Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read
by you and 231,575 other activists.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
March FSF40 challenge: Invite someone to participate in the free software memorabilia auction
Free Software Awards: Choose your nominations by March 25
Working together for free software: Our interview with Melanie Punz
FSF talked about education, copyright management, and free machine learning at FOSDEM 2025
I ♥ Free Software Day 2025: Let's celebrate the people who make and maintain free software
The right to repair supports more than just sustainability and affordability
Free Software Foundation to auction off original GNU drawings, awards, and historic tech
SFP#30: The App Fair Project with Marc Prud'hommeaux
All fifty states have now introduced right to repair legislation
Building a community privacy plan
GIMP 3.0 RC3 released for a final round of testing
February GNU Emacs news
Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
LibrePlanet featured resource: Group: Guix/GuixSocial
February GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Sixteen new GNU releases!
Want to read this newsletter translated into another language? Scroll
to the end to read the Supporter in French or Spanish.
March FSF40 challenge: Invite someone to participate in the free software memorabilia auction
Almost every month during our fortieth anniversary year, we're
inviting free software supporters everywhere to join us in celebrating
FSF40. For March, invite a friend to participate in the free software
memorabilia auctions. Participants do not need to register to
participate in the silent auction: simply log into the LibrePlanet
wiki, however, they do need to register to attend the live
auction. Is everyone you know already planning to attend? Fear not if
you can't take part in this #FSF40Challenge - we've got nine more
coming.
Have an idea for a challenge? Send us a message at
[email protected]!
Instead of hosting a single LibrePlanet conference, we're making 2025
a libre year! Check back often for more details about what we're doing
to honor forty years of fighting for user freedom.
Free Software Awards: Choose your nominations by March 25
From February 5
Each year, the FSF presents the Free Software Awards to a select group
of individuals and projects as a formal expression of the community's
appreciation. With the Free Software Awards, we let these people and
projects know that their work is deeply appreciated. It's our way of
thanking them for playing an important part in bringing the movement
closer to its goals. There is still time left to nominate deserving
individuals and projects for a Free Software Award, as we have
extended the deadline to March 25, 23:59 EST (04:59 UTC).
Working together for free software: Our interview with Melanie Punz
From February 20
In the latest segment of our Working Together series, we spoke with
Melanie Punz, an Austria-based legal counselor and mediator. Melanie
is currently volunteering with our Licensing and Compliance Team, and
is certainly an individual worth knowing more about. Read on to learn
about Melanie's experiences and current work in free software below.
FSF talked about education, copyright management, and free machine learning at FOSDEM 2025
From February 11
Every year, one of the biggest free software events, FOSDEM, is
organized by the free software community to promote widespread use of
free software. The FSF was very present at FOSDEM this year with
four different sessions, including presenting on efforts to complete a
statement of criteria for free machine learning applications, and
learning from other free software activists. If you weren't able to
make it to Brussels last month, you can still get a great recap (and
watch a few videos) covering the activities and presentations at FOSDEM
2025.
I ♥ Free Software Day 2025: Let's celebrate the people who make and maintain free software
From February 10
I Love Free Software Day, the same day as Valentine's Day, was started
as a special day to tell everyone maintaining and contributing to free
software, including people advocating for it, "thank you." The free
software movement wouldn't be anywhere near the size it is today
without the massive community of individuals and organizations building
a world where everyone can use, share, study, and improve the
technology we all use. Check out the article below for a few ideas on
how you can share your love of free software beyond I Love Free
Software Day.
The right to repair supports more than just sustainability and affordability
From February 6
The inability to repair our devices is more than just a frustrating
problem that is expensive and harms our environment: it is a symptom
of a lack of software freedom. When software isn't free, it deprives
us of our right to study and modify a device, and thereby prevents us
from repairing it. Even if we can modify the nonfree software, we
aren't allowed to share these improvements with others to help them
upgrade or repair their appliance as well. While right to repair
itself doesn't guarantee user freedom, it does ensure that users can
run, study, contribute, and share the software on their devices. Learn
more about how repairability supports software freedom in the article
below.
Free Software Foundation to auction off original GNU drawings, awards, and historic tech
From February 4
For the first time in the FSF's history, there will be two memorabilia
auctions following each other: a virtual silent edition and an online
live event. The collection of artifacts up for bidding include the
original GNU head drawing, an Amiga 3000UX that was used in the FSF's
old office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the
early days of GNU, and many more. Everyone is encouraged to
participate in either or both auctions later this month. If you are
planning to attend the live auction, please be sure to register as soon as
you can.
SFP#30: The App Fair Project with Marc Prud'hommeaux
From February 14 by Free Software Foundation Europe
For this year's I Love Free Software Day, Bonnie Mehring of the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) talked with Marc Prud'hommeaux about
the App Fair Project, which enables iOS users to access free software
applications. While any project like this that increases access to
free software are major steps forward, the operating system that it is
used on should really be free as well. As was noted in the podcast
episode description, there is still a lot of work to be done when it
comes to making mobile devices entirely free. Listen to their
conversation and learn more about the App Fair Project on the FSFE's
website.
All fifty states have now introduced right to repair legislation
From February 24 by Jason Koebler
At the end of February, Wisconsin became the fiftieth US state to
introduce a right to repair bill in state congress. While the right to
repair laws have only been passed in six states so far (Massachusetts,
New York, Minnesota, Colorado, California, and Oregon), it is very
encouraging for the movement that right to repair is recognized as a
concern in every US state. If you live in a US state that is yet to
make freedom-protecting right to repair laws, or needs stronger
legislation, we encourage you to take time to contact your
representatives and let them know that this is an important right.
Regardless of what's going on politically in your country, it's in your
best interest, and that of the people you care about, to have a free
software based privacy plan in place. Even if you already have a very
secure plan for yourself that protects your rights, members of your
community might not yet, and could use your help protecting themselves
and the rest of the community. An important part of a secure privacy
plan includes being able to check if the programs you use are as
private as they claim to be, something that can only be verified on
free software programs. If you need a little help getting started with
what should be included, check out this guide by the Electronic
Frontier Foundation.
GIMP 3.0 RC3 released for a final round of testing
From February 10 by Michael Larabel
The possibly last release candidate before the stable release of GIMP
3.0, GIMP 3.0 RC3, was published at the beginning of February. GIMP
3.0 RC3 features a few key updates, including: image graph
improvements, thread-safe projection changes, a few plug-in
improvements, fixes to Adobe PSD file format handling, and the
AppImage build of GIMP became official. There are also some smaller
fixes and enhancements that came with GIMP 3.0 RC3. If you haven't
used GIMP before, it's very much worth trying out, especially if you'd
like to learn how to edit images.
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: Guix/GuixSocial
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: Guix/GuixSocial, which
organizes regular online Guix Social sessions as a place for everyone
to come along and learn about Guix, share their passion for all things
reproducible and chat about anything in the Guix, Scheme and Linux
world! Sometimes, they also do patch review sessions with the goal
being to help the Guix project accept contributions while maintaining
quality standards. 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. The following individuals
have assigned their copyright to the FSF (and allowed public
appreciation) in the past month:
Ben Simms (GNU Emacs)
Cristian Ioneci (GNU gawk)
David Masterson (GNU Emacs)
gongzizhuo (GNU Emacs)
Leo Georg Gaskin (GNU EMacs)
Lucas Martin Quintana (GNU Emacs)
Matthew Batson (GNU Emacs)
Maxim Cournoyer (GNU Emacs)
Mirko Hernandez (GNU Emacs)
Nicolas Despres (GNU Emacs)
Thibaut Antoine Meyer (GNU Emacs)
Want to see your name on this list? Contribute to GNU and assign your
copyright to the FSF.
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