Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 26, 2015 4:21 UTC (Thu) by pabs (subscriber, #43278)
In reply to: Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser by anonymous1
Parent article: Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Looks like these people dropped their funding for SFC:

http://appendto.com/
http://linuxfoundation.org/

Source:

https://web.archive.org/web/20150515144759/http://sfconse...
https://web.archive.org/web/20150905143819/http://sfconse...

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Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 26, 2015 4:58 UTC (Thu) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

If any of you work for any of these companies, you might consider talking to your bosses about switching from funding LF to funding SFC. Alternatively, perhaps your bosses could talk to the LF board.

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/about/members

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 26, 2015 14:46 UTC (Thu) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link]

Disclosure: I have no affiliation with SFC except that I joined as a supporter

Appendto seems to have gone though an acquisition and the old CEO is not working there anymore, I guess that they are gone because because of usual business decisions.

> http://linuxfoundation.org/

On the other hand Linux Foundation has no excuse dropping funding for SFC because of GPL enforcement. Shame on them. Let us remind ourselves that they are not a charity, but that they are a "consortium" whose goal is the profits of their corporate members and not the benefit of the public.

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 26, 2015 22:33 UTC (Thu) by airlied (subscriber, #9104) [Link]

Should be interesting to see how thing play out if one of the members of LF is found to be a GPL violator on a major scale.

Maybe LF should be more like the BSA and do audit of it's members :-P

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 26, 2015 23:09 UTC (Thu) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]

Cough!

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 27, 2015 14:32 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

This is starting to look like a systematic problem, if a longtime and widely-known violator is allowed to join and then LF chokes off funding because of pressure from another member that is a probable violator.

LF: threat or menace?

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 27, 2015 4:44 UTC (Fri) by jra (subscriber, #55261) [Link]

Ahem. VMware is a LinuxFoundation member.

http://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/announcements/2...

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 27, 2015 21:20 UTC (Fri) by airlied (subscriber, #9104) [Link]

They are however not yet a proven GPL violator.

Time will tell.

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 29, 2015 8:51 UTC (Sun) by pbonzini (subscriber, #60935) [Link]

Right, but they definitely have a vested interest in LF not supporting Conservancy. Lawsuits are expensive even if you are 100% in the right.

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 28, 2015 10:07 UTC (Sat) by njs (guest, #40338) [Link]

If the Linux Foundation has become actively pro-GPL-violation then that's... disturbingly plausible, but outrageous enough that it would be really nice to get more confirmation beyond diffing archive.org snapshots. I really hope people will press them (= LF) to clarify this one way or another.

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 28, 2015 14:59 UTC (Sat) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

I contacted them on their IRC channel on Freenode and asked info@ and a couple of CII people about it, no response thus far.

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Dec 3, 2015 1:18 UTC (Thu) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]

One CII person isn't happy about this and is talking to other LF folks about it.

On funding types and sources

Posted Nov 30, 2015 15:39 UTC (Mon) by bkuhn (subscriber, #58642) [Link]

While speculating about “who did what” is intriguing politics, I fundamentally believe that the most relevant story here is that it's just better for a charity like Conservancy to receive support primarily by individuals of the public at large. It's really the best way to fund a charity and we at Conservancy would like to get there. That's why we launched this fundraiser.

On the issues discussed in this thread, I won't comment at this time specifically on which Conservancy sponsors ceased contributing and why.

But, more generally and based on my extensive charity fundraising experience since 1999, I can confirm that for-profit and trade association funding for charities is always fickle, even in the best of times. Individual support is much more resilient. After all, a charity serves the public, not companies, so ultimately companies can often find more lucrative investments for their money than via donations to charities.

But that's almost beside the point. The money belongs to them. Professional charity fundraisers often prefer the term “gifts” to “donations”. It's a good phrase because it reminds us that no one is obligated to give a gift. A gift is usually an unexpected surprise that the receiver appreciates. If someone gives you a gift then doesn't give you another gift the following year, maybe it means they don't like you anymore, or maybe they've had a bad year financially and can't afford gifts this year. It's unfair to judge without clear evidence.

— Bradley M. Kuhn, President, Software Freedom Conservancy

On funding types and sources

Posted Nov 30, 2015 21:34 UTC (Mon) by anonymous1 (guest, #41963) [Link]

Thank You for your clear explanation of why the public should support charities.

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 27, 2015 9:37 UTC (Fri) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link]

The Linux Foundation fund Eric Raymond to... say racist shit on the internet, or whatever it is he does these days, but not the SFC?

What an odd set of priorities.

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 27, 2015 22:32 UTC (Fri) by flussence (subscriber, #85566) [Link]

Seems like money well invested in self-preservation: http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6918

But perhaps you're already aware of that whistleblowing article and are one of those evil people being exposed, trying to bury it with diversionary shouting down, hm?

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 28, 2015 1:24 UTC (Sat) by rodgerd (guest, #58896) [Link]

Sure, and aliens built the pyramids.

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 28, 2015 23:01 UTC (Sat) by AdamRichter (guest, #11129) [Link]

Thank you for that eye opening link.

"Our open source community prioritizes marginalized people’s safety over privileged people’s comfort. We will not act on complaints regarding: ‘Reverse’ -isms, including ‘reverse racism,’ ‘reverse sexism,’ and ‘cisphobia’ [...]" -- from http://todogroup.org/opencodeofconduct/ on 2015-11-28, and apparently adopted by GitHub.com, if I correctly undersand https://github.com/blog/2039-adopting-the-open-code-of-co... .

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 28, 2015 23:20 UTC (Sat) by bronson (guest, #4806) [Link]

The Open Code of Conduct went a little haywire... Atom has since switched to the Contributor Covenant. Here's a start to an awful lot of mostly skippable discussion: https://github.com/atom/atom/issues/8206

I'm not sure what GitHub itself is doing but, considering how little of GitHub is open source, it probably doesn't matter at all.

Software Freedom Conservancy Launches 2015 Fundraiser

Posted Nov 29, 2015 3:17 UTC (Sun) by flussence (subscriber, #85566) [Link]

The timing of that decision is a pity. They probably had it planned out already, but only made the announcement after a venomous troll who's seemingly omnipresent in every drama thread on GitHub showed up to demand it; now their decision will probably end up being used as ammunition by him against another project.

Correction

Posted Nov 29, 2015 5:05 UTC (Sun) by CChittleborough (subscriber, #60775) [Link]

(@ rodgerd 9:37 UTC) Let me fix that for you:

The Linux Foundation's Core Infrastructure Initiative funds a bunch of people including Eric Raymond to update Dave Mill's implementation of the Network Time Protocol.

That seems to me to be a very set of priorities, unlike (for instance) delivering a drive-by defamation on a website where we really Do Not Want flame wars.

Correction to the correction

Posted Nov 30, 2015 9:48 UTC (Mon) by CChittleborough (subscriber, #60775) [Link]

Bah. That should read “That seems to me to be a very sensible set of priorities ...”.