Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update — being read
by you and 233,004 other activists.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
August FSF40 challenge: Make plans to celebrate FSF40
4 decades, 4 freedoms, 4 all users
Org Mode, GNU Guix, Mattermost, and more projects to participate in the FSF's hackathon
Our small team vs millions of bots
The Licensing and Compliance Lab, not just holding it down, but pushing back
Missing Skype? Choose freedom and switch to GNU Jami
Meet Miles Wilson, the FSF's summer 2025 campaigns intern
Job opportunity: Deputy director at the Free Software Foundation (part-time exempt)
Job opportunity: Operations assistant at the Free Software Foundation (part-time)
A very warm welcome to 152 new associate members
Member spotlight on… John Kastner!
The software we have to use at work must respect our freedom
You don't own that game (And that app on your phone? Yeah, you don't own that either)
US Army and Navy have both asked for right to repair, now senators want to give it to them
July GNU Emacs news
Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
LibrePlanet featured resource: Group: FSF/Fight-to-Repair
July GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali featuring seventeen new GNU releases: Bash, Cflow, and more!
Want to read this newsletter translated into another language? Scroll
to the end to read the Supporter in French or Spanish.
August FSF40 challenge: Make plans to celebrate FSF40
Every month during our fortieth anniversary year, we're inviting free
software supporters everywhere to join us in celebrating #FSF40. This
month, we encourage you to register to attend one (or both) upcoming
FSF40 events: the FSF40 celebration in Boston and online on
October 4 and the virtual FSF40 hackathon on November 21-23.
We're excited for you to join us! If you can't take part in this
#FSF40Challenge, fear not — we've got four more coming.
Have an idea for a challenge? Send us a message at
[email protected]!
4 decades, 4 freedoms, 4 all users
From July 22
We are inviting free software supporters worldwide to join us in
celebrating "4 decades, 4 freedoms, 4 all users" in Boston, MA, USA
and online on October 4, 2025. The anniversary event, starting at
10:00 EDT (14:00 UTC), is jam-packed with talks and roundtable
discussions by leaders in the free software community, with the last
discussion ending at 17:30 EDT (21:30 UTC). After a morning and
afternoon of engaging talks and discussions for all free software
supporters, associate members are invited to participate in the annual
associate member meeting from 17:45 to 19:00 EDT (21:45 to 23:00). To
round off the birthday festivities, we will be hosting a get together
at a local bar for all free software supporters. Register now to
attend either the in-person or virtual FSF40 celebration.
Org Mode, GNU Guix, Mattermost, and more projects to participate in the FSF's hackathon
From July 16
We're honoring our roots with an FSF40 hackathon! The FSF40 hackathon,
scheduled for November 21-23, 2025, will be centered around important
GNU software like Org Mode, GNU Guix, and GNU Boot, with plenty of
tasks for both developers and non-programmers. This hackathon will
also feature some less-known but remarkable projects, like Lewa (an
interactive platform to learn African writing systems) and Don't Track
Bugs: Track Valuable Discussions (a tool for helping contributors
track bugs, patches, feature requests, and other valuable discussions
shared on mailing lists). Check out the full list of projects in the
link below and register to participate.
Since the sysadmin team last wrote, much has happened, including
increasing aggressiveness of the ongoing distributed denial of service
(DDoS) attacks. The FSF infrastructure has been under DDoS attacks
since August 2024. Read more about what kinds of DDoS attacks have
been launched against our various services, including gnu.org and
directory.fsf.org.
The Licensing and Compliance Lab, not just holding it down, but pushing back
From July 9
There are many excellent strategies for protecting software freedom
and furthering its goals, with the GNU General Public License (GPL)
being one of the more notable tools. The GPL is the first free
software license to effectively secure software freedom, in the past
and long into the future. This has allowed the free software movement
to flourish over the last forty years. Read on for some recent
examples of how the FSF Licensing and Compliance Lab continues to work
diligently to defend the GPL and your computer freedom.
Missing Skype? Choose freedom and switch to GNU Jami
From July 31
Microsoft Skype shut down for good on May 5, 2025. Shutdowns like this
one or the end of support for Windows 10 are the best time to help
people think differently about the tools they rely on for their most
crucial communications, and educate our loved ones about software
freedom. Often, this involves encouraging them to switch to free
communication tools like, for example, GNU Jami, a recipient of the
FSF's Award for Projects of Social Benefit. If you've never used Jami
before, give it a try next time you want to call friends or family via
videochat, or even suggest using it at your workplace.
Meet Miles Wilson, the FSF's summer 2025 campaigns intern
From July 30
Meet our summer campaigns intern, Miles Wilson! This summer, Miles
will help plan the upcoming FSF40 celebration and updates to the
Defective by Design website. Miles has plenty of personal experience
with free software and certainly the motivation to fight against
digital restrictions management and other freedom-impeding issues. Get
to know Miles and what Miles is hoping to accomplish as an FSF intern.
Job opportunity: Deputy director at the Free Software Foundation (part-time exempt)
From July 30
We're seeking a motivated and talented Boston-area individual to be
our next deputy director! Reporting to the executive director (ED),
the deputy director (DD) plays a critical role in ensuring the
execution of key operational and business functions. This position
assists with leading the organization in close partnership with the
ED. The ideal candidate is calm under pressure with a proven ability
to independently manage multiple moving priorities and stakeholders,
attention to detail, rigor, and a positive demeanor. The DD role will
be primarily internal-facing. The role is part-time exempt, with exact
hours negotiable up to a maximum of four days per week.
Job opportunity: Operations assistant at the Free Software Foundation (part-time)
From July 30
We're seeking a motivated and talented Boston-based individual to be
our operations assistant. Reporting to the executive director (ED),
the operations assistant (OA) provides administrative support to the
FSF's activities and works mainly in coordination with the operations
team. The ideal candidate is detail-oriented, responsible,
self-motivated, and enjoys operations.
Our spring fundraiser has come to an end. Thank you so much for your
help in getting us close to our ambitious goal of 200 new members in
only a month, and a special thanks to those who continue to renew
their support. We're extremely thankful for all of the ways you may
have contributed, and it's because of you that we're able to welcome
152 new members to our associate member program in only thirty-two
days! If you know someone who might enjoy an FSF associate membership,
consider telling them about it or even gifting them one!
As part of our festivities around our fortieth anniversary, we are
celebrating individual associate members with our member spotlight
series. For our second member spotlight, we spent some time getting to
know John Kastner, a free software supporter with years of experience
in software development. He has a substantial managerial background
and experience in all levels of direct involvement, from requirements
to research to design, development, implementation, and delivery, and
has personally written hundreds of thousands of lines of code and
produced over twenty-five professional publications. Read on to learn
about John's experiences with free software.
The software we have to use at work must respect our freedom
From July 10
Many people are forced to use nonfree software to fulfill the
requirements of their job descriptions. Software freedom is a human
right. Every human being deserves to have the freedom to run, study,
modify, and share the software they use. Instead of the
freedom-robbing programs used for documentation and communication,
your employers could and should opt for software that grants these
same four freedoms. If you currently use proprietary software to carry
out work tasks, talk with your manager about what these proprietary
programs really cost and why they should transition to free software
(if you feel comfortable doing so).
You don't own that game (And that app on your phone? Yeah, you don't own that either)
From July 24 by Hazem Abbas
1.4 million EU citizens have so far declared that they're tired of
purchasing a digital good with none of the rights that come with true
ownership in a recent petition. For far too long, users have been
controlled by digital restrictions management, a practice that imposes
artificial restrictions on what users are able to do with their
digital media. When you purchase something, you should have the rights
to do what you want with it, instead of being told by the proprietor
that you can't share it with anyone or modify it, and that it might
not actually be yours in a couple years if the proprietor decides to
erase it from existence. If you're an EU citizen, tell the European
Commission that EU citizens deserve the right to truly own the digital
tools they purchase.
US Army and Navy have both asked for right to repair, now senators want to give it to them
From July 8 by Brandon Vigliarolo
The right to repair movement continues to grow in popularity, as
evidenced by a recent bill introduced in the United States Senate
aimed at enshrining the US Army's right to repair policy into federal
law across military branches. Unrepairability is a symptom of a
critical lack of freedom. When software isn't free, we are blocked
from studying it and modifying (or repairing) it. Even if we somehow
find a way around all the constraints put in place by the proprietor,
we aren't allowed to share these improvements with others to help them
repair or upgrade their device as either. If you're new to the right
to repair movement, or need help explaining it to someone, check out
our video on it below.
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/Fight-to-Repair
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 Group: FSF/Fight-to-Repair
resource. On this page, you can find information breaking down the
right to repair movement, the FSF's work campaigning for it (Fight to
Repair), and developments in legislation. You are invited to help
update, 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:
Aman Ghodawala (GDB)
Want to see your name on this list? Contribute to GNU and assign your
copyright to the FSF.
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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
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email to [email protected] with your interest and a list of your
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