What We Do
Software Freedom Conservancy is a nonprofit organization centered around ethical technology. Our mission is to ensure the right to repair, improve and reinstall software. We promote and defend these rights through fostering free and open source software (FOSS) projects, driving initiatives that actively make technology more inclusive, and advancing policy strategies that defend FOSS (such as copyleft).
Our work on copyleft compliance, including enforcement of the General Public License (GPL), is world-renowned. We believe fundamentally that copyleft licenses are the best tool available today to empower users and consumers to take control of their electronic devices, liberate themselves from planned obsolesce, and join a free market where they choose who provides their software.
We also believe that FOSS functions best when built by a egalitarian community in which hobbyists, volunteers, and individuals stand on equal footing with companies and large organizations. Vendor neutrality is simply not enough — as that merely makes companies equal to each other and leaves hobbyists and volunteers out in the cold. To foster FOSS creation in this manner, we are the non-profit home to dozens of member projects and initiatives whom we assist to remain transparent and prioritize the public good in their development of FOSS.
Furthermore, diversity and inclusion is a critical component to egalitarian FOSS communities. We acknowledge that FOSS communities historically have struggled on these fronts and the myth of “pure meritocracy” so popular in FOSS circles willfully ignores the systemic biases in our societies and cultures. We are thus the proud home of the Outreachy initiative that offers paid internships in FOSS for contributors who have faced systemic bias in their efforts to join the FOSS community.
