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Copyleft Compliance
We defend and uphold the rights of software users and consumers under copyleft licenses.
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We defend the legal rights of software users. Learn the details, status, and stakes of our court cases.
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We urge FOSS Developers to Give Up GitHub! Learn why.
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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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We provide non-profit infrastructure and services to our members creating Free/Libre and Open Source Software.
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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.
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Firmware Liberation Project
Conservancy plans to select a class of product in the Linux-based embedded
system space. For this product, Conservancy will launch, or assist, a
project that creates a functioning alternative firmware for those devices.
The promise of GPL enforcement is only realized through actual, practical use
and improvement of the released software for users.
GPL Enforcement Needs Follow-Through
Simply enforcing the GPL is an important first step, and Conservancy
continues our efforts in that
regard. However, we can
replicate the
success found with OpenWrt only by a substantial
effort after enforcement occurs to turn the compliant
source release into a viable alternative firmware for the platform.
Conservancy has seen non-compliant Linux-based firmwares on refrigerators,
baby monitors, virtual assistants, soundbars, doorbells, home security
cameras, police body cameras, cars, AV receivers, and televisions. We
believe that building an alternative firmware for one of these classes of
devices — or joining our work with an existing alternative firmware project
that is struggling due to lack of sources available — will lead to
more palpable software freedom for users of these device.
Limited Success of
Alternative Hardware
Alternative hardware projects remain an essential component of small
device freedom. Conservancy supports and engages with communities that seek
to source and build IoT-style devices from the ground up. We’re excited to
see deployable boards that allow Maker efforts to create new devices.
Nevertheless, we remain ever-cognizant that FOSS succeeded on servers,
laptop, desktop, and wireless router computers precisely because
users could buy commodity hardware at any store and install FOSS
alternatives to the vendor-provided software. Throughout the history of
FOSS, most new users who seek to experience software freedom want to do so
with their existing devices first. Many don't even know much about the
issues involved in software liberation until they've already purchased
hardware. Conservancy therefore believes support of alternative
firmwares for such devices is paramount.
Demonstrating the power
of software freedom
To many, the benefits of software freedom are abstract. For less technical
users, the idea of modifying or even reviewing the software on their
devices is wholly theoretical. For technical users, there is a limited time
available to invest in the devices they use for their everyday
lives. Bringing people together to take collective action for the control
of their own technology is a powerful proposition that has rarely been
demonstrated.
When alternative firmware projects like OpenWrt exist for IoT devices,
non-technical users can replace the software on their devices and benefit
from custom, community-controlled software. Technical users are more likely
to contribute knowing their efforts will be meaningful.
However, decades of corporate involvement in copyleft have demonstrated
that without an organized effort, control over one’s own software is purely
theoretical, even when software has a copyleft license, and
sometimes even when compliance with the copyleft license is
acheived. Conservancy recognizes that there is a unique opportunity for
charitable organizations to step in and change the power dynamic of the
tech industry for consumers.
Conservancy’s Plan For Action
Conservancy seeks to fund work on liberating firmware for a specific
device. This is accomplished with a two-prong approach: first, we will
leverage increased interest and tendency toward GPL compliance throughout
the embedded industry to more quickly achieve compliant source releases in
a particular subindustry.
Second, depending on what subindustry (i.e., specific class of devices)
seems most responsive to increased enforcement activity and willing to
provide compliant source releases quickly, we will launch, coordinate and
fund an alternative firmware project for that class, or, if appropriate,
merge our efforts with an existing alternative firmware project for that
class of device.
Leveraging on Increased
Enforcement
Conservancy already plans to select a
specific violation and engage in litigation. Based on past experience,
we expect that the press and attention to that ongoing litigation will
yield increased responsiveness by violators throughout the industry. (A
similar outcome occurred after our BusyBox-related litigation in 2006.)
This expected change in behavior will open opportunities to replicate the
OpenWrt approach in another embedded electronic subindustry. Fast action
will be necessary; most IoT products have an 18 month lifecycle, so we seek
to quickly identify the right subindustry, gain compliance there, and move
on to the next phase.
Funding Firmware Liberation
While we’ve long hoped that volunteers would take up compliant sources
obtained in our GPL enforcement efforts and build alternative firmware
projects as they did with OpenWrt, history shows us that the creation of
such projects is not guaranteed and exceedingly rare.
Traditionally, our community has relied exclusively on volunteers to take
up this task, and financial investment only comes after volunteers have put
in the unfunded work to make a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) liberated
firmware. While volunteer involvement remains essential to the success of
alternative firmware projects, we know from our fiscal sponsorship work
that certain aspects of FOSS projects require an experienced charity to
initiate and jump-start some of the less exciting aspects of FOSS project
creation and development. (In our last fiscal year, Conservancy funded 160
contributors to work on FOSS.)
In the initial phase, Conservancy will select a specific
class of device. Upon achieving compliant source releases in that
subindustry through GPL enforcement, Conservancy will launch an alternative
firmware project for that class of device.
Conservancy will seek to fund the time of project leaders and
infrastructure for the project. The goal is to build a firm base that draws
volunteers to the project. We know that sustaining funding over long
periods for a grassroots hobbyist activity is quite challenging; we seek to
bootstrap and catalyze interest and contribution to the project. Ideally,
Conservancy would run the project with a single full-time staffer for about
a year, and achieve a volunteer base sufficient to reduce funding to one
part-time staffer.
Criteria for Device Selection
The IoT device industry moves quickly and we must be prepared to adapt
based on new information. The first stage in this work will be to carefully
evaluate and select the device on which to focus for this
project. Conservancy will evaluate the following criteria in selecting a
class of devices:
Do most devices in the subindustry already run a known FOSS system
(such as Android/Linux, BusyBox/Linux or GNU/Linux)?
In response to our increased enforcement activity, how many existing
GPL-compliant source releases are available from how many different
vendors in this subindustry?
Is there a known userspace application that runs on Maker-built
hardware that does the task the proprietary userspace software from the
vendor did?
What is the excitement level among volunteers for this
project?
What value will hobbyists achieve from replacing the software on their
device? For example, would they be able to avoid surveillance or add
accessibility features?
Finally, Conservancy will be prepared and willing to recognize temporary
failure and setbacks in a particular subindustry and pivot quickly to
choosing a different class of devices. This project is ambitious, and we’ll
be adroit in our approach to ensure success.
What We Do
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