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 Joins Mozilla's Amicus Brief in Google v. Oracle
January 15, 2020
We are pleased to announce our participation in an amicus brief filed by Mozilla with the United States Supreme Court. The amicus brief calls on the court to reverse the Federal Circuit's earlier decision. The earlier decision came down in Oracle's favor and held Oracle's Java API copyrightable. We Amici (Latin for "friends of the court") are asking the Supreme Court to find in favor of Google and take the stand that copyright law should not be expanded to include APIs. Developers rely on the ability to use APIs without fear of retaliation to provide users with interoperability, additional choices, and modifiable software. Forcing payment agreements in this new area disproportionately harms smaller projects and projects in the public interest.
Allison Randal Joins Conservancy Board
January 3, 2020
We're very excited to welcome Allison Randal to Conservancy's Board of Directors. When it comes to free and open source software, there are few people who have had so much experience in so many different ways. Over the last 30 years, she has taken on projects that became instrumental in welcoming more people to the software freedom cause. She's made numerous critical technical contributions in addition to her impressive leadership contributions. She's also worked hard to get folks from very different organizations to collaborate on languages, licensing and events. We're very lucky that Randal has chosen to bring her uniquely broad and historical perspective to her work as a Conservancy Director.
Conservancy Blog
Conservancy Activities: March and Beyond
by on February 19, 2020
Open Source 101 is brought to you by the fine folks who put on All Things Open every fall. Deb will be giving a 90 minute workshop at the locally-focused event titled, Software Licensing and Compliance: It’s All About Community on March 3rd, in Columbia, SC. The number of available tickets is limited, but some are still available here.
Last Week in Brussels: FOSDEM, Copyleft Conf and More
by on February 10, 2020
FOSDEM is a great volunteer-run, community-driven event that has been going on for twenty years!! Conservancy staff and volunteers who attend the event are grateful to have the opportunity to interact with so many passionate free software advocates in one place each year.
Conservancy is headed to Brussels
by on January 24, 2020
Greetings software freedom friends! We will again be in Brussels for FOSDEM and the Second Annual Copyleft Conf. We would love to see you while we're there so here are few of the places and times where you can find us.
We Met Our Biggest Match Yet and Welcomed One Hundred New Supporters!
by on January 17, 2020
Thanks to everyone who helped us meet our match this year! This year's match was the biggest yet and I gotta tell you, that last week was a little bit of a nail biter, but you all really came through. Thanks so much to David Turner and Danielle Sucher, Leslie Hawthorn, Martin Krafft, Daniel Kahn Gillmor, Mark Wielaard, Bdale Garbee, Private Internet Access and one Anonymous donor. You helped us inspire both returning folks and new folks to donate which helps us achieve software freedom for everyone.
What Free Software Says About Today’s Crises
by on January 14, 2020
I always have a little special appreciation for free software that’s easy to recommend to folks who don’t think or care much about software freedom yet. There are a lot of projects like that, and the one I’ve been talking about the most lately is OsmAnd, a mapping and navigation app using OpenStreetMap data. Whenever I hear people say “I wish Google Maps did X,” OsmAnd almost always does the job with a more discoverable interface. After they’re set up and happy, it’s easy to talk about how OsmAnd doesn’t track your location the same way Google Maps does.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few years asking myself whether it’s important to work on free software, or if I should even care about free software, given how pressing so many other problems feel. Climate change, authoritarian governments, antisemitism and white nationalism—these are the problems that are destroying people’s lives by the thousands, today and every day. How is free software even relevant to those problems?
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