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Dear Free Software Supporter,

We worry a lot in the free software movement about whether the general public can be convinced of the importance of software freedom. I know you care deeply -- that's why you're receiving this email. We depend on your financial and moral support to educate and to raise awareness around the world.

If you need proof that there's a wide audience for free software values, look no further than Apple's latest marketing campaign, which focuses exclusively on user privacy. In their commercial, they say, "Your devices are important to so many parts of your life. What you share from those experiences, and who you share it with, should be up to you."

Exactly! That Apple's extensive market research has led the company in this direction means there is also great potential for us to mobilize people who don't yet know about free software.

While free software does not guarantee privacy, it is a precondition -- because privacy is about control over your devices, and free software is the only kind of software that users fully control. It is not sufficient for users hungry for apps that will respect their privacy to be offered only choices from the limited menu of programs allowed by a gatekeeper like Apple. Nor should users be choosing only between programs that must be accepted as is. They should be able to commission or modify specific features, and share the result with others. Otherwise, they are never truly in control of their privacy -- their options are always constrained by some entity above them.

The result, as we know, is a race to the bottom, or at best, to the middle. We can have much better, by removing the unethical restraints companies like Apple place on users. Even while those restraints still exist, we can continue building and improving the free software users actually need in order to have freedom and the values it makes possible, like privacy.

FSF staff have been working hard for everyone's freedom:

• We're raising awareness and inspiring collaboration, by hosting online events like LibrePlanet 2021 -- which had almost 1,300 people register, and demonstrated that you can run fully online events using only free software.

• We're fighting in the US for total repeal of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's provisions enforcing Digital Restrictions Management, and for harm-reducing reform through its exemptions process. Over 240 individuals supported our comments to the Copyright Office during the most recent round, and now we are seeing some tentative signs of success in at least blunting the most acutely harmful aspects of this broken system.

• We're supporting free software development by providing core infrastructure used by thousands of developers worldwide, and helping specific projects like Replicant, which, under our fiscal sponsorship, is hiring a community manager to advance its critical work on mobile device freedom.

• We're providing useful services, like our Jitsi videoconference system, which has enabled members to keep in touch with friends, family, and collaborators, without sacrificing their freedoms to the false idols at Zoom.

• We're adding important masonry to strengthen the Foundation's foundation, like modernizing its governance, improving transparency, and recruiting new board members to help lead the organization into its future.

Your support has been and will continue to be vital to all this and more. It's what enables us to get so much done so efficiently. This year, we received a perfect score from the ratings group Charity Navigator -- a first in our history.

Can you deepen your commitment by joining with thousands of like-minded others as an FSF associate member? You can start for as little as $10 per month ($5 for students), or $120 per year, and you'll help us reach our summer fundraising goal of $50,000. Plus, you'll be able to enjoy all of our member benefits, which include merchandise discounts, a 16GB bootable membership card, and use of the videoconferencing server. Any donation you can make furthers our reach, and enables us to help others make their own journey to computing freedom. If you're on social media, we encourage you to share the importance of free software with your friends and followers by using the #UserFreedom hashtag. It may seem like a small thing, but using your voice is the best way to draw others to the global free software movement.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts! Together, I know we can do this. Let's ride the momentum created when companies like Apple plaster billboards and TVs with depictions of the problems faced in our modern software-based society, and let's point the way to real solutions to these problems. While proprietary companies are busy racing each other to the middle, we'll race all the way to the actual finish line.

Yours in freedom,

John Sullivan
Executive Director

Image Copyright © 2021 Free Software Foundation, licensed under CC-BY 4.0.