Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read
by you and 231,379 other activists.
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The FSF can only continue to be the cornerstone of a more just digital society with your support
From November 12
You've been incredible! Thanks to free software supporters like
yourself, we collected more than $332,000 USD since the beginning of
our year-end drive on November 12. This means that not much is
missing before we reach our goal of $400,000 USD. Can you give the FSF
a final push by helping us collect the final $68,000 USD by January
17?
Powered by member dues and donations, the FSF can only continue to be
a core pillar of software freedom with your support. Build a better
world with us -- join the thousands of free software enthusiasts who
support us financially with individual contributions averaging USD
$46.22.
The FSF can only continue to be the cornerstone of a more just digital
society with the support of the community. Share this message
using the hashtag #CornerstoneOfAFreeSociety on social media
networks.
Want to read this newsletter translated into another language? Scroll
to the end to read the Supporter in French, Portuguese, or Spanish.
Message from president Geoff Knauth: Free software is powerful because of you!
From December 30
Public discourse in 2024 revolved around a lot of difficult and
stressful questions that had many of us wanting to bury our heads in
the sand. That being said, now is a good time to remember that the
majority of people are good people who work hard and do great things,
including building up and supporting free software. The FSF is here
because of you and others like you who contribute to free software in
ways big and small. The fight for user freedom is far from over, but
it is continuing because of you.
Microsoft isn't going to stop robbing users of freedom, manufacturing
problems, or creating an immense amount of e-waste, and there is a
better way. When using free software, you make a difference in
mitigating the harm done to users by companies like Microsoft, whilst
freeing yourself and potentially others. A big thank you to everyone
who participated in this year's International Day Against DRM! No
matter if you participated or not, you can get some ideas on how to
limit Microsoft's hold over you and others in our most recent blog
post.
The FSF SysOps Team needs your help to secure technological freedom!
From December 19
The FSF SysOps team, made up of two full-time staff members and a
handful of volunteers, spent the past six months diligently working
to ensure continued functioning of the FSF systems while we were
moving from our physical office in addition to a few major projects.
From all of the challenges that come up during a move to grappling
with multiple DDos attacks, it was a busy end-of-year for the SysOps
team. To get a recap of what they've been up to, read on below.
Fresh off the digital Gutenberg: The fall 2024 Bulletin is online
From December 17
The latest issue of the Free Software Bulletin is online. For this
issue of the Free Software Bulletin, we wanted to revisit the FSF's
organizational history; talk about some of the challenges that we've
been encountering on a regular basis; and how important it is that our
societies respect user freedom at every level. If you haven't read
through the latest Bulletin issue, or want to share an article or
two with someone, now is the perfect time.
IDAD 2024 - Dec. 20: For freedom, against restriction
From December 12
Last month, we protested against Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)
on our eighteenth International Day Against DRM (IDAD). This time, we
focused on Microsoft's Windows 10 cliff support, which affects
thousands of computer users worldwide. Not only does this take away
user control, but it also leads to a boom in e-waste, with thousands
(if not hundreds of thousands) of perfectly functioning machines now
being destined for landfills. If you missed this year's protest
against DRM, or want to continue the protest year-round, we have a few
ideas for what you can do.
Whether your new year traditions involve a fresh set of resolutions or
not, it's never too late to resolve to have a freer year than the
previous one. We're certainly thinking about how we can resolve to
have a freer 2025, and we hope you'll join us. In this article, we've
included a few ideas to get you started (some of which you may already
be doing!). Here's to a freer 2025!
The Licensing and Compliance Team is fighting for freedom and we need your help
From December 3
From keeping an eye out for companies that are attempting to use
confusing licenses to preparing a statement of criteria to help reach
a conclusion for the ongoing discussions around freedom and machine
learning applications, the Licensing and Compliance Lab (Lab) has had
a full plate these past six months. In addition to important projects
such as these, the Lab has also continued organizing weekly Free
Software Directory Meetings, searching for a laptop which meets the
criteria for the RYF certification program, and participating in
SeaGL. They've got their work cut out for them in 2025, but before
thinking too much about the future, check out in detail what they've
been working on.
Apple stops signing iOS 18.1.1, ending firmware downgrades from iOS 18.2
From December 18 by Anthony Bouchard
Once again, Apple has made it clear who really owns the hundreds of
millions of iPads in the world, and it's not the users. In the last
few weeks of 2024, Apple altered its software update servers so that
it would block user requests to downgrade to the older 18.1.1 iOS or
iPadOS once updated to the newer 18.2 using traditional means. While
Apples argues that it protects users from security threats with
updates such as these, in reality this practice is more about blocking
users from exercising their user freedom, and ultimately
controlling users long after they've purchased their iPads.
Windows Recall may sometimes capture credit card details, even when Microsoft's "sensitive information filter" is enabled
From December 13 by Kevin Okemwa
When you use nonfree software, you cannot trust nor investigate a
company's claim that your sensitive information is actually secure, as
shown by recent reports about Microsoft's Windows Recall feature.
Windows Recall takes screenshots of your work every few seconds and
uses an on-device machine learning model to analyze whatever is
captured, including credit card numbers, social security numbers, and
information that could potentially be used against users. While there
is a setting that is supposed to make it impossible for Windows Recall
to take snapshots of sensitive information, in a report by Tom's
Hardware's Avram Plitch, it was found that sometimes the version of
Recall used did capture credit card information. Without the freedom
to inspect programs like Windows Recall, it's anyone's guess as to how
safe your private information is, even if the proprietor claims that
your data is secure.
Maintainers are drowning in junk bug reports written by machine learning models
From December 10 by Thomas Claburn
While low-grade and frustrating online materials have been a problem
for many years (long before chat bots entered cyberspace), machine
learning models have significantly boosted the quantity of
illegitimate reports. Even for those who don't use machine learning
models, developers who maintain projects must still spend valuable
time and resources investigating any potentially valid reports
received, including those created by machine learning models. Not only
is investigating these junk reports a waste of time, but it may also
increase maintainer burnout and lead to a smaller population of people
involved in security work. If you are a bug submitter, avoid
submitting anything without first having human eyes verifying it.
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!
LibrePlanet featured resource: Group: FSF Community Team
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 Group: FSF Community Team, which
is a network of activists who aim to spread the free software
philosophy in the press, blogs, forums, and social media. We respond
immediately to articles, posts, and discussions related to free
software. We pride ourselves in non-inflammatory and persuasive
responses to those who misunderstand or misrepresent free software.
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.
Assigning your copyright to the FSF 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:
Carlos Galvez (GDB)
Erik Tor-björn Claesson (GNU Emacs)
Gabriel Santos de Souza (GNU Emacs)
Heiko Eissfeldt (GCC)
Michele Locati (GNU gettext)
Oleg Tolmatcev (GDB)
Richard Lawrence (GNU Emacs)
Satoru Kurashiki (GNU Emacs)
Serghei Iakovlev (GNU Emacs)
Tobias Tschinkowitz (GNU Emacs)
William Ferreira (GDB)
Yangyu Chen (GCC)
Zhaoming Luo (GNU Hurd)
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.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
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