Conservancy Announces New Strategy for GPL Enforcement and Related Work, Receives Grant from ARDC

The Software Freedom Conservancy has announced that it is embarking on "a new strategy toward improving compliance and the freedom of users of devices that contain Linux-based systems". That includes GPL enforcement, an effort to create alternative firmware for embedded Linux devices, and collaboration with other organizations "to promote copyleft compliance as a feature for consumers to protect their privacy and get more out of their devices". The work is being sponsored by an initial $150,000 grant from Amateur Radio Digital Communications (ARDC). "We take this holistic approach because compliance is not an end in itself, but rather a lever to help people advance technology for themselves and the world. Bradley Kuhn, Conservancy's Policy Fellow and Hacker-in-Residence remarked: 'GPL enforcement began as merely an education process more than twenty years ago. We all had hoped that industry-wide awareness of copyleft's essential role in spreading software freedom would yield widespread, spontaneous compliance. We were simply wrong about that. Today, we observe almost universal failure in compliance throughout the (so-called) Internet of Things (IoT) market. Only unrelenting enforcement that holds companies accountable can change this abysmal reality. ARDC, a visionary grant-maker, recognizes the value of systemic enforcement that utilizes the legal system to regain software freedom. That process also catalyzes community-led projects to build liberated firmware for many devices.'"