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Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2023/june
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read
by you and 231,437 other activists. That's 253 more than last month!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Transcript: The state of software patents in 2022 with Panos Alevropoulos
- Frans de Jonge tells us about KOReader in this AGPLv3 interview
- The FSF board candidate discussions will start on May 29
- Announcing the FSF's board candidates
- I won an award for my Emacs contributions
- Interoperable Europe Act: Committee of the Regions fails to substantially promote free software
- May GNU Emacs news
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Going NoPhone
- May GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Nineteen new GNU releases!
- FSF and other free software events
- Thank GNUs!
- GNU copyright contributions
- Translations of the Free Software Supporter
- Take action with the FSF!
View this issue online here: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2023/june
Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by
adding our subscriber widget to your website.
Miss an issue? You can catch up on back issues at
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter.
Want to read this newsletter translated into another language? Scroll
to the end to read the Supporter in French or Spanish.
Transcript: The state of software patents in 2022 with Panos Alevropoulos
From May 25
This month, we published a transcript of "The state of software
patents in 2022" by FSF licensing volunteer Panos, which was given
during the 2022 LibrePlanet conference. The talk covers many important
basics about patents and software patents in particular. This edited
and updated version of Panos's presentation promises to be an
excellent perennial primer to share with and educate the public.
Frans de Jonge tells us about KOReader in this AGPLv3 interview
From May 19
In the latest installment of our Licensing and Compliance Lab's series
on free software developers who choose GNU licenses for their works,
we interviewed Frans de Jonge of KOReader. Frans shares, among other
things, how he started contributing to KOReader after Hans-Werner, how
enthusiasts of all skillsets can contribute to its improvements, and
what the next steps are for KOReader development. Learn more about
this project, which is proud to enable users to read in freedom.
The FSF board candidate discussions will start on May 29
From May 16
Now that we have published the full list of candidates to consider in
the FSF board process, it is time to start discussions about some of
them. The Voting Members have chosen these two as the first candidates
to invite the associate members to discuss: John Gilmore and Christina
Haralanova. The discussion forum opened on May 29 and is planned to
close six weeks later. Participants must pledge to abide by the
participation agreement. Eligible discussion
participants, according to the board process
outline, are current associate members who were already members (or
donated a comparable amount) between 2018-01-19 and 2022-10-19, and
they have been sent an email of the discussion forum's opening.
Announcing the FSF's board candidates
From May 2
Early this month, we announced the list of candidates who have
proceeded to the next step in the FSF's process to finding new board
members. Nominees confirmed their interest by filling out a
questionnaire that helps introduce themselves and their backgrounds to
the FSF voting members. The FSF voting members thank everyone who
nominated a candidate and the nominees who responded to the
questionnaire.
I won an award for my Emacs contributions
From May 25 by Protesilaos Stavrou
2021 Award for Outstanding New Free Software Contributor recipient
Protesilaos "Prot" Stavrou received an award this month for his work
on Modus themes. Created with the intent to improve the accessibility
of GNU Emacs, the themes are high contrast for optimized for people
with deuteranopia or tritanopia. Read about the theme as well as
Prot's recent writings on accessibility and software freedom.
Note: The award was presented by Google, a company that all-too-often
works against user freedom and privacy. For us, the important aspect
of Prot's announcement is that he made a significant contribution to
GNU Emacs, not that it was presented to him by any particular entity.
Interoperable Europe Act: Committee of the Regions fails to substantially promote free software
From May 24 by Free Software Foundation Europe
Following a push earlier in the year to revise the Interoperable
Europe Act to better emphasize software freedom's critical role in
interoperability, the committee responsible for revising the text has
unfortunately failed to fully incorporate the recommendations. Of the
results, project manager Lina Ceballos of Free Software Foundation
Europe (FSFE) said, "[T]his decision only reaffirms the importance of
the involvement of stakeholders, who have actual competence, in these
decision-making processes. We, therefore, urge the European Parliament
to include the free software community in the Interoperable Europe
Board to guarantee sustainability and innovation in digitalization."
May GNU Emacs news
From May 29 by Sacha Chua
In these issues: RSS reading in GNU Emacs, crafting a website with Org
Publish, "Devil Mode," and more!
Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to
discover free software. Each entry in the Directory contains a wealth
of useful information, from basic category and descriptions to version
control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing. The Free Software
Directory has been a great resource to software users over the past
decade, but it needs your help staying up-to-date with new and
exciting free software projects.
To help, join our weekly IRC meetings on Fridays. Meetings take place
in the #fsf channel on Libera.Chat, and usually include a handful of
regulars as well as newcomers. Libera.Chat is accessible from any IRC
client -- Everyone's welcome!
The next meeting is Friday, June 2 from 12pm to 3pm EDT (16:00 to
19:00 UTC). Details here:
LibrePlanet featured resource: Going NoPhone
Every month on the LibrePlanet
wiki, we highlight one
resource that is interesting and useful -- often one that could use
your help.
For this month, we are highlighting Going NoPhone, which provides
information about living a (mobile) phone-free life, including its
benefits and creative hacks to get around and have fun. You are
invited to adopt, spread and improve this important resource.
Do you have a suggestion for next month's featured resource? Let us
know at [email protected].
May GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Nineteen new GNU releases!
Nineteen new GNU releases in the last month (as of May 28, 2023):
For a full list with descriptions, please see:
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/may-gnu-spotlight-with-amin-bandali-nineteen-new-gnu-releases
For announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu
mailing list: https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu.
To download: nearly all GNU software is available most reliably from
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/. Optionally, you may find faster download
speeds at a mirror located geographically closer to you by choosing
from the list of mirrors published at
https://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html, or you may use
https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a
(hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.
This month, I'm happy to announce the launch of the GNU Spotlight
archive at https://www.gnu.org/spotlight/, where you can browse
through all GNU Spotlights published to date.
A number of GNU packages, as well as the GNU operating system as a
whole, are looking for maintainers and other assistance. Please see
https://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint if you'd like to
help. The general page on how to help GNU is at
https://www.gnu.org/help/help.html.
If you have a working or partly working program that you'd like
to offer to the GNU project as a GNU package, see
https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.
As always, please feel free to write to me, [email protected],
with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.
FSF and other free software events
- June 05, 2023, Online, LibrePlanet talk -- WorldVistA EHR version of the Department of Veterans Affairs Electronic Health Record by Nancy Anthracite
- July 13-16, 2023, Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR FOSSY
- September 27, 2023, Volkhause, Biel, Switzerland GNU 40
- October 15-17, 2023, Raleigh Convention Center, Raleigh, NC ATO
- November 3-4, 2023, Online and Seattle, WA SeaGL
Thank GNUs!
We appreciate everyone who donates to the Free Software Foundation,
and we'd like to give special recognition to the folks who have
donated $500 or more in the last month.
This month, a big Thank GNU to:
- Adarsh Melethil
- Arthur Gleckler
- Dario Armani
- David Klann
- Richard Ellwood
- Ron Hume
You can add your name to this list by donating at
https://donate.fsf.org/.
GNU copyright contributions
Assigning your copyright to the Free Software Foundation helps us
defend the GNU GPL and keep software free. The following individuals
have assigned their copyright to the FSF (and allowed public
appreciation) in the past month:
- Colin Woodbury (GNU Guile)
- David Leatherman (GNU Emacs)
- Enrico Flor (GNU Emacs)
- Jens Schmidt (GNU Emacs)
- Kierin Joseph Bell (GNU Emacs)
- Labib Abidur Rahman Asari (Gnuastro)
- Mehmet Tekman (GNU Emacs)
- Reuben Rhys Thomas (Recode)
- Siyang He (Gnuastro)
- Slawomir Grochowski (GNU Emacs)
- Tim Ruffing (GNU Emacs)
Want to see your name on this list? Contribute to GNU and assign your
copyright to the FSF.
Translations of the Free Software Supporter
El Free Software Supporter está disponible en español. Para ver la
versión en español haz click aquí:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2023/junio
Para cambiar las preferencias de usuario y recibir los próximos
números del Supporter en español, haz click aquí:
https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?reset=1&gid=34&id=3095323&cs=eb2822a8ffd9fb7cdc0d9dd094e53a77_1685669501_168
Le Free Software Supporter est disponible en français. Pour voir la
version française cliquez ici:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2023/juin
Pour modifier vos préférences et recevoir les prochaines
publications du Supporter en français, cliquez ici:
https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?reset=1&gid=34&id=3095323&cs=eb2822a8ffd9fb7cdc0d9dd094e53a77_1685669501_168
Take action with the FSF!
Contributions from thousands of individual associate members enable
the FSF's work. You can contribute by joining at
https://my.fsf.org/join. If you're already a member, you can help
refer new members (and earn some rewards) by adding a line with your
member number to your email signature like:
I'm an FSF member -- Help us support software freedom!
https://my.fsf.org/join
The FSF is always looking for
volunteers. From rabble-rousing to
hacking, from issue coordination to envelope stuffing -- there's
something here for everybody to do. Also, head over to our campaigns
section and take action on software
patents, Digital Restrictions
Management, free
software adoption,
OpenDocument,
and more.
Do you read and write Portuguese and English? The FSF is looking
for translators for the Free Software Supporter. Please send an
email to [email protected] with your interest and a list of your
experience and qualifications.
Copyright © 2023 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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