<p>The Conservancy provides <a href="/members/services/">many important services</a> for its

  member projects.  Member projects can take directed donations, which

  allows donors to earmark their donations for the benefit of a specific

  FLOSS project.  Conservancy provides fiscal oversight to ensure that

  these funds are spent in a manner that advances the project and fits

  with Conservancy's 501(c)(3) mission to advance software freedom.</p>

<p>If the member project's leaders want, Conservancy can also hold other

  assets and titles on behalf of the projects, such as copyrights,

  trademarks, domain names, online hosting accounts, and title and ownership

  of physical hardware.  Also at discretion of the project's leaders,

  Conservancy can assist in defending the rights represented in these

  assets.  For example, Conservancy is available to assist member projects

  in enforcing the terms of the projects' FLOSS license.</p>

<p>Finally, developers of Conservancy's member projects, when operating in

  their capacity as project leaders, receive some protection from personal

  liability for their work on the project.</p>

<p>For further reading on the benefits of Conservancy, a full and detailed <a href="/members/services/">list of Conservancy's

  services for its member projects</a> and a <a href="/members/current/">a

  list of Conservancy's current member projects</a> are available.</p>

<p>Conservancy and

  and <a href="/about/staff">staff</a> believe strongly in the principles

  of software freedom, and believe that all users should have the right to

  study, improve and share their software.  Conservancy helps protect,

  enable, coordinate, facilitate and defend the public's right to copy,

  share, modify and redistribute FLOSS both non-commercially and

  commercially.  Finally, like most organizations devoted to FLOSS,

  Conservancy opposes the notion of patents that cover software, and urges

  contributors to its member projects not to apply for patents.</p>

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