From bkuhn at sfconservancy.org Mon Mar 31 14:26:47 2014 From: bkuhn at sfconservancy.org (Bradley M. Kuhn) Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2014 10:26:47 -0400 Subject: Karen Sandler joins Conservancy's Management Team Message-ID: <87fvly78bc.fsf@ebb.org> Karen Sandler joins Conservancy's Management Team Sandler becomes Conservancy's Executive Director; Kuhn transitions focus to new “Distinguished Technologist” role Monday, March 31, 2014 — Software Freedom Conservancy, a 501(c)(3) non-profit charity based in New York, announced today the addition of a talented new member of its management team. Karen M. Sandler, formerly Executive Director of the GNOME Foundation, begins today as Conservancy's new Executive Director. Bradley M. Kuhn, outgoing Executive Director, gratefully passes the torch to his long-time colleague Karen Sandler. While Kuhn's work as Conservancy's President and on its Board of Directors remain unchanged, Kuhn's new full-time staff role is titled “Distinguished Technologist”. Regarding this change, Kuhn said: “This new role allows me to continue to help shape, in coordination with the Board, the overall vision for the organization. My daily role will now focus on important long-term projects, such as leading our new initiative to build non-profit accounting software and our license enforcement efforts. I also look forward to recruiting more new member projects”. Sandler expressed excitement in the opportunity to focus full-time on Conservancy's day-to-day management. Sandler noted: “I've been delighted to work as a volunteer for Conservancy in many ways, including as one of its pro-bono attorneys since its inception. Now, I can focus in a management role on the great work Conservancy does for its various member projects. Conservancy has also graciously encouraged me to continue some work at the GNOME Foundation in a volunteer capacity, including partnering in running the Outreach Program for Women. While I am sad to step aside from my daily role in GNOME, I am equally happy to join the team at Conservancy, which engages in some of the most important non-profit work in free and open source software”. Sandler becomes the third full-time, and fourth overall, employee of Conservancy. While the entire staff remains based in New York City, Conservancy recently switched to full telecommuting for all employees — to both stretch donor dollars further and give employees excellent schedule flexibility for a good work/life balance. URL of this announcement: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2014/mar/31/karen-joins/ -- Bradley M. Kuhn, President, Software Freedom Conservancy From bkuhn at sfconservancy.org Tue Jul 8 18:42:05 2014 From: bkuhn at sfconservancy.org (Bradley M. Kuhn) Date: Tue, 08 Jul 2014 14:42:05 -0400 Subject: Software Freedom Conservancy Introduces Kallithea Message-ID: <87pphfu1z6.fsf@ebb.org> Software Freedom Conservancy Introduces Kallithea URL: http://sfconservancy.org/news/2014/jul/04/kallithea-joins/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/485079631926542336 Identi.ca: https://identi.ca/conservancy/note/G-79DFQ8QeK2g_HQfY4NRg Software Freedom Conservancy is pleased to announce today its newest member project, Kallithea. Kallithea is a system for hosting and managing Mercurial and Git repositories. In contrast to GitHub (which serves only projects using Git and which projects cannot host locally nor modify), Kallithea supports both Mercurial and Git, and is released freely under the GNU General Public License, version 3 (GPLv3). Kallithea therefore makes the perfect companion to Conservancy's existing Mercurial and Git member projects. Kallithea builds on work that RhodeCode GmbH released under GPLv3. Starting today, Kallithea, which is based on Mercurial itself, will be developed fully in public by a community of volunteers on a self-hosted site, called Kallithea's Own Kallithea. Kallithea welcomes GPLv3'd patches and contributions from the community at large to improve the software. Bradley M. Kuhn, President and Distinguished Technologist at Software Freedom Conservancy lauded the volunteer community that brought Kallithea into fruition: "I've spent the last few months coordinating with the excellent team of Kallithea volunteers — a community that seeks to embrace both the letter and spirit of GPLv3. Their commitment to proper compliance is refreshing in a time when compliance failures are so common." Matt Mackall, chief maintainer of Mercurial noted: "The Mercurial community is thrilled for this opportunity to have a Free Mercurial hosting solution, and to have it under a strong copyleft license. We are so glad we were able to work with Conservancy to make Kallithea happen." In discussing Conservancy's latest project, Karen Sandler, Executive Director, said: "We are happy to provide the legal and technical assistance in creating this new project. While Conservancy has in the past served as an incubator where smaller projects can graduate to their own organization, this is the first time that an entirely new project has been created by existing members. We can't wait to see Kallithea grow." -- Bradley M. Kuhn President & Distinguished Technologist of Software Freedom Conservancy From info at sfconservancy.org Tue Aug 12 17:25:26 2014 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Bradley M. Kuhn) Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 13:25:26 -0400 Subject: OSI and Conservancy Announce US Tax Exemption Working Group In-Reply-To: <53E95F04.8060409@lohutok.net> (Allison Randal's message of "Mon, 11 Aug 2014 17:25:40 -0700") References: <53BDA6D6.9060907@lohutok.net> <87vbqvady6.fsf@ebb.org> <53C84443.1090101@lohutok.net> <20140717231007.GA17944@ebb.org> <53C8727E.3040600@lohutok.net> <20140717212045.1f74d150@dizzy> <53C8913B.4000103@lohutok.net> <87tx6ebs7q.fsf@ebb.org> <53C94C63.7080905@lohutok.net> <53E001B2.6030400@lohutok.net> <3759ad2668b9c605fd798e548f4838e8@motives.com> <53E1079B.9010905@lohutok.net> <3c3cbe1ad0108fb9d2cd714f5bcd8d4b@motives.com> <53E95F04.8060409@lohutok.net> Message-ID: <87fvh1aad5.fsf_-_@ebb.org> URL: http://sfconservancy.org/news/2014/aug/12/tax-exempt-working-group/ ###################################################################### OSI and Conservancy Announce US Tax Exemption Working Group Software Freedom Conservancy and the Open Source Initiative are pleased to announce that they are the founding members of a working group focused on tax exemption issues for organizations in the United States. Recent activity by the Internal Revenue Service in response to applications for tax exempt status have sparked a lot of interest and discussion amongst free and open source software communities. OSI and Conservancy recognize that the IRS's understanding and evaluation of free and open source software can impact both new organizations created to promote the public good as charities (known as 501(c)(3) organizations after the corresponding tax code provision), as well as new organizations formed to forward a common business interest (known as 501(c)(6) organizations). The working group will be open to equal participation from all concerned parties, and the working group will seek to recruit legal experts to participate in its processes. Aaron Williamson, partner at Tor Ekeland, will chair the group. "We've been watching this issue for some time and look forward to pooling our resources with other organizations and companies," said Karen Sandler, Executive Director of Software Freedom Conservancy. "Together we can come to a better understanding of the IRS's perspective and plan strategically to communicate the value and importance of the corporate forms we choose." "Over the years, applying for 501(c)(3) or (c)(6) status has become the de facto standard for new FLOSS projects in the US." said Allison Randal, Director of the Open Source Initiative "It's not clear yet whether recent responses from the IRS are isolated special cases or represent a more general trend, but it is worthwhile to look into the topic more deeply, and ensure we have a strong and diverse set of healthy growth patterns for FLOSS projects, to last decades into the future." Those interested in getting involved with this working group should contact Allison Randal at . ###################################################################### -- Bradley M. Kuhn President & Distinguished Technologist of Software Freedom Conservancy From info at sfconservancy.org Fri Nov 7 17:00:57 2014 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Bradley M. Kuhn) Date: Fri, 07 Nov 2014 12:00:57 -0500 Subject: Conservancy and FSF announce copyleft.org Message-ID: <871tpf3pyu.fsf@ebb.org> URLs Related to this Announcement: Conservancy Announcement: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2014/nov/07/copyleft-org/ FSF Announcement: http://fsf.org/news/software-freedom-conservancy-and-free-software-foundation-announce-copyleft.org Copyleft.org: https://copyleft.org Pristine CCS Example: http://copyleft.guide/pristine-example/ Announcement on Twitter: https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/530759451989786624 Pump.io/Identi.ca: https://identi.ca/conservancy/note/qSdiuSFaRuqrqO5lULbNZg ###################################################################### Conservancy and FSF announce copyleft.org Copyleft Guide Now Includes a Pristine CCS Example Analysis Software Freedom Conservancy and the Free Software Foundation announce today an ongoing public project that began in early 2014: *Copyleft and the GNU General Public License: A Comprehensive Tutorial and Guide*, and the publication of that project in its new home on the Internet at copyleft.org. This new site will not only provide a venue for those who constantly update and improve the Comprehensive Tutorial, but is also now home to a collaborative community to share and improve information about copyleft licenses (especially the GNU General Public License (GPL)) and best compliance practices for those licenses. Bradley M. Kuhn, President and Distinguished Technologist of Software Freedom Conservancy and member of FSF's Board of Directors, currently serves as editor-in-chief of the project. The text has already grown to 100 pages discussing all aspects of copyleft — including policy motivations, detailed study of the license texts, and compliance issues. This tutorial was initially constructed from materials that Kuhn developed on a semi-regular basis over the last eleven years. Kuhn merged this material, along with other material regarding the GPL published by the FSF, into a single, coherent volume, and released it publicly for the benefit of all users of Free Software. Today, Conservancy announces a specific, new contribution: an additional chapter to the Case Studies in GPL Enforcement section of the tutorial. This new chapter, co-written by Kuhn and Conservancy's Compliance Engineer, Denver Gingrich, discusses in detail the analysis of a complete, corresponding source (CCS) release for a real-world electronics product, and describes the process that Conservancy and the FSF use to determine whether a CCS candidate indeed complies with the requirements of the GPL. The CCS analyzed is for ThinkPenguin's TPE-NWIFIROUTER wireless router, which was recently given FSF's prestigious Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification.. This copyleft guide itself is freely distributed under copyleft, using the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license, the primary copyleft license used for works of textual authorship in natural languages. Kuhn, who hopes the initial release and this subsequent announcement will inspire others to contribute to the guide, stated: "information about copyleft — such as why it exists, how it works, and how to comply — should be freely available and modifiable, just as all generally useful technical information should. I am delighted to impart my experience with copyleft freely. I hope, however, that other key thinkers in the field of copyleft will contribute to help produce the best reference documentation on copyleft available." Particularly useful are the substantial contributions already made to the guide from the FSF itself. As the author, primary interpreter, and ultimate authority on the GPL, the FSF is in a unique position to provide insights into understanding free software licensing. While the guide as a living text will not automatically reflect official FSF positions, the FSF has already approved and published one version for use at its Seminar on GPL Enforcement and Legal Ethics in March 2014. John Sullivan, Executive Director of the FSF, noted, "Participants at our licensing seminar in March commented positively on the high quality of the teaching materials, including the comprehensive guide to GPL compliance. We look forward to collaborating with the copyleft.org community to continually improve this resource, and we will periodically review particular versions for FSF endorsement and publication." Enthusiastic new contributors can get immediately involved by visiting and editing the main wiki on copyleft.org, or by submitting merge requests on copyleft.org's gitorious site for the guide, or by joining the project mailing list and IRC channel. copyleft.org welcomes all contributors. The editors have already incorporated other freely licensed documents about GPL and compliance with copyleft licenses — thus providing a central location for all such works. Furthermore, the project continues to recruit contributors who have knowledge about other copyleft licenses besides FSF's GPL family of licenses. In particular, Mike Linksvayer, member of Conservancy's board of directors, has agreed to lead the drafting on a section about Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike licenses to mirror the ample text already available on GPL. Linksvayer noted: "I'm glad to bring my knowledge about the Creative Commons copyleft licenses as a contribution to improve further this excellent tutorial text, and I hope that copyleft.org as a whole can more generally become a central location to collect interesting ideas about copyleft policy." About copyleft.org copyleft.org is a collaborative project to create and disseminate useful information, tutorial material, and new policy ideas regarding all forms of copyleft licensing. Its primary project is currently a comprehensive tutorial and guide, which describes the policy motivations for copyleft exists, presentes a detailed analysis of the text of various copyleft licenses, and gives examples and case studies of copyleft compliance situations. About Software Freedom Conservancy Software Freedom Conservancy is a not-for-profit organization that promotes, improves, develops and defends Free, Libre and Open Source software projects. Conservancy is home more than thirty software projects, each supported by a dedicated community of volunteers, developers and users. Conservancy's projects include some of the most widely used software systems in the world across many application areas, including educational software deployed in schools around the globe, embedded software systems deployed in most consumer electronic devices, distributed version control developer tools, integrated library services systems, and widely used graphics and art programs. A full list of Conservancy's member projects is available. Conservancy provides these projects with the necessary infrastructure and not-for-profit support services to enable each project's communities to focus on what they do best: creating innovative software and advancing computing for the public's benefit. About the Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at https://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA. Media Contacts Conservancy: Karen M. Sandler Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy +1-212-461-3245 FSF: Joshua Gay Licensing & Compliance Manager, Free Software Foundation +1-617-542-5942 ###################################################################### From info at sfconservancy.org Wed Dec 3 14:37:24 2014 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Bradley M. Kuhn) Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2014 09:37:24 -0500 Subject: Conservancy Launches Supporter Program Message-ID: <87iohs240r.fsf@ebb.org> URLs Related To This Announcement: Main Announcement: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2014/dec/03/Software-Freedom-Conservancy-Launches-Supporter-Pr/ Supporter Signup: https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/540150487690248193 Pump.io/Identi.ca: https://identi.ca/conservancy/note/2FZwAFQhT4uLc6bW7Wp9xw ###################################################################### Software Freedom Conservancy Launches Supporter Program Software Freedom Conservancy announces today the launching of the Conservancy Supporter program. This annual donation program allows individuals to provide ongoing support to Conservancy and its charitable activities. Under the Supporter program, for an annual donation of $120, donors receive: * an “Official Supporter” badge for display on their personal websites, * a printable “Official Supporter” card * a Conservancy T-Shirt. “Donating to Conservancy is a great non-technical way to contribute to the cause”, said Karen Sandler, Executive Director of Conservancy. “By being a member you show you care about the community support of free and open source software. I hope people include Conservancy in their year-end charitable giving”. “Individual support of charities is essential to their survival”, said Bradley M. Kuhn, President and Distinguished Technologist of Conservancy. “I know many individuals value our work at Conservancy, and I hope they will become supporters today”. ######################################################################