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Read and share online:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/august
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read
by you and 228,241 other activists. That's 338 more than last month!
Join the FSF: Free software in action
From July 11th
It's important to remember that free software is a prerequisite for a
modern free society, even during these trying times. If you've been
spared the worst of this crisis, now is the time to step up and help
the FSF make sure user freedom survives the pandemic response.
Help us reach the goal of 200 new associate
members
by August 7! Speak up for freedom by using the hashtag #UserFreedom
on social media networks and sharing our
free software images.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Sign this petition for freedom in the classroom
- Don't let proprietary digital voting disrupt democracy
- Presenting the expanded Free Software Foundation Bulletin, online!
- People everywhere are standing up for free software
- Free software is what unites us
- Free software in business: Success stories
- When DRM turns deadly: Repair techs forced to hack ventilators in order to serve patients
- What has happened and where we've come: A short history of DRM
- GUADEC is underway
- With Edge, Microsoft’s forced Windows updates just sank to a new low
- GCC 10.2 released
- Free software game developer Perttu Ahola talks about Minetest
- July GNU Emacs news
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Hardware/FSDG distributions
- GNU Spotlight with Mike Gerwitz: 22 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!
View this issue online here:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/august
Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by
adding our subscriber widget to your Web site.
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, Spanish, or Portuguese.
Sign this petition for freedom in the classroom
From July 21st
New developments in the remote education landscape have only
contributed to the worrying trend of treating the school as a testing
ground for ubiquitous surveillance and other dystopian practices, and
as a vector to force students to use pernicious nonfree
programs. Beginning today, we are working to change the remote
education landscape with a new petition targeting the serious harm
proprietary software poses to students, and at the same time,
emphasizing the idea that there is an ethical solution.
We understand that speaking up for yourself about these issues can be
difficult, which is why we're offering to put our voice behind yours
as the leading organization in the free software movement. When
signing the petition, you have the option to let us know if you're a
student, parent, teacher, or administrator of a school that requires
the use of proprietary software. We'll get in touch with the school's
administration on your behalf, and let them know that a global
community of activists and everyday people alike have signed a
statement in support of free software in education.
Read, sign, and share the petition at
https://my.fsf.org/give-students-userfreedom.
Don't let proprietary digital voting disrupt democracy
From July 15th
A free country has the responsibility to make sure all of its citizens
can be heard, and that voting processes are transparent and fair. I am
arguing in this post that it is essential that software used in any
part of the voting process be published free software. It is
unacceptable for such an important democratic system to be placed in
the hands of any for-profit, proprietary software corporation that
controls the source code, data management, reporting, updates, and
testing. No good can come from requiring a court order to be permitted
to study the source code of voting software in order to confirm the
process is fair and democratic. But additionally, I might surprise the
reader by laying out arguments to say that despite supporting the wish
to increase access and ease for all eligible voters, the only truly
free, ethical, and democratic voting system is actually a system that
steers clear from using software.
Presenting the expanded Free Software Foundation Bulletin, online!
From July 28th
Right now, in a rapidly changing and uncertain world, free software
has a special role to play. This issue of the biannual Free Software
Foundation Bulletin addresses some of the challenges that life during
the COVID-19 pandemic poses to software freedom, but it also
highlights some of the unique contributions that activists are making
to safeguard your rights today. Whether through manufacturing
desperately-needed medical supplies, advocating for and supplying free
and secure videoconferencing for remote learning, or creating flexible
and portable free medical information systems, activists have put in
extraordinary effort to ensure that our user freedom is protected
along with our safety.
Read the Free Software Foundation Bulletin
online!
People everywhere are standing up for free software
From July 23rd
On our newly updated Working Together for Free
Software
pages, we explore the different reasons why people dedicate their time
to free software, and highlight all the different ways that user
freedom is important to them.
With each submission that comes in, we realize again just how far the
fight for software freedom stretches. Thankfully, there are people all
over the globe and in many industries, who are fighting for justice.
Free software is what unites us
From July 16th
We shouldn't forget that free software is an inherently positive
story. It celebrates the creativity and skill that come from
collaboration, and the freedom that you have if you understand a
program or can freely choose to rely on information about it from
someone you trust. Having the right to read, modify, contribute to,
and share software we use has changed our lives, and countless
others. There are so many people who continue to motivate us to fight
for free software with their work, so we decided to ask them to share
their stories on why they love free software, and what user freedom
means to them or their business.
Free software in business: Success stories
From July 30th
This third blog post in the series inspired by interviews with
community members will bring some attention to the success that people
have had advocating for free software through their occupations. It
manifests how appeals to user freedom, and successful free software
implementations, are driving forces behind the advancement of
businesses all over the world.
When DRM turns deadly: Repair techs forced to hack ventilators in order to serve patients
From July 9th by Jason Koebler
Faced with a global pandemic, hospitals, biomedical technicians, right
to repair activists, and refurbishers say that medical device
manufacturers are profiteering by putting up artificial barriers to
repair, using Digital Restrictions Management
(DRM), that drive up the cost of
medical care in the United States and put patient lives in
danger. They describe difficulty getting parts and software, delays in
getting service from "authorized" technicians, and a general sense of
frustration as few manufacturers appear ready to loosen their repair
restrictions during the COVID-19 crisis.
You can read more about how free software activists are tackling
medical equipment shortages in the new issue of the Free Software
Foundation
Bulletin.
What has happened and where we've come: A short history of DRM
From July 24th
The Free Software Foundation's fight against DRM goes a long way back,
with efforts that have resulted in victories, and actions that have
weakened the chains of DRM or even broken them. In 2006, the FSF
ramped up its anti-DRM activities, under the campaign name Defective
by Design. If we are to win the battle against DRM, it is important to
have larger numbers on our side. To achieve that, it is fundamental to
make people aware of the risk that DRM poses to our privacy and
freedom.
In this post, FSF intern Leonardo Vignini explores the lessons we
can take from the history of DRM, and the struggle against it.
GUADEC is underway
From July 22nd by the GNOME Project
GUADEC took place entirely online from July 22-28, bringing together
users and enthusiasts from all over the world. You can read more about
the event at the GUADEC Web site.
With Edge, Microsoft’s forced Windows updates just sank to a new low
From July 2nd by Sean Hollister
Microsoft is
getting less and less subtle about taking away users' choices of how
their computers work: when the author of this article turned on his
computer, he found that the entire screen was taken over by a new app
that he'd never installed or asked for. While it behaved in a way he
thought was more consistent with a piece of ransomware, it was just
Microsoft's new Chromium Edge browser, which also can't be
uninstalled.
GCC 10.2 released
From July 23rd by GCC developers
The GNU Project and the GCC developers are pleased to announce the
release of GCC 10.2.
This release is a bug-fix release, containing fixes for regressions in
GCC 10.1 relative to previous releases of GCC.
Free software game developer Perttu Ahola talks about Minetest
From June 30th by Wikinews
Started in October 2010, Minetest was an attempt by Ahola to create a
sandbox game similar to Minecraft. Minecraft is a proprietary
multi-platform game, which was in alpha version when Ahola challenged
himself to create something similar to it from scratch, he told
Wikinews.
Minetest is a free "as in freedom" game, which is also gratis for
anyone to download and play. It is written in the C++ programming
language, and the source code is available on code-hosting site
GitHub.
July GNU Emacs news
From July 27th by Sacha Chua
In these issues: a long discussion on opaque objects and Emacs
documentation; editing with Emacs; the magit git client; Emacs mode
line simplified; 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, August 7th, from 12pm to 3pm EDT (16:00 to
19:00 UTC). Details here:
LibrePlanet featured resource: Hardware/FSDG distributions
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 Hardware/FSDG distributions, which
provides information about FSDG-compliant distributions that support
many architectures. 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: 22 new GNU releases!
22 new GNU releases in the last month (as of July 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.
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 us at [email protected]
with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.
FSF and other free software events
- August 23-29, online, DebConf 20
- October 2-4, online, PyCon India
- October 18-20, 2020, online, 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:
- Belgian Federal Public Service Home Affairs
- Blue Systems
- Brett Sears
- Chase Courtney
- Christian Sperr
- Donald and Jill Knuth
- Mark Harris
- Minoru Sekine
- Nikolay Ksenev
- Mr. Pete Batard
- Tegonal GmbH
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:
- Asher Gordon (GCC)
- Ferdinand Pieper (Emacs)
- Harald Joerg (Emacs)
- Ihor Radchenko (Emacs)
- Jouke Erik Witteveen (Make)
- Sean Peter Whitton (Emacs)
- Shankar Rao (Emacs)
- William Denton (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 aqui:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/agosto
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=3773151bfc4ee459f7d31ae0570961ec_1596495137_168
Le Free Software Supporter est disponible en français. Pour voir la
version française cliquez ici:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/aout
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=3773151bfc4ee459f7d31ae0570961ec_1596495137_168
O Free Software Supporter está disponível em português. Para ver a
versão em português, clique aqui:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/agosto-p
Para alterar as preferências do usuário e receber as próximas
edições do Supporter em português, clique aqui:
https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?reset=1&gid=34&id=3095323&cs=3773151bfc4ee459f7d31ae0570961ec_1596495137_168
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
(https://www.fsf.org/campaigns) and take action on software patents,
Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), free software adoption,
OpenDocument, and more.
#
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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