Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read
by you and 231,355 other activists.
The FSF encourages people all over the world to make their dreams come true with free software.
We urgently need your financial support!
From June 24
The FSF firmly believes every computer user deserves freedom and
tirelessly demonstrates how to do almost everything with free software.
For years to come, the FSF has an important role to play for computer
users globally, and we still have a lot of work to do. In order to do
so, we need your help! Like many organizations right now, the FSF is
suffering. Operational costs have risen, like the legal fees for the
work we do in compliance, as well as costs for events, and tech
infrastructure. Revenue has not kept up, because people all over the
world are going through the same challenges as we are.
Become an associate member today for $12/month ($6 for students) and
show the world that you cherish software freedom. Make sure to join
before July 19, 2024, and we will send you an FSF-branded travel mug.
Or help us reach our goal of 200 new associate members by July 19 by
convincing a friend to join and we will reward you with a sustainable
wooden GNU head sticker.
Please share the message using the hashtag #BecomeAnFSFAssociateMember
on social media networks.
Want to read this newsletter translated into another language? Scroll
to the end to read the Supporter in French, Spanish, or Portuguese.
FSF adds three highly qualified board members
From June 26
The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has selected John Gilmore, Christina
Haralanova, and Maria Chiara Pievatolo to become FSF board members
starting June 23, 2024. This exceptional development of adding three new
members to the FSF's board of directors is the result of reviewing
eighty-three nominations, having ten candidates in forum discussions with
FSF associate members, conducting months of conversations between current
board members and all candidates, and reviewing input from FSF staff and
supporters.
Survey on guidelines for the use of Large Language Models
From June 27
Are you advising software projects that accept code generated by
Large Language Models (LLM)? Please participate in our survey on
guidelines for the use of LLMs and help our licensing team learn
more about existing practices. We value your input!
Watch, enjoy, and share LibrePlanet: Cultivating Community videos
From June 28
The LibrePlanet 2024 program page now has links to the recorded videos.
You can watch them in the LibrePlanet archives on MediaGoblin, as well as
on the FSF's PeerTube channel. Make sure to subscribe to our PeerTube
channel to receive updates on further video releases.
Software Freedom Day (SFD) is a worldwide celebration of free software
with the goal to educate the worldwide public about the benefits of
using libre software in education, in government, at home, and in
business. Register your Software Freedom Day event today to be part of
this awesome celebration on September 21! The Digital Freedom
Foundation, which coordinates SFD, is always looking for contributors,
so go to the site to see how you or your company can help
Julian Assange to go free in guilty plea deal with US
From June 25 by Simon Sharwood
On Wednesday, June 26, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange agreed to
plead guilty to the felony charge for his role in publishing documents
concerning the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This move freed him
from the prison in London, where he spent 1901 days. The FSF stands for
freedom of publication and due process, because they are necessary to
exercise and uphold the software freedom we campaign for. In 2019, the
FSF therefore called on the United States to drop all present and future
charges against Julian Assange relating to Wikileaks activities.
Apple’s app store breaches EU’s Digital Markets Act
From June 24 by Romain Dillet
The European Commission stated that Apple's current app store rules,
which requires developers to pay a commission to Apple for purchases made
on the developer's website, are in breach of the Digital Markets Act.
The real problem is that Apple prevents developers from distributing free
software via the Apple store and deprives the users of their freedom to
control their own devices and choose which software they want to install
and run. It's more than time to brave Apple's monopoly and liberate users
and developers. Call in your governments to take measures and establish
proper legislation which enables free software developers to distribute
and fund their work and empowers us users to control our own devices and
the software we use.
Why going cashless has turned Sweden from one of the safest countries into a high-crime nation
From June 21 by Niclas Rolander, Jonas Ekblom, and Bloomberg
Sweden's campaign to push everyone into using digital payments has
boosted fraud because a digital payment system fraud can steal far
more money than a small store would ever have on hand as cash.
Thus, leaving cash has increased the danger from crime in Sweden.
But more important is that it is unjust to push everyone into using
digital payments, since it tracks all the transactions. If Sweden was
using GNU Taler for digital payments, instead of BankID, that would
fix both problems. A GNU Taler payment never reveals the payer's
identity, and does not enable fraud against merchants. Check it out!
US bans sale of Kaspersky software citing security risk from Russia
From June 20 by First Last
The US government bans Kaspersky because the feds say it being based in
Russia threatens national security and user privacy. Remember: any
proprietary software, no matter where it's based, threatens privacy and
national security! Upgrade to free software now. Browse the Free Software
Directory to find replacements.
Listen to the middle segment of this podcast to learn more about the
UK post office scandal. The podcast explains how British postal workers
were erroneously prosecuted for fraud and how secrecy of code was central
to the scandal. Government entities should use free software, which would
prevent tragedies like this. Please lobby for free software adoption by
your government. The LibrePlanet wiki has a free software in government
page that offers some resources and advice.
Note: You don't need to enable JavaScript on the page. You can just
click download and listen to the podcast with your favorite libre
podcast program.
The next generation of cell-site simulators is here. Here’s what we know.
From June 12 by Cooper Quintin
A proposal document that Jacobs Technology sent to the Massachusetts State
Police reveals that the next generation of cell-site simulators (CSS)
makes every phone in the vicinity connect with the device. CSS pretend
to be cell phone towers and thereby coax mobile devices into connecting
to them and providing the location of the user and metadata for phone
calls, text messages, and other app traffic. People who can be completely
unrelated to an investigation get heavily surveilled. Read more on the
latest revelations about this surveillance technology used by dozens of
policing agencies.
EU Council presidency’s last-ditch effort for mass scanning must be rejected
From June 6 by Joe Mullin
The European Council is currently debating a proposal by the Belgian
government which, if adopted, forces providers of private chat services
to ban users from sharing URLs, images, and videos if they don't agree
to machine learning based scanning of their private communication.
After chat control, this is the next mass scanning proposal and as big
of a threat to end-to-end encryption, the technology that enables privacy
in online conversations, as chat control. Signal president Meredith
Whittaker warns: "mandating mass scanning of private
communications fundamentally undermines encryption."
Appeal to the your country's representative in
the European Council to stand up for end-to-end encryption and check out
our Email Self-Defense guide and surveillance campaign to learn how you
can protect yourself from bulk surveillance.
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, July 5 from 12:00 to 15:00 EDT (16:00
to 19:00 UTC). Details here:
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 the Freedom Ladder, which
is a collaborative effort between the FSF and the free software
community and still a work in progress. The goal of the Freedom
Ladder campaign is to help users get their first start in software
freedom. We recently expanded step five with a list of mobile phone
apps that respect the user's freedom and are easily adopted. You are
invited to adopt, spread and improve this important resource.
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 Andrea Corallo as a new comaintainer of emacs.
Thank you for all of your efforts, Andrea, and congratulations and
welcome aboard!
October 27-29, 2024, Raleigh Convention Center, Raleigh, NC, ATO
November 8-9, 2024, Online and University of Washington, 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.
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:
Alvaro Morales Marquez (GNU Astro)
Bar Magal (GNU Emacs)
Bruno Campos Cardoso (GNU Emacs)
Kristofer Hjelmtorp (GNU Emacs)
Christopher Floess (GNU Emacs)
Seyed Sajad Kahani (GCC)
Alekseev Nikita (GNU Emacs)
Edgar Vincent (GNU Emacs)
Want to see your name on this list? Contribute to GNU and assign your
copyright to 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:
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.
