Mercurial Joins Software Freedom Conservancy, Retains Services of Software Freedom Law Center

NEW YORK, Sept. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- The Software Freedom Conservancy, home of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) projects, today announced that it welcomes as its newest member Mercurial, a distributed source management program which can be used to track revisions of software during development.

By joining the Conservancy, Mercurial is entitled to all of the benefits of being a corporate entity. In particular, the Conservancy's corporate form limits the personal liability of individual developers and allows member projects to receive donations.

Founded in March 2006, the Conservancy allows developers of its member FOSS projects to unite under a common organization which provides much-needed administrative services to them, without charge. This structure spares each software project from the burden of starting and maintaining its own independent nonprofit organization.

Although Mercurial's development began just over a year ago, many projects, including Xen, One Laptop Per Child, and the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA), have already adopted Mercurial for their revision control needs.

"The Mercurial developers are excited to have retained the services of the Software Freedom Conservancy," said Matt Mackall, creator and lead developer of Mercurial. "With the Conservancy's support, we can focus our own efforts on the development of Mercurial itself."

In addition to joining the Conservancy, the Mercurial team has retained the full, direct services of the Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC), which provides pro-bono legal services to Free and Open Source Software projects.

"We're excited that Mercurial will join the Conservancy, and we look forward to helping Mercurial remain in good legal standing," said Eben Moglen, Executive Director of SFLC.

About the Software Freedom Conservancy

The Software Freedom Conservancy, founded by the Software Freedom Law Center in March 2006, provides Free and Open Source Software developers the benefits of being a nonprofit organization, without the burden of excessive administrative work. The Conservancy provides free financial and administrative services for its member software projects, allowing individual developers to focus their efforts on Mercurial is a fast, lightweight Source Control Management system which can track revisions to software during development writing software.

About Mercurial

Developed by a small team of developers since April 2005, Mercurial has been adopted by many projects for revision control, including Xen, One Laptop Per Child, and the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA).

About the Software Freedom Law Center

The Software Freedom Law Center -- chaired by Eben Moglen, one of the world's leading experts on copyright law as applied to software -- provides legal representation and other law-related services to protect and advance Free and Open Source Software. The Law Center is dedicated to assisting non-profit open source developers and projects. For criteria on eligibility and to apply for assistance, please contact the Law Center directly or visit the Web at http://www.softwarefreedom.org.