The Licensing and Compliance Lab manages the Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification program to help you find retailers you can trust.
The Free Software Foundation’s (FSF) Licensing and Compliance Lab
is the guardian of the GNU General Public License (GPL), which
has brought software freedom to the world since 1989. As stewards of
the GPL and the rest of the GNU family of licenses, we must continue
our work to protect and extend computer user freedom, but the team
needs your help.
As of today, we are 154 members in on our way to our goal of welcoming
500 new associate members before December 31st. New members are
critical to the cause, and and for the licensing team's ability to
provide a solid foundation for the free software movement. As is the
case with any social movement, the numbers matter, and joining the FSF
is a very powerful gesture that you can make for only $10 a month ($5
if you are a student). Please support the work that gives hope for a
future with software freedom: make a donation or -- better yet
-- join us and become a member today.
Everyone involved in the free software movement has their own story of
the journey they took to get there. Whether it was a friend who
introduced them to a cool game, a piece of software that made their
life easier, or a professor who taught them the power of sharing and
improving tools, everyone's story starts somewhere. Here at the FSF
Licensing and Compliance Lab, we've heard so many of these stories,
because our work is built into the paths that many take towards
software freedom. We wanted to take this moment to share how these
stories may proceed, how our team helps free software activists and
enthusiasts on their way, and how you can help.
Finding free software
For many people, the path towards software freedom begins with a
single program. They may not even know what free software is; they may
just need a tool or a program to do a particular job. But in their
search for that tool, the Free Software Directory, which is one
of the key resources run by the Licensing and Compliance Lab, can
often be a starting point for a much larger journey.
The Directory catalogues over 16,000 free software packages. Users can
find free software packages for almost any activity, from playing
games and reading books, to software libraries and developer
tools. Every entry in the Directory is meticulously vetted by
volunteers and FSF staff to ensure that users have the freedom to run,
modify, copy, and share their modified versions of the work. Millions
of users have visited the Directory looking for a particular piece of
software, and upon finding it, have been introduced to the wider world
of software freedom.
While the Directory already acts as a great starting point for many on
their free software journey, there's so much more we can still do. We
want to make it easier for people, once introduced to free software,
to likewise help introduce others. We need resources and financial
support for staff in order to organize and mentor volunteers to help
us keep those thousands of entries up to date, and to write code to
automate various kinds of imports and entry updates to help keep
everything current, and so we can add thousands more.
The Directory is one of the best tools that we have for showing what
is possible with free software, but we need your help to reach
millions more.
Using, sharing, and modifying free software
Once users have found the package they're looking for, the next step
on their path is using that software. And while with proprietary
software, that begins and ends with running the work on a single
machine, with free software, there's so much more that they can
do. They can share the packages they love with their friends,
spreading freedom as they go. They can use free software tools and
libraries to make their own free software, or modify existing packages
and likewise share those modifications.
Being able to take that next step requires that we preserve and expand
the legal framework that guarantees them the right to do those
things. And the Licensing and Compliance Lab is there to help them,
each step of the way. We offer resources on free software licensing
like the GNU General Public License FAQ. We answer questions
from the community about how free licenses work and interact with one
another. We write articles, speak at events, and even put on
Continuing Legal Education (CLE) courses.
It doesn't stop there. Even when users come to learn about their
rights under free software licenses, we still have to remain vigilant
to ensure that those rights are respected. Software freedom means
little if malicious developers can just ignore it and restrict
users. So we work tirelessly to protect software freedom under our
Principles of Community-Oriented GPL Enforcement, established
jointly by the FSF and Software Freedom Conservancy. Users frequently
discover that a lot more of the software they use is actually free
software, but locked within proprietary packages and devices. We take
reports from users of violations on GNU Project packages, and work
with violators to help bring back those users' rights.
Even with all this work that we do educating and protecting free
software users, there's so much more to be done. We are constantly
confronting new licenses, new laws, and new companies trying to
manipulate free software into tools of control. There's also so many
new users or potential users that we need to reach. We need to expand
and improve our licensing resources, in order to make sure no one gets
stopped on their journey towards software freedom.
Using a fully free system
Once a user is excited to use and share free software, the next step
on their path towards software freedom is often switching to a fully
free system. They don't just want a few free software packages, they
want the whole shebang. And the Licensing and Compliance Lab is there
once again to help, with our list of endorsed fully free
distributions and our Respects Your Freedom (RYF)
certification program.
Our endorsed distributions program helps users find complete systems
that they can install on their own computer, so that they know that
every piece of software and documentation that comes with or is
recommended by that system will be free. We work with volunteers to
review these distributions, and handle any reports of freedom
issues that may arise.
When it's time for a user to find some new hardware to run all their
free software, RYF is there to help them find retailers that they can
trust. Each retailer in the certification program goes through a
rigorous application process where we review not only the software and
hardware they deliver to users, but also the Web sites they use to
sell those devices, to ensure that users can always purchase and use
devices without having to deal with proprietary software.
But as with every other leg of the journey, there's still much to be
done here as well. We want users to have as many options as possible
when it comes to a fully free system, and we want to bring in as many
retailers and distribution maintainers as we can to give them those
options. In 2019, we revamped our RYF site to make it easier for users
to find what they're looking for, but there's still so many users out
there who don't even know that they want software freedom yet.
Help us build the path towards software freedom
Everyone has their own journey when it comes to free software. But
every journey cannot begin without that first step. The FSF Licensing
and Compliance Lab can help users along that path, but we need
everyone's help if we're going to get all users on the right track. We
have big ideas, and so much enforcement and certification work to be
done. Your financial support is imperative to the success of all
of this work.
Sincerely,
Donald Robertson, III
Licensing & Compliance Manager
