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Read and share online:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2025/december.
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update — being read
by you and 234479 other activists.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- We support your freedom
- Hundreds of free software supporters tuned in for FSF40 hackathon
- Announcing the winners of the FSF40 Photo Contest
- Hear ye, hear ye! The GNU Press Shop is open now through New Year's Day
- Germany Stack: Only free software enables digital sovereignty
- Fuel the next wave of tech talent with YH4F, the FSFE’s free software competition
- The US military wants to fix its own equipment. Defense contractors are trying to shoot that down
- Cloudflare down: Global outage impacted large parts of the internet
- Lawmakers want to ban VPNs—and they have no idea what they're doing
- SaaSS-quatch
- November GNU Emacs news
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Giving Guide Suggestions
- November GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali featuring twelve new GNU releases: Coreutils, Gnuastro, 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/december.
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
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Want to read this newsletter translated into another language? Scroll
to the end to read the Supporter in French or Spanish.
We support your freedom
From November 10
The free software community has always overcome the toughest
challenges facing freedom in technology. We want to take a moment to
thank the people and projects who have helped bring us to this point —
and ask for your support in the decades to come. Help us reach our
fundraising goal of $400,000 USD by January 1, 2026. If everyone
reading this gave just $2
USD, we will reach our goal. We can't protect and continue the
hard work of our predecessors without your help.
Not yet a member? For as little as $12
USD
per month, you get great
benefits and help us reach
our goal!
Hundreds of free software supporters tuned in for FSF40 hackathon
From November 25
After months of preparation and excitement, we finally came together
on November 21 at 10:00 EST for the global online FSF40 hackathon,
ending November 23, 10:00 EST. Participants spread out to work on six
different free software projects over forty-eight hours as our tech
team worked to restore all FSF sites with the help and support of the
community. Over three hundred folks were tuned in at a time, some to
participate in the hackathon and others to follow the progress being
made. As a community, we got a lot done over the weekend: check out
the highlights in the roundup below.
Announcing the winners of the FSF40 Photo Contest
From November 6
Over the course of three weeks, twenty-one images were submitted in
the first ever FSF photo contest, held in honor of the FSF's fortieth
anniversary. After the submission period closed, the community voted
to pick the top three photos. Check out the winning photos and learn
about the inspiration behind some of these images.
Hear ye, hear ye! The GNU Press Shop is open now through New Year's Day
From November 4
The end of 2025 is less than two months away, but fear not: you can
finish the year with some new free software gear! From November 3,
2025 until January 1, 2026, you can get yourself or someone you care
about a little something from the GNU Press Shop. Whether there's
something you've been eyeing since the last time the shop was open or
this is your first time checking out the offerings, we've got
something for everyone. If you are purchasing something for a loved
one for the winter holidays, be sure to place your order before
December 9 if you have a US mailing address or December 2 if you have
an international mailing address. No matter if you're looking for
something to give someone special to (or a little treat for yourself),
check out what's in the shop before you look anywhere else!
Germany Stack: Only free software enables digital sovereignty
From November 24 by Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)
The “Germany Stack” is a central digital-policy project of the German
federal government. The FSFE calls for the Stack to be planned in
close coordination with European partners and to be implemented
entirely as free software, since only the four freedoms enable digital
sovereignty. Read on to learn about more about the specifics of this
ask of the German federal government, including what principles the
Stack should be based on.
Fuel the next wave of tech talent with YH4F, the FSFE’s free software competition
From November 20 by Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)
Youth Hacking 4 Freedom (YH4F) is the FSFE’s programming competition
for teenagers aged fourteen to eighteen years from across Europe.
Through YH4F the FSFE conveys the values and knowledge surrounding
free software, provides the chance to develop your own project idea,
learn valuable skills for project management, problem solving and of
course: programming! Find out why it is worth for you to support us in
this mission and what our current sponsors say about YH4F.
The US military wants to fix its own equipment. Defense contractors are trying to shoot that down
From November 26 by Boone Ashworth
Right to repair provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act,
which would secure funding for the US military in 2026, are likely to
be struck from the final language of the bill despite enjoying broad
bipartisan support, sources familiar with ongoing negotiations tell
WIRED.
They say that provisions in the act enabling servicemembers to repair
their own equipment are likely to be removed entirely, and replaced
with a data-as-a-service subscription plan that benefits defense
contractors.
Cloudflare down: Global outage impacted large parts of the internet
From November 18 by Kate O'Flaherty
Seemingly half the world wide web was down in mid-November due to a
Cloudflare outage, proving that proprietary software isn't as stable
and secure as its providers like to claim. So many websites relying on
a single provider for network and security services comes with a lot
of danger, both to your freedom and your ability to use a program that
you may rely on for work. Free software can certainly have outages,
too, but there's a lot more workarounds when you use free software
than there is with proprietary software. If you currently use a
program that was affected by the Cloudflare outage (or your workplace
does), now might be a good time to talk about switching to a
comparable freedom-respecting program.
Lawmakers want to ban VPNs—and they have no idea what they're doing
From November 13 by Rindala Alajaji
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are a popular way for users to take
control over their computing, and a few lawmakers in Wisconsin,
Michigan, and beyond are attempting to take away this freedom
protection. If this law passes, websites that require age verification
would either have to ban all VPN users or cease operation in the
affected states. This law would do more than limit access to certain
websites: it would also set a dangerous precedent that puts activists,
journalists, whistleblowers, and any end user looking to increase the
trust they have in their networks, at risk. Our privacy and freedom
matters, and the more it is eroded the more difficult it will be to
get it back.
SaaSS-quatch
From October 29 by Jason Self
To understand the SaaSS-quatch is to understand one of the greatest
threats to software freedom in the modern era. SaaSS, or Service as a
Software Substitute, is the practice of using a service on someone
else's server to do your own computing. An encounter with the
SaaSS-quatch is more dangerous than a run-in with its furry,
forest-dwelling namesake. The threat is not to your physical person,
but to your digital soul. Learn the dangers of the SaaSS-quatch and
share them with everyone you know.
November GNU Emacs news
From November 30 by Sacha Chua
In these issues: Prototyping a Toolbar UI for Edebug, new commands to
rewind decentralized VCS branches, 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 this Friday, December 5 from 12:00 to 15:00 EST
(17:00 to 20:00 UTC). Details here:
https://www.fsf.org/events/fsd-2025-12-05-irc
LibrePlanet featured resource: Giving Guide Suggestions
Every month on the LibrePlanet, we highlight one resource that is
interesting and useful—often one that could use your help. For this
month, we are highlighting Giving Guide Suggestions. Each year the FSF
publishes a giving guide with recommendations of products that respect
your freedom. This group is a place for free software community
members to suggest ideas for the giving guide. You are invited to help
update, adopt, spread, and improve this important resource.
Do you have a suggestion for next month's featured resource? Let us
know at [email protected].
November GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali featuring twelve new GNU releases: Coreutils, Gnuastro, and more!
Twelve new GNU releases in the last month (as of November 30, 2025):
For a full list with descriptions, please see: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/2025-november-gnu-spotlight
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
- December 6-7, 2025, online, EmacsConf
- January 31-February 1, 2026, Brussels, Belgium, FOSDEM
- March 5-8, 2026, Pasadena, California, United States, SCALE
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:
- Antoine Thonnard
- Cody Rygg
- Christopher Rorvick
- David Heintz Charitable Gift Fund
- David Lecompte
- Dock Williams
- Holger Kienle
- Jesse Rosenberg
- J.Fossy Weinzinger
- John Gilmore
- Karin Grobe
- Michael Lalumiere
- Michael Lewis
- Mikael Taipale
- Mykola Demianko
- Paul Frank
- Shu Nonaka
- Steve Tuyizere
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:
- Basil Contovounesios (GNULIB)
- Mingtong Lin (GNU EMACS)
- Andreas Matthias (GNU EMACS)
- Neal Sidhwaney (GNU EMACS)
- Matteo Croce (GNULIB)
- Joseph gSadusk (GNU EMACS)
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/diciembre
Para cambiar las preferencias de usuario y recibir los próximos
números del Supporter en español, haz click aquí:
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Le Free Software Supporter est disponible en français. Pour voir la
version française cliquez ici:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2025/decembre
Pour modifier vos préférences et recevoir les prochaines
publications du Supporter en français, cliquez ici:
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If you no longer wish to receive the Free Software Supporter in
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opt out here.
Take action with the FSF!
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https://my.fsf.org/join
The FSF is always looking for
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hacking, from issue coordination to envelope stuffing — there's
something here for everybody to do. Also, head over to our campaigns
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Management, free
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and more.
Do you read and write Portuguese and English? The FSF is looking
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Copyright © 2025 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
International License. To view a copy of this license, visit
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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