Software Freedom Conservancy @conservancy@mastodon.technology

Happy Saturday! We're excited to see everyone at @socallinuxexpo
this weekend!
Come learn what @conservancy
is up to and grab a sticker or three! #scale19x

Microsoft has (rightfully) reversed it's proposed policy of banning for-profit FOSS sales on its app store. Thanks to everyone who helped them to make the right decision and support developers making FOSS more available on Windows.

https://sfconservancy.org/news/2022/jul/18/foss-for-sale-in-ms-app-store/

The so-called “clones” problem in app stores is well studied in #FOSS policy circles. We took a moment to write up the basics of the trademark-based approach usually applied to build solutions for the problem: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/jul/11/app-store-clones-trademark-approach/

Heads up! #Microsoft is on track to ban all commercial activity by #FOSS projects on Microsoft Store in about a week! This is even worse than their (eventually repealed) 2011 ban on #copyleft for their app store! 😡️ We demand rollback of this new policy: https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/jul/07/microsoft-bans-commerical-open-source-in-app-store/

To read more about this effort see our blog post at https://sfconservancy.org/blog/2022/jun/30/give-up-github-launch/

Please join us and #GiveUpGitHub by visiting https://GiveUpGitHub.org/ and while you are still on #GitHub, adding information to your README that you do not agree with GitHub's policies and monopolized place in our community.

Over the coming months @conservancy will release guides and stories from projects that have moved away from GitHub. Let's shed light on the damage that is caused by centralizing community development on proprietary platforms.

Gratis resources often entice & trap FOSS developers into a proprietary gated community — the walled garden of @GitHub. Remember: FOSS faced similar before — triumphantly. We'll do so again if take action now to protect our communities.

We call on people in positions of power in their FOSS communities to stop using GitHub and stop recommending it. GitHub, as a proprietary, trade-secret platform cannot be the singular development community for FOSS projects.

We can no longer in good conscience stay silent about problems w/#GitHub's products. This latest effort to capitalize on the corpus of #copyleft code hosted on GitHub is merely the latest of their many ethical and moral lapses.

We tried to communicate w/ #GitHub re: #Copilot; they have outright refused to answer community questions on Copilot & took it for-profit. Copilot ignores copyleft requirements; so it's time to #GiveUpGitHub https://GiveUpGitHub.org

Today is the day to #GiveUpGitHub

Our Select Committee continues to think & consider deeply about users' rights in the advent of AI Programming Assistance Software, such as machine learning models trained on large codebases. More in the recent committee minutes: https://lists.copyleft.org/pipermail/ai-assist/2022-June/000015.html

We are sad to inform our community that Marina Zhurakhinskaya died on Saturday. Outreachy wouldn't exist without her dedication, which continued until her last day. https://sfconservancy.org/news/2022/jun/14/remembering-marina

We dive deep on #FOSS licensing & #GPL policy so you don't have to! Our Policy Fellow, Bradley M. Kuhn, and outside Director, Allison Randal ( @allison )
are debating and proposing solutions to problems in #Linux SPDX this week: https://lore.kernel.org/linux-spdx/Yp5kO61KTCpt0vDw@ebb.org/ https://lore.kernel.org/linux-spdx/87y1y8xrzx.fsf@ebb.org/ https://lore.kernel.org/linux-spdx/YqCsfqgO07BITgfU@ebb.org/

Have you been wondering what to do next as #Microsoft's
#GitHub
continues to ramp up their proprietary #CoPilot — ignoring the software rights implications of it? Join our public discussion; minutes from the Committee's meeting are posted for your review: https://lists.copyleft.org/pipermail/ai-assist/2022-May/000003.html

@clacke Does the video on our website not work fully with FOSS? We spend some time to make sure it should; we mainly put it on youtube for the benefit of Apple users whose systems don't support FOSS codecs fully.

@josias The original intention of the GPL is to defend users' rights to copy, modify, share, redistribute, and reinstall their software. We believe deeply in that philosophy and are the primary organization upholding it today through the use of copyleft enforcement.

Also, keep in mind copyleft is a tool, not a principle unto itself.

This is a win *not* just for @conservancy! This win indicates that federal courts view GPL is both a license and a contract — as we have long argued. The case now proceeds in state court.
Support this case and our work by becoming a Sustainer: https://sfconservancy.org/sustainer/

In the ruling, 👩‍⚖️ Staton stated “the enforcement of ‘an additional contractual promise separate & distinct from any rights provided by the copyright laws’ amounts to an ‘extra element,’ & ∴ SFC's claims are not preempted“ by federal copyright law https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.837808/gov.uscourts.cacd.837808.30.0.pdf