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Copyleft Compliance
We defend and uphold the rights of software users and consumers under copyleft licenses.
Impact Litigation
We defend the legal rights of software users. Learn the details, status, and stakes of our court cases.
Give Up GitHub
We urge FOSS Developers to Give Up GitHub! Learn why.
Outreachy
We offer internships for anyone who faces underrepresentation, systemic bias, or discrimination in the tech industry.
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Our annual community-oriented conference focused on the creation and impact of free and open source software.
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Member Projects
We provide non-profit infrastructure and services to our members creating Free/Libre and Open Source Software.
Use The Source
Our tool for evaluating the source code candidates companies must provide for GPLed software.
OpenWrt One
We designed and built the first ever wireless Internet router designed with software freedom and right to repair in mind.
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The Corresponding Source
A bi-weekly oggcast about legal, policy, and many other issues in the Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) world.
Glossary of Terms
A list of terms you might be unfamiliar with but occur frequently in our work.
FAQ About the Vizio Lawsuit
Your most frequently asked questions about the Vizio lawsuit, answered in one place.
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Donate
●News
Press Releases
Press
Blog
Vizio Lawsuit in the News
Our Issues in the News
●About
Sponsors
Sustainers
Board of Directors
Staff
Evaluation Committee
Outside Counsel, et alia
Transparency
Contact
●Our Work
Copyleft Compliance
We defend and uphold the rights of software users and consumers under copyleft licenses.
Impact Litigation
We defend the legal rights of software users. Learn the details, status, and stakes of our court cases.
Give Up GitHub
We urge FOSS Developers to Give Up GitHub! Learn why.
Outreachy
We offer internships for anyone who faces underrepresentation, systemic bias, or discrimination in the tech industry.
FOSSY
Our annual community-oriented conference focused on the creation and impact of free and open source software.
●Tools
Member Projects
We provide non-profit infrastructure and services to our members creating Free/Libre and Open Source Software.
Use The Source
Our tool for evaluating the source code candidates companies must provide for GPLed software.
OpenWrt One
We designed and built the first ever wireless Internet router designed with software freedom and right to repair in mind.
●Learn
The Corresponding Source
A bi-weekly oggcast about legal, policy, and many other issues in the Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) world.
Glossary of Terms
A list of terms you might be unfamiliar with but occur frequently in our work.
FAQ About the Vizio Lawsuit
Your most frequently asked questions about the Vizio lawsuit, answered in one place.
●Donate
Thanks to so many donors, we met our largest match donation ever of $211,939.
Two generous anonymous donors have provided another $40,012ofadditional matching funds.
Give now to help us reach this stretch goal!
For only 4 more days, the
next $13,079offinancial support we receive will be matched!
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Conservancy's Copyleft Compliance Projects
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.
Compliance Relationship to Fiscally Sponsored Projects
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.
GPL Compliance Project For Linux Developers
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.
The Debian Copyright Aggregation Project
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's Commitment to Copyleft License Compliance
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.
What We Do
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More About Our Copyleft Advocacy
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Software Freedom Conservancy is a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity.
Privacy Policy last updated 22 December 2020.
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