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Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2024/february
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update - being
read by you and 232,107 other activists.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Thank you for a successful fundraiser!
- Hayley Tsukayama will speak about grassroots activism at LibrePlanet 2024
- A recap of 2023 by MediaGoblin co-maintainer Ben Sturmfels
- Support EmacsConf through the Working Together for Free Software Fund
- The board process, the GNU Cauldron, SaaSS, and more
- Digital Federal Credit Union eligibility: A valuable associate member benefit
- FSF job opportunity: Outreach and communications coordinator
- Gabriel-Cezarin Popovici helps the campaigns team to spread the message that we need to fight for our digital freedom
- Support the FSF through the Combined Federal Campaign
- If the Horizon Post Office story is treated as a scandal, nothing will change
- EU project to push next-generation private and secure online payments
- FerretDB releases v1.18.0 with OpLog Support!
- January GNU Emacs news
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Accommodations during LibrePlanet 2024
- January GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Twenty-two 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/2024/february
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, Spanish, or Portuguese.
Thank you for a successful fundraiser!
From January 24
First, generous supporters offered to triple every donation in a
matching campaign and the community helped us meet that matching
challenge, and now free software supporters like you helped us
reach our stretch goal of $425,000! The support we received truly
boosts the FSF's advocacy for free software in education and our
efforts to educate everybody on the importance of free software.
A big thank you to the 2905 people who donated during this
fundraiser, joined as FSF associate members, or renewed their
membership!
Hayley Tsukayama will speak about grassroots activism at LibrePlanet 2024
From January 23
The FSF announced Hayley Tsukayama, associate director of legislative
activism at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), as keynote speaker for
LibrePlanet 2024, the sixteenth edition of the FSF's conference on
ethical technology and user freedom. LibrePlanet will be held on
May 4 and 5 at the Wentworth Institute of Technology (WIT) in Boston, MA,
as well as online.
A recap of 2023 by MediaGoblin co-maintainer Ben Sturmfels
From January 30
The FSF supports the work of several important free software projects
through fiscal sponsorship with a program we call the Working Together
for Free Software Fund. One of these projects is MediaGoblin, a free
software media publishing system for images, video, and audio designed
to support decentralization and tons of extensibility. Here's an
update from MediaGoblin co-maintainer Ben Sturmfels on the impressive
work MediaGoblin did in 2023.
Support EmacsConf through the Working Together for Free Software Fund
From January 18
Another update from an FSF fiscal sponsorship project we support
through our Working Together for Free Software Fund
program. EmacsConf is a volunteer-run community conference with
sessions on all things GNU Emacs, Emacs Lisp, and popular Emacs
features like Org-mode. In this letter, co-organizer Sacha Chua
shares highlights from EmacsConf 2023.
The board process, the GNU Cauldron, SaaSS, and more
From January 17
Staff seat board member and senior sysadmin Ian Kelling shares his personal
musings on the board process improvements, his experience working at the
FSF, why Service as a Software Substitute (SaaSS) should get more attention,
some lessons learned from the GNU Tools Cauldron 2023, FSF's legal defense of GCC,
and why the FSF needs your financial support.
Digital Federal Credit Union eligibility: A valuable associate member benefit
From January 16
Did you know that associate members of the FSF who live in the US are
eligible to join the Digital Federal Credit Union (DCU) for their banking
as one of the FSF's associate member benefits? If you'd like to take
advantage of the DCU associate member benefit, you can head to
https://www.dcu.org/ and complete their application. Not an FSF associate
member yet? Join today.
FSF job opportunity: Outreach and communications coordinator
From January 12
The FSF seeks a motivated and talented individual, Boston-based if possible,
to be our full-time outreach and communications coordinator.
Gabriel-Cezarin Popovici helps the campaigns team to spread the message that we need to fight for our digital freedom
From January 10
Gabriel-Cezarin Popovici, intern for the FSF campaigns team, shares why he
likes to help bring attention to the wonderful world of free software. You
can intern with the FSF too! Keep an eye out for our spring and/or summer
internship openings.
Support the FSF through the Combined Federal Campaign
From January 9
The Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) is the world's largest annual workplace
giving campaign, allowing US federal employees and retirees -- civilian,
postal, or military -- to pledge donations to nonprofit charities such as
the FSF. The campaign ended on January 15, 2024 but there will be another
CFC at the end of this year and you can always support the FSF by
donating at https://donate.fsf.org. A big thank you to everyone who
supported the FSF trough the CFC!
If the Horizon Post Office story is treated as a scandal, nothing will change
From January 20 by John Naughton
Despite the Post Office Horizon scandal, Fujitsu, the IT giant behind the
proprietary and malfunctioning software, remains one of the key suppliers
for critical services and functions in Great Britain. The UK government has
lost control over the companies to which it has outsourced critical tech
infrastructure and has become too dependent on proprietary software.
We demand that governments not be held hostage to proprietary software.
Call for free software adoption by your government.
EU project to push next-generation private and secure online payments
From January 17 by Anke Langelaan
Next Generation Internet (NGI) Taler is a project for an online payment system
for Europe that aims to be socially, ecologically, and fiscally responsible. It is
based on GNU Taler, which is different from current online payment methods,
like credit cards or bank transfers, because it is free software and offers privacy
for the buyer.
FerretDB releases v1.18.0 with OpLog Support!
From January 8 by Alexander Fashakin
The latest version of FerretDB v1.18.0 has been released with
support for basic OpLog functionality, along with other exciting
features. FerretDB is on a mission to add MongoDB compatibility
to other database backends, including Postgres and SQLite. All
the new features in this release will help us improve
compatibility with more applications, and use cases.
January GNU Emacs news
From January 22 by Sacha Chua
In these issues: Where to learn Emacs, tips and resources for
writing with Emacs, recommended minimum settings, projects and
keybindings, 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, February 2 from 12:00 to 15:00 EST (17:00
to 20:00 UTC). Details here:
LibrePlanet featured resource: Accommodations during LibrePlanet 2024
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 Accommodations during LibrePlanet 2024,
where you can list your name if you want to host a LibrePlanet attendee,
volunteer, or speaker or if you're looking for a place to stay during
LibrePlanet.
Do you have a suggestion for next month's featured resource? Let us
know at [email protected].
January GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Twenty-two new GNU releases!
Twenty-two new GNU releases in the last month (as of January 28, 2024):
For a full list with descriptions, please see: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/january-gnu-spotlight-with-amin-bandali-twenty-two-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, we welcome Ileana Dumitrescu as new maintainer of libtool.
Also, last month, Jonas Hahnfeld was appointed a co-maintainer of
lilypond, but was not shouted out in the Spotlight due to my
oversight. My apologies, Jonas. Welcome aboard and thanks all!
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.
Lastly, the Free Software Award-winning project and GNU package Jami
is asking for your support. Cyrille Béraud, president of Savoir-faire
Linux Inc. the company behind the Jami project, tells us about the
work that goes into its development, the importance of privacy in
communication, and how the free/libre tool helps people communicate
confidently in freedom. Jami's mission is to provide everyone with
free, secure communication software that respects their privacy.
Please share the word, and consider making a contribution to their
cause.
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
- February 3-4, 2024, ULB Solbosch Campus, Brussels, Belgium, FOSDEM
- March 14-17, 2024, Pasadena, CA, SCALE
- March, 15-17, 2024, National Institute Of Technology, Calicut, FOSSMeet'24
- April 12-13, 2024, Austin, TX, TXLF
- April 16-18, 2024, Seattle, WA, OSSNA
- May 4-5, 2024, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, LibrePlanet 2024
- June 7-9, 2024, Sheraton Charlotte Airport, Charlotte, NC, SELF
- July 12-14, 2024, St. John's University, Queens, New York City, HOPE XV
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:
- Asitha Senanayake
- Guus Sliepen
- Iñaki Arenaza
- Jeffrey Elkner
- Juan José González
- Leonard Marion Ignacio Provido
- Makoto Nakai
- Martin Jässing
- Michael Henderson
- Nardy Pillards
- Ola Wingbrant
- Robek World
- Simon Josefsson
- Will Butler
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:
- Joshua Branson (GNU Hurd, GNU Mach)
- Matto Fransen (GNU Emacs)
- Marc Albert Fargas Esteve (GNU Emacs)
- Nidish Narayanaa Balaji (GNU Emacs)
- Thorsten Alteholz (GNU Astro)
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/2024/febrero
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=99f0a3044f2970b0ca6ec5d2165c8e33_1706825266_168
Le Free Software Supporter est disponible en français. Pour voir la
version française cliquez ici:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2024/fevrier
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=99f0a3044f2970b0ca6ec5d2165c8e33_1706825266_168
O Free Software Supporter está disponível em português. Para ver a
versão em português, clique aqui: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2024/fevereiro
Para alterar as preferências do usuário e receber as próximas
edições do Supporter em português, clique aqui:
https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?reset=1&gid=34&id=3095323&cs=99f0a3044f2970b0ca6ec5d2165c8e33_1706825266_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 © 2024 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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