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Conservancy Blog
Displaying posts by Karen Sandler
"Anyone???"
by on August 24, 2021
We often talk about how frustrating it is to obtain source code that is supposed to be available under copyleft licenses. We not only try to get source code for our own devices, but we also are inundated with requests from developers all over the world who seek source code to modify their technology in ways they should have a right to do. By the time someone sends a complaint to us, asking for our help, they've already tried and failed to ask the company to do the right thing. Usually they are simply ignored by the company but sometimes companies introduce all kinds of weird procedures in the hopes that if they make it just difficult enough that the requestors will go away.
We've seen these obstacles include all kinds of unreasonable forms, beyond a simple email address to make the request. A common requirement is that the request be sent to a particular paper address, by registered mail, and we've even seen the company specify particular kind of storage device to be included in the mailing. Companies erroneously try to require that requestors include personal information, including detailed information on the device and its purchase. It's hard work, but we're proud that we continue to apply pressure to these companies and never give up our quest to make sure everyone follows the rules so that developers can have access to the software on their devices that the GPL ensures. It also often feels like lonely work. But not today.DevOps Engineer, ptrcnull (Patrycja), tweeted last week about a frustrating email she received from Umidigi, a Chinese smartphone manufacturer, which told her that if she wanted access to the source code she was rightfully requesting under GPLv2, she needed to come in person to Umidigi's offices in Shenzhen. And that (by the way) the office was only Chinese speaking.
Luckily, one of ptrcnull's followers, looped in Naomi Wu, a well known Chinese maker and hacker, who decided to go down to Umudigi's offices and take them up on the offer.
As a Cyborg Lawyer who spends a good portion of her time trying to compel GPL compliance, I nearly flipped watching Wu (who calls herself Sexy Cyborg) marching into Umidigi trying to find anyone who could help her get the source code. It's the physical manifestation of the kafkaesque experience that companies set up for those exercising their rights under GPL. I couldn't believe it when I clicked on it from a link in a mastodon toot from Harald Welte, who has also done quite a bit of GPL enforcement over the years.
Here's the video:
While Wu managed to get to Umidigi's offices in mere days from when the email was sent to push off ptrcnll, she's told that the person who wrote the email, Ben, is no longer with the company.
I look forward to seeing the full video, and have offered our assistance. I'm grateful to ptrcnull and Wu for doing this work and I'm happy to work on GPL enforcement myself, but it makes me wonder: How much could we accomplish if companies did what they were supposed to do? What would it look like if companies were true partners in compliance and encouraged their customers to tinker with their devices? How many people try to make source requests and give up when it's difficult? If we've been able to accomplish so much with copyleft, even in the face of corporate stonewalling, imagine what we could do if we could skip all of these tedious steps and get straight to collaborating.
On the Recent Announcement by FSF's Board of Directors
by on March 23, 2021
In response to Sunday's announcement by the Free Software Foundation, we ceased our few remaining activities that intersect directly with the FSF. Most notably, our Outreachy member project exited the FSF from participating in that program — both through mentorship and sponsorship. One project participant in Outreachy's May 2021 round planned to rely on FSF funding. We will not accept those funds from the FSF, and instead Conservancy will pay for that intern ($6,500) from our own general funds. It is my deepest hope that these actions, along with others all over the FOSS community, will catalyze much needed changes at the FSF.
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 everything 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."
Q: How did you first get interested in software freedom?
A: I first got interested when I read the GNU Manifesto, back in the late 1980's. I don't know if was the "Astroid Mining" part that took my fancy, but it seemed like the right thing to do as learned in primary school - "Sharing is good !".
Also I grew up in the UK at a time where there was a great diversity of computing platforms many of which encouraged hacking. There was even a laptop that ran Forth as it's primary language rather than BASIC ! The spirit of wanting to be able to understand and work on the code that runs our lives never left me.
Q: How did you get started with Samba and why did Samba join Conservancy?
A: I was the person who submitted the first patch to Andrew Tridgell's (tridge) project (smbserver) that became Samba. I never looked back after that. I have to be honest, but Samba joined Conservancy because neither tridge or I wanted anything to do with non-technical things, and Conservancy seemed the easiest and lazyist way of getting other people to do these things. I now know that's not true, but it seemed a good idea at the time :-).
You've been on the board of Conservancy for a long time - what's that like?
A: The people who contribute to it are what make Conservancy. I know the projects are great, but the staff and other Board members are *AMAZING* ! It's an education and a privilage working with them. I love helping out and I hope to be able to do so for a long time to come.
Q: Why do you think people should contribute to Conservancy?
A: Conservancy's work has never been more important. More and more computing platforms are moving to locked down, proprietary code (sadly sometimes even based on top of Free Software).
The right to understand, to learn, to tinker and modify the code that runs all of our lives has never been under more risk. Please help conservancy do its vital work of continuing to fight for the freedoms I took for granted in my youth.
If we lose them, we'll all be the poorer for it !
Software Freedom Conservancy is in the final days of its annual fundraiser. Please help us continue our work by becoming a Supporter. Donate now and have your donation matched by a group of generous individuals who care deeply about software freedom.Your donation could push us over the top to meet our goal!
