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Read and share online:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2025/july
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update — being read
by you and 232,925 other activists.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Free software can defy dystopia
- July FSF40 challenge: Buy the FSF your favorite drink
- Reverse engineering, DDoS attacks, and why we need your voice. Read more in the spring Bulletin
- Sharing our first FSF associate member spotlight
- Look at what we've achieved together
- GNU Press Shop is open! FSF40 gear, books & more — now until July 28
- From Nairobi to Livermore: A recap of the LibreLocal meetups
- IRS tax filing software released to the people as free
- Industry committee vote: Technology sovereignty is only possible with free software
- Use your voice for free software! Tell Qualcomm to release fully-free drivers for modern Wi-Fi chipsets by July 14, 2025
- Why Denmark is dumping Microsoft Office and Windows for LibreOffice and GNU/Linux
- The right to repair is law in Washington state
- June GNU Emacs news
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Media coverage
- June GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali featuring Sixteen new GNU releases: GNUnet, Nettle, and more!
- FSF and other free software events
- Thank GNUs!
- GNU copyright contributions
- Translations of the Free Software Supporter
- Take action with the FSF!
View this issue online here:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2025/july
Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by
adding our subscriber widget to your website.
Miss an issue? You can catch up on back issues at
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter.
Want to read this newsletter translated into another language? Scroll
to the end to read the Supporter in French or Spanish.
Free software can defy dystopia
From June 16
Dystopian worlds don't just pop into existence: they are built by the
choices of those with substantial power, taking freedom from others.
Free software can empower people to make our world actually better
(not Big Tech), but we need to join together and ensure that freedom
can thrive. Help us protect user freedom — join the thousands of free
software advocates who are already FSF associate members. You can
become one of two hundred new associate members by July 11 for only
$12/month ($6 for students).
July FSF40 challenge: Buy the FSF your favorite drink
Every month during our fortieth anniversary year, we're inviting free
software supporters everywhere to join us in celebrating #FSF40. For
this month's challenge, donate the cost of your favorite drink.
If you buy us a coffee or energy drink, you'll be giving us energy to
protect and fight for free software for the next forty years. If you
can't afford to donate this month, or want to encourage others to buy
the FSF their favorite drink, tag us in a social media post with
#Tea4FSF. If you can't take part in this #FSF40Challenge, fear not —
we've got five more coming.
Have an idea for a challenge? Send us a message at
[email protected]!
Reverse engineering, DDoS attacks, and why we need your voice. Read more in the spring Bulletin
From June 30
Have you ever spent a perfectly good summer staring down the barrel of
a 10MB executable in a hex editor or mitigating Distributed Denial of
Service (DDoS) attacks? In the latest issue of the Free Software
Bulletin, you can learn why neither should be necessary. You can also
read about the workings of social movements in our executive
director's empowering call to speak up; discover how "no attribution"
licenses hinder the goals of the free software movement, even though
they're free licenses; and understand how the use of free software in
healthcare ensures freedom to healthcare workers and patients,
increases transparency, builds trust with patients, and could reduce
costs.
Sharing our first FSF associate member spotlight
From June 26
We are so incredibly grateful for the support of our associate members
who make the work we do possible. It is out of this gratitude that we
have started the associate member spotlight series, both to thank
associate members as well as to demonstrate how broad and talented the
FSF associate member community is. In each interview, we will ask
associate members about their experiences with free software and how
they're working to make the world just a bit freer. We have begun the
series with Iván Ávalos, a software developer and free software
advocate from Mexico. Read on to learn about Ivan's free software
journey.
Look at what we've achieved together
From June 24
It's been a very busy six months for the campaigns team: we've
written, thoroughly reviewed, and published thirty-two blog posts and
press releases, plus six newsletters in English, French, and Spanish,
and – not to forget – published our biannual newsletter the Free
Software Bulletin with five special articles. With the help of free
software enthusiasts all over the world, we initiated twenty-nine
LibreLocal meetup, voiced our outrage about Microsoft's latest
injustice to require a hardware TPM module for Windows 11, recorded
video tutorials, served as your software freedom advocate on the
machine learning safety consortium of the US National Institute of
Standards and Technology (NIST), and much more. Click the link below
to read about everything accomplished by the campaigns team with help
from the free software community.
GNU Press Shop is open! FSF40 gear, books & more — now until July 28
From June 20
From now until July 28, you can buy your FSF gear at the GNU Press
Shop. For a limited time, we're taking orders for our special new
FSF40 shirt in a summery yellow. We've also restocked some favorites
in the shop, including: A fresh batch of the popular Ada & Zangemann:
A Tale of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream book by
Matthias Kirschner; our pitch-black GNU baseball cap with brilliant
gold embroidery; and a slick webcam guard. Your purchases support the
mission of the FSF and help us empower the world through the use of
free software. The GNU Press Shop has plenty of other goodies, new and
old, and we encourage you to explore!
From Nairobi to Livermore: A recap of the LibreLocal meetups
From June 11
In honor of the FSF's fortieth anniversary, we called on our
supporters globally to help us make the month of May LibreLocal month,
and the global free software community responded. Almost thirty
LibreLocal meetups were held in May worldwide, and there are still
more to come the entire year. A big thank you to everyone who made
this possible. You made the month of May a true LibreLocal month!
These events were another — and in these times, much needed — reminder
that together we can achieve so much! We hope the recaps of these
fourteen LibreLocal meetups will inspire to organize yourself or help
you realize that you're not alone on your journey to software freedom
but part of an entire movement.
IRS tax filing software released to the people as free software
From June 10
When we called on free software advocates in late March to ask that
Direct File be released as free software, we cited a need for
transparency among other reasons as to why it is the IRS's duty to
release Direct File as free software. We asked the free software
community to advocate for freedom-respecting electronic filing by
writing to the IRS Commissioner, and you answered the call. While a
large part of the software was ultimately released as free software,
unfortunately, the nonfree JavaScript that the program uses is still
in place. We thank you for speaking up for free software, and ask that
you continue to keep an eye out for other ways you can make our world
a little freer.
Industry committee vote: Technology sovereignty is only possible with free software
From June 3 by Free Software Foundation Europe
The "Free software first" policy is steadily gaining traction, including
in the Industry, Research, and Energy committee (ITRE), one of the
European Parliament's largest committees. As evidenced by the ITRE's
recent initiative report, free software plays an important role in
Europe's technological sovereignty and digital infrastructure. In
light of strong dependencies and vendor lock-ins, the ITRE sees free
software first policies as a solution, pointing to the benefits of
free software in fostering competitiveness and innovation thanks to
its global character. For more about the vision that the ITRE has for
free software's role in Europe, check out the below article and linked
podcasts.
Use your voice for free software! Tell Qualcomm to release fully-free drivers for modern Wi-Fi chipsets by July 14, 2025
By Mission:Libre
Over a decade ago, Atheros released the ath9k suite of Linux kernel
drivers, which were the first free Wi-Fi drivers for the Linux kernel.
Atheros' work made it possible for GNU/Linux users to connect to Wi-Fi
without having to use proprietary drivers or binary-only firmware.
Unfortunately, as technology marches forward, the chipsets that were
supported by free drivers have been discontinued, rendering the ath9k
suite of Wi-Fi drivers obsolete. Today, there are no free Linux kernel
drivers for contemporary Wi-Fi hardware. Tell Qualcomm, Inc. to
release fully-free drivers for its in-production Wi-Fi chipsets, just
as Atheros (Qualcomm's predecessor) did sixteen years ago.
Why Denmark is dumping Microsoft Office and Windows for LibreOffice and GNU/Linux
From June 11 by Steven Vaughan-Nichols
Denmark is probably a little ahead of the rest of the European Union's
efforts to reach digital sovereignty, as demonstrated by its latest
announcement that it will be phasing out Microsoft Office. There are a
lot of great reasons to dump Microsoft Office, a few of the ones cited
by the Danish government include deciding who controls European data,
who sets the rules, and who can potentially cut off access to
essential services in times of geopolitical tension. Once Denmark has
successfully transitioned its office suite to free software, it could
become a beacon for other nations as a clear example of a highly
digitalized society using only free software for its office needs.
The right to repair is law in Washington state
From June 3 by Hayley Tsukayama and Cory Doctorow
We have another win for the right to repair! As of May 19,
Washingtonians now have the right to access tools, parts, and
information for repairing their devices themselves, including
wheelchairs. When you own something, you should have the final say
about who fixes, adapts, or modifies it—and how, not the manufacturer.
There are still forty-two states that haven't yet passed a right to
repair law, so if you live in one of these states, write or call your
state representatives about how important the right to repair is.
June GNU Emacs news
From June 30 by Sacha Chua
In these issues: Emacs cat, generating Beamer slides, and more!
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 next Friday, July 11 from 12:00 to 15:00 EDT
(16:00 to 19:00 UTC). Details here:
https://www.fsf.org/events/fsd-2025-07-11-irc
LibrePlanet featured resource: Media coverage
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 the Media coverage resource. This
page provides some suggestions for helping get free software and the
FSF into the news. 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].
June GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali featuring Sixteen new GNU releases: GNUnet, Nettle, and more!
Sixteen new GNU releases in the last month (as of June 30, 2025):
For a full list with descriptions, please see:
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/2025-june-gnu-spotlight-with-amin-bandali
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 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.
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 me, [email protected],
with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.
FSF and other free software events
- August 4-September 7, 2025, online FSF Free Software Every Day photo contest (details to be announced)
- August 15-17, 2025, Queens, New York HOPE
- October 4, 2025, FSF40 celebration, Boston, Massachusetts (registration will open at the end of July)
- October 4, 2025, Harbin, China Community meetup
- October 12-14, Raleigh, North Carolina ATO
- November 7-8, Seattle, Washington SeaGL
- November 21-23, 2025, FSF hackathon
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:
- Catalin Francu
- Deborah Jackson
- Maks Romih
- Richard Greer
- Terrance Druggan
- Yuchen Pei
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:
- Aaron Geoffrey Griffith (GDB, GNU Binutils)
- Fabian Kilger (GDB)
- Jacob Gordon (GNU Emacs)
- Jeremy Bryant (GDB)
- Marc Alvarez (GNU Emacs)
- Rayne Rettich (GNU Emacs)
- Yodel Eldar (GDB)
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 aquí:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2025/julio
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=1414ff9adb3e0a3862b2aa3ff4a54be1_1751510486_168
Le Free Software Supporter est disponible en français. Pour voir la
version française cliquez ici:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2025/juillet
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=1414ff9adb3e0a3862b2aa3ff4a54be1_1751510486_168
If you no longer wish to receive the Free Software Supporter in
English (but still receive other communications in English), you can
opt out here.
Take action with 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 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. 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 and take action on software
patents, Digital Restrictions
Management, free
software adoption,
OpenDocument,
and more.
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.
Copyright © 2025 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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