From dinner at sfconservancy.org Tue Jan 20 23:25:19 2015 From: dinner at sfconservancy.org (Bradley M. Kuhn) Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 18:25:19 -0500 Subject: Friday 2015-01-30: Attend Supporter Night at FOSDEM 2015 Message-ID: <8761c1uja8.fsf@ebb.org> ATTEND CONSERVANCY SUPPORTER NIGHT ON FRIDAY BEFORE FOSDEM 2015 Conservancy invites its annual Supporters and other contributors to a Celebratory Dinner SIGN-UP URL: https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/event.html ANNOUNCEMENT URL: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/jan/20/supporter-night-2015/ ########################################################################## Software Freedom Conservancy, the organization behind Git, Samba, Wine, Inkscape and many other FLOSS projects announces and welcomes attendees to its first annual Supporter Night, a community appreciation event and fundraising dinner on Friday 30 January 2015 in Brussels, Belgium on the night before FOSDEM. Supporter Night, partially sponsored by Google, celebrates Conservancy's Supporters and all nonprofit, community-run free and open source software software projects. Supporter Night, which seeks to raise funds for Conservancy's continuing work supporting such projects, provides a prime opportunity for FOSDEM attendees to network, have fun, and discuss important software freedom topics over dinner with each other and Conservancy's executive team — even before the conference begins. Organized within walking distance of the “beer event”, our exciting Supporter Night will occur at Drug Opera, an English-style tavern in Brussels. Tickets are now available for a starting price of US$40. (Annual Conservancy Supporters may attend without an additional donation!) Attendees are however encouraged to donate an additional amount (if they are able) to support Conservancy and its important work for software freedom. Purchase your ticket now! Conservancy expects the event will sell out, since space is limited. Any remaining tickets will be sold at the door for €50. The ticket price includes a three-course dinner and one drink. Conservancy's Executive Director Karen Sandler (who will deliver the opening keynote at FOSDEM 2015) and President Bradley Kuhn (who will also speak at FOSDEM) will attend Supporter Night, and look forward to great discussion with Conservancy's Supporters. "Supporter Night will help us raise funds to continue to support our projects," said Karen, "I can't wait to see everyone there!" ########################################################################## From info at sfconservancy.org Thu Feb 5 19:26:54 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Software Freedom Conservancy) Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2015 14:26:54 -0500 Subject: Outreach Program to Join Conservancy from GNOME; Program Renames to Outreachy Message-ID: <87y4ocyxa9.fsf@ebb.org> URL: http://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/feb/04/outreachy-joins/ Outreach Program to Join Conservancy from GNOME Program Renames to Outreachy Software Freedom Conservancy and the GNOME Foundation together announce that the Free and Open Source Software Outreach Program is moving from GNOME to Conservancy. As Karen Sandler, Executive Director of Conservancy and co-organizer of the Outreach Program, announced in her keynote at FOSDEM this weekend, the program will be rebranding as part of the transition under the new name "Outreachy". Outreachy helps people from groups underrepresented in free and open source software get involved by providing a supportive community for newcomers to contribute to throughout the year, and by offering focused internship opportunities twice a year with many free software organizations. To date, the program has had 214 interns with 35 different free software organizations, including the Linux Kernel, Wikimedia, GNOME, Mozilla, Twisted (a Conservancy member project), and OpenStack. Marina Zhurakhinskaya, Community Engagement Lead at Red Hat and co-organizer of the program said, "It's amazing that the program we started four years ago with eight GNOME interns has grown to enable hundreds of women become established free software contributors across a broad spectrum of projects. I vividly remember the call in which Karen proposed the idea of inviting other organizations to participate, and I'm excited to continue working closely with her in growing the reach of the program." The GNOME Foundation, previous nonprofit home of the program, remains a core partner of Outreachy, providing infrastructure support. "The GNOME board is unified in its enthusiasm for Outreach to join Conservancy," said Jean-François Fortin Tam, President of the GNOME Foundation. "We're proud to have launched the program and seen it grow beyond our wildest expectations. We look forward to remaining a partner, supporting and participating in the program in its new home as it continues to grow." Over the next few months, Outreachy will complete its transition to Conservancy, the non-profit home of over 30 free and open source software projects. "Outreachy is a natural fit for Conservancy," said Sandler. "Conservancy is organized to support many free software projects — and to promote software freedom in general. This program has become an essential way for free software projects to improve their communities. I am honored to keep working with Marina, Sarah Sharp and all of the other volunteers who keep Outreachy going." The next round of Outreachy internships will have an application deadline on March 24, 2015, and internship dates from May 25 to August 25. Coding, design, documentation and other projects will be available. Applicants will be asked to select a project with one of the participating organizations and collaborate with a mentor listed for that project to make a relevant contribution to the project during the application process. Accepted participants will work remotely, while being guided by their mentor, and will receive a $5,500 stipend. About Outreachy Outreachy is the successor of the Outreach Program for Women (OPW). OPW was inspired by Google Summer of Code and by how few women applied for it. The GNOME Foundation first started OPW with one round in 2006, and then resumed the effort in 2010 with rounds organized twice a year. In the May 2012 round, Software Freedom Conservancy joined OPW with one internship with the Twisted project. In the January 2013 round, many other free and open source organizations joined the program. For the May 2015 round, the program was renamed to Outreachy with the goal of expanding to engage people from various underrepresented groups and is transitioning to Conservancy as its organizational home. This program is a welcoming link that connects talented and passionate newcomers with people working in free and open source software and guides them through their first contribution. Through Outreachy, participants learn how exciting and valuable work on software freedom can be, while helping us to build a more inclusive community. The organizational partners of the program are the GNOME Foundation, Red Hat and Software Freedom Conservancy. About the GNOME Foundation GNOME was started in 1997 by two then-university students, Miguel de Icaza and Federico Mena Quintero. Their aim: to produce a free (as in freedom) desktop environment. Since then, GNOME has grown into a hugely successful enterprise. Used by millions of people around the world, it is one of the most popular environments for GNU/Linux and UNIX-type operating systems. GNOME's software has been utilized in successful, large-scale enterprise and public deployments. The GNOME community is made up of hundreds of contributors from all over the world, many of whom are volunteers. This community is supported by the GNOME Foundation, an independent non-profit organization that provides financial, organizational and legal assistance. The Foundation is a democratic institution that is directed by its members, who are all active GNOME contributors. GNOME and its Foundation work to promote software freedom through the creation of innovative, accessible, and beautiful user experiences. About Software Freedom Conservancy Software Freedom Conservancy is a public charity that promotes, improves, develops and defends Free, Libre and Open Source software projects. Conservancy is home more than thirty software projects — including Git, Inkscape, Samba, Wine, Selenium, the Linux Compliance project, PyPy, and Sugar Labs — 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. From info at sfconservancy.org Thu Mar 5 18:02:47 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Software Freedom Conservancy) Date: Thu, 05 Mar 2015 10:02:47 -0800 Subject: Conservancy Announces Funding For GPL Compliance Lawsuit Message-ID: <87bnk71fw8.fsf@ebb.org> URLs: This Announcement: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/ Lawsuit FAQ: https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html Appeal for Support: https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-appeal.html Twitter: https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/573523944248066048 Pump.io: https://identi.ca/conservancy/note/0ThEKgFeSHuWcaxT6Vv8jg LWN Coverage: http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/635290/6f86eee2e7f27340/ FSF's Statement of Support: https://fsf.org/news/conservancy-and-christoph-hellwig-gpl-enforcement-lawsuit CONSERVANCY ANNOUNCES FUNDING FOR GPL COMPLIANCE LAWSUIT VMware sued in Hamburg, Germany court for failure to comply with the GPL on Linux Software Freedom Conservancy announces today Christoph Hellwig's lawsuit against VMware in the district court of Hamburg in Hamburg, Germany. This is the regretful but necessary next step in both Hellwig and Conservancy's ongoing effort to convince VMware to comply properly with the terms of the GPLv2, the license of Linux and many other Open Source and Free Software included in VMware's ESXi products. Hellwig, a key Linux kernel developer and one of the earliest members of Conservancy's GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers, has publicly denounced VMware's misuse of GPL-licensed code since 2007. In 2011, Conservancy discovered that VMware had failed to provide nor offer any source code for the version of BusyBox included in VMware's ESXi products (as required by BusyBox's license, GPLv2). Conservancy began in early 2012 negotiations with VMware to seek compliance on all GPL'd components in the ESXi project. Progress was slow through 2012 and 2013. Meanwhile, Hellwig joined Conservancy's GPL Compliance for Linux Developers in late 2012. Hellwig assisted Conservancy in analysis of the non-compliant releases of ESXi that VMware provided. After studying these materials over a long period, it became apparent that VMware's current ESXi products infringed many of Hellwig's own copyrights, due to VMware's failure to comply with Linux's license, GPLv2. During Hellwig's investigations, Conservancy continued to negotiate with VMware. Sadly, VMware's legal counsel finally informed Conservancy in 2014 that VMware had no intention of ceasing their distribution of proprietary-licensed works derived from Hellwig's and other kernel developers' copyrights, despite the terms of GPLv2. Conservancy therefore had no recourse but to support Hellwig's court action. In addition to other ways VMware has not complied with the requirements of the GPL, Conservancy and Hellwig specifically assert that VMware has combined copyrighted Linux code, licensed under GPLv2, with their own proprietary code called “vmkernel” and distributed the entire combined work without providing nor offering complete, corresponding source code for that combined work under terms of the GPLv2. Hellwig is an extensive copyright holder in the portions of Linux that VMware misappropriated and used together in a single, new work without permission. Hellwig's legal counsel in this German lawsuit is Till Jaeger of JBB Rechtsanwälte. Best known for his work representing Linux developer Harald Welte, Mr. Jaeger has brought several lawsuits regarding GPL violations. Both Conservancy and Hellwig are privileged and honored that he has agreed to serve as Hellwig's lawyer in these matters. Both Hellwig and Conservancy do not at this time wish to comment further on the detailed facts of this lawsuit, as they relate to ongoing litigation. However, Conservancy will maintain a a Frequently Asked Questions page regarding Hellwig's lawsuit against VMware and will update that FAQ list when our legal counsel deems such advisable. Commenting generally on the issue of GPL enforcement, Bradley M. Kuhn, President and Distinguished Technologist of Conservancy, stated: “The prevalence and sheer volume of GPL violations has increased by many orders of magnitude in the nearly two decades that I have worked on enforcement of the GPL. We must make a stand to show that individual developers and software freedom enthusiasts wish to uphold copyleft as a good strategy to achieve more access to source code and the right to modify, improve and share that source code. I ask that everyone support Conservancy in this action.” Grant Likely, Linux kernel developer who also serves as chair of the LF Technical Advisory Board, added: “GPL licensing is a cornerstone part of Linux development. The ‘fair's fair’ nature of copyleft licensing is in large part why Linux has been overwhelmingly successful, and has created a huge ecosystem of companies benefiting from Linux. Our entire ecosystem is undermined when the sharing principles encoded in the GPL license are ignored. These principles ensure that companies and individuals can continue to share and collaborate on Linux to the benefit of everyone. By ignoring these principles, VMware risks damage to the very community on which it depends, and I look forward to this long standing complaint being swiftly resolved.” Conservancy views litigation as a last resort, and supports such action only after all other avenues have been exhausted. Conservancy and Christoph urge those who support this this action — and who support GPL compliance in general — to donate generously to Conservancy's GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers. More information on Conservancy's campaign to fund this lawsuit can be found in the aforementioned FAQ list. About Software Freedom Conservancy Software Freedom Conservancy is a public charity that promotes, improves, develops and defends Free, Libre and Open Source software projects. Conservancy is home more than thirty software projects — including Git, Inkscape, Samba, Wine, Selenium, the Linux Compliance project, PyPy, and Sugar Labs — 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. -- Support Conservancy Now: https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ From info at sfconservancy.org Fri May 29 14:57:07 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Karen M. Sandler) Date: Fri, 29 May 2015 07:57:07 -0700 Subject: Outreachy Launches Round with 30 Participants Message-ID: <87wpzrbfek.fsf@ebb.org> URL: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/may/28/outreachy-launch/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/603943127838253056 pump.io: https://identi.ca/conservancy/note/c_g1zvZiQ_KFNbDLbw19xQ Outreachy Launches Round with 30 Participants Now Officially a Software Freedom Conservancy Member Project Outreachy, a diversity program launched by the GNOME Foundation under the name Outreach Program for Women, launched its current internship round under the umbrella of Software Freedom Conservancy. This week, 30 participants begin their internships with 15 free and open source software organizations, including longtime participating organizations the Linux kernel, Wikimedia, Mozilla and GNOME and newcomers to the program Ceph and GStreamer. In addition, three applicants who applied for both Outreachy and Google Summer of Code (GSoC) were accepted for GSoC with organizations participating in both programs; and one more applicant was accepted for the OpenDaylight Internship Program. This round of the program — the first under the Outreachy name — has a long list of sponsors. Intel has sponsored the program at the "Ceiling Smasher" level, the first time in the program's history to have a sponsor at the top level. Red Hat joins this round as an "Equalizer" sponsor, in addition to being a supporting partner of Outreachy. This round signifies the successful transition of Outreachy to Conservancy. As the program moved to Conservancy, Sarah Sharp who has been a key organizer of the Linux kernel's participation has been appointed to the top organizing committee for Outreachy. Sarah serves in this role together with Marina Zhurakhinskaya and Karen Sandler, Conservancy's Executive Director. The GNOME Foundation remains a partner of the program, providing technical infrastructure. GNOME also remains a participant in Outreachy. One of the metrics for Outreachy's success has been the extent to which many former participants have become involved in supporting Outreachy itself. This round, three Outreachy graduates became organization coordinators with three different organizations. Two of those graduates are also serving as Outreachy mentors. "With each subsequent round of Outreachy, we're seeing more graduates become speakers at important conferences, and find related employment," said Karen Sandler. "We're excited to see Outreachy make a tangible impact in free and open software communities and provide real opportunities for our participants." From info at sfconservancy.org Mon Jun 1 17:02:36 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Bradley M. Kuhn) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2015 10:02:36 -0700 Subject: Conservancy Seeks Linux Community's Questions on GPL Enforcement Message-ID: <87fv6be503.fsf@ebb.org> URL: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/jun/01/conservancy-seeks-linux-enforcement-questions/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/605418423988944896 pump.io: https://identi.ca/conservancy/note/V-DqTuXeSTqjj2PjPyo5ng ###################################################################### Conservancy Seeks Your Questions on GPL Enforcement Conservancy Plans Long-Term Campaign to Educate Developers About GPL Enforcement Today, Software Freedom Conservancy — a charity that provides a home to more than thirty Open Source and Free Software projects, and provides license enforcement efforts at the request of some of its projects, including the only unified and community-led GPL enforcement efforts for the Linux kernel — begins a long-term campaign to increase education and understanding about community-driven GPL enforcement processes. Historically, Conservancy has published extensive materials about enforcement of the GPL, including blog posts, announcements regarding compliance actions, many sections appearing in the definitive Copyleft Guide (a joint initiative with the Free Software Foundation). After Conservancy's recent announcement of its funding of Christoph Hellwig's lawsuit against VMware, Conservancy has sought to answer as many questions as possible about GPL enforcement. Conservancy invites developers and other Open Source and Free Software contributors to email their questions on GPL enforcement to . Conservancy cannot promise to answer every question; Conservancy will use the collected questions over the coming months to provide more educational and informational materials about GPL enforcement, and in particular about Conservancy's GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers. Conservancy especially seeks questions from contributors to the Linux kernel, and therefore encourages questioners who have contributed to Linux to write from their email address as it appears in Linux's Git logs, so that Conservancy can prioritize their questions. ###################################################################### Other URLs of interest: https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/about.html https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2012/may/29/compliance/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2012/feb/01/gpl-enforcement/ https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2014/jul/15/why-kallithea/ https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/mar/05/vmware-lawsuit/ https://sfconservancy.org/news/2013/aug/16/exfat-samsung/ https://copyleft.org/ http://compliance.guide/ http://compliance.guide/pristine-example From info at sfconservancy.org Tue Jul 14 18:55:42 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Software Freedom Conservancy) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2015 11:55:42 -0700 Subject: Interview on opensource.com with Bradley M. Kuhn Message-ID: <87r3oazhzl.fsf@ebb.org> URL: https://opensource.com/life/15/7/interview-bradley-kuhn-software-freedom-conservancy Interview on opensource.com with Bradley M. Kuhn Bradley discussed Kallithea, GPL Enforcement, and Outreachy Conservancy Supporter Ben Cotton interviews Conservancy's President and Distinguished Technologist on opensource.com. The interview includes a preview of Bradley's talk at OSCON, When copyleft business models go bad… and how Kallithea's community recovered, as well discussion of Conservancy's GPL enforcement activity and Conservancy's Outreachy project. From info at sfconservancy.org Wed Jul 15 14:00:10 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Bradley M. Kuhn) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2015 07:00:10 -0700 Subject: Conservancy & the FSF Achieve GPL Compliance for Canonical, Ltd. =?utf-8?Q?=E2=80=9CIntellectual_Property=E2=80=9D?= Policy Message-ID: <87si8p4j2t.fsf@ebb.org> Conservancy & the FSF Achieve GPL Compliance for Canonical, Ltd. “Intellectual Property” Policy Canonical, Ltd.'s Policy Complies With GPL But Fails To Address Other Important Software Freedom Issues Today, Canonical, Ltd. announced an updated “Intellectual Property” policy. Conservancy has analyzed this policy and confirms that the policy complies with the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL), but Conservancy and the FSF believe that the policy still creates confusion and possible risk for users who wish to exercise their rights under GPL. Background Conservancy, on behalf of its GPL Compliance Project for Linux Developers, and its other GPL'd projects such as Samba, first received a GPL violation report in April 2013 regarding the earlier Canonical, Ltd. “Intellectual Property” policy. After a few months working on this matter, Conservancy discovered that the FSF was also working on the issue. The FSF and Conservancy agreed that it was best for the GPL enforcement community to speak with one voice in negotiation with Canonical, Ltd. to resolve the matter amicably. Conservancy has since then coordinated with the FSF as they took the lead in seeking resolution for the matter. In recent weeks, both FSF and Conservancy have negotiated directly with Canonical, Ltd. to resolve the GPL violation. Why The Original Policy Violated The GPLv2§6 and GPLv3§10¶3 explicitly forbid restrictions on the rights already granted in the GPL. As such, any extra requirement imposed on distribution of GPL'd software violates GPL. Copyleft advocates have historically described such requirements this way: no further agreement can “trump” the rights granted by GPL. For example, Canonical, Ltd.'s original policy required that redistributors "needed to recompile the source code to create [their] own binaries". GPL never requires recompilation of binaries; rather, the GPL simply requires that you pass along source code that successfully can be recompiled into binaries (and installed) by someone skilled in software development. Requirement of such action as a condition of distribution is an extra requirement, and the GPL forbids its imposition. Today's Change Today, as an outcome of these careful negotiations between Canonical, Ltd., Conservancy and the FSF, Canonical, Ltd. published an updated policy that includes this revision: > Ubuntu is an aggregate work of many works, each covered by their > own license(s). For the purposes of determining what you can do > with specific works in Ubuntu, this policy should be read together > with the license(s) of the relevant packages. For the avoidance of > doubt, where any other license grants rights, this policy does not > modify or reduce those rights under those licenses. This change is sufficient for compliance with the GPL. This “trump clause” effectively reverses the default situation of the policy, and mandates that when Canonical, Ltd.'s policy contradicts something that the GPL requires, or prohibits something that the GPL allows, the rights granted in the GPL shall prevail. While a trump clause is a reasonable way to comply with the GPL in a secondary licensing document, the solution is far from ideal. Redistributors of Ubuntu have little choice but to become expert analysts of Canonical, Ltd.'s policy. They must identify on their own every place where the policy contradicts the GPL. If a dispute arises on a subtle issue, Canonical, Ltd. could take legal action, arguing that the redistributor's interpretation of GPL was incorrect. Even if the redistributor was correct that the GPL trumped some specific clause in Canonical, Ltd.'s policy, it may be costly to adjudicate the issue. Recommendations Therefore, Conservancy encourages Canonical, Ltd. to make the many changes and improvements to their policy recommended during the FSF-led negotiations with them. Good community actors should embody the spirit of software freedom as well as meeting the exact letter of the rules. Even more importantly, since non-copyleft licenses do not necessarily forbid imposition of further restrictions, the community of Ubuntu redistributors should respond with concern. While Conservancy believes the key software freedoms and rights to copy, modify and redistribute Ubuntu are fully assured by this change with regard to copylefted software, a trump clause does not help with regard to non-copyleft licenses. Since Ubuntu is an aggregation of many copylefted and non-copylefted programs, full permission to redistribute of Ubuntu as a whole remains in question. Finally, Conservancy recommends reading the FSF's statement on Canonical, Ltd.'s policy as well. -- Bradley M. Kuhn President & Distinguished Technologist of Software Freedom Conservancy From info at sfconservancy.org Mon Aug 31 05:26:51 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Software Freedom Conservancy) Date: Sun, 30 Aug 2015 22:26:51 -0700 Subject: Conservancy and Debian announce Copyright Aggregation Project Message-ID: <871tekdo4k.fsf@ebb.org> URL: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/aug/17/debian/ Conservancy and Debian announce Copyright Aggregation Project New Services Agreement Implemented between Conservancy and Debian Earlier this month, in his keynote at DebConf (the Debian Project's annual conference in Heidelberg, Germany), Software Freedom Conservancy's Distinguished Technologist and President, Bradley M. Kuhn, announced Conservancy's Debian Copyright Aggregation Project. This new project, formed at the request of Debian developers, gives Debian contributors various new options to ensure the defense of software freedom. Specifically, Debian contributors may chose to either assign their copyrights to Conservancy for permanent stewardship, or sign Conservancy's license enforcement agreement, which delegates to Conservancy authority to enforce Free Software licenses (such as the GNU General Public License). Several Debian contributors have already signed both forms of agreement. Former Debian Project Leader (DPL), Stefano Zacchiroli enthusiastically welcomed the program, saying: "I urged Conservancy to work with Debian to create this program. Holding copyright on Free Software code is a privilege, but also a huge responsibility. Debian Developers have asked me for years a way to make sure some charity they can trust looked after their hard work and ensured Free Software licenses were upheld. Conservancy is the best partner I can imagine for this job. I've signed up myself for the program!" On behalf of the Debian community, Conservancy can now safeguard the long term interests of Debian and its commitment to software freedom. In connection with the Aggregation Project, Conservancy will provide license consulting, advice, and compliance services to Debian in coordination with the DPL. The framework for all these services to the Debian community was implemented by Lucas Nussbaum during his term as DPL. The agreement established the DPL as the primary contact point for the services agreement. Neil McGovern, the current DPL, stated: "With this new program, Debian has a fantastic opportunity to build an ongoing collaboration with Conservancy to enforce Debian contributors' rights in accordance with the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG). I welcome the experience and sage advice from Conservancy on licensing and policy matters, and applaud their various other efforts on software freedom." Conservancy can now accept assignment agreements or enforcement agreements for any Debian contributors who choose to join the Aggregation Project. Currently, Debian developers interested in this program can contact . The DPL and Conservancy are working together to create a self-service system for filing the paperwork. Kuhn's keynote from DebConf is available on Conservancy's website in video, and he summarized his thoughts in a blog post on Conservancy's website at https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/aug/17/debian/. From info at sfconservancy.org Thu Oct 1 19:39:43 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Bradley M. Kuhn) Date: Thu, 01 Oct 2015 12:39:43 -0700 Subject: Conservancy & FSF Announce Publish of Principles Copyleft Enforcement Message-ID: <87twqajs3k.fsf@ebb.org> Primary URLs for this announcement: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/oct/01/compliance-principles/ https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-conservancy-publish-principles-for-community-oriented-gpl-enforcement https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html https://fsf.org/licensing/enforcement-principles https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/649622549601615872 https://twitter.com/fsf/status/649623292622565376 https://identi.ca/conservancy/note/uyvWMXnKSzu_Naj2rRC1Jg https://microca.st/fsf/note/wDvmhzATTJCldyy94_u3hA ###################################################################### CONSERVANCY & FSF ANNOUNCE PUBLISH OF PRINCIPLES COPYLEFT ENFORCEMENT Software Freedom Conservancy announces today the publication of The Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement. This document, co-authored with the Free Software Foundation (FSF), outlines basic guidelines for any organization that seeks to uphold copyleft licenses on behalf of the public good. In their regular work, Conservancy and FSF each actively pursue compliance actions for copylefted software. Members of the public entrust the FSF and Conservancy to uphold the rights embodied in the GPL family of licenses. The FSF holds copyrights in many essential GNU packages, and Conservancy not only holds its own copyrights in BusyBox, the Linux kernel, and Debian, but also has built coalitions of BusyBox, Debian, Linux, and Samba developers who have delegated their license enforcement authority to Conservancy. Both organizations conduct GPL enforcement as transparently as possible, and provide helpful and abundant educational material (such as their joint copyleft.org project) for individuals and companies who use and distribute Open Source and Free Software. Copyleft license enforcement, as performed by community-oriented organizations such as Conservancy and FSF, focuses on the promotion of software freedom as paramount. Publishing the guiding principles behind this activity clearly explicates this activity, removes uncertainty for companies who face compliance actions, and also provides criteria for evaluating whether license compliance is in the community's interest. The principles enumerated in the document include prioritizing software freedom over all other ancillary goals, using legal action only as a last resort, and offering flexibility on rights restoration under GPLv2's termination clause (GPLv2§4). “The ugly truth about copyleft compliance is that if there are never any law suits when companies refuse to comply, then there's very little incentive to do the right thing,” said Karen M. Sandler, Conservancy's Executive Director and FOSS legal expert and activist for a decade. “No copyleft compliance initiatives of any kind will succeed without enforcement also being conducted by organizations who seek users' rights and the public good. These principles express our ethical compass for this enforcement - we conduct this activity in the best interests of both the free software movement and the industry that has been built around it.” Bradley M. Kuhn, Conservancy's President and Distinguished Technologist, who has, on behalf of both the FSF and Conservancy, regularly enforced the GPL since 1999, and who first formulated many of this principles during in those early days, added: “I've enjoyed the growth and adoption of copyleft software throughout the software industry. However, copyleft violations remain abysmally prevalent, and even worse, some individuals and companies succumb to avarice in their copyleft enforcement work. Companies have reported to Conservancy real confusion about the motivations of the burgeoning license compliance industry complex. I have helped my colleagues draft these principles, not only as documentation of the moral code our organizations follow, but also so that the entire public can review and evaluate our behavior transparently and thus distinguish our work from those who use these important licensing tools nefariously.” Publishing these principles builds on the work Conservancy and FSF they began last year with their joint launch of copyleft.org. Copyleft.org hosts a guide which provides comprehensive explanation about the GPL and includes a detailed analysis of a complete, corresponding source (CCS) release for a real-world electronics product. The Guide demonstrates and discusses the process that Conservancy and the FSF use to determine whether a CCS candidate complies with the requirements of the GPL. The Guide itself is freely distributed under copyleft, and we invite contributions. Karen Sandler will jointly lead a session entitled Community Licensing Education & Outreach with FSF licensing & compliance manager Joshua Gay and FSF copyright and licensing associate Donald R. Robertson, III at the FSF's User Freedom Summit in Cambridge, Massachusetts this Saturday, October 3. On Tuesday, October 6 in Dublin, Ireland Bradley M. Kuhn will present at the Embedded Linux Conference a session entitled A Beautiful Build: Releasing Linux Source Correctly, which will discuss the pristine example found in the Guide. FSF has also released its own announcement. A copy of the principles document will be hosted both on Conservancy's website and on FSF's website. About Software Freedom Conservancy Software Freedom Conservancy is a charitable nonprofit 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. It is the home of the award winning internship program Outreachy, which helps people from groups underrepresented in free and open source software get involved. A full list of Conservancy's member projects is available. Conservancy enables its projects' communities to focus on what they do best: creating innovative software and advancing computing for the public's benefit. Media Contacts Karen M. Sandler Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy +1-212-461-3245 Related URLs of interest from this press release: https://copyleft.org/guide/ https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidepa2.html#x17-116000II https://copyleft.org/guide/comprehensive-gpl-guidepa3.html#x26-152000III https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/compliance-situations https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2012/feb/01/gpl-enforcement/ http://gpl.guide/pristine-example ###################################################################### -- Bradley M. Kuhn President & Distinguished Technologist of Software Freedom Conservancy From info at sfconservancy.org Tue Oct 13 19:01:59 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Bradley M. Kuhn) Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2015 12:01:59 -0700 Subject: Open Source Initiative Publishes Statement of Support for Conservancy's Enforcement Principles Message-ID: <87vbaaegns.fsf@ebb.org> URL: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/oct/13/osi-supports-enforcement-principles/ ###################################################################### Open Source Initiative Publishes Statement of Support for Conservancy's Enforcement Principles Today the Open Source Initiative (OSI) made a statment in support of the Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement, which were recently co-published by the Free Software Foundation and Conservancy. Publishing these guiding principles clearly explicates community-oriented enforcement, removes uncertainty for companies who face compliance actions, and also provides criteria for evaluating whether license compliance is in the community's interest. The principles enumerated in the document include prioritizing software freedom over all other ancillary goals, using legal action only as a last resort, and offering flexibility on rights restoration under GPLv2's termination clause (GPLv2§4). Allison Randal, president of OSI co-authored these Principles collaboratively with the FSF's and Conservancy's leadership. OSI's statement, entitled “The importance of community-oriented GPL enforcement” discusses the important role of Conservancy's and FSF's principles document in community best practices. OSI comments: "While the OSI's work doesn't include legal enforcement actions for the GPL or any of the family of licenses that conform to the Open Source Definition, we applaud these principle as set forth by the FSF and Conservancy, clearly defining community best practices around GPL enforcement." Other URLs of interest related to this announcement: http://opensource.org/node/763 https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/oct/01/compliance-principles/ https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/654007925636116480 https://identi.ca/conservancy/note/yK9-5qTLRzOqM3aOvwIO4g From info at sfconservancy.org Wed Oct 14 17:44:44 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Bradley M. Kuhn) Date: Wed, 14 Oct 2015 10:44:44 -0700 Subject: Conservancy Co-Signs Response to Proposed FCC Rule Changes Affecting Wireless Devices Message-ID: <87fv1d73ar.fsf@ebb.org> URL: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/oct/14/FCC-comment/ #################################################################### Conservancy Co-Signs Response to Proposed FCC Rule Changes Affecting Wireless Devices Last week, Conservancy joined the prpl Foundation and several other organizations in signing a comment filed in response to the Federal Communications Commission's proposed rules to restrict third-party modification of firmware in wireless devices. The FCC's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking Proceeding No. 15-170, released on July 21, 2015, includes new provisions which would require wireless device manufacturers to prevent consumers and hobbyists from modifying the firmwares on those devices. The comment, drafted by prpl's Eric Schultz, notes that the FCC's rule would restrict wireless device owners and users to use firmwares chosen by manufacturers, regardless of whether superior, freely-licensed alternatives exist. The proposed rule would also limit manufacturers' own ability to use copylefted code in their devices firmware, thereby cutting them off from higher-quality code that would improve their products. Conservancy and prpl were joined by OpenWrt, DD-WRT/DD-WRT NXT, and the Open Source Initiative as signatories of the comment. Conservancy's Executive Director, Karen M. Sandler, and President and Distinguished Technologist, Bradley M. Kuhn, each also personally signed on to another comment filed by Dave Täht, co-founder of bufferbloat.net and Dr. Vinton Cerf along with many other security and free and open source software dignitaries. The comment proposes an alternative to the FCC's new provisions, which would require vendors of software-defined radio (SDR), wireless, or Wi-Fi radio to make the complete source code for the device driver and radio firmware public as part of FCC compliance. "Software by its very nature has bugs and will be vulnerable to attack," said Sandler. "The only way we can be confident that such a critical piece of our societal infrastructure is as safe as possible is if the source code is made fully available for review and can be fixed by anyone with authority when problems arise. The FCC's proposed rules are untenable, as highlighted in the comment Conservancy joins in with the prpl Foundation. The alternate proposal by Täht and Cerf, which is grounded in a deep understanding of how security issues really play out in this context, should be seriously considered by the FCC." #################################################################### From info at sfconservancy.org Tue Oct 27 20:01:09 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Karen Sandler) Date: Tue, 27 Oct 2015 16:01:09 -0400 Subject: Win for Software Freedom on TVs: Librarian of Congress Adopts DMCA Exemption for Smart TVs Message-ID: <2502db1db353c1a1ddb8fdf8b8ff8e8d@motives.com> URL: http://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/oct/27/DMCA-win/ ###################################################################### Win for Software Freedom on TVs: Librarian of Congress Adopts DMCA Exemption for Smart TVs Conservancy Succeeds with Exemption Petition Software Freedom Conservancy is pleased to announce that the Librarian of Congress adopted an exemption for Smart TVs as part of its final rule Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies, published today. The rule favorably discusses Conservancy's request, dismisses the opposition's key points and sets forth an exemption for Smart TVs. This process is undertaken every three years to consider whether exemptions should be granted to the DMCA's restrictions on circumventing technical protection measures and DRM in copyrighted works. Conservancy's pro bono counsel, Tor Ekeland, P.C, prepared Conservancy's requests and responses, and partner Aaron Williamson testified on Conservancy's behalf at the public hearings. “We're grateful to the Register of Copyrights and the Librarian of Congress for acknowledging the rights of free software developers and leaving Smart TV owners room to hack their own TVs,“ said Williamson. Both the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and the Register of Copyrights, who conducts the rulemaking proceedings, supported Conservancy's request. The Register's Recommendations discuss Conservancy's request in 15 pages of detailed analysis, both of the appropriateness of the exemption and the legal analysis around fair use. The NTIA in their letter notes that “although this is the first time that an exemption for smart TVs has been requested...in many ways this class is similar to the circumvention of access controls in mobile devices for software interoperability.“ The granted exemption, while narrower than Conservancy requested, explicitly allows circumvention for enabling interoperability of computer programs on Smart TVs. Conservancy's Executive Director, Karen Sandler, also participated in an exemption request as part of a coalition of medical device researchers, which was prepared by Andrew Sellars and the Cyberlaw Clinic at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society of Harvard Law School. The Librarian also granted an exemption responding to this request, which after a 12 month period also allows circumvention for the purpose of good faith security research. “I'm thrilled that the Librarian of Congress has agreed, by granting these exemptions, to protect people's right to modify their TVs and explore the safety of their medical devices without fear,“ said Sandler. Conservancy thanks Tor Ekeland and the over 1700 individuals who filed comments in support of the request. From info at sfconservancy.org Wed Oct 28 18:52:23 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Karen Sandler) Date: Wed, 28 Oct 2015 14:52:23 -0400 Subject: Christoph Hellwig Continues VMware GPL Enforcement Suit in Germany Message-ID: <526e200e50ca105f5e8a855a34c1aba2@motives.com> URL: http://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/oct/28/vmware-update/ ###################################################################### Software Freedom Conservancy is pleased to provide updated information regarding the ongoing GPL enforcement lawsuit for Linux, funded by Conservancy, that Christoph Hellwig has brought against VMware in Germany. Information about the suit is available on the FAQ page. The lawsuit continues to progress. VMware has filed a statement of defense, in which they assert arguments for the dismissal of the action. Christoph, with the assistance of his lawyer Till Jaeger, has filed his response to these arguments. Unfortunately, VMware has explicitly asked for the filings not to be published and, accordingly, Conservancy has not been able to review either document. With the guidance of counsel, Christoph was able to provide Conservancy with a high-level summary of the filings from which we are able to provide this update. VMware's statement of defense primarily focuses on two issues. First, VMware questions Christoph's copyright interest in the Linux kernel and his right to bring this action. Second, VMware claims vmklinux is an “interoperability module” which communicates through a stable interface called VMK API. Christoph's response discusses his extensive contributions to the Linux kernel and disputes the technical merits of VMware's assertions. The response points out that vmklinux is not an interoperability module, but rather an arbitrary separation of the Linux derived module from vmkernel. Specifically, vmklinux is nonfunctional with any non-ESX OS, and vmklinux is tied intimately to a specific version of ESXi. Vmklinux does not allow reuse of unmodified Linux drivers in binary or source form. Christoph further points out that if the Court allows proprietarization of an arbitrary split portion of GPL'd computer programs, it could allow redistributors to trivially bypass the strong copyleft terms found in the GPL. Finally, the response explains that vmkernel and vmklinux don't “communicate over an interface”, rather they run in the same process as a single computer program. Thus, VMK API, as used by vmklinux, is not an “interface” as set forth in the EU Directive 2009/24/EC. To assist the public to easily verify these conclusions, Conservancy today makes available a git repository containing the publicly available VMware code. This Git repository contains an easier-to-browse version of VMware's incomplete source code releases. (Conservancy's FAQ about the lawsuit includes details on how to download this same software directly from VMware's site.) The case continues, and remains an extremely important matter of principle for software freedom. The court hearing has been set for the first quarter of 2016. Conservancy will continue to release information as we receive it. Please support this work and stand up for the GPL by becoming a Conservancy Supporter today. https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ From info at sfconservancy.org Thu Oct 29 17:09:46 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Karen Sandler) Date: Thu, 29 Oct 2015 13:09:46 -0400 Subject: KCC Publishes "Principles" in Korean Message-ID: URL: http://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/oct/29/principles-in-korean/ ###################################################################### Korean Copyright Commission Publishes "Principles of Community Oriented GPL Compliance" in Korean Karen Sandler Featured Speaker in Seoul Conference As part of Software Freedom Conservancy's participation in the Open Source SW License Insight Conference in Seoul on October 14, the Korean Copyright Commission (KCC) has published the Principles of Community Oriented GPL Compliance translated in Korean. The document is available for download on KCC's Website and on Conservancy's site in html and as a pdf. The Principles were published by the Free Software Foundation and Conservancy earlier this month, and set forth norms around community-oriented enforcement, removing uncertainty for companies who face compliance actions and providing criteria for evaluating whether license compliance is in the community's interest. Conservancy's Executive Director Karen Sandler was a featured speaker at the Conference; in her talk, she gave an introduction to the ideology of software freedom and disscussed Conservancy's compliance work. In addition to the conference, Sandler also spoke at a seminar held by the KCC in which she discussed the Principles in depth. The event was covered in Korean news. Both events are part of a KCC initiative to bring greater understanding of free and open source software in Korea. The KCC has published the translation of the Principles to increase materials that are available to Korean developers. “I am thrilled that the Principles are available in Korean so soon after their initial publication,“ said Sandler. “I was very impressed with the KCC's events and look forward to seeing participation of Korean developers in free software to grow even further.“ Links related to this announcement: https://www.olis.or.kr/download/attachFile.do?fileSeq=211 http://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.kr.html http://sfconservancy.org/copyleft-compliance/principles.kr.pdf http://www.korea-news.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=31434 https://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/principles.html From info at sfconservancy.org Thu Dec 10 23:17:57 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Software Freedom Conservancy) Date: Thu, 10 Dec 2015 15:17:57 -0800 Subject: Conservancy Announces 2015: Year In Review Series Message-ID: <876105x596.fsf@ebb.org> URL: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2015/dec/10/2015-yir/ Conservancy Announces 2015: Year In Review Series Follow Conservancy's Blog This December for a Recap of Work This Year! Conservancy announces today a blog post series called, Conservancy 2015: The Year in Review. This series will run throughout December 2015 and will recap major events in Open Source and Free Software that Conservancy impacted through the year of 2015. You can subscribe to Conservancy's blog via RSS, but we'll also post the series to Conservancy's announcement email list, as well as your favorite social media outlets, including identi.ca (pump.io), and Twitter, Google+, and Youtube. Links are at the bottom of this email. It's been a busy year for everyone, especially those of us here at Conservancy, so we welcome you to spend your December with us, catching up together on all the exciting happenings of 2015! Social Media Links: https://identi.ca/conservancy/ https://twitter.com/conservancy https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUEeuNvX2UyTTyTYXR9dm_A https://plus.google.com/104268783278405704634/ -- Become a Conservancy Supporter Now: https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ (And then ask a friend to become a Supporter, too! :) From info at sfconservancy.org Fri Dec 11 19:57:59 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Bradley M. Kuhn and Karen M. Sandler) Date: Fri, 11 Dec 2015 11:57:59 -0800 Subject: ICYMI: Conservancy YIR: Karen Sandler Speaks about IRS Charity Issues Message-ID: <87twnou5a0.fsf@ebb.org> Blog Post URL: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/dec/11/yir-karen-lca/ Video URL: https://sfconservancy.org/videos/2015-01-15_Karen-Sandler_Low-Down-Irs-Status-USA_LCA-2015.mp4 [ This is a blog post is the first in our series, Conservancy 2015: Year in Review. ] Conservancy's 2015 started with the filing of our FY 2013 Form 990. That's the IRS tax form that every charity and trade association in the USA must file annually. Typically, most non-profits ask for the two three-month extensions for filing deadline for the Form 990, and since Conservancy's fiscal year ends in February, our Form 990 is filed by 15 January. This is the type of essential work that Conservancy does for our member projects. Each member project need not file their own complicated forms to maintain their charitable status and ability to accept earmarked donations for their projects. Instead, Conservancy files one Form 990. We're “looking forward” to spending this holiday season preparing our next FY 2014 Form 990 and completing our mandated annual audit. (Our FY 2013 annual audit is of course already available.) Fitting with this annual work that Conservancy does, immediately after filing the 990, both Karen and Bradley — thanks to generous travel funding by the conference — quickly boarded flights to LinuxConf Australia in Auckland, New Zealand. At the conference, on the very date of Conservancy's IRS filing deadline, Karen gave talk entitled "The Low Down on IRS status for Free and Open Source Software Nonprofits in the US". Even almost a year later, many of the issues Karen discussed in her talk are not well known in the Free Software community and there are still many confusions in the Open Source and Free Software about non-profit status and how it works. Enjoy this video now to see more about what Conservancy does for its member projects, and generally to learn more about how both charities and trade associations operate and what they do in our community. Become a Conservancy Supporter now to help us continue this work in 2016! Social Media URLs: https://identi.ca/conservancy/note/kmzXik4uQlyczOJiGFzk0A https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/675391778149679104 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xN2lHHm_iI0 https://plus.google.com/104268783278405704634/posts/cXfQq3Qt5rc -- Become a Conservancy Supporter Now: https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ (And then ask a friend to become a Supporter, too! :) From info at sfconservancy.org Fri Dec 18 19:46:52 2015 From: info at sfconservancy.org (Software Freedom Conservancy) Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2015 11:46:52 -0800 Subject: 2015 YIR: Bradley M. Kuhn Speaks About Future of Copyleft Message-ID: <87y4crh74j.fsf@ebb.org> URL: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/dec/12/yir-bkuhn-lca/ Video URL: https://sfconservancy.org/videos/2015-01-15_Bradley-Kuhn_Future-of-Copyleft_LCA-2015.mp4 [ This is a blog post is the second in our series, Conservancy 2015: Year in Review ] Thanks to the generosity of the LinuxConf Australia (LCA) organizers, who funded both Karen's and Bradley's visit to LinuxConf AU 2015, both were able to attend and speak at LCA 2015. Yesterday, our Year In Review post included a video of Karen Sandler's talk at LCA 2015. Today's video shows Bradley M. Kuhn's talk, Considering the Future of Copyleft: How Will The Next Generation Perceive the GPL?, which was delivered on 15 January 2015. Copyleft licenses, particularly the GPL, are widely used throughout the Open Source and Free Software communities. Recent debates have led many to various conclusions about the popularity of copyleft. This talk discusses where copyleft stands today, how it interacts with the modern Free Software world, and how copyleft advocates may need to adapt to the future of Free Software licensing. Specifically, Bradley gives a historical perspective of how the Open Source and Free Software communities perceive copyleft now, and why they do. He discusses what challenges this history leaves for the current situation in software freedom politics. Told with examples from his own twenty years of work in our community, Bradley describes the political challenges facing copyleft and what we as a community should do about it. Bradley will premiere a follow-up talk to this one, entitled Copyleft For the Next Decade: A Comprehensive Plan at LinuxConf Australia 2016. ###################################################################### Social Media Links: https://identi.ca/conservancy/note/WNLYjt94QAmwnJ9xd3T6DA https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/675818832083091456 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fox1CuoP2DQ https://plus.google.com/b/104268783278405704634/104268783278405704634/posts/5RVeyW85Yt1 -- Become a Conservancy Supporter Now: https://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ (And then ask a friend to become a Supporter, too! :)