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.
+ +Free and open source software (FOSS) is everywhere and in everything; yet +our software freedom is constantly eroded. With the help of its +volunteers, member projects, +and staff, Conservancy stands up for users' +software freedom via its copyleft compliance work.
+ +Conservancy's primary work in copyleft compliance currently focuses on +our Strategic GPL +Enforcement Initiative. This initiative, launched in October 2020, +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.
+ +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”.
+ +We encourage our sustainers and software freedom enthusiasts everywhere to + read our detailed + strategic plan for GPL enforcement and its companion + project, our + Firmware Liberation Project.
+ +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 <PROJECTNAME@sfconservancy.org> +for more information on getting involved in compliance efforts in that +project. +
+ +In May +2012, Conservancy +launched the GPL +Compliance Project for Linux Developers, which handles compliance and +enforcement activities on behalf of more than a dozen Linux copyright +holders.
+ +The GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers is comprised of copyright +holders in the kernel, Linux, who have contributed to Linux under its +license, the +GPLv2. 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.
+ +Linux copyright holders who wish to assign copyright to or sign an enforcement agreement with +Conservancy should + contact <linux-services@sfconservancy.org>. + In 2016, + Conservancy made + public the template agreements used as part of this project; both the + non-anonymous and + anonymous + versions are available. However, please do not sign these + unilaterally without contacting and discussing + with <linux-services@sfconservancy.org> + first.
+ +In August 2015, Conservancy announced the Debian Copyright Aggregation +Project. 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.
+ +Debian contributors who wish to assign copyright to or sign an enforcement agreement with +Conservancy should contact <debian-services@sfconservancy.org>.
+ +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), the principles that both organizations + follow in their compliance efforts. + Also in collaboration with the FSF, Conservancy also sponsors + the Copyleft and the GNU + General Public License:A Comprehensive Tutorial and Guide, + which formally + launched in fall 2014. The Guide includes tutorial materials about + copyleft and compliance with copyleft licenses, + including A + Practical Guide to GPL Compliance. The materials + on copyleft.org have been developed and + improved since 2002, and are themselves copylefted, and developed + collaboratively in public.
+ +However, the Guide is admittedly a large document, so for those who are + interested in a short summary of describing how Conservancy handles GPL + enforcement and compliance + work, this blog post outlining + the compliance process is likely the best source.
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