<li>We <a href="http://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/">supported the law suit</a> Christoph Hellwig has brought against VMware in Germany, the first case on derivative works and the GPL.</li> 

<li>We fought for and <a href="http://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/oct/27/DMCA-win/">successfully earned an exemption from the Library of Congress in the DMCA review process</a> to legally permit circumvention of encryption on Smart TVs, ensuring that you are free to hack on the devices that you legally own. </li>

<li>We collaborated with the <a href="https://fsf.org/">Free Software Foundation</a> to publish the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement</a> , establishing community norms for enforcing the GPL in the public's interest[, and already <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.kr.html">translated into Korean</a> [and Chinese].</li>

<li>Along with FSF, we helped <a href="http://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/jul/15/ubuntu-ip-policy/">Canonical, Ltd. achieve compliance in its “Intellectual Property” Policy</a>, while pointing out that the policy fails to address important software freedom issues.</li>

<li>We conducted friendly discussions with companies out of compliance with the GPL, seeking non-litigious resolutions.</li>

<li>We participated in the process of <a href="http://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/oct/14/FCC-comment/">telling the FCC to fix its proposed rules</a> restricting third-party modification of firmware in wireless devices.

</ul>

<p>And we did all of this with only three full time employees.</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 - 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. <b>But we cannot do them without you</b>. 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. We cannot afford even one staff member and basic overhead with the revenue we take in from our projects. In order to effectively continue to serve our member projects, we need [750] Supporters. If you use or care about our <a href="http://sfconservancy.org/members/current/">member projects</a>, which include some of the most widely used free software, you can help them all by <a href="http://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">signing up as a Supporter today</a>.</p>

<h4>It's up to you</h4>

<p>We have raised enough money to continue the VMware case but our overall enforcement work needs additional support to be able to continue.  As we state in the <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html">Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement</a>, we cannot prioritize profit in these actions without compromising on the end goals of that work which is to help companies become free and open source software users and contributors. 

<p>Moreover, we have lost committed general funding from companies explicitly because of our enforcement work. Continuing this work without individual support is no longer possible.</p>

<p>As a result, we need [2500] Supporters in order to maintain the staff and resources in the organization to properly undertake enforcement. We hope you will <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">sign up a Supporter</a> to help us achieve this. If we don't reach our goal, we will have no choice but to hibernate enforcement until we have the resources to pick it up properly at some point in the future.</p>

<p>If you care about the GPL, <a href="https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/">help us meet our goal</a> so we can stand up for the GPL together.</p>

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