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Read and share online:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/october
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read
by you and 229,049 other activists. That's 726 more than last month!
The FSF welcomes CivicActions and
Purism to the FSF patron
program!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- GNU Taler is operational at Bern University of Applied Sciences
- The pandemic is no excuse to surveil students
- What's wrong with YouTube
- Parabola GNU/Linux has been ported to the reMarkable tablet
- The FSFE is looking for an office assistant
- GNU Health contact tracing package being used to control COVID-19 in Diamante, Argentina
- Companies can track your phone's movements to target ads
- Amazon unveils drone that films inside your home. What could go wrong?
- Make money contributing to GNU
- Updates on the Tor Project's board
- Fun and games with Exposure Notifications
- Hello world from Eostre Emily Danne, intern with the FSF tech team
- GNOME 3.38 released
- LibreOffice 7.0.1 available for download
- Blender 2.90 release
- September GNU Emacs news
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Group: Hardware/research
- 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!
View this issue online here:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/october
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
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Want to read this newsletter translated into another language? Scroll
to the end to read the Supporter in French, Spanish, or Portuguese.
GNU Taler is operational at Bern University of Applied Sciences
From September 1st by Taler Systems SA
The GNU Taler free software payment system was launched at the BFH in
the presence of a representative of the Swiss National Bank. Students,
staff, faculty and visitors can visit the cafeteria at Höheweg 80 to
withdraw the electronic equivalent of Swiss Franks (CHF) onto the
Taler Wallet app running on their mobile phones, and pay at a
Taler-enabled snack machine. The system is expected to expand to allow
payments at other places in the future.
The pandemic is no excuse to surveil students
From September 4th by Zeynep Tufekci
In Michigan, a small liberal arts college is requiring students to
install an app called Aura, which tracks their location in real time,
before they come to campus. Oakland University, also in Michigan,
announced a mandatory wearable that would track symptoms, but, facing
a student-led petition, then said it would be optional. The University
of Missouri, too, has an app that tracks when students enter and exit
classrooms. This practice is spreading: In an attempt to open during
the pandemic, many universities and colleges around the country are
forcing students to download location-tracking apps, sometimes as a
condition of enrollment. Many of these apps function via Bluetooth
sensors or Wi-Fi networks. When students enter a classroom, their
phone informs a sensor that’s been installed in the room, or the app
checks the Wi-Fi networks nearby to determine the phone’s location.
The FSF deplores this steady creep of mandatory surveillance into the
lives of students, and the according violation of their rights to
privacy and software freedom. Please join us in condemning these
programs by signing our petition for freedom in the
classroom,
and let us know if we can help you fight these injustices in your own
school.
What's wrong with YouTube
From September 20th by Richard Stallman
YouTube is a peculiar case. As of September 2020, it is possible to
watch YouTube videos without running any nonfree software, even coming
in via Tor, via some of the “Invidious” intermediary sites. This
article details what the freedom-related issues with YouTube are,
gives instructions for viewing YouTube videos without endangering your
freedom, explains how to share videos without directing others to
software that will violate their freedom, and cautions users about
potential future issues.
Parabola GNU/Linux has been ported to the reMarkable tablet
From September 6th by Nate Hoffelder
Hacker Davis Remmel has ported the FSF-endorsed GNU/Linux distribution
Parabola to the reMarkable tablet, greatly opening up what you can do
on the device, which was previously limited to a tablet UI and a
select number of applications. You can now apply the benefits of
electronic paper to a wide range of computing tasks!
The FSFE is looking for an office assistant
From September 4th by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)
The FSFE is looking for an office assistant to work 15-35 hours per
week with their team in the Berlin, Germany office. Please see the
link below to find out how to apply.
GNU Health contact tracing package being used to control COVID-19 in Diamante, Argentina
From September 18th by Sitio Web de la Municipalidad de Diamante
As noted in the Free Software Foundation
Bulletin,
GNU Health medical administration software is optimal for contact
tracing, tracking a number of important factors while respecting the
privacy of patients and the software freedom of organizations and
administrators. So we're thrilled to hear that a municipality in
Argentina is using this system to provide superb and ethical care for
their residents! (The original link is in Spanish.)
Companies can track your phone's movements to target ads
From September 10th by Sidney Fussell
As the technology giants move to provide cosmetic "privacy
protections" (which you can neither control nor verify, due to the
proprietary nature of their software), companies are looking for even
sneakier and creepier ways to categorize users and tailor content from
their advertisers. "Contextual intelligence" startups infer user
activity based on data from your smartphone's sensors: whether you're
running or seated, near a park or museum, driving or riding a train.
Amazon unveils drone that films inside your home. What could go wrong?
From September 24th by Kellen Browning
When Amazon’s chief executive, Jeff Bezos, promised in 2013 that
drones would soon be flying everywhere delivering packages, a
miniature camera whirring through homes and recording video was
probably not what people envisioned (although in retrospect, this
seems obvious). But on Thursday, Amazon’s Ring division unveiled the
$249 Ring Always Home Cam, a small drone that hums as it flies around
houses filming everything, ostensibly for security
purposes. Thankfully, it appears that the reception for this item has
not been particularly warm. We hope you'll continue to warn your
friends and family that "Internet of Things" connected home appliances
are little more than spying devices brought into your home.
Make money contributing to GNU
From September 17th by Joshua Branson
GNU contributors Joshua and Jeremy have decided that they "hate having
money," and have "decided to get rid of some of it" in the best way
possible: by paying new free software contributors for their first
contribution! It isn't a ton of money, but we can assure you that
every contribution to the expansion of free software pays huge
dividends in the satisfaction of knowing that you're part of a global
movement of tremendous importance, and that your first step is a
momentous one.
We're grateful to these two for their creative and amusing idea to
attract more people to the free software movement, and if you also
find that you hate having money and want to get rid of it, the FSF
will gladly relieve you and will carry
this unpleasant burden
responsibly.
Updates on the Tor Project's board
From September 16th by Isabela Bagueros
The Tor Project is welcoming two new board members: Rabbi Rob, former
board member, who is also the founder and CEO of Team Cymru; and
Chelsea Komlo, cryptography and privacy researcher and engineer, and
member of Tor core contributors community and the Tor Research Safety
Board. Congratulations to Rob and Chelsea!
Fun and games with Exposure Notifications
From September 7th by Alyssa Rosenzweig
Alyssa Rosenzweig, former FSF intern and co-keynote speaker for
LibrePlanet
2020,
has written a GNU/Linux program to exchange Bluetooth signals using
the Exposure Notifications protocol developed by Apple and Google for
COVID-19.
Hello world from Eostre Emily Danne, intern with the FSF tech team
From September 14th
Greetings! I'm Eostre (they/she), one of the new interns here at the
FSF. I'm primarily here to update systems, rebuild servers, configure
Apache, and really anything else that involves coercing GNU/Linux
until it does what I want. Prior to this, I've done GNU/Linux almost
exclusively as a hobby; now I'm trying to turn my hobby into a
career. At home, I run a bunch of weird little hobby
distros/BSDs. Interning at the FSF, where we primarily use Trisquel,
is giving me a healthy appreciation for Ubuntu-based systems too.
GNOME 3.38 released
From September 16th by The GNOME Project
The latest version of GNOME 3 has been released. Version 3.38 contains
six months of work by the GNOME community and, as always, includes
many new features and performance improvements. This release showcases
a new Tour application, highlighting the main functionality of the
desktop and providing first-time users a nice welcome to GNOME.
LibreOffice 7.0.1 available for download
From September 3rd by Italo Vignoli
LibreOffice 7.0.1, the first minor release of the LibreOffice 7.0
family, targeted at technology enthusiasts and power users, is now
available for download from
https://www.libreoffice.org/download/. LibreOffice 7.0.1 includes
around 80 bug fixes and improvements to document compatibility.
Blender 2.90 release
From August 31st by Pablo Vasquez
The first release of the 2.9 series is here! Building on the success
of the 2.8 series, Blender 2.90 continues to polish the user
experience, introducing improvements to EEVEE, Cycles, sculpt, VR,
animation, modeling, UV editing and so much more. Blender integrates
industry standard libraries such as Intel Embree, Intel
OpenImageDenoise and NVidia Optix to provide a cutting-edge rendering
experience.
September GNU Emacs news
From September 28th by Sacha Chua
In these issues: EmacsConf 2021 Call for
Proposals; how to install packages;
Org mode for beginners; 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, October 2, 2020 from 12:00 to 15:00 EDT
(16:00 to 19:00 UTC). Details here:
LibrePlanet featured resource: Group: Hardware/research
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 Group: Hardware/research, which
provides information about specific hardware in the aim of being able
to use only free software on such hardware or to document freedom
issues. 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 September 28, 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 Amin Bandali as comaintainer of Jami and John
Darrington as comaintainer of PSPP.
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
- October 2-4, 2020, online, PyCon India
- October 6, 2020, 13:00-14:00 EDT, online, LibrePlanet 2021 Call for Sessions office hours
- October 13, 2020, 13:00-14:00 EDT, online, LibrePlanet 2021 Call for Sessions office hours
- October 18-20, 2020, online, ATO
- October 20, 2020, 13:00-14:00 EDT, online, LibrePlanet 2021 Call for Sessions office hours
- October 27, 2020, 13:00-14:00 EDT, online, LibrePlanet 2021 Call for Sessions office hours
- November 13-14, 2020, online, SeaGL
- November 28-29, 2020, online, EmacsConf 2020
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:
- Adam Van Ymeren
- Frederic Barthelemy
- Nicolas Guilbert
- René Genz
- Vikings 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:
- Gerry Agbobada (Emacs)
- Hugh Daschbach (Emacs)
- Michael Weghorn (GCC)
- Mykhailo Panarin (Emacs)
- Nicholas Savage (Emacs)
- Nicolas Graner (Emacs)
- Ryan Jeffrey (Hurd)
- Sergey Belyashov (GDB)
- Sundeep Anand (gettext)
- Zahra Sharbaf (Gnuastro)
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/octubre
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=b136fcb8182a9b9709acce9b7ca89472_1601606945_168
Le Free Software Supporter est disponible en français. Pour voir la
version française cliquez ici:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/octobre
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=b136fcb8182a9b9709acce9b7ca89472_1601606945_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/outubro
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=b136fcb8182a9b9709acce9b7ca89472_1601606945_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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