Use The Source

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Software Freedom Conservancy works for your right to repair and modify the software on your devices. Use The Source shows you how we evaluate the source code candidates companies must provide for GPLed software. Join us as we highlight common issues in source candidates, and what companies need to do to fix them. Check out the options below, or subscribe to our mailing list to participate in the public discussion on these candidates.

Submit a Candidate

One crucial way to get involved is to let us know about any source candidates you find! Many devices have an offer for source code (check the manual or device's user interface to find it) and we'd be very interested to know what they send you when you request it. Here are the steps to submit a new source candidate to list on this page:

find a source candidate offered by a company - normally this is offered to you in the manual or user interface of your device, through a link or email address (the company's GitHub page is not canonical, unless they explicitly say so in this offer). If you're curious what an offer is, check out the PDFs referenced in our submission to the FTC, and submit a picture/image of a new offer so we can test it for you if you like
upload the source candidate to us - write down the file name(s) you uploaded for the next step (can be multiple), and upload a firmware image if you have it and are ok with us publishing it
email us at compliance@sfconservancy.org with the following details:
Subject: candidate to add: [brand/model] manufacturer/brand of device: model number of device: version number of software on device (if applicable): filename(s) of source candidate: filename(s) of firmware image (if applicable): how the firmware image was acquired (if applicable): [direct from device? download page URL?] text of the offer for source (usually required): [write it out, or attach a screenshot/picture] where the source or offer for source was found: [manual in box? CD? web page adjacent to firmware download?]
wait 😀 we will respond and/or post your candidate here, within about 7 days

There are many other ways you can help, regardless of whether you're a developer or not - see our Help Defend Software Freedom and Rights page for details!

Source Candidates List

To join the public discussion of these candidates, please subscribe to our ccs-review mailing list. We re-post especially notable email replies from this community mailing list in the candidate comments, alongside SFC and other official Use The Source comments on each candidate's page linked below. A "round" indicates how many times we've received new candidates for a given device/firmware - if the round is "of N" it means we don't know how many rounds will be needed before we receive a compliant source candidate for the device/firmware.

ThinkPenguin TPE-R1300 round 1 of 1

Released May 11, 2023

This candidate is an image of the CD that is provided in the box alongside the TPE-R1300. Note that in addition to being confirmed as the firmware running on the device, the binary firmware image is also available inside the source CD, in the bin folder.