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Conservancy Blogby on January 26, 2026
My name is Tracy and I'm the Operations Manager here at Software Freedom Conservancy. Basically that means I support many different parts of the organization, from writing up contracts for project developers to banking reconciliation. I also manage our annual conference, FOSSY.
Below is a conversation I had with our Executive Director Karen Sandler about my story with free software. Part of which centers my work with Knox Makers, the Makerspace I'm a board member of. Software freedom is an issue that affects us all, and I hope to bring some light to both my own story and a wider view of how non-FOSS developers and users interact with free software in an everyday way.
Karen Sandler: How did you first encounter the idea of software freedom?
Tracy Homer: It was a slow discovery process. When I first started using Linux, it's primary draw was that it was free (as in beer). I didn't really know it had anything to do with free as in speech and copyleft licensing. Over time I've learned how important it is to be able to modify your own devices and see what goes on behind the screens in the services that hold our most personal information.
Karen: What was the first FOSS software you used?
Tracy: Inkscape, one of SFC's member projects! I use it for all kinds of design work -both for SFC and personally. If you've been to FOSSY or visited our booth at other conferences, chances are the print material was designed in Inkscape.
Karen: We know you are very involved with the makerspace, Knox Makers. How does Knox Makers use FOSS?
Tracy: Knox Makers is committed to open source software and hardware wherever possible. We feel it is an aspect of accessibility for our members, and allows them the ability to try out and learn deeply all kinds of different tools, without having to pay expensive licensing fees, or worry about their art being sucked up by AI, or needing to buy a certain OS to run it. We've modified some software to make it more community user friendly, and written our own plugins and tools for our member's use as well. Knox Makers is actually how I learned of SFC in the first place, as a few of my good friends there are sustainers.
Karen: What are some projects you've recently done personally?
Tracy: I just finished a year's long project, embroidering a globe. It doesn't sound like it fits with free sofware but it does! I created my own pattern in QGIS (open source geographic software) using depth of the ocean translated into different shades of blue. Then I exported each of the 20 spherical triangular pieces into Inkscape to add some registration lines and print out. It took so long that I feel kind of lost what to work on next.
Karen: How does software freedom enrich your daily life?
Tracy: The few proprietary systems I still have to use are intensely frustrating. I feel like it's a game of cat and mouse trying to figure out how to use a "new and better!" interface with no documentation and no way to revert changes feels very disheartening. Any searching for error messages just brings up a long thread of other users with the same issue and maybe a rote answer from the company, typically unhelpful. That maybe doesn't answer the question, because I went the other way with it. But so most of my life is using open software and hardware that it's really become a non issue. I have a problem with something; I fix it. I can switch to something different if I really don't like it - I can even change up my whole computer system if I find it doesn't suit my needs. I don't get ads and other popups thrown in my face every where I turn, and I know my data and art belongs to only me.
Karen: You've been at SFC for over 3 years! And, as Operations Manager, you take care of some of the least glamous work that we have. What do you enjoy about your job? (hopefully it's something!)
Tracy: Working here has been great - everyone at SFC is lovely and I think we make a great team. I really enjoy meeting other people in the FOSS world, so I like tabling at conferences. And seeing everyone at FOSSY too. Weirdly, I enjoy the accounting aspects, because it feels like a puzzle to put together. All the numbers have to fit somewhere and they all have to sum up perfectly in the end so tracking down the missing pieces is a fun challenge.
Karen: What do you hope to accomplish in software freedom, either personally or professionally in the coming months or years?
Tracy: I've only done the most minor contributions to projects, and someday I'd like to develop the skills to do more. I'd also like to focus on adding more to my city in OpenStreetMap - it's pretty sparse in places. I think with SFC I'd like to help focus on on advocacy and how software freedom benefits many different aspects of life, especially in the creative space.
by on January 26, 2026
We at Software Freedom Conservancy are disappointed at some surprising news. Two weeks ago (THU 2026-01-08), we had our original pretrial motions hearing scheduled in our historic impact litigation against Vizio. Just about an hour before the hearing's start-time, Judge Sandy Leal issued a minute order that rescheduled the hearing and (effectively) removed the trial (which was set to start on Monday 12 January 2025) from her calendar.
The rescheduled hearing date was Monday 2026-01-26 at 09:00. At 08:15 that morning, our attorneys were contacted from the Court Clerk that the hearing was again postponed..
We have been in this litigation against Vizio since October 2021. Vizio violated both the General Public License (GPL) and Lesser GPL Agreements. Vizio's “Smart” TV products include more than a dozen packages under these copyleft licenses, yet Vizio has continually failed to comply with these agreements in various ways — most notably (and including but not limited to) by (a) not providing complete, corresponding source code, (b) not providing “the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable[s]”, and (c) not providing object code necessary for relinking the LGPLv2.1'd works. We were looking forward to our days in Court that week to show the world all the details of Vizio's non-compliance, and to ask the Court to acknowledge (among other things) our right as a third-party beneficiary under the GPL Agreements to receive all the materials that those Agreements require Vizio to give to all consumers who purchase their devices. These devices, BTW, are called “Smart” TVs because what's inside is actually a small (but powerful) computer attached to the giant video display — driven and controlled largely by copylefted FOSS.
Notwithstanding our frustration, our trial was delayed for good reason. Another case — even older than ours — needed more time for their jury trial (and thus had priority over ours). While some criticize the USA for being “too litigious”, we at SFC believe firmly that the civil Courts are the best place where ordinary citizens and small, scrappy non-profit charities like SFC can seek justice when our rights are violated. We also know that there is more injustice in our country these days than anyone would like, and this delay occurred because there are other folks out there seeking justice on other important issues and rights, too.
We understand that we've been waiting for a long time in a very long queue in the California Courts, and while we (like everyone) get frustrated when the line is taking much longer than expected, we also appreciate that Judge Leal is carefully managing her docket to grant all parties an impartial opportunity for justice.
Attorneys for both SFC and Vizio are now negotiating with the Court for rescheduling. We hope the pretrial hearing will be scheduled fairly soon. We will update here and on the Fediverse as we know more.
We'll spend the next few weeks posting the various recent motions and filings in the case, and publishing some retrospective summaries of the last four and a half years of the case for you all to read.
Be sure subscribe to our feed in your RSS readers/aggregators and follow us on the Fediverse (via Mastodon or your preferred ActivityPub software). to receive updates!
by on December 23, 2025
I wrote last month about my diabetes diagnosis this year and my difficult choice to wear a proprietary device (called a CGM) on my arm 24/7 to continuously monitor my glucose levels. Like my friend and colleague, Karen M. Sandler — who previously made a much higher-stakes choice to receive a proprietary implanted defibrillator to keep her safe given her genetic heart condition — I reluctantly chose to attach proprietary hardware and software to my body.
The device itself is quite proprietary, but fortunately the FOSS community has reverse engineered its activation and data collection protocols — creating an Android application that does a better job than the manufacturers' proprietary ones0.
Here in the USA, we strangely use capitalism as the center of our health care system. Two major for-profit competing brands of CGM are available here. My diabetes specialist prefers the (ironically named) Freestyle Libre Plus from Abbott. I (also rather strangely) bring a prescription for electronics to a pharmacy every month. On 2025-12-03, that pharmacy sent me an alarming text message (shown here).
After reading that text, I found the USA FDA announcement. My spouse cross-referenced the lot numbers while I read them off from all my Freestyle boxes1. I had indeed recently worn an impacted device!
Only because my diabetes is so early of a stage was I relatively safe. The FDA reports that Freestyle injured over 700 people and killed seven people with this bug. Specifically, the bug caused the device to falsely report an extremely low glucose level. Advanced stage diabetics use low reading information to inform them that they may have too much insulin currently. The usual remedy is to eat something sugary to raise glucose in the blood. Such should be done only with great care, as a false low reading can harm and even kill the patient (who eats a high-sugar-content item while glucose in the blood is, in fact, not low).
Proprietary software in medical devices harming patients is not new. In 1985, the Therac-25 killed three people. In 2020, hundreds of patients who relied on a financially troubled tech startup found their occular implants suddenly unsupported. Some patients went blind as the devices powered down without updates. There are more examples that I could include here, but rereading these horrific stories is frankly more than I can take right now when I think of fellow diabetes sufferers who were “killed by code” recently..
It's hubris for activists to guarantee that harm would be prevented if Freestyle had publicly released the hardware specifications and the complete, corresponding source code (CCS). FOSS isn't immune to bugs — even dangerous ones. However, in the centuries since the Enlightenment, we know that the scientific method depends on public disclosure about data and wide-reaching peer review of past work. FOSS (plus a publicly disclosed hardware design) wouid allow the millions of hardware and software engineers to peer-review the integrity, security, and safety of the devices to which patients entrust their lives. We achieve the promise of humanity when we each entrust our safety and health to our entire community — not merely a single for-profit entity.
We also will probably never know whether this issue was in hardware or software. The bug disclosure is incredibly vague, and it remains unclear how much investigation was done (if any) by government regulators into this problem. As a public policy and public health matter, the public deserves to know the technical details (software and hardware) of both the functioning device and the failed devices. NGOs should be permitted to perform their own investigations and confirmations of public safety.
Given that the hardware, software, and medical for-profit industries refuse to put the rights, safety and security of patients first, wrongful death lawsuits are typically the only way to hold these companies accountable. Yet, there are very few people who have not agreed Abbott's toxic terms of their proprietary companion application — I guestimate that fewer than 1% of Freestyle-using patients have used Juggluco from their very start (and thus never agreed to Abbott's terms). This is significant because Abbott includes a comprehensive one-way indemnity for themselves in the terms. I hope that a class action suit begins soon on this matter, but I wonder and worry that so much of the class may have signed this indemnity (which may make the road to justice bumpier).
Finally, I want to offer that if there is anyone out there who does tear-downs of extremely tiny electronic devices, I would be thrilled to find a volunteer who would like to see if we can either extract any software components from the device, or reverse-engineer the hardware. I have saved and sanitized all of my prior CGMs. I'd gladly send one along to anyone who wants to give a try at taking them apart. (Contact SFC or contact me on the Fediverse (via Mastodon) if you're available to do this work.)
For my part, I look forward (after the Vizio trial) to sending some patches to Juggluco and also getting Juggluco available in F-Droid. Our best option in the face of these powerful medical device companies curtailing our rights is to invest our volunteer time into the edges where FOSS has resiliently worked around the constant roadblocks erected by bad actors.
0My prior post about CGMs discussed the GPLv3'd Juggluco in more detail.
1 In a fascinating turn of events, at least one of my past monitors (of which I fortitously saved all the boxes with the lot/serial number on them) is listed in the FDA's spreadsheet as recalled lot, yet the serial number is listed as “ safe to use” on Abbott's webform 🤔 … I'm left wondering how I can trust Abbott to write reliable software stuck into my arm if they can't even write a web form that cross-references serial numbers to lots correctly 😬.
by on November 6, 2025
Our member project representatives and others who collaborate with SFC on projects know that I've been on part-time medical leave this year. As I recently announced publicly on the Fediverse, I was diagnosed in March 2025 with early-stage Type 2 Diabetes. I had no idea that that the diagnosis would become a software freedom and users' rights endeavor.
After the diagnosis, my doctor suggested immediately that I see the diabetes nurse-practitioner specialist in their practice. It took some time get an appointment with him, so I saw him first in mid-April 2025.
I walked into the office, sat down, and within minutes the specialist asked me to “take out your phone and install the Freestyle Libre app from Abbott”. This is the first (but, will probably not be the only) time a medical practitioner asked me to install proprietary software as the first step of treatment.
The specialist told me that in his experience, even early-stage diabetics like me should use a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM). CGM's are an amazing (relatively) recent invention that allows diabetics to sample their blood sugar level constantly. As we software developers and engineers know: great things happen when your diagnostic readout is as low latency as possible. CGMs lower the latency of readouts from 3–4 times a day to every five minutes. For example, diabetics can see what foods are most likely to cause blood sugar spikes for them personally. CGMs put patients on a path to manage this chronic condition well.
But, the devices themselves, and the (default) apps that control them are hopelessly proprietary. Fortunately, this was (obviously) not my first time explaining FOSS from first principles. So, I read through the license and terms and conditions of the ironically named “Freestyle Libre” app, and pointed out to the specialist how patient-unfriendly the terms were. For example, Abbott (the manufacturer of my CGM) reserves the right to collect your data (anonymously of course, to “improve the product”). They also require patients to agree that if they take any action to reverse engineer, modify, or otherwise do the normal things our community does with software, the patient must agree that such actions “constitute immediate, irreparable harm to Abbott, its affiliates, and/or its licensors”. I briefly explained to the specialist that I could not possibly agree. I began in real-time (still sitting with the specialist) a search for a FOSS solution.
As I was searching, the specialist said: “Oh, I don't use any of it myself, but I think I've heard of this ‘open source’ thing — there is a program called xDrip+ that is for insulin-dependent diabetics that I've heard of and some patients report it is quite good”.
While I'm (luckily) very far from insulin-dependency, I eventually found the FOSS Android app called Juggluco (a portmanteau for “Juggle glucose”). I asked the specialist to give me the prescription and I'd try Juggluco to see if it would work.
CGM (3.75cm Ø)
CGM's are very small and their firmware is (by obvious necessity) quite simple. As such, their interfaces are standard. CGM's are activated with Near Field Communication (NFC) — available on even quite old Android devices. The Android device sends a simple integer identifier via NFC that activates the CGM. Once activated — and through the 15-day life of the device — the device responds via Bluetooth with the patient's current glucose reading to any device presenting that integer.
Fortunately, I quickly discovered that the FOSS community was already “on this”. The NFC activation worked just fine, even on the recently updated “Freestyle Libre 3+”. After the sixty minute calibration period, I had a continuous readout in Juggluco.
Juggluco — 21-hour period
CGM's lower latency feedback enables diabetics to have more control of their illness management. one example among many: the patient can see (in real time) what foods most often cause blood sugar spikes for them personally. Diabetes hits everyone differently; data allows everyone to manage their own chronic condition better.
Juggluco — long period
My personal story with Juggluco will continue — as I hope (although not until after FOSDEM 2026 😆) to become an upstream contributor to Juggluco. Most importantly, I hope to help the app appear in F-Droid. (I must currently side-load or use Aurora Store to make it work on LineageOS.)
Fitting with the history that many projects that interact with proprietary technology must so often live through, Juggluco has faced surreptitious removal from Google's Play Store. Abbott even accused Juggluco of using their proprietary libraries and encryption methods, but the so-called “encryption method” is literally sending an single integer as part of NFC activation.
Juggluco's summary stastics
While Abbott backed off, this is another example of why the movement of patients taking control of the technology remains essential. FOSS fits perfectly with this goal. Software freedom gives control of technology to those who actually rely on it — rather than for-profit medical equipment manufacturers.
Juggluco's average graph
When I returned to my specialist for a follow-up, we reviewed the data and graphs that I produced with Juggluco. I, of course, have never installed, used, or even agreed to Abbott's licenses and terms, so I have never seen what the Abbott app does. I was thus surprised when I showed my specialist Juggluco's summary graphs. He excitedly told me “this is much better reporting than the Abbott app gives you!”. We all know that sometimes proprietary software has better and more features than the FOSS equivalent, so it's a particularly great success when our community efforts outdoes a wealthy 200 billion-dollar megacorp on software features!
Please do watch SFC's site in 2026 for more posts about my ongoing work with Juggluco, and please give generously as an SFC Sustainer to help this and our other work continue in 2026!
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