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Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/december
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read
by you and 223,196 other activists. That's 260 more than last month!
All aboard for software freedom
From November 17th
For thirty-five years, it has been the support of committed
individuals like you that has kept our mission moving forward. The
more associate members we can count, the better we can defend
everyone's freedoms against the largest companies and governments on
the planet, and this starts with achieving our fall goal of 500 new
members. Share the free software message
using the hashtag #UserFreedom on social media networks, and help
fuel the free software movement today. If you are also able to, please
consider supporting the FSF by becoming an associate
member or making a
donation.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- LibrePlanet 2021: Join us online on March 20 & 21 with keynote Julia Reda
- FSF Giving Guide: It's the thought that counts, so think freedom
- Moving into the future with the FSF tech team
- Help in the fight against DMCA anti-circumvention rules by December 7th
- Support user freedom by purchasing gifts from the GNU Press Shop
- FSF35 videos online: Find them on PeerTube and MediaGoblin
- Platform exclusivity, DRM, and independent authors: A cautionary tale
- Intern blog: Journeying into the free software world
- GNU Guix 1.2.0 released
- Mobilizon: Your events. Your groups. Your data
- Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says
- Amazon argues that users don't actually own purchased Prime videos
- Google takes down repositories that circumvent its Widevine DRM
- European Commission releases its free software strategy for 2020-2023
- Software freedom in Europe 2020
- Helping each other: The right to repair win and software freedom
- Should rockets have only free software? Free software and appliances
- GTK: At the heart of GNOME
- November GNU Emacs news
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Teams/New
- GNU Spotlight with Mike Gerwitz: 19 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/december
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.
LibrePlanet 2021: Join us online on March 20 & 21 with keynote Julia Reda
From November 11th
Mark your calendars: LibrePlanet 2021: Empowering
Users will be held on March 20 and 21,
2021. For those of you who haven't been to the LibrePlanet conference
before: expect a friendly, social, community-focused event with two
days of inspiring talks and workshops from some of the most active and
inspiring people in the free software community.
Registration for the event will open soon for all attendees. Like for
the previous edition, anyone will be able to watch the event online
through libreplanet.org/2021. However, if you register for the
conference, you will be able to enjoy an added level of participation
in the event and with the free software community. For anyone who can
spare a bit more, we have a special LibrePlanet 2021 gift waiting as
well. Want to receive all the details? Subscribe to the LibrePlanet
announcement list via
libreplanet.org/2021.
FSF Giving Guide: It's the thought that counts, so think freedom
From November 19th
Each year, the FSF publishes a new version of our Ethical Tech Giving
Guide
as a way to help concerned individuals make sure that the presents
they plan on giving their loved ones don't come with dangerous
consequences for their freedom. Many of these devices have been
through our Respects Your Freedom (RYF)
certification program, meaning that they and the retailers that offer
them have been held to the highest scrutiny when it comes to matters
of software freedom.
Moving into the future with the FSF tech team
From November 23rd
The FSF is well-known for spearheading the advocacy and support of
free software, not just by recommending it in the face of pervasive
proprietary options, but also by condemning nonfree software
altogether. Following this recommendation is hard, even for us,
because of the ever-increasing dependency on software and computer
networks that we are all subject to. To follow through with our
commitment, our tech team maintains a large list of services that many
other offices our size would have long ago been wrongly pressured into
transferring to one of the handful of gigantic corporations that
monopolize those services.
Help in the fight against DMCA anti-circumvention rules by December 7th
From November 25th
The United States Copyright Office is now accepting comments in
support of exemptions to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA)
anti-circumvention provisions, and we need your help by December 7th
to ensure that every new exemption is granted. Please support our
comments for new exemptions by emailing us at [email protected]. We
just need your name and state (or country, if you are outside the US)
to add your voice to the chorus. With the US exporting its software
and bad laws around the world, we need all the help we can get, so we
encourage international supporters to participate as well.
Support user freedom by purchasing gifts from the GNU Press Shop
From November 25th
The forward march of progress continues at the GNU Press Shop! Despite
challenges to various parts of the supply chain, the FSF is determined
to meet our high standards of efficacious services and nifty GNU gear,
including free software manuals and other assorted merchandise. New
items at the shop include more fun items commemorating the FSF's 35th
anniversary, and an "Emacs Deluxe" bundle!
FSF35 videos online: Find them on PeerTube and MediaGoblin
From November 5th
On October 9th, 2020, we ended the FSF's birthday week with an online
anniversary event featuring both live and prerecorded segments. We
were honored to have guests from different free software fields join
us live for the celebration of the coral anniversary, and we were so
thankful to receive prerecorded birthday messages from people in every
corner of the world. We invite you to watch the videos from this event
on GNU MediaGoblin and on
PeerTube!
Platform exclusivity, DRM, and independent authors: A cautionary tale
From November 24th by Rory Price
In this guest post on Defective by
Design, science fiction author
Rory Price explains why Digital Restrictions Management
(DRM)
may seem like a good idea initially to authors and other artists, but
that restricting the ability of users to view literary works via DRM
is not only unjust, but isn't necessarily good for business, either.
Speaking of DRM: we hope you'll be participating in the International
Day Against DRM
(IDAD)
on December 4th!
Intern blog: Journeying into the free software world
From November 16th
Hello, my name is Daniel Katz! I am beginning my internship with the
FSF in the fall of 2020, where I will start by converting the sites
used to draft the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3), mostly
http://gplv3.fsf.org, into a static Web site that can be themed
into a historical archive. I began my relationship with the FSF a few
years back when I realized the need for free software, but did not
have the technical skills to contribute to community projects. As
such, I started by volunteering with the Licensing & Compliance team
to digitize legal documents, and writing about free software in my
school’s magazines.
GNU Guix 1.2.0 released
From November 23rd by Ludovic Courtès
We are pleased to announce the release of GNU Guix version 1.2.0,
right in time to celebrate the eighth anniversary of Guix!
The release comes with ISO-9660 installation images, a virtual machine
image, and with tarballs to install the package manager on top of your
GNU/Linux distro, either from source or from binaries. Guix users can
update by running guix pull.
Mobilizon: Your events. Your groups. Your data
From November 3rd by Framasoft
Congratulations to Framasoft on the release of Mobilizon, a libre and
federated tool to help local events and meetup groups escape the
clutches of Facebook! The Mobilizon project was started almost two
years ago, born of the need to offer a solid alternative to Facebook
in order to organize protests, workshops, and other events.
Zoom lied to users about end-to-end encryption for years, FTC says
From November 9th by Jon Brodkin
Zoom has agreed to upgrade its security practices in a tentative
settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which alleges
that Zoom lied to users for years by claiming it offered end-to-end
encryption.
"[S]ince at least 2016, Zoom misled users by touting that it offered
'end-to-end, 256-bit encryption' to secure users' communications, when
in fact it provided a lower level of security," the FTC said today in
the announcement of its complaint against Zoom and the tentative
settlement. Despite promising end-to-end encryption, the FTC said that
"Zoom maintained the cryptographic keys that could allow Zoom to
access the content of its customers' meetings, and secured its Zoom
Meetings, in part, with a lower level of encryption than promised."
Of course, since Zoom and other videoconferencing services are
proprietary, you can't confirm any of their claims about
encryption. We encourage you to ditch these abusive programs and
embrace free software tools for staying in
touch
instead.
Amazon argues that users don't actually own purchased Prime videos
From October 28th by Ashley Cullins
In this lawsuit over hypothetical future deletions of media that
customers have "purchased," Amazon itself says what we already know:
when DRM is involved, Amazon thinks you don't actually own any media
at all.
Google takes down repositories that circumvent its Widevine DRM
From November 13th by Ernesto Van der Sar
To add insult to injury, Google has targeted developers who circumvent
their Widevine DRM, which is used in many streaming dis-services. We
encourage you to join us on December 4th to participate in
IDAD,
and if you're not already getting notices from our Defective by Design
anti-DRM campaign, join the mailing
list
today!
European Commission releases its free software strategy for 2020-2023
From November 9th by Étienne Gonnu
The European Commission (EC), the executive branch of the European
Union, has released its free software strategy for the 2020-2023 time
period. While it is an official policy document, and contains a few
reminders of how important free software has become, it lists few
concrete objectives, and does not satisfactorily prioritize free
software; nor does it go into any details regarding either the budget
or manpower to be allocated to the office.
Software freedom in Europe 2020
From November 10th by Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)
"Software Freedom in Europe" is the FSFE's yearly report, which gives
you a breakdown of FSFE's activities during the last twelve
months. The report is grouped along the three pillars of their
activities: policy advocacy, legal support, and public awareness.
Helping each other: The right to repair win and software freedom
From November 6th by Denver Gingerich
We were very excited to hear that Massachusetts voters approved a new
right to repair law earlier this week. Laws like these are important
tools in allowing us to control the devices that we use. In
particular, we believe it is important that people be able to fix
their own devices, and to be provided with all the information they
might need to make the best repair decisions. This principle has
applied to cars for over a century and, now that cars are increasingly
made up of computers, the implications for both repairing vehicles and
software freedom are hard to ignore.
Should rockets have only free software? Free software and appliances
From November 14th by Richard Stallman
Could there be a rocket that is totally free software? Should we
demand that SpaceX liberate the software in its satellite launching
rockets? I don't think the person who asked me this was serious, but
answering that question may illuminate similar issues about the sorts
of products people really buy today.
GTK: At the heart of GNOME
From November 24th by the GNOME Project
GTK is at the heart of the GNOME application and software development
kit. GTK is used to create graphical user interfaces (GUIs) for
desktop environments, applications, and window managers. Since the GTK
4 development process began in 2016, we have about 250 individual
contributors, with more than 100 active this year.
November GNU Emacs news
From November 30th by Sacha Chua
In these issues: everything you need to know before trying Emacs, how
to give presentations with Org Mode, Emacs User Survey, calculating
and plotting COVID rates in Org, 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, December 4th, from 12pm to 3pm EST (16:00
to 19:00 UTC). Details here:
LibrePlanet featured resource: Teams/New
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 Teams/New, which provides
information about starting your own local free software advocacy
group, a LibrePlanet team! 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: 19 new GNU releases!
19 new GNU releases in the last month (as of November 25, 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 Dmitry V. Levin as maintainer of
'config'.
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
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:
- Alexis Vaca
- Bret Fisher
- Holger Kienle
- Jeremy Nenninger
- Leah Rowe
- Lena Voytek
- Massimo Spadotto
- René Genz
- Stephen Ransom
- Szymon Nieznański
- Will Beason
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:
- Alberto Ramos Martinez (Emacs)
- Didier Jeremie Juste (Emacs)
- Jonny Grant (glibc)
- Kazuhiro Ito (Emacs)
- Mario Samuel Rodas Palomino (Emacs)
- Marshall Ward (Autoconf)
- Mitchell Perilstein (Emacs)
- Spencer Baugh (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/diciembre
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=160258ef48ff951cae2033c077fa478e_1606877785_168
Le Free Software Supporter est disponible en français. Pour voir la
version française cliquez ici:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2020/decembre
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=160258ef48ff951cae2033c077fa478e_1606877785_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/dezembro
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=160258ef48ff951cae2033c077fa478e_1606877785_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/.
Illustration Copyright © 2020 Free Software Foundation, Inc., by
Raghavendra Kamath, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International license.
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