Join as an Annual Supporter
+ +Note: annual supporter is not an automatic renewal + relationship. If you join today, you'll receive an email in about one year to remind you to + optionally renew.
+ +Join as an Monthly Supporter
+ +Monthly renewal is automatic. Also, monthly supporters might not receive tangible Supporter benefits (such as + the t-shirt) until they've reached at least $60 in monthly supporter + donations. However, they will be included immediately + in the Supporters' list.
+ +Renew as an Annual Supporter
+ +Note: This option is for existing annual supporters who + seek to renew for another year. The annual renewal is not automatic; + annual supporters are emailed each year to invite them to optionally renew.
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Software Freedom needs your help.
+ +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. +Donate today!
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+The world today is powered more and more 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.
+ +We are asking for you + to join us and become a + Conservancy Supporter 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 + entire free and open source software community. We needed at least 750 + of you to become annual Supporters just to continue our basic community + services, and we thank you so much that you responded. But + we still need 2,500 (total) of you to become annual Supporters now to continue + our licensing work, including enforcing copyleft licenses. If you don't become a Supporter now, + we will be forced to radically restructure and wind down a substantial portion + of our operations.
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2016 successes
+ ++Software Freedom Conservancy has had a lot of major successes this year: +
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- We brought three new projects under the protection of Conservancy: LibreHealth, a critical initiative for health in free and open source software; Spec-Ops, a project dedicated to creating of open standards in critical areas, including payments and identity; +and Homebrew, a software package manager for Apple's OS X. + +
- We supported +the lawsuit Christoph Hellwig brought against VMware in Germany, the +first case on derivative works and the GPL. Christoph's case continues on appeal. + +
- We helped Conservancy projects Bro, Buildbot, and Godot receive Mozilla MOSS grants. Another Conservancy project, phpMyAdmin, successfully completed a thorough security audit as part of Mozilla's Secure Open Source Fund (no serious issues were found!). + +
- We received an assignment of copyrights from the Yorba Foundation, including Shotwell and Geary, in order to safeguard those copyrights for the future. + +
- We conducted friendly discussions with companies out of compliance with +the GPL, seeking non-litigious resolutions in accordance with our Principles. We published our template agreements and held two feedback sessions, at Embedded Linux Conference EU and Linux Plumbers' Conference, to evaluate and improve our compliance efforts. We also worked with other community members to bring clarity to international activities around GPL compliance and help make the ecosystem safer for free software adoption. We stayed committed to providing straightforward analysis about the GPL. + +
- Our Executive Director, Karen Sandler, testified to the New York City Council Committee on Contracts in favor of the Free and Open Source Software Act and the Civic Commons Act which would increase the use of free and open source software by New York City departments and agencies. Karen later in the year also taught kids in London about free software. + +
- We launched a new initiative called ContractPatch to help provide information and understanding about employment agreements. + +
- We commented on the OpenChain specification to help make sure that the initiative by companies to collaboratively come up with standards and shared materials around compliance also meets community expectations about how compliance obligations are satisfied. + +
- We supported, helped coordinate, and financially backed volunteers from + our member projects to organize seven conferences in three continents, where thousands of + attendees learned about free and open source software. + +
- We processed and paid reimbursementrequests to individuals doing work + around the globe advocating for their free and open source software + projects at conferences and other venues. We also paid contractors to + improve our projects' software. + +
- We gave keynotes +at OSCON EU, BroCon, the NextCloud conference, GUADEC, OpenSym 2016, Debconf, OSS 2016, LibrePlanet, OpenWest +and participated many more conferences all over the world. We also +shared our expertise in initiatives +like copyleft.org. We gave +interviews, published blog posts, and +Bradley and Karen released episodes of Free as in +Freedom, all dedicated to discussing the important issues in software +freedom. + +
And we did all of this with a tiny staff of only four full time employees.
+ +We are focused on the most important ethical issues in software +freedom. We work tirelessly and don't shy away from difficult issues.
+ +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 40 member projects that are essential to developing free +software.
+ +We undertake these critical programs because they are essential to the +future of technology. We do them because they are right. But we cannot do +them without you. Last year you helped us to fundraising goals that didn't merely keep us running, but even let us hire a new employee. Yet even this staffing level isn't enough to handle our existing workload.
+ +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 +take in from our projects. With over 1,000 Supporters, we can now sustain the basic +work and we will survive. But to thrive, and handle the really complex tasks like +copyright and licensing advice, and license compliance, we need even more +resources. That's why our final target is 2,500 Supporters. If you use +or care about our member projects, which +include some of the most widely used free software, you can help them all +by signing up as a Supporter +today.
+ +Fighting for the GPL
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+Many consider our GPL compliance and enforcement controversial. We don't +think it is: we stand up for the GPL at the request of our member projects, +the Debian community, and members of the Linux kernel community. +Most recently, that has resulted in our funding +of the suit +against VMware, which is the first lawsuit on derivative works and the +GPL (Christoph's case continues on appeal). 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 stopped funding us and some have even successfully pressured +conferences to cancel or prevent talks on our compliance work. We do +this work because we think that it is good for everyone in the long run, +because we know it is the right thing to do, and because we know that we are +in the best position to do it. But that's not enough — you have to think it's +right too and show us by +becoming a Supporter now.
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+It's up to you
+ +Conservancy is deeply committed to supporting, promoting, developing, and +defending free and open source software. We pursue our mission on various +fronts, and we're proud of what we've been able to accomplish in 2016. To +do even more in 2017 and in the years to come, we need your help.
+ +We believe 2017 will be a critical year for Conservancy, our member +projects, and our work. We look forward to making huge strides in providing +software tools for public charities as well as services for developer +communities. We will continue to champion the rights of the public and the +interests of copyright holders who have licensed their contributions to the +commons for the public's benefit. We will continue to host and speak at +conferences, create and maintain educational resources, and raise awareness +about how free and open source software is essential to a free and open +source society.
+ +While we appreciate our corporate donors, we simply cannot depend +solely on grants from companies who may not find our mission to be +compatible with shifting corporate strategies. We need you, the public as +well. Simply put, we need 2,500 Supporters in order to maintain our staff, +continue to provide a full range of administrative, bookkeeping, and legal +services to our member projects, educate the public, and +undertake compliance efforts. We hope you will sign up as a Supporter to help us achieve this. If we don't reach our goal, we will +have no choice but to hibernate some of our activities — likely +our compliance efforts — until we have the resources to resume them +properly at some point in the future.
+ +If you care about Conservancy's mission, help us meet our goal so we can stand up for software +freedom together.
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+Please join our Supporter program +and spread the word!
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