The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is now offering all FSF associate
members free "as in freedom" videoconferencing as an additional
member benefit. Becoming a member now helps you push back
against increased societal pressure to use nonfree software to
communicate with coworkers, friends, and loved ones during the
COVID-19 pandemic, and after.
We have been raising the alarm about encroachments upon user freedom
by popular remote communication tools since social distancing
guidelines were issued. You might have seen our recent publications
warning users about widely used nonfree applications for remote
communication and education, like Zoom.
As promised at LibrePlanet 2020, we have formed a working group
to document and address major issues facing free software
communication platforms, and this project is part of that
effort. Another initiative in our free communication toolbox is a
collaborative resource page created to steer users to
applications that respect them, and away from conferencing tools like
Zoom, which requires users to give up their software-related freedoms,
and which has been a recent focal point of criticism due to
problems ranging from security issues to privacy violations.
The platform we use to offer ethical videoconferencing access is
Jitsi Meet. We used it previously to stream and
record our annual LibrePlanet conference for an online
audience after the COVID-19 pandemic forced us to cancel the in-person
event. Choosing Jitsi Meet is only the first step to addressing the
problems posed to freedom by services like Zoom and Facebook. Even
users that start a call via a server running Jitsi could still be
vulnerable if that server depends on or shares information with third
parties. The FSF made changes to the code we are running, in order to
enhance privacy and software freedom, and published the source
code, to motivate others to host their own instances. The FSF
instance does not use any third party servers for network
initialization, and does not recommend or link to any potentially
problematic services.
In order to be able to provide a sustainable and reliable service, we
are offering the ability to create conversations on the server
exclusively to associate members, and it is intended only for
personal, noncommercial use. Members can create a channel using their
member credentials, but then any person or group can then participate
in the conversation. Nonmembers can be invited, but cannot start a
channel.
Privacy and encryption in the FSF Jitsi Meet instance
Jitsi Meet offers end-to-end encryption for conversations between two
people. For conversations between three or more people, there will
always be encryption at the network level, but you still have to place
some level of trust in the server operators that process your video
stream. Because the FSF controls the physical machine, we can offer
members the respect of privacy and freedom you have come to expect
from us. The FSF servers do not store any voice, video, or messages
from calls, and logging is minimal -- for the purpose of
troubleshooting and abuse prevention only. Jitsi is working on
developing end-to-end encryption for calls with more than two
people, and we will implement these changes on our instance as soon as
this becomes available.
As a nonprofit, the FSF has limited resources, which may at times
affect the server capacity. We will experiment with different
parameters and limitations, improve the instance as needed, and update
the repo accordingly.
Support our work
Now that remote and digital connections are playing a bigger role in
our daily lives than ever before, it is important to communicate about
and push for free software continuously. Our success hinges on the
people that support us, and in return we want to do our part to make
sure no one is forced to give up their freedom in order to live their
(now remote) daily lives with technology. Please consider an FSF
associate membership to help support our work, and continue your
advocacy for free software.
