Post Syndicated from Bradley M. Kuhn original http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2017/12/31/donate-conservancy.html

Earlier this year, in
February, I wrote a blog post encouraging people to donate to where I
work, Software Freedom Conservancy. I’ve not otherwise blogged too much
this year. It’s been a rough year for many reasons, and while I
personally and Conservancy in general have accomplished some very
important work this year, I’m reminded as always that more resources do
make things easier.

I understand the urge, given how bad the larger political crises have
gotten, to want to give to charities other than those related to software
freedom. There are important causes out there that have become more urgent
this year. Here’s three issues which have become shockingly more acute
this year:

• making sure the USA keeps it commitment
  to immigrants to allow them make a new life here just like my own ancestors
  did,
• assuring that the great national nature reserves are maintained and
  left pristine for generations to come,
• assuring that we have zero tolerance for abusive behavior —
  particularly by those in power against people who come to them for help and
  job opportunities.

These are just three of the many issues this year that I’ve seen get worse,
not better. I am glad that I know and support people who work on these
issues, and I urge everyone to work on these issues, too.

Nevertheless, as I plan my primary donations this year, I’m again, as I
always do, giving to the FSF and my
own employer, Software
Freedom Conservancy. The reason is simple: software freedom is still
an essential cause and it is frankly one that most people don’t understand
(yet). I wrote almost
two years ago about the phenomenon I dubbed Kuhn’s
Paradox. Simply put: it keeps getting more and more difficult
to avoid proprietary software in a normal day’s tasks, even while the
number of lines of code licensed freely gets larger every day.

As long as that paradox remains true, I see software freedom as urgent. I
know that we’re losing ground on so many other causes, too. But those of
you who read my blog are some of the few people in the world that
understand that software freedom is under threat and needs the urgent work
that the very few software-freedom-related organizations,
like the FSF
and Software Freedom
Conservancy are doing. I hope you’ll donate now to both of them. For
my part, I gave $120 myself to FSF as part of the monthly Associate
Membership program, and in a few minutes, I’m going to give $400 to
Conservancy. I’ll be frank: if you work in technology in an industrialized
country, I’m quite sure you can afford that level of money, and I suspect
those amounts are less than most of you spent on technology equipment
and/or network connectivity charges this year. Make a difference for us
and give to the cause of software freedom at least as much a you’re giving
to large technology companies.

Finally, a good reason to give to smaller charities like FSF and
Conservancy is that your donation makes a bigger difference. I do think
bigger organizations, such as (to pick an example of an organization I used
to give to) my local NPR station does important work. However, I was
listening this week to my local NPR station, and they said their goal
for that day was to raise $50,000. For Conservancy, that’s closer
to a goal we have for entire fundraising season, which for this year was
$75,000. The thing is: NPR is an important part of USA society, but it’s
one that nearly everyone understands. So few people understand the threats
looming from proprietary software, and they may not understand at all until
it’s too late — when all their devices are locked down, DRM is
fully ubiquitous, and no one is allowed to tinker with the software on
their devices and learn the wonderful art of computer programming. We are
at real risk of reaching that distopia before 90% of the world’s
population understands the threat!

Thus, giving to organizations in the area of software freedom is just
going to have a bigger and more immediate impact than more general causes
that more easily connect with people. You’re giving to prevent a future
that not everyone understands yet, and making an impact on our
work to help explain the dangers to the larger population.