Mercurial Joins Software Freedom Conservancy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

  Mercurial Joins Software Freedom Conservancy, Retains Services of
		     Software Freedom Law Center

   Nonprofits to Support Popular Source Control Management Software

NEW YORK, September 19, 2006 -- The Software Freedom Conservancy, home
of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects, today announced that
it welcomes as its newest member Mercurial, a distributed source
management program which can be used to track revisions of software
during development.

By joining the Conservancy, Mercurial is entitled to all of the
benefits of being a corporate entity.  In particular, the
Conservancy's corporate form limits the personal liability of
individual developers and allows member projects to receive donations.

Founded in March 2006, the Conservancy allows developers of its member
FOSS projects to unite under a common organization which provides
much-needed administrative services to them, without charge.  This
structure spares each software project from the burden of starting and
maintaining its own independent nonprofit organization.

Although Mercurial's development began just over a year ago, many
projects, including Xen, One Laptop Per Child, and the Advanced Linux
Sound Architecture (ALSA), have already adopted Mercurial for their
revision control needs.

"The Mercurial developers are excited to have retained the services of
the Software Freedom Conservancy," said Matt Mackall, creator and lead
developer of Mercurial.  "With the Conservancy's support, we can focus
our own efforts on the development of Mercurial itself."

In addition to joining the Conservancy, the Mercurial team has
retained the full, direct services of the Software Freedom Law Center
(SFLC), which provides pro-bono legal services to Free and Open Source
Software projects.

"We're excited that Mercurial will join the Conservancy, and we look
forward to helping Mercurial remain in good legal standing," said Eben
Moglen, Executive Director of SFLC.


About the Software Freedom Conservancy

The Software Freedom Conservancy, founded by the Software Freedom Law
Center in March 2006, provides Free and Open Source Software
developers the benefits of being a nonprofit organization, without the
burden of excessive administrative work.  The Conservancy provides
free financial and administrative services for its member software
projects, allowing individual developers to focus their efforts on
writing software.

About Mercurial

Mercurial is a a fast, lightweight Source Control Management system
which can track revisions to software during development.  Developed
by a small team of developers since April 2005, Mercurial has been
adopted by many projects for revision control, including Xen, One
Laptop Per Child, and the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA).

About the Software Freedom Law Center

The Software Freedom Law Center -- chaired by Eben Moglen, one of the
world's leading experts on copyright law as applied to software --
provides legal representation and other law-related services to
protect and advance Free and Open Source Software.  The Law Center is
dedicated to assisting non-profit open source developers and projects.
For criteria on eligibility and to apply for assistance, please
contact the Law Center directly or visit the Web at
http://www.softwarefreedom.org.


Media contact:

Jim Garrison
Public Relations Coordinator
Software Freedom Law Center
+1-212-461-1910
garrison@softwarefreedom.org

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