Jeremy Allison
2015-Nov-24 21:35 UTC
[Samba] Conservancy (home of Samba) needs support for GPL enforcement.
Hi all, You may not know, but The Software Freedom Conservancy is the legal home of the Samba project. However, most Linux-using corporations *really* hate GPL enforcement. To the point where they'll pull funding for diversity programs and try and get conference talks cancelled. I hope Samba users will help support Conservancy so it can continue doing vital work for us and other projects. Sorry for the slightly off-topic post, but Conservancy is the home of Samba. Thanks ! Jeremy. --------------------------------------------------------------- Supporter Drive: you can help save Conservancy's operations! Hi Supporters! We so appreciate your contributions to Conservancy and hope you will continue that support. Yesterday, we launched a very important fundraiser. Over the past year and in particular since we launched the VMware suit, *some of our corporate funding has been pulled because we tackle important but controversial issues, like GPL compliance*. We have even have had talks blocked or canceled at conferences. In order to ensure that we can continue our work, we must transition to a primarily individual-supported model. We will continue to seek corporate support, of course, and we're grateful for the corporate donors whose support has continued. But our constituency is the software freedom community, and that's where our support should ultimately come from. It's not enough for us to think that the work we do is right - a significant portion of the public must also agree and be willing to vote with their money. Without that support we simply cannot continue. The 10% that our Member Projects contribute doesn't cover even one staffer plus basic overhead. So please help with our campaign - there are a few ideas for how you can help at the bottom of this email. We have structured the campaign with two make-or-break levels: a lower level that will just sustain the organization for a 'bare minimum' service plan to our member projects, and a separate, higher level to continue doing copyleft enforcement. You can read more detail about all of this on our website: http://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ You, our existing Supporters already understand what we do (check out the list of this year's successes on the fundraising page http://sfconservancy.org/supporter/) and why it's important. A very high percentage of you are prominent contributors, speakers, writers and leaders in our community. While the number of Supporters we need to keep GPL enforcement going is high (2500), the goal would be easily reached if each of you were able to sign up just 10 other people as Supporters. We're still asking for only $10 per month. *How you can help* ================= Many people have never heard of Conservancy or don't know why we matter. As leaders in the field, you can help a lot with this. Here are a few ideas: * Blog Letting people know publicly why Conservancy is important and why you signed up as a Supporter would be amazing. Send me a link to the post so I can amplify your message through Conservancy's channels. * Microblog: A short message like one of the following would help a lot: Software freedom needs your help. I'm a #ConservancySupporter and you should sign up too. Let's make this happen! http://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ If you use software you're probably using at least one of @conservancy's member projects. Help support them now http://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ I care about ethical tech so am a #ConservancySupporter. They need 2500 Supporters to keep up their awesome work http://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ If you care about the GPL, you should sign up as a #ConservancySupporter right now. @conservancy needs help! http://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ * Follow us! If you use Twitter or pump.io for social networking, you can also follow @conservancy on Twitter or http://identi.ca/conservancy/ * Email your friends and colleagues encouraging them to sign up. A message like: I'm writing to ask for your support for an organization that I care about: Software Freedom Conservancy. It is having a critical fundraiser right now to support its work on the most important ethical issues in software freedom, because it needs the support of individual donors to continue. Conservancy is a unique organization: it is a staunch defender of copyleft (for Linux, Debian and other free and open source software projects), a source of education about important issues in free software, champions of community diversity via Outreachy, and the nonprofit home to over 30 member projects (including important and widely-used projects like git, samba, wine, inkscape, selenium, phpmyadmin, QEMU). Conservancy is funding and supporting the first lawsuit about derivative works of software. They won a DMCA exemption to legally permit circumvention of encryption on Smart TVs, ensuring that we are free to hack on the devices we legally own. They work with companies who are out of compliance with the GPL to find non-litigious resolutions to encourage them to join the free and open source software communities as contributors. They do all of this work with 3 full time employees. But it's not always popular work--and because their positions are not always aligned with the business practices of large companies, they can't count on corporate funding to sustain the organization, and are moving toward relying on the public: they need the support of individuals in the community whose work they exist to protect. I believe their work is important--I'm most passionate about [TOPIC], especially because [REASON], and I've pledged to be an individual supporter. I know [TOPIC] is important to you, too, and so I hope you'll consider supporting Conservancy [etc.] http://sfconservancy.org/supporter/ * Record a video. We've published a few videos recorded by our Supporters: http://sfconservancy.org/videos/carols-sfconservancy-supporter-2015.ogv http://sfconservancy.org/blog/2015/jan/30/Jono-video/ http://sfconservancy.org/blog/2014/dec/31/new-year-and-video/ We have a few more lined up as the campaign progresses but it would be great to see and hear from you in your own words why you are a Supporter! These videos can be short and to the point. * Renew Early! Finally, if you're an annual Supporter and would like to renew your annual Supporter dues early, you can simply visit https://sfconservancy.org/donate/ and donate $120 or more via any of those means. Just put in some notes field that it's for your annual Supporter contribution (and/or reply to this email and tell us you've done it). (We're planning to launch a formal renewal form in December.) Again, thank you so much for your support; we can't do it without you! Sincerely, -- Karen M. Sandler Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy
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