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by on January 9, 2026
We at Software Freedom Conservancy are disappointed at some surprising news. Yesterday (THU 2026-01-08), we had a 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 this Monday 12 January 2025) from her calendar.
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 next 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.
Right now, our only item scheduled with the Court is the rescheduled pretrial hearing at 09:00 (US/Pacific) on the morning of Monday 26 January 2026. We'll spend the next two 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 September 3, 2025
You may have heard that Google will be limiting sideloading in the next few months, which is likely to be enforced through Google Play Services, something that runs on virtually all Android phones. Google plans include blocking sideloading of apps where the developer has not shown their ID to Google. Many people have been asking us how they can support app developers who will not or cannot be involved in a Google-run identity verification program.
In particular, we've been increasingly hearing that Android users want to remove their dependence on Google, for this and many other reasons, including the tracking and surveillance that come with using Google Play Services and other Google apps. As a result, we will be hosting a Q&A session this week, in conjunction with folks from F-Droid, to discuss how to best remove proprietary Google code from your phone, and ensure that you control how your phone operates, and which apps can run on it (and from whom).
We will cover the basics of which Google apps and other code you might be using, which of that you can remove while maintaining the use cases you have for your phone, and how to adapt use cases to potentially further reduce reliance on other non-free tools that prevent you from using your phone as you wish.
Among other options, we'll talk about how to use LineageOS on your phone, or another phone you might have already, what you can expect from alternate OSes in general, and how you can keep doing what you need, while giving yourself more control over what you can do in the future. Alongside participants from F-Droid, we will also discuss the F-Droid project, which hosts free apps that provide alternatives for non-free apps from Google Play, as well as classifying apps by how your data is handled, so you can maintain as much say over your privacy and freedom as possible.
We're excited to chat about how to improve your phone experience through the tools and expertise that software right to repair enthusiasts have created to ensure your phone and what you do on it is truly in your own hands!
by on January 16, 2025
In late November, SFC, with the help of a group of generous individuals who pledged match gifts large and small, posted a huge challenge to our donors. We were so thankful for the donors who came together to offer others a match challenge of $204,877 — which was substantially larger than any of our match challenges in history.
Donors heard our ask, and we were even more thankful of all the donors who responded. Toward the end, we were so overwhelmed by last minute response that we were tabulating updates by hand. We saw so many donors who had already given coming in for another $10, $50 or $100 to get us there. We made the match primarily because of the hundreds of small donors who came in with Sustainer amounts, and we thank those small donors so much for often doing a bit extra: so many of you hit the $512 and even the $1024 button instead of the minimum of $128. It means so much to us when we see a donor who gave $128 in 2023 double their donation for 2024 — you all made this match challenge succeed. We also so appreciate the donors who, despite experiencing financial challenges, gave smaller amounts when it was a stretch for them to give at all.
Most surprising of all, an anonymous donor who in the past has made a very large donation around the time of FOSDEM came in early this year. That donation bursts us right through our status bar and puts us well over. We've raised over $475,000 this season, which is now reflected on our fundraiser status bar. (We're still tabulating and entering the paper checks and ACH/wire transactions that came during the final days of the fundraiser, so the number may soon increase even more!)
We are truly humbled. Every year, our staff is working tirelessly through the holiday season to make sure we balance our work and fundraising. Every dollar you all give us is noticed and appreciated, and gets us there, step by step.
SFC does receive some grants and corporate sponsorship for which we are also grateful, but the bulk of our funding comes from individual donors, like you. Fundraising is (sometimes annoyingly) mandatory work that as a small staff we must do in addition to our normal work. Nevertheless, it's a simple fact that the more you donate, the more program activity we can do. In essence, you make our important work for software freedom and rights.
by on January 15, 2025
Our Executive Director Karen Sandler recently sat down with Cory Doctorow to talk about software right to repair, the utility and history of DMCA exemptions, and some of the differences between the way laws take effect in different places around the world. Doctorow is widely known for his speculative fiction touching on issues of technology, activism, and post-scarcity economics. We were so excited for this conversation, many on SFC staff are fans and had a great time preparing for the conversation.
Covering a range of topics, it was great to hear from Cory about how proprietary platforms can actually lead to conversations with loved ones about interoperability. Of particular note was a discussion about the similarities to the accessibility rights movement. Interoperability and accessibility are fundamental rights that technology should empower us to have, but often times we need to advocate and fight for those rights.
If you run out of things you can do with code, there's nothing wrong with mounting a big normative campaign. If the norms aren't doing it for you...
With a good appreciation of history combined with a forward looking eye Doctorow's unique perspective sheds light on how the free software movement can be more open to availing itself to the wider public. We look forward to a future where more people are brought into the conversations and issues that today's technology forces us to reckon with.
Karen talked about the potential of software freedom and in particular the opportunities inherent in all copyleft licenses to completely change the way ordinary people experience technology that impacts them. She talked about the concrete and incremental work Software Freedom Conservancy does to move the needle towards ethical technology.
Thanks to Cory for sitting down with Karen and having a great conversation that we hope inspires you as much as us to look to the future with eagerness and energy for change!
PS: Today is the last day of our fundraiser, so if you like content like this, please donate now to support us in making things like this happen!
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