Surf Wiki
Save to docs
general/501-c-3-organizations

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

Software Freedom Conservancy

Non-profit organization

Non-profit organization

FieldValue
nameSoftware Freedom Conservancy, Inc.
logo[[File:Software Freedom Conservancy logo.svg150pxalt=Logo: drawing of a tree whose upper branches include a tree data structure]]
typeNonprofit organization
status[501(c)(3)](501-c-3)
founded_date
locationNew York City, United States
key_people{{plainlist
revenue$2,970,607
revenue_year2020
homepage
  • Karen Sandler (executive director)
  • Bradley M. Kühn (policy fellow and hacker-in-residence)

Software Freedom Conservancy, Inc. (also known as "Conservancy") is an American non-profit organization that provides infrastructure and legal support for free and open-source software projects. The organization was established in 2006, and as of June 2022, had over 40 member projects.

History

In 2007, Conservancy started coordinating GNU General Public License compliance and enforcement actions, primarily for the BusyBox project.

In October 2010, Conservancy hired its first executive director, Bradley M. Kühn{{Cite web | access-date = October 7, 2011 | access-date = May 30, 2012 | access-date = May 30, 2012 | access-date = April 17, 2014

In February 2015, the Outreachy program (formerly the Free and Open Source Software Program for Women) announced that it was moving from The GNOME Project to become part of Conservancy.

By July 2015, Conservancy had reached 30 member projects, including QEMU, Boost, BusyBox, Git, Inkscape, Samba, Sugar Labs and Wine.{{cite web |access-date = February 2, 2015

In May 2016, Yorba Foundation assigned the copyrights of the projects it developed to Conservancy, including Shotwell, Geary, Valencia, and gexiv2.

In November 2017, Conservancy reported that the Software Freedom Law Center had demanded the invalidation of the SFC's trademark.

In June 2022, in reaction to the GitHub Copilot licensing controversy, Conservancy introduced their "Give Up GitHub" campaign. The campaign urged open source developers to move away from GitHub to Codeberg or SourceHut, or to self-hosted platforms.

Litigation

Main article: BusyBox#GPL lawsuits

In July 2010, Conservancy announced it had prevailed in court against Westinghouse Digital, receiving an injunction as part of a default judgement.

In March 2015, Conservancy announced it was funding litigation by Christoph Hellwig against VMware for violation of his copyrights in its ESXi product. The case was taken up by the district court of Hamburg, Germany, where it was dismissed on procedural grounds, and then the same on appeal. Since by that point VMware was about to remove the copyleft material from its product for reasons unrelated to the litigation, Hellwig decided not to appeal further.

References

References

  1. Roberts, Ken Schwencke, Mike Tigas, Sisi Wei, Alec Glassford, Andrea Suozzo, Brandon. (2013-05-09). "Software Freedom Conservancy Inc - Nonprofit Explorer".
  2. "Current Projects".
  3. Phipps. (2012-06-01). "Why the GPL licensing cops are the good guys". Infoworld.
  4. Bhati, Monika. (April 1, 2014). "Karen Sandler resigns as GNOME Foundation's executive director". Muktware.
  5. (February 4, 2015). "Outreach Program to Join Conservancy from GNOME; Program Renames to Outreachy".
  6. (May 10, 2016). "Yorba Assigns Shotwell and Geary Copyrights to Software Freedom Conservancy".
  7. "SFLC Files Bizarre Legal Action Against Its Former Client". Software Freedom Conservancy.
  8. "Open-source civil war: Olive branch offered in trademark spat... with live grenade attached".
  9. (2022-06-29). "Give Up Github!".
  10. Claburn, Thomas. (2022-06-30). "Open source body quits GitHub, urges you to do the same". [[The Register]].
  11. "Conservancy Receives Default Judgment For BusyBox GPL Enforcement". Software Freedom Conservancy.
  12. "Conservancy Announces Funding for GPL Compliance Lawsuit". Software Freedom Conservancy.
  13. (March 5, 2015). "VMware heads to court over GPL violations". InfoWorld.
  14. (March 4, 2019). "VMware's Update to Mr. Hellwig's Legal Proceedings". VMware.
  15. "VMware Suit Concludes in Germany". Software Freedom Conservancy.
Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

501(c)(3)-organizations free-and-open-source-software-organizations non-profit-organizations-based-in-new-york-city organizations-established-in-2006 fiscal-sponsorship-organizations
Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about Software Freedom Conservancy — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report