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Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/support-the-fsf-tech-team
Dear Free Software Supporter,
In some ways, the four-person Free Software Foundation (FSF) tech team
is living the dream for any free software fanatic: who wouldn't want
to get paid to do what you love? Every workday, our tech team tweaks
and tailors software that obeys the four freedoms, and keeps the FSF
chugging along. The tradeoff for the warm glow of satisfaction that
comes from doing truly important work, though, is that it's a lot of
work: maintaining, upgrading, and repairing the infrastructure that
supports the FSF and the GNU Project certainly keeps the tech team
busy. Plus, they're always trying to take the experience for our
members and supporters to the next level (which, of course, would be
much harder to do if we were hamstrung by the unjust limitations of
proprietary software!).
As such, their report for the upcoming issue of the Free
Software Foundation Bulletin overflowed our print space as usual, and
still doesn't include anywhere near all of the work they did in the
last six months. Two highlights:
Not only did the team pull together the expected and needed
streaming setup for the fully online 2021 LibrePlanet
conference this past March, but they added a bunch of new
features that our attendees loved. Participants got to explore the
virtual, interactive landscape of LibreAdventure, which lets
you navigate as an adorable retro gaming icon and videochat with
other attendees by "bumping into" them on screen; they also enjoyed
an updated IRC page embed, a sleekly themed Web site, chiptunes
deejaying in between talks, and a fun time on our Minetest
instance. Many of these elements were still in development just days
before the conference! All advocacy organizations need to know how many people are reading
their materials, but it's of tremendous importance for us to go
above and beyond what is required to respect your privacy. As such,
when our Piwik server, which records site visitation statistics, was
upgraded to Matomo, the tech team took pains to make sure it
continues to collect as little user data as possible, and you can
see more details in the Bulletin article.
The rest of the FSF staff are sure to thank the tech team for their
efforts every day, but we hope you'll join us in applauding them and
showing some gratitude by supporting our current fundraiser.
Besides giving a donation, another effective way to help the FSF reach
our financial goal, and for you to support our intrepid tech team, is
to join us as an associate member. The value of a membership
goes far beyond the dollars and cents needed to help us weather the
challenges of this year: a membership is a vote of confidence that
helps us launch new initiatives and puts weight behind our campaigns,
licensing, and technical work. Plus, membership comes with plenty of
benefits, including merchandise discounts, a bootable membership
card, and the newest member perk: access to our Jitsi Meet
videoconferencing server.
If you're not in a financial place to commit to associate membership,
we understand: spreading the word is just as important! Please take a
moment to publicly bring attention to the need for free
software! Use the hashtag #UserFreedom, and share this message and
others to help us build support and reach our fundraiser goal of
$50,000 by July 16.
If you love free software the way we do, make your voice heard: help
us to celebrate and expand #UserFreedom! Our tech team has never
missed a beat in their efforts to defend your computing rights, and
they deserve every effort you can make in turn to support their work.
Happy and healthy hacking,
Dana Morgenstein
Outreach and Communications Coordinator
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