Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/may
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read
by you and 227,396 other activists. That's 174 more than last month!
LibrePlanet 2020 videos now available online
From April 23rd
Looking for entertaining and educational advocacy materials to point
people to while explaining the importance of free software for a free
society? The recordings and slides from LibrePlanet 2020: Free the
Future sessions are now available
online!
Video of thirty more sessions from the successful first online edition
of LibrePlanet can be found in the conference's video library. And of
course, the story doesn't end there. The LibrePlanet
archives have hours of additional
talks, keynote sessions, and presentations from past years of the
conference. You can spend hours there diving deep into the wide range
of free software activists, experts, and entrepreneurs who have shared
their knowledge with the LibrePlanet audience over time, and endlessly
expand your free software knowledge.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Virtual LibrePlanet raffle: Encourage others to join FSF and win prizes!
- Better than Zoom: Try these free software tools for staying in touch
- Staying "safe" while you stream: DBD's tips on living DRM-free during quarantine
- How to livestream a conference in just under a week
- Summer internships at the FSF! Apply by May 10
- Jitsi Meet features update, April 2020
- Your FSF membership makes timely, important work possible
- ICANN rejects the sale of Public Interest Registry (PIR) and the .org top-level domain
- The ACLU addresses tech-assisted contact-tracing against the COVID-19 pandemic
- Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE): Any coronavirus tracking app must be used voluntarily and be free software
- FSFE: NGI Pointer begins funding calls for projects designed to improve the Internet
- Tackling the beast: Using GNU Health to help the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic
- Software freedom work during the pandemic
- Mass school closures in the wake of the coronavirus are driving a new wave of student surveillance
- Netherlands commits to free software by default
- How did free software build a social movement?
- RMS article: “Saying No to unjust computing even once is helpful”
- Contributing from afar: My internship from Italy with the campaigns team
- The cataloging of free software
- GNU MediaGoblin: We're still here!
- GNOME Foundation and Endless launch inaugural Community Engagement Challenge
- GNU Guix 1.1.0 released
- Join Turkish free software activists for ÖzgürKon, May 16-17!
- April GNU Emacs news
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Remote Communication
- GNU Spotlight with Mike Gerwitz: 16 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!
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Virtual LibrePlanet raffle: Encourage others to join FSF and win prizes!
From April 30th
Even though LibrePlanet was held online this year, we still have the
raffle prizes generously donated by Technoethical, Vikings, JMP.chat,
No Starch Press, and ThinkPenguin. For a limited time, you have a
chance to win these prizes while helping us grow the free software
community and supporting next year's LibrePlanet conference.
From April 30, 2020 to May 31, 2020, the FSF will be holding an
associate membership referral drive. You will find your personal
referrer link on the dashboard after logging in at
https://my.fsf.org/. If two or more new members sign up using your
referral link, you can win a prize!
Better than Zoom: Try these free software tools for staying in touch
From April 3rd
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused an enormous amount of changes in how
people work, play, and communicate. By now, many of us have settled
into the routine of using remote communication or videoconferencing
tools to keep in touch with our friends and family. In times like
these, it becomes all the more important to remember that tools like
Zoom, Slack, and Facebook Messenger are not benign public services,
and while the sentiment they've expressed to the global community in
responding to the crisis may be sincere, it hasn't addressed the
fundamental ethical issues with any piece of proprietary software.
There's no better time than the present to insist on using ethical
software in your remote communication with your friends and family --
and doing so will also spread the reach and the message of free
software! This article lists video, audio, text, and other
communication tools that will treat you and your loved ones with the
respect you deserve.
Staying "safe" while you stream: DBD's tips on living DRM-free during quarantine
From April 7th
As most of us are cooped up in our homes due to the ongoing COVID-19
pandemic, it's somewhat natural that we turn to online movies, music,
and other media to help pass the time. For most people, this involves
turning to Internet streaming for convenient, "all-in-one" services
that promise an endless array of recommendations to while away the
hours. "Binging" is all well and good every once in a while, but we
should remain careful that the ways we're getting our media don't come
with compromises to our freedom.
As we've mentioned before, Netflix and other giant media providers are
responsible for keeping the practice of DRM (Digital Restrictions
Management) alive, and it's important not to provide them with the
subscription fees they need to keep going. It's also important, even
under less dire circumstances, to support businesses and Web sites
that provide DRM-free media, and to promote them to our friends. So to
help provide you with a plethora of DRM-free and often gratis places
to stream from while keeping your rights, here's a few choice
selections from our Guide to DRM-free
Living.
How to livestream a conference in just under a week
From April 16th
For the first time ever, LibrePlanet 2020 was a fully virtual
conference due to ongoing issues caused by the coronavirus
pandemic. In our last week of preparations before the live event,
increasingly disturbing news related to the virus made us realize we
could not responsibly hold our usual conference on software freedom in
person while protecting the safety of our participants and their
communities. So we turned everything around to eventually bring 35
free software presentations to our community through the filter of a
computer screen. After the conference, we had many people writing to
ask us for more details about what we used to do it, so we wanted to
take this opportunity to share how we were able to create a fully free
interactive and educational virtual experience.
Summer internships at the FSF! Apply by May 10
From April 21st
The FSF is looking for interns to spend the summer contributing to
work in one of three areas: campaigns, licensing, or with our tech
team.
While in-office intern positions here in Boston are typically
preferred, due to COVID-19, this summer the FSF is only hosting remote
interns. As such, applicants from anywhere in the world will be
considered.
Jitsi Meet features update, April 2020
From April 7th by by Saúl Ibarra Corretgé
Jitsi is the free software videoconferencing tool the FSF chose to
livestream and record the LibrePlanet 2020 conference. This post
details some of the most recent updates making Jitsi easier to use.
Your FSF membership makes timely, important work possible
From April 22nd
One of the things we learned from the annual member meeting that took
place as part of the all-online LibrePlanet 2020 conference is that it
is good to share what we are working on. FSF associate members are at
the core of our community, so we'd like to share some of the things
we're initiating, things that are on our minds, and how you can get
more involved! (Not a member yet? There are more exciting reasons than
ever to join the FSF!)
ICANN rejects the sale of Public Interest Registry (PIR) and the .org top-level domain
From May 1st by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers (ICANN)
Today, the ICANN Board made the decision to reject the proposed change
of control and entity conversion request that Public Interest Registry
(PIR) submitted to ICANN.
After completing extensive due diligence, the ICANN Board finds that
withholding consent of the transfer of PIR from the Internet Society
(ISOC) to Ethos Capital is reasonable, and the right thing to do.
This is terrific news: for twenty years, .Org has been the online home
for nonprofits, NGOs, and community-based groups around the world. It
serves both those organizations and the public, helping navigate and
support trust, information and resource sharing, and advocacy. The FSF
was one of nearly 900 organizations that signed a statement opposing
the transfer. You can find more information on the fight against the
proposed change at https://savedotorg.org/.
The ACLU addresses tech-assisted contact-tracing against the COVID-19 pandemic
From April 16th by Daniel Kahn Gillmor
The ACLU has released a
whitepaper
discussing how to evaluate some novel cryptographic schemes that are
being considered to provide technology-assisted contact-tracing in the
face of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The document offers guidelines for thinking about potential schemes
like this, and what kinds of safeguards we need to expect and demand
from these systems so that we might try to address the (hopefully
temporary) crisis of the pandemic without also creating a permanent
crisis for civil liberties.
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE): Any coronavirus tracking app must be used voluntarily and be free software
From April 2nd by FSFE
The FSFE demands that the use of tracking technologies that aim at
breaking the chains of disease infection may only be promoted on a
voluntary basis, fundamental rights must be respected and the software
must be published under a free software license.
FSFE: NGI Pointer begins funding calls for projects designed to improve the Internet
From April 27th by FSFE
The FSFE has joined the Advisory Board of NGI Pointer, one of the
projects within the European Commission's Next Generation Internet
(“NGI”) initiative. By doing so, the FSFE expands the scope of our
work for the NGI initiative, adding our support for NGI Pointer to our
current work with NGI Zero.
NGI Pointer is an initiative from the European Commission designed to
provide funding and expertise to free software projects that can
improve the Internet as a platform. The FSFE has joined its Advisory
Board to provide assistance to these participating projects. The first
call for applications to join NGI Pointer is now open until June 1,
2020.
Tackling the beast: Using GNU Health to help the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic
From March 31st by Dr. Luis Falcón
The world is facing a tremendous health, economic and social crisis. A
minuscule, 50-nanometer in diameter structure is putting the most
powerful world economies on their knees, and hundred of thousands are
tragically succumbing to COVID-19.
This article is an invitation to governments to embrace GNU Health and
free software for the sake of their public healthcare system in the
context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For those of you who already use GNU Health, take this article as some
sort of guideline to optimize your implementation and day-by-day
usage. Even though it focuses on COVID-19 disease, most topics will
apply to any GNU Health implementation.
Software freedom work during the pandemic
From April 21st by Deb Nicholson
Most of us have already gotten many, many emails talking about how
fast food chains, companies that sell sweatpants and soap makers are
"here for you" especially, "in these troubled times." Some of those
are heartfelt emails assuring you that their company is making
donations to nonprofits or that they are really, really, washing
everything. Nonprofits, while we are also "here for you" especially,
"in these troubled times" generally have more to do during a crisis so
we've been focusing on our work while going a bit light on our
marketing.
Conservancy's communities have responded to the global pandemic in
several ways. Firstly, we are all grateful for the global, remote free
software community -- particularly as many key events are being
cancelled or transforming into online experiences. Many of us are
looking at how to better serve the people who count on us, either by
improving the tools we offer or our support, or both. Here's a
sampling of what our projects are doing during the pandemic.
Mass school closures in the wake of the coronavirus are driving a new wave of student surveillance
From April 1st by Drew Harwell
The all-seeing eye of proprietary surveillance technology is invading
college students' homes, bedrooms, and computers via mandatory "online
proctoring" for tests. Companies retain rights to a horrifying amount
of student data, and as is standard with proprietary software,
students and families have no control or even the right to know what
information is being harvested.
Netherlands commits to free software by default
From April 24th by Nico Rikken
In an open letter to the Parliament, the Dutch minister for internal
affairs Raymond Knops commits to a "free software by default" policy
and underlines its benefits for society. Current market regulations
shall be reworded to allow publishing free software by the government.
How did free software build a social movement?
From April 14th by Justin W. Flory
The free software movement is rooted to origins in the 1980s. As part
of a talk I gave with my colleague and friend Mike Nolan at FOSDEM
2020, we analyzed how the free software movement emerged as a response
to a changing digital world in three different phases. This blog post
is an exploration and framing of that history to understand how the
social movement we call “free software” was constructed.
RMS article: “Saying No to unjust computing even once is helpful”
From May 4th by Richard M. Stallman
In this article on https://gnu.org, free software movement founder Richard
Stallman (RMS) corrects a common misunderstanding: that utilizing any
nonfree software at all is to be regarded as complete capitulation and
grounds for excommunication from free software circles. RMS says that
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” and the Free Software
Foundation (FSF) agrees.
However, every step towards complete freedom -- whether it means
installing and teaching yourself a new free program, or refusing an
activity that requires a proprietary program -- is an important
one. Furthermore, every refusal to engage in a Zoom or Skype chat is a
teachable moment, giving you an opportunity to educate your friends,
colleagues, or loved ones about why software freedom matters.
Contributing from afar: My internship from Italy with the campaigns team
From April 13th by Leonardo Luca Vignini
Hi, everyone! My name is Leonardo Luca Vignini. I was born and still
live in Italy, in a city called Imola, near Bologna. Currently, I'm an
intern at the FSF, and, in particular, I'm working in the campaigns
team. I'm learning how to manage contacts with CiviCRM, and I write to
journalists and organizations to inform them about our campaigns, and
I'm learning how the FSF works to spread the word and sensitize people
about free software. Through these activities, I'm also deepening my
understanding of some aspects about free software that I didn't know.
The cataloging of free software
From April 3rd by Lorenzo L. Ancora
The Free Software
Directory is a
collaborative catalog of software aimed to be the primary source for
representing all free software. Each free program has its own page in
the Directory from which it is possible to study the evolution it has
undergone in both technological and legal terms through a
chronological system similar to that of Wikipedia. This is an account
from one of the Directory's volunteer administrators on what it's like
to work on the Directory, and why it's difficult but rewarding work,
of great importance to the free software movement.
GNU MediaGoblin: We're still here!
From April 7th by Ben Sturmfels
While development on GNU MediaGoblin has slowed over the last few
years, work has continued steadily, with significant improvements such
as multi-resolution video (Vijeth Aradhya), video subtitles (Saksham)
and a bunch of minor improvements and bug-fixes. Like most
community-driven free software projects, progress only happens when
people show up and make it happen.
GNOME Foundation and Endless launch inaugural Community Engagement Challenge
From April 7th by GNOME Foundation
The GNOME Foundation, in conjunction with Endless, is proud to
announce that starting April 9th, entries will be accepted for the
inaugural Community Engagement Challenge, an exciting new opportunity
to submit a project that will engage beginning coders with the free
software community.
The Challenge is a three-phase competition designed to generate
stimulating ideas that will help connect the next generation of coders
to the free software community and keep them active and engaged for
years to come. Up to $65,000 in cash prizes are available to the
individuals or teams with the best entries.
GNU Guix 1.1.0 released
From April 15th by Ludovic Courtès and Marius Bakke
We are pleased to announce the release of GNU Guix version 1.1.0! The
release comes with ISO-9660 installation images, a virtual machine
image, and with tarballs to install the package manager on top of your
GNU/Linux distro, either from source or from binaries. Guix users can
update by running guix pull.
Join Turkish free software activists for ÖzgürKon, May 16-17!
From April 11th by Özcan Oğuz
ÖzgürKon is an international online conference, organized by Özgür
Yazılım Derneği. 2020 has brought us an unexpected pandemic which no
one was prepared for. COVID-19 has created an event vacuum since
people are no longer able to gather physically. ÖzgürKon is aimed to
fill this void by bringing the worldwide free software community
together in virtual space and underlining the importance of free
software in the light of current developments.
Turkish free software activists have a unique perspective on the
necessity of software freedom, and the activists behind ÖzgürKon have
been involved in efforts to help Anatolian minorities preserve their
culture and language. Their talk on the subject from LibrePlanet
2020
is now available to watch!
April GNU Emacs news
From April 27th by Sacha Chua
In these issues: Ayu-Themes for Emacs, why Emacs is so square, and more!
Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
Tens of thousands of people visit https://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 irc.freenode.org, and usually include a handful
of regulars as well as newcomers. Freenode is accessible from any IRC
client -- everyone's welcome!
The next meeting is Friday, May 8, from 12pm to 3pm EDT (16:00 to
19:00 UTC). Details here:
LibrePlanet featured resource: Remote Communication
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 Remote Communication, which
provides information about free software communication tools that are
urgently needed to replace commonly-used proprietary software like
Zoom and Slack. 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].
GNU Spotlight with Mike Gerwitz: 16 new GNU releases!
16 new GNU releases in the last month (as of April 28, 2020):
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 from
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/, or preferably one of its mirrors from
https://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html. You can use the URL
https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a
(hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.
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 us at [email protected]
with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.
FSF and other free software events
- May 4, 2020, Berlin, Germany, Digital sovereignty and modernization of public administration conference
- May 16-17, 2020, online, ÖzgürKon
- July 22-28, 2020, Zacatecas, Mexico, GUADEC 2020
- October 18-20, 2020, Raleigh, NC, All Things Open
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:
- Edward Flick
- François Badier
- Richard Case
- Ron Horrell
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:
- Fredrik Strupe (Binutils)
- Jan Willem Jagersma (Binutils, GCC)
- Kartik Ohri (Gnuastro)
- Madhav Bansal (Gnuastro)
- Sachin Singh (Gnuastro)
- Sreedhar Vaddi (glibc)
- YUE Daian (Emacs)
- Zisheng Huang (Wget)
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 aqui:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/mayo
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=9feca34ebf3a3c4366a1d280f8cd0e46_1588645112_168
Le Free Software Supporter est disponible en français. Pour voir la
version française cliquez ici:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/mai
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=9feca34ebf3a3c4366a1d280f8cd0e46_1588645112_168
O Free Software Supporter está disponível em português. Para ver a
versão em português, clique aqui:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/maio
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=9feca34ebf3a3c4366a1d280f8cd0e46_1588645112_168
Take action with the FSF!
Contributions from thousands of individual 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
(https://www.fsf.org/volunteer). 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
(https://www.fsf.org/campaigns) and take action on software patents,
Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), free software adoption,
OpenDocument, and more.
#
Copyright © 2020 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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