Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read
by you and 231,457 other activists.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
February FSF40 challenge
Announcing the winner of the FSF40 Anniversary Logo Contest
Organize a community meetup in your area
Llama 3.1 Community License is not a free software license
We surpassed our year-end goal of $400,000 USD thanks to you!
Anchoring the FSF in its values
Psychological care should grant you freedom and protection
FSF associate members to decide the logo for the FSF's fortieth anniversary
SFC-funded lawsuit gets software repair and reinstall for users of AVM routers
Router freedom in Germany: A victory for consumers!
I Love Free Software Day 2025 is around the corner!
Executive order to the US State Department sideswipes freedom tools, threatens censorship resistance, privacy, and anonymity of millions
Heads up: Microsoft is leaving you logged on starting in February
January GNU Emacs news
Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
LibrePlanet featured resource: Group:Software/FSDG distributions/CrossDistroBootstrap
January GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Seventeen new GNU releases!
Want to read this newsletter translated into another language? Scroll
to the end to read the Supporter in French, Spanish, or Portuguese.
Join us in celebrating forty years of advocating for software freedom.
February FSF40 challenge
Almost every month during our fortieth anniversary year, we're
inviting free software supporters everywhere to join us in celebrating
FSF40 all year long in 2025. For February, join this month's FSF40
challenge and add "The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is ending their
thirties on a high note! Join the FSF in celebrating their fortieth
birthday: u.fsf.org/44j" to your email signature. Even if you don't
take part in this #FSF40Challenge, fear not - we've got ten more
coming.
Have an idea for a challenge? Send us a message at [email protected]!
Announcing the winner of the FSF40 Anniversary Logo Contest
From January 22
After two weeks of voting on twelve designs submitted by free
software supporters, the community chose an image that will represent
the fortieth FSF anniversary. Take a look at all the designs submitted,
including a closer look at the winning logo seen in the banner above!
We're inviting free software supporters like you to organize an
in-person community meetup in your area to bring people all over the
world together and celebrate forty years of commitment to software
freedom. If you're up for organizing a get-together in your area in
May 2025, either by yourself or with someone, we've put together a
guide to get you started!
Llama 3.1 Community License is not a free software license
From January 24
The FSF has published its evaluation of the Llama 3.1 Community
License Agreement. This is not a free software license and you should
not use it, nor any software released under it. You can review the
reasons that the Llama 3.1 Community License Agreement does not qualify
as a free software license below.
We surpassed our year-end goal of $400,000 USD thanks to you!
From January 21
We want to thank all our individual donors and members who gave to us
what they could spare, pushing our progress bar to its max. We also
received a major anonymous donation that put us well beyond our
fundraising goal! The overwhelming support from the community makes
the FSF stronger and all its staff feel empowered and motivated to
take on our fortieth year of promoting computer user freedom. Just
because the fundraiser is over doesn't mean that the work is, though.
There's still a lot that we can do together to cement free software's
role in our societies. You can read on for a few ideas on what you can
do to stay involved.
The founders of the FSF started the Free Software Foundation (FSF) in
1985, with the moral goal of giving users control over their
computing, what we call software freedom -- and specifically to
support developing the GNU operating system that would make software
freedom a practical possibility. The FSF hasn't strayed from this core
value after almost forty years of work. In this article by the FSF
Board of Directors, they cover some of the factors that led to the
current board structure.
Psychological care should grant you freedom and protection
From January 7
While any tool that claims to improve mental healthcare and parenting
can sound promising, especially in stretched healthcare systems, the
rise of proprietary apps designed to help new parents is concerning.
Soula, a large language model written to support pregnant and
postpartum parents, is one of many mental healthcare apps that could
potentially harm instead of help vulnerable people. Not only does
Soula block users from exercising the four freedoms, it also
collects an immense amount of sensitive data (including menstruation
cycles and physical/mental well-being) that it gives to other
companies, like OpenAI. If you're not yet aware of the dangers of
these proprietary mental healthcare apps, now is a good time to
acquaint yourself with what you could be getting into if you use one
of these programs.
FSF associate members to decide the logo for the FSF's fortieth anniversary
From January 6
In early January, voting was opened for the logos submitted in late
2024 to decide the logo for the fortieth anniversary of the FSF.
Associate members of the FSF were invited to vote for their favorite
design, with the knowledge that their chosen design would be displayed
on the FSF homepage, printed on all of the celebration materials, and
possibly even stamped on some merchandise. You can see all twelve
submitted designs by visiting the (now closed) voting page.
SFC-funded lawsuit gets software repair and reinstall for users of AVM routers
From January 9 by Software Freedom Conservancy
After more than a year, the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC)-funded
lawsuit lawsuit against AVM, the largest home router manufacturer in
Germany, came to a satisfactory conclusion in early January.
Ultimately, the resolution exemplifies the power of copyleft —
granting users the freedom to modify, repair, and secure the software
on their own devices. This lawsuit reminded AVM, and hopefully other
companies, that users must receive the same rights that AVM does under
copyleft.
Router freedom in Germany: A victory for consumers!
From January 24 by Free Software Foundation Europe
Just before the 9th anniversary of a 2016 law introducing router
freedom to Germany, the German telecom regulator, Bundesnetzagentur
(BNetzA), successfully defended against fiber network providers'
attempt to circumvent the router freedom law. In 2023, an association
of fiber network operators in Germany submitted a request to exclude
router freedom requirements from fiber networks. In its comprehensive
decision, BNetzA rejected all the arguments brought forward by the
telecom operators, confirming continued router freedom for German
users, including those on fiber. You can read more about why BNetzA
ultimately rejected the request to operate fiber networks without
complying to router freedom requirements below.
I Love Free Software Day 2025 is around the corner!
From January 15 by Free Software Foundation Europe
We hope you love free software every day of the year, but if you're
looking for an excuse to celebrate how much you love free software
than I Love Free Software Day 2025 is a great day to observe. This
year's theme is "Hidden Projects," which highlights free software
initiatives that are perhaps less talked about but is the foundation
to the overall infrastructure that we use each day. It's time that we
recognize how important things from server software to critical tools
really are. We will be participating in I Love Free Software Day 2025
and will be posting more about it next week. In the meantime, the FSFE
has some great ideas on how you can share your love of free software!
Executive order to the US State Department sideswipes freedom tools, threatens censorship resistance, privacy, and anonymity of millions
From January 30 by Corynne McSherry and Cindy Cohn
One of the many actions issued on the first day of President Trump's
second term, the Reevaluating and Realigning United States Foreign Aid
Executive Order (RRUSFA), threatens user security, privacy, and
anonymity. RRUSFA immediately suspended contracts with hundreds of
organizations in the US and globally, including many freedom
technologies that use cryptography, fight censorship, and protect
freedom of speech, privacy, and anonymity for millions of people. As a
result, many of these projects have to stop or severely cut back on
their projects, lay off talented workers, and stop or slow further
development. We urge you to stay informed about what RRUSFA means for
your freedom.
Heads up: Microsoft is leaving you logged on starting in February
From January 22 by Katie Scott
We don't have to tell you that there's a lot of reasons why you
shouldn't use Microsoft software, but here we are with yet another
one. Starting this month, if you or your loved ones use Microsoft on
public computers, or perhaps at work, you will have to make a very
conscious choice to log out of any Microsoft software used before
leaving the computer to keep your information as safe as you can when
using Microsoft, which isn't very. While this might seem like just a
slightly annoying change, it is a major threat to user data and
security, because if you do forget to log out (which, who hasn't,
especially when in a rush), then your data and work is readily
available to whoever uses that computer next. If your local library is
using Microsoft on library computers, now is a good time to advocate
for a free operating system to become the default.
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 7 from 12:00 to 15:00 EST (17:00
to 20:00 UTC). Details here:
https://www.fsf.org/events/fsd-2025-02-07-irc
LibrePlanet featured resource: Group:Software/FSDG distributions/CrossDistroBootstrap
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:Software/FSDG distributions/CrossDistroBootstrap, which provides
a quick guide on which tools can script installations of an FSDG
distribution rootfs from another FSDG distribution. 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.
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. Want to see your name on
the 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.
