Conservancy has had substantial success in leveraging more device freedom

  in other subindustries through GPL compliance. In 2009, Conservancy, with

  co-Plaintiff Erik Andersen, sued fourteen defendants in federal court under

  achieved compliance for the BusyBox project in all fourteen

  cases. Most notably, the GPL-compliant source release obtained in the

  lawsuit for certain Samsung televisions provided the basis for

  the <a href="https://www.samygo.tv/">SamyGo project</a> — an alternative

  firmware that works on that era of Samsung televisions and allows consumers

  to modify and upgrade their firmware using FOSS.</p>

<p>Harald Welte also continued his efforts during the early and mid-2000s,

  after the Linksys enforcement, through

  his <a href="https://gpl-violations.org/">gpl-violations.org

    project</a>. Harald successfully sued many companies (mostly in the

  wireless router industry) in Germany to achieve compliance and yield source

  releases that helped OpenWrt during that period.</p>

<h2 id="importance-of-linux-enforcement-specifically">Importance of Linux Enforcement Specifically</h2>

<p>In recent years, embedded systems technology has expanded beyond wireless

  routers to so-called “Internet of Things” (IoT) devices designed for

  connectivity with other devices in the home and to the “Cloud”. Consumer

  electronics companies now feature and differentiate products based on

  Internet connectivity and related services. Conservancy has seen

  Linux-based firmwares on refrigerators, baby monitors, virtual assistants,

  soundbars, doorbells, home security cameras, police body cameras, cars, AV

  receivers, and televisions.</p>

<p>This wide deployment of general purpose computers into

  mundane household devices raises profound privacy and consumer rights

  implications. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/15/us/Hacked-ring-home-security-cameras.html">Home</a> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/01/23/family-says-hacked-nest-camera-warned-them-north-korean-missile-attack/">security</a> <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/06/05/617196788/s-c-mom-says-baby-monitor-was-hacked-experts-say-many-devices-are-vulnerable">cameras</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/12/tech/ring-security-camera-hacker-harassed-girl-trnd/index.html">are</a> <a href="https://abc7.com/baby-monitor-hack-leads-to-kidnap-scare/4931822/">routinely</a> <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-44117337/security-footage-viewed-by-thousands">compromised</a>

  — invading the privacy and security of individual homes. Even when

  companies succeed in keeping out third parties, consumers

  are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/aug/29/ring-amazon-police-partnership-social-media-neighbor">pressured

  by camera makers</a> to automatically upload their videos to local

  police. Televisions

  routinely <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/07/vizio-settlement-moves-forward/">spy

  on consumers for the purposes of marketing and massive data

  collection</a>.</p>

<p>There is one overarching irony to this growing dystopia: nearly all these

  devices are based primarily on GPL'd software: most

  notably, Linux. While Linux-based systems do allow proprietary user-space

  applications (i.e., not licensed under GPL), the kernel and many other system

  utilities routinely used in embedded systems, such as Conservancy’s BusyBox

  project, are under that license (or similar copyleft licenses such as the

  LGPL). These licenses require device makers to provide complete,

  corresponding source code to everyone in possession of their

  devices. Furthermore, Linux’s specific license (GPL, version 2), mandates

  that source code must also include “the scripts used to control compilation

  and installation of the executable”. In short, the consumers must receive

  all the source code and the ability to modify, recompile and reinstall that

  software. Upholding of this core freedom for Linux made OpenWrt

  possible. We work to preserve (or, more often, restore) that software

  freedom for consumers of other types of electronic devices.</p>

<p>When devices are compliant with the GPL’s requirements, customers can

  individually or collectively take action against the surveillance and other

  predatory behavior perpetuated by the manufacturers of these devices by

  modifying and replacing the software. Hobbyists can aid their community by

  providing these alternatives. People with no technical background already

  replace firmware on their wireless routers with OpenWrt to both improve

  network performance and allay privacy concerns. Furthermore, older

  equipment is often saved from planned obsolescence by alternative

  solutions. E-recyclers

  like <a href="https://www.freegeek.org/">Freegeek</a> do this regularly for

  desktop and laptop machines with GNU/Linux distributions like Debian, and

  with OpenWrt for wireless routers. We seek to ensure they can do this for

  other types of electronic products. However, without the complete,

  corresponding source code (CCS), including the scripts to control its compilation and

  installation, the fundamental purpose of copyleft is frustrated. Consumers,

  hobbyists, non-profit e-recyclers and the general public are left without

  the necessary tools they need and deserve, and which the license promises

  them.</p>

<p>Additionally, copyleft compliance relates directly to significant

  generational educational opportunities. There are few easier ways to

  understand technology than to experiment with a device one already

  has. Historically, FOSS has succeeded because young hobbyists could

  examine, modify and experiment with software in their own devices. Those

  hobbyists became the professional embedded device developers of today!

  Theoretically, the advent of the “Internet of Things” — with its many

  devices that run Linux — <em>should</em> give opportunities for young

  hobbyists to quickly explore and improve the devices they depend on in

  their every day lives.  Yet, that’s rarely possible in reality.  To ensure

  that both current and future hobbyists can practically modify their

  Linux-based devices, we must enforce Linux’s license. With public awareness

  that their devices can be improved, the desire for learning will increase,

  and will embolden the curiosity of newcomers of all ages and

  backgrounds. The practical benefits of this virtuous cycle are immediately

  apparent. With technological experimentation, people are encouraged to try

  new things, learn how their devices work, and perhaps create whole new

  types of devices and technologies that no one has even dreamed of

  before.</p>

<p>IoT firmware should never rely on one vendor — even the vendor of the

  hardware itself. This centralized approach is brittle and inevitably leads

  to invasions of the public’s privacy and loss of control of their

  technology. Conservancy’s GPL enforcement work is part of the puzzle that

  ensures users can choose who their devices connect to, and how they

  connect. Everyone deserves control over their own computing — from their

  laptop to their television to their toaster. When the public can modify (or

  help others modify) the software on their devices, they choose the level of

  centralized control they are comfortable with. Currently, users with

  Linux-based devices usually don’t even realize what is possible with

  copyleft; Conservancy aims to show them.</p>

<h2 id="the-gpl-compliance-project-for-linux-developers">The GPL Compliance

  Project for Linux Developers</h2>

<p>In May 2012, Software Freedom Conservancy

  formed <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/#linux">The GPL

    Compliance Project for Linux Developers</a> in response to frustration by

  upstream Linux developers about the prevalence of noncompliance in the

  field, and their desire to stand with Conservancy’s BusyBox, Git and Samba

  projects in demanding widespread GPL compliance. This coalition of Linux

  developers works with Conservancy to enforce the GPL for the rights of

  Linux users everywhere — particularly consumers who own electronic

  devices. We accept violation reports from the general public, and

  prioritize enforcement in those classes of devices where we believe that we