Software Freedom Conservancy
Software Freedom Conservancy is a not-for-profit charity that helps promote, improve, develop, and defend Free, Libre, and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects. Conservancy provides a non-profit home and infrastructure for FLOSS projects. This allows FLOSS developers to focus on what they do best — writing and improving FLOSS for the general public — while Conservancy takes care of the projects' needs that do not relate directly to software development and documentation.
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Recent News
Conservancy Files “Long Comments” for Its Three DMCA Exemptions
Conservancy Fights for User Rights and Control
December 15, 2020
Software Freedom Conservancy filed its long-form comments yesterday in support of three DMCA exemption requests in the Library of Congress' Copyright Office Triennial Rulemaking process. The Digital Millenium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides this process to grant temporary exemptions to allow circumvention of technological protection measures (i.e., DRM) that restrict access to copyrighted material.
Sage Sharp joins Conservancy as Senior Director of Diversity & Inclusion focusing on Outreachy
December 2, 2020
Portrait © Sage Sharp, CC BY
Today Software Freedom Conservancy announces its newest employee, Sage Sharp. Sharp has been critical to the success of Outreachy, Conservancy’s diversity initiative that provides paid, remote internships to people who are subject to systemic bias or impacted by underrepresentation in tech. Sharp joins as Senior Director of Diversity & Inclusion, focusing on Outreachy.
Generous Match Challenge from Individual Conservancy Supporters for Annual Fundraiser
November 24, 2020
We are pleased to launch our annual fundraiser today with a match challenge of $111,029. This match is extremely exciting (not only because it is a prime number for the second year but also) because the pledges comes entirely from individuals (not companies!) who care deeply about software freedom. The bulk of this match challenge was provided by one very generous donor who prefers to remain anonymous. Their amount was augmented by six Conservancy Supporters (listed alphabetically) who came together to increase the match even more: Jeremy Allison, Kevin P. Fleming, Roan Kattouw, Jim McDonough, Allison Randal and Daniel Vetter. You'll be hearing more about why they joined this year's match donation in interviews on our blog in the coming weeks.
Sign up as a Supporter now or renew your Support by January 15th and have your donation count twice!
Conservancy is Hiring!
November 2, 2020
Software Freedom Conservancy is looking for a new employee with the special skills of working on a daily basis with FOSS projects and their leaders.
Conservancy Blog
Thanks to all of our donors, Conservancy met our match challenge!
by on January 15, 2021
We're pleased to report that with your help we did it! This year's match challenge of $111,029 was the first posed entirely by individuals (and not companies) who care deeply about software freedom. The bulk of this match challenge was provided by one very generous donor who prefers to remain anonymous. Their amount was augmented by six Conservancy Supporters who came together to increase the match even more. Conservancy thanks (in alphabetical order) Jeremy Allison, Kevin P. Fleming, Roan Kattouw, Jim McDonough, Allison Randal and Daniel Vetter.
We also thank every person who donated this season. Whether it was $42, $120, $128, $512 or any other amount, your donation helps us continue our work to fight for software freedom! We can only do this work because you support us. We cannot wait to see what we can get done together in 2021!
Interview with Matcher and Conservancy Board member Jeremy Allison
by on January 14, 2021
Jeremy Allison. Photo © Jeremy Allison, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
A generous group of individuals has banded together to increase the amount of our match donation. This post is part of a series of interviews where these extraordinary folks tell us about why they care about software freedom and why they support Conservancy.
We asked Jeremy Allison to describe himself for this interview, and he described himself as "a tedious audiophile who torments his friends with esoteric speaker trivia. He also likes to write C code and tries really hard not to put security holes in it. He co-founded the Samba project, whose list of CVE reports shows he is failing at this task. For some odd reason, Google thinks he is worth employing."
In this interview, Jeremy talks about how he got started in free software and the Samba project, and says some awfully nice things about Conservancy's board and staff!
Interview with Matcher Daniel Vetter
by on January 13, 2021
Portrait of Daniel Vetter. Photo © Roland Beck, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
A generous group of individuals has banded together to increase the amount of our match donation. This post is part of a series of interviews where these extraordinary folks tell us about why they care about software freedom and why they support Conservancy.
Daniel Vetter works on making graphics drivers better on Linux. At first largely by improving the code, nowadays he's focused on doing this by trying to build a better community. In this interview, Daniel talks about community building, copyleft and his favorite Conservancy member project, Outreachy!
Interview with Matcher and Conservancy Board member Allison Randal
by on January 11, 2021
Photo © Piers Cawley CC-BY-SA
A generous group of individuals has banded together to increase the amount of our match donation. This post is part of a series of interviews where these extraordinary folks tell us about why they care about software freedom and why they support Conservancy.
Allison Randal has had a variety of roles in software freedom, including development, project leadership, strategy, and advocacy. She collaborates in the Debian project, and is currently taking a mid-career break to get a PhD at the University of Cambridge.
An in-depth look at the social good of accessible free software: an interview with the MicroBlocks team
by on January 7, 2021
Photo © Citilab Cornellà Edulab, CC-BY-SA
MicroBlocks is a free/libre visual programming language that can be used to make programs that can run autonomously on many popular microcontrollers, allowing users of all technical abilities to program microcontrollers for a vast variety of purposes and 'real world' applications. The MicroBlocks team also works to bring the language to youth underrepresented in computer science education as an introduction to computing in hopes of diversifying the field and getting more people engaged in using and producing free software, and works to increase awareness of the inequalities and problems of agency both in education and in embedded software that software freedom can help combat. MicroBlocks has been a Conservancy project since 2018.
John Maloney, Bernat Romagosa, and Kathy Giori, members of the project's Leadership Committee, took part in a remote interview with Vladimir Bejdo, a Conservancy intern, to discuss the project's origins, its future, and their views on the impact that MicroBlocks and free software as a whole can have in creating a more just, equitable future for all of us.
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An Overview of Conservancy… Conservancy's current member projects… Services Conservancy provides to its member projects… Conservancy's unique work defending and upholding copyleft licenses (e.g., the GPL) … Conservancy's Non-Profit Accounting Project …
