Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/july
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read
by you and 227,904 other activists. That's 194 more than last month!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Software patents hold back progress -- even in healthcare
- Teaching my MIT classes with only free software
- Regarding Git and branch naming
- Digital rights and the Black-led movement against police violence
- We must all speak up
- The US Senate's new anti-encryption bill is even worse than EARN IT, and that's saying something
- Some work-at-home tips for free software contributors
- COVID-19 contact-tracing apps in MENA: A privacy nightmare
- Guix further reduces bootstrap seed to 25%
- Etalab shows how free software can be made available for the public sector
- Zoom admits to shutting down activist accounts at the request of the Chinese government
- MIT, guided by open access principles, ends Elsevier negotiations
- GNS technical specification milestone 3/4
- June GNU Emacs news
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Gain industry support
- GNU Spotlight with Mike Gerwitz: 12 new GNU releases!
- FSF and other free software events
- Thank GNUs!
- GNU copyright contributions
- Translations of the Free Software Supporter
- Take action with the FSF!
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Software patents hold back progress -- even in healthcare
From June 22nd
On Friday May 8th, the United States Patent and Trademark Office
(USPTO) announced the COVID-19 Prioritized Examination Pilot
Program. Doctored up to look like a helpful response to a global
pandemic, it's actually the exact opposite. Under the program, the
USPTO will waive some fees associated with accelerated application
review for patents on works that require US Food and Drug
Administration (FDA) approval. They'll also work to try and get these
applications granted within six months. These changes will make it
easier and faster for people to gain patents on any technology related
to the pandemic, including patents on software. It's not in our scope
to determine the impact of other kinds of patents, but we know
specifically that they are terrible for software, and at a time where
software is critical to saving lives, expediting software patent
applications will only cause harm.
Teaching my MIT classes with only free software
From June 10th by Gerald Jay Sussman
This spring (2020), the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
moved all its classes online because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It made
available licenses for various nonfree programs, but I objected to
them on grounds of principle. For my class, an advanced class in
computer programming, I made arrangements to avoid suggesting any
nonfree software to my students.
Instead, I used an installation of BigBlueButton running on a server
owned by the FSF. Rubén Rodriguez of the FSF helped get this and other
software working.
Regarding Git and branch naming
From June 23rd by the Software Freedom Conservancy
Both Conservancy and the Git project are aware that the initial branch
name, "master," is offensive to some people, and we empathize with
those hurt by the use of that term.
As a first step, Git will add a mechanism to allow users to specify
the default used as the name of the first branch when creating a new
repository. Also, consistent with its project governance, Git has
undertaken a community process to explore changing the name of the
first branch created automatically for new repositories away from
"master." That change is currently being discussed on our mailing
list. As always, changes in Git's core will minimize disruption for
Git's users and will include appropriate deprecation periods.
Digital rights and the Black-led movement against police violence
From June 25th by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Black lives matter on the streets. Black lives matter on the
Internet. EFF stands with the communities mourning the victims of
police homicide. We stand with the protesters who are plowed down by
patrol cars. We stand with the journalists placed in handcuffs or
fired upon while reporting these atrocities. And we stand with all
those using their cameras, phones and digital tools to make sure we
cannot turn away from the truth.
We must all speak up
From June 8th by the GNOME Foundation
Historically, free software has failed at engaging with Black, ethnic
minorities, and marginalized communities. This is especially a problem
when those who could benefit the most from a free software stack -- to
be in control of their own computing -- are marginalized in their
efforts to contribute towards that computing. Thus, GNOME stands firm
with #BlackLivesMatter.
The US Senate's new anti-encryption bill is even worse than EARN IT, and that's saying something
From June 24th by Andrew Crocker
The new Lawful Access to Encrypted Data Act -- introduced this week by
Senators Graham, Blackburn, and Cotton -- ignores expert consensus and
public opinion, which is unfortunately par for the course. But the
bill is actually even more out of touch with reality than many other
recent anti-encryption bills. The new bill doesn’t bother with
commissions or best practices. Instead, it would give the US Justice
Department the ability to require that manufacturers of encrypted
devices and operating systems, communications providers, and many
others must have the ability to decrypt data upon request. In other
words, a backdoor.
Some work-at-home tips for free software contributors
From June 23rd by Bradley M. Kuhn
The global COVID-19 pandemic has changed everyone's lives, and taken
the lives of so many of our family members and friends. For those of
us that have been spared, our lives must continue, and this is
particularly true for those who work in free software, since so many
of us already worked from home. Doing so when our world faces so many
simultaneous crises is undoubtedly difficult. I share below a few
ideas that I've had that might be able to help my fellow free software
contributors.
COVID-19 contact-tracing apps in MENA: A privacy nightmare
From June 18th by Dima Samaro and Marwa Fatafta
At the outbreak of the COVID-19 global pandemic, a number of countries
in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region turned to technology
to help track and prevent the spread of the virus, using apps, drones,
and even robots to monitor the movement of citizens under
quarantine. Now, as countries are looking to slowly return to life and
lift lockdown measures, more are jumping on the bandwagon, including
developing their own contact-tracing apps, as seen most recently in
Morocco and Tunisia.
Despite their life-saving potential, these apps also have the same
potential to violate user freedom and privacy that all proprietary
programs do. And without adequate legal protections and privacy
safeguards in place, these apps can open the path for authoritarian
governments to violate human rights and harm marginalized populations.
Guix further reduces bootstrap seed to 25%
From June 15th by Jan Nieuwenhuizen
We are delighted to announce that the second reduction by 50% of the
Guix bootstrap binaries has now been officially released! The initial
set of binaries from which packages are built now weighs in at
approximately 60~MiB, a quarter of what it used to be.
In a previous blog post we elaborate on why this reduction and
bootstrappability in general is so important. One reason is to
eliminate -- or greatly reduce the attack surface of -- a “trusting
trust” attack. Last summer at the Breaking Bitcoin conference, Carl
Dong gave a fun and remarkably gentle introduction and at FOSDEM2020 I
also gave a short talk about this. If you choose to believe that
building from source is the proper way to do computing, then it
follows that the “trusting trust” attack is only a symptom of an
incomplete or missing bootstrap story.
Etalab shows how free software can be made available for the public sector
From June 9th by Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)
Etalab is a department of the French government administration in
charge of digital affairs, named direction interministérielle du
numérique (DINUM). Etalab has created two lists of free software: one
of software recommended for the public sector, and one of software
created by the public sector. The FSFE interviewed Bastien Guerry from
Etalab to learn more about how these lists came into being, and the
ideas behind them.
Zoom admits to shutting down activist accounts at the request of the Chinese government
From June 11th by Jonathan Shleber
Zoom, the proprietary video chat service that has been a ubiquitous
feature of life during the COVID-19 pandemic, said that it shut down
three accounts at the request of the Chinese government for holding
memorials for the victims of China’s violent suppression of peaceful
protests at Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.
This is just one more reason to avoid
Zoom and try
free software tools for staying in
touch
instead -- and to make sure the people you care about know that they
have better options. And if you're an FSF associate member, you can
use our freedom-respecting Jitsi Meet
instance,
too!
MIT, guided by open access principles, ends Elsevier negotiations
From June 11th by MIT Libraries
Standing by its commitment to provide equitable and open access to
scholarship, MIT has ended negotiations with Elsevier for a new
journals contract. Elsevier was not able to present a proposal that
aligned with the principles of the MIT Framework for Publisher
Contracts.
Developed by the MIT Libraries in collaboration with the Ad Hoc Task
Force on Open Access to MIT’s Research and the Committee on the
Library System in October 2019, the MIT Framework is grounded in the
conviction that openly sharing research and educational materials is
key to the Institute’s mission of advancing knowledge and bringing
that knowledge to bear on the world’s greatest challenges. It affirms
the overarching principle that control of scholarship and its
dissemination should reside with scholars and their institutions, and
aims to ensure that scholarly research outputs are openly and
equitably available to the broadest possible audience, while also
providing valued services to the MIT community.
GNS technical specification milestone 3/4
From June 1st by GNUnet
We are happy to announce the completion of the third milestone for the
GNS (GNU Name System) Specification. The third milestone consists of documenting the GNS
zone revocation process. As part of this, the GNUnet team has reworked
the proof-of-work algorithms in GNUnet also used for GNS revocations.
The (protocol breaking) changes will be released as part of GNUnet
0.13.0.
June GNU Emacs news
From June 29th by Sacha Chua
In these issues: checking the major mode in Emacs Lisp; set up
org-roam on your own machine; continued discussion on the squareness
of Emacs; reflection on Emacs themes; 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 irc.freenode.org, and usually include a handful
of regulars as well as newcomers. Freenode is accessible from any IRC
client -- Everyone's welcome!
The next meeting is Friday, July 10, from 12pm to 3pm EDT (16:00 to
19:00 UTC). Details here:
LibrePlanet featured resource: Gain industry support
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 "Gain industry support," which
provides information about how to contact retailers and hardware
companies and pressure them to support free software. 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].
GNU Spotlight with Mike Gerwitz: 12 new GNU releases!
12 new GNU releases in the last month (as of June 29, 2020):
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 from
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/, or preferably one of its mirrors from
https://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html. You can use the URL
https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a
(hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.
This month, we welcome Jacob Bachmeyer as co-maintainer of DejaGnu.
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.
FSF and other free software events
- July 22-28, 2020, online, GUADEC 2020
- August 23-29, online, DebConf 20
- October 18-20, 2020, Raleigh, NC, ATO
- November 13-14, 2020, online, SeaGL
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:
- Arthur Gleckler
- David Turner
- Hideki IGARASHI
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:
- Bruno Haible (Texinfo, coreutils, Diffutils)
- Marc Nieper-Wißkirchen (Gnulib, GCC)
- Mario Frasca (Emacs)
- Mathias Lang (GCC)
- Mitto Systems Limited (DejaGnu)
- Nicholas Vollmer (Emacs)
- Pietro Paolini (GNU sed)
- Stephen Casner (binutils, GCC)
Want to see your name on this list? Contribute to GNU and assign your
copyright to the FSF.
Translations of the Free Software Supporter
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O Free Software Supporter está disponível em português. Para ver a
versão em português, clique aqui:
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Para alterar as preferências do usuário e receber as próximas
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Take action with the FSF!
Contributions from thousands of individual 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:
I'm an FSF member -- Help us support software freedom!
https://my.fsf.org/join
The FSF is always looking for volunteers
(https://www.fsf.org/volunteer). 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
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#
Copyright © 2020 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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