Conservancy and FSF announce copyleft.org

[Bradley M. Kuhn]

URLs Related to this Announcement:
  Conservancy Announcement: https://sfconservancy.org/news/2014/nov/07/copyleft-org/
  FSF Announcement:         http://fsf.org/news/software-freedom-conservancy-and-free-software-foundation-announce-copyleft.org
  Copyleft.org:             https://copyleft.org
  Pristine CCS Example:     http://copyleft.guide/pristine-example/
  Announcement on Twitter:  https://twitter.com/conservancy/status/530759451989786624
  Pump.io/Identi.ca:        https://identi.ca/conservancy/note/qSdiuSFaRuqrqO5lULbNZg
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               Conservancy and FSF announce copyleft.org
      Copyleft Guide Now Includes a Pristine CCS Example Analysis

Software Freedom Conservancy and the Free Software Foundation announce
today an ongoing public project that began in early 2014: *Copyleft and
the GNU General Public License: A Comprehensive Tutorial and Guide*, and
the publication of that project in its new home on the Internet at
copyleft.org.  This new site will not only provide a venue for those who
constantly update and improve the Comprehensive Tutorial, but is also
now home to a collaborative community to share and improve information
about copyleft licenses (especially the GNU General Public License
(GPL)) and best compliance practices for those licenses.

Bradley M. Kuhn, President and Distinguished Technologist of Software
Freedom Conservancy and member of FSF's Board of Directors, currently
serves as editor-in-chief of the project. The text has already grown to
100 pages discussing all aspects of copyleft — including policy
motivations, detailed study of the license texts, and compliance
issues. This tutorial was initially constructed from materials that Kuhn
developed on a semi-regular basis over the last eleven years. Kuhn
merged this material, along with other material regarding the GPL
published by the FSF, into a single, coherent volume, and released it
publicly for the benefit of all users of Free Software.

Today, Conservancy announces a specific, new contribution: an additional
chapter to the Case Studies in GPL Enforcement section of the
tutorial. This new chapter, co-written by Kuhn and Conservancy's
Compliance Engineer, Denver Gingrich, discusses in detail the analysis
of a complete, corresponding source (CCS) release for a real-world
electronics product, and describes the process that Conservancy and the
FSF use to determine whether a CCS candidate indeed complies with the
requirements of the GPL. The CCS analyzed is for ThinkPenguin's
TPE-NWIFIROUTER wireless router, which was recently given FSF's
prestigious Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification..

This copyleft guide itself is freely distributed under copyleft, using
the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license,
the primary copyleft license used for works of textual authorship in
natural languages. Kuhn, who hopes the initial release and this
subsequent announcement will inspire others to contribute to the guide,
stated: "information about copyleft — such as why it exists, how it
works, and how to comply — should be freely available and modifiable,
just as all generally useful technical information should. I am
delighted to impart my experience with copyleft freely. I hope, however,
that other key thinkers in the field of copyleft will contribute to help
produce the best reference documentation on copyleft available."

Particularly useful are the substantial contributions already made to
the guide from the FSF itself. As the author, primary interpreter, and
ultimate authority on the GPL, the FSF is in a unique position to
provide insights into understanding free software licensing. While the
guide as a living text will not automatically reflect official FSF
positions, the FSF has already approved and published one version for
use at its Seminar on GPL Enforcement and Legal Ethics in March
2014. John Sullivan, Executive Director of the FSF, noted, "Participants
at our licensing seminar in March commented positively on the high
quality of the teaching materials, including the comprehensive guide to
GPL compliance. We look forward to collaborating with the copyleft.org
community to continually improve this resource, and we will periodically
review particular versions for FSF endorsement and publication."

Enthusiastic new contributors can get immediately involved by visiting
and editing the main wiki on copyleft.org, or by submitting merge
requests on copyleft.org's gitorious site for the guide, or by joining
the project mailing list and IRC channel.

copyleft.org welcomes all contributors. The editors have already
incorporated other freely licensed documents about GPL and compliance
with copyleft licenses — thus providing a central location for all such
works. Furthermore, the project continues to recruit contributors who
have knowledge about other copyleft licenses besides FSF's GPL family of
licenses. In particular, Mike Linksvayer, member of Conservancy's board
of directors, has agreed to lead the drafting on a section about
Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike licenses to mirror the ample
text already available on GPL. Linksvayer noted: "I'm glad to bring my
knowledge about the Creative Commons copyleft licenses as a contribution
to improve further this excellent tutorial text, and I hope that
copyleft.org as a whole can more generally become a central location to
collect interesting ideas about copyleft policy."


About copyleft.org

copyleft.org is a collaborative project to create and disseminate useful
information, tutorial material, and new policy ideas regarding all forms
of copyleft licensing. Its primary project is currently a comprehensive
tutorial and guide, which describes the policy motivations for copyleft
exists, presentes a detailed analysis of the text of various copyleft
licenses, and gives examples and case studies of copyleft compliance
situations.


About Software Freedom Conservancy

Software Freedom Conservancy is a not-for-profit organization that
promotes, improves, develops and defends Free, Libre and Open Source
software projects. Conservancy is home more than thirty software
projects, each supported by a dedicated community of volunteers,
developers and users. Conservancy's projects include some of the most
widely used software systems in the world across many application areas,
including educational software deployed in schools around the globe,
embedded software systems deployed in most consumer electronic devices,
distributed version control developer tools, integrated library services
systems, and widely used graphics and art programs. A full list of
Conservancy's member projects is available. Conservancy provides these
projects with the necessary infrastructure and not-for-profit support
services to enable each project's communities to focus on what they do
best: creating innovative software and advancing computing for the
public's benefit.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting
computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute
computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as
in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its
GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF
also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of
freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org
and gnu.org, are an important source of information about
GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at
https://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.


Media Contacts

Conservancy:
Karen M. Sandler <info at sfconservancy.org>
Executive Director, Software Freedom Conservancy
+1-212-461-3245

FSF:
Joshua Gay <licensing at fsf.org>
Licensing & Compliance Manager, Free Software Foundation
+1-617-542-5942
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