FOSS Community Invited to Historic Copyleft Trial

Apply now for Selective Travel Grants to Attend Vizio trial in Third-Party Beneficiary Case

July 24, 2025

Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) welcomes applications from members of the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) community to attend the state court trial in the SFC v. Vizio case. The trial will take place in Santa Ana, Orange County, California from September 22–30, 2025. If you are interested, please follow the instructions below to apply for a travel grant to attend the trial. These grants are limited and will be awarded on a competitive basis.

SFC's competitive travel grant program is open to members of the FOSS community who wish to attend the Vizio trial. We specifically seek individuals with a proven track record of writing and publishing interesting online videos, podcasts, articles, blog posts, or on “social media” platforms about complex issues related to FOSS. Successful candidates will have documented experience explaining complex FOSS policy issues in an accessible manner to other enthusiasts who may not have the time available to follow the complexity.

Qualified individuals will receive paid travel expenses to attend and observe the Vizio trial at the Santa Ana Court House at 700 W Civic Center Dr, Santa Ana, CA 92701. The travel expenses will be subject to SFC's Travel Grant Policy. (Note under that policy, SFC can offer to pre-book airfare and hotel costs, but additional expenses are reimbursed on NET-30 terms after submission of the expenses.)

Applicants should submit their application via email to <travelforvizio@sfconservancy.org>. Successful applications should include the following information in English (and do note the word limit counts):

• Brief biography not to exceed 500 words.
• Brief essay — not to exceed 1,000 words — explaining your interest in copyleft, the Vizio case in particular, and your plans to document and publish information about the case before and during trial.
• Your location of origin for travel (including departure airport if you're planning on air travel).
• URLs linking to the following (no word limit on what's at the URLs themselves):
• three past publications about FOSS policy — including general statistics on engagement with those publications. (These can be any form, including but not limited to online videos, conference talk recordings, podcasts, “social media” threads, blog posts, articles, or longer-form publications.)
• a link to your CV or résumé.

There is no set number of travel grants that SFC will provide; these will be given on a competitive basis to qualified candidates. Candidates will be evaluated, and travel grants granted, on a rolling basis starting on Thursday, July 31, 2025 at 23:59:59 (Anywhere on Earth (AoE time) ). Applications are still welcome after that time, but after that datetime, applications will be evaluated on a rolling basis.

While we welcome applications from established journalists, policy analysts, and authors, we also welcome applications from individuals for whom this will be their first time writing about a live policy event or court case. We welcome applications — for example — from law students who would like a unique opportunity to witness the legal aspects of copyleft first-hand.