*Please consider adding <[email protected]> to your address book, which will
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*Read and share online: <[link removed]>*

Welcome to the *Free Software Supporter*, the Free Software Foundation's (FSF)
monthly news digest and action update -- being read by you and 227,477
other activists. That's 605 more than last month!

### LibrePlanet 2022 returns online: Submit your session proposal by December 1
*From October 6th*

The fourteenth edition of the Free Software Foundation's (FSF)
conference on technology and social justice will be held in
spring 2022, online. The Call for Sessions is now open, and will
close on December 1, 2021. Potential talks should examine free
software through the lens of this year's theme: Living
Liberation.

* <[link removed]>
* <[link removed]>
* <[link removed]>


## TABLE OF CONTENTS

* FSF job opportunity: Outreach and communications coordinator
* Free Software Awards: Nominate those who help us live liberation by November 30th
* Life's better together when you avoid Windows 11
* Pumpkins, markets, and one bad Apple
* EmacsConf schedule is now live!
* Software Freedom Conservancy files right-to-repair lawsuit against California TV manufacturer Vizio Inc. for alleged GPL violations
* Release announcement: Trisquel 9.0.1 Etiona security update
* Ecodesign directive: FSFE calls for device neutrality and upcycling of software
* Canon sued for disabling printer scanners when devices run out of ink
* Donald Trump’s new social network violated software-licensing terms, tech org says
* Trump's new social media platform found using Mastodon code
* From ‘guix environment’ to ‘guix shell’
* Honoring Elliot Harmon—EFF Activism Director, Poet, Friend—1981-2021
* October GNU Emacs news
* Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
* LibrePlanet featured resource: Skype replacement
* GNU Spotlight with Mike Gerwitz: 8 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: <[link removed]>

Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by
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* Subscribe: <[link removed]>
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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.

***

### FSF job opportunity: Outreach and communications coordinator

*From September 2nd*

Reporting to the executive director, the outreach and communications
coordinator works closely with our campaigns, licensing, technical,
and operations teams to plan, write, edit, publish, and promote
high-quality, effective materials, both digital and printed. These
materials are a critical part of advancing the FSF's work in support
of the GNU Project, free software adoption, copyleft licensing, and
freedom on the Internet; and against Digital Restrictions Management
(DRM), software patents, and proprietary software. Nearly every
publication from the FSF goes through this public-facing position,
tying together our work across various constituencies.

* <[link removed]>

### Free Software Awards: Nominate those who help us live liberation by November 30th

*From October 28th*

The dedication of the developers, documentation writers,
community organizers, and volunteers of the free software
movement is what has helped us all live liberation in the years
the free software movement has been active. Just using free
software makes you part of our collective journey to freedom, but
some go above and beyond in their dedication to the free software
movement. Now, it's time for us to show those community members
and projects that we appreciate their vital work.

* <[link removed]>

### Life's better together when you avoid Windows 11

*From October 5th*

October 5th marked the official release of Windows 11, a new version
of the operating system that doesn't do anything at all to
counteract Windows' long history of depriving users of freedom
and digital autonomy. While we might have been encouraged by
Microsoft's vague, aspirational slogans about community and
togetherness, Windows 11 takes important steps in the wrong
direction when it comes to user freedom.

* <[link removed]>

### Pumpkins, markets, and one bad Apple

*From October 20th*

Imagine your local farmers market: every Saturday the whole town
comes together to purchase fresh and homemade goods, enjoy the
entertainment, and find that there is always something for
everyone. Whatever you need, you can find it here, and anyone can
sign up to have their own little stand. It is a wonderful place,
or so it seems. Now, imagine starting out as a pumpkin farmer,
and you want to sell your pumpkins at this market. The market
owner asks 30% of every pumpkin that you sell. It's steep, but
the market owner -- we'll call him *Mr. Apple* -- owns all the
markets in your area, so you have little choice.

Instead of trying to maintain the status quo one court case after
the other, it is time to evolve, Apple, move forward with
freedom, not against it. As one of the most successful and
richest companies in the world, we can not let it tell us that
absolute control over our user freedom is a justifiable price to
pay to make sure its technology is up to par.

* <[link removed]>

### EmacsConf schedule is now live!

*From October 28th by EmacsConf*

EmacsConf is the conference about the joy of Emacs and Emacs
Lisp. The schedule for EmacsConf 2021 is now live, so help spread the
word!

EmacsConf 2021 is held as an online conference again this
year. We remain fully committed to freedom, and we will continue
using our infrastructure and streaming setup consisting entirely
of free software, much like previous EmacsConf conferences.

* <[link removed]>

### Software Freedom Conservancy files right-to-repair lawsuit against California TV manufacturer Vizio Inc. for alleged GPL violations

*From October 19th by Software Freedom Conservancy*

Software Freedom Conservancy announced it has filed a
lawsuit against Vizio Inc. for what it calls repeated failures to
fulfill even the basic requirements of the General Public
License (GPL).

The lawsuit alleges that Vizio’s TV products, built on its
SmartCast system, contain software that Vizio unfairly
appropriated from a community of developers who intended
users to have very specific rights to modify, improve, share,
and reinstall modified versions of the software.

### Release announcement: Trisquel 9.0.1 Etiona security update

*From October 27th by Trisquel*

This minor update to the 9.x "Etiona" series is intended to
provide an up to date set of ISO images, both for use as an
installation medium and as a live environment with newer
packages.

In other news, the development of Trisquel 10 is ongoing at great
pace, with initial ISO images being now available for testing.

* <[link removed]>

### Ecodesign directive: FSFE calls for device neutrality and upcycling of software

*From October 15th by FSFE*

As a contribution to the revisal of the EU ecodesign directive and
to help understand the impact of software obsolescence, the FSFE
publishes a study on the sustainability of software. The findings
of the study culminate in five core demands for a more
sustainable digitization, covering the interplay of devices,
software, and infrastructure.

* <[link removed]>

### Canon sued for disabling printer scanners when devices run out of ink

*From October 19th by Karl Bode*

For more than a decade now, computer printer manufacturers have
been engaged in an endless quest called: "let's be as annoying as
humanly possible." That quest, driven by a desire to monopolize
and boost the sale of their own printer cartridges, has resulted
in all manner of obnoxious Digital Restrictions Management (DRM)
and other restrictions designed to make using cheaper,
third-party printing cartridges a monumental headache. Often,
software or firmware updates have been designed to intentionally
grind printing to a halt if you try to use these alternative
options.

* <[link removed]>

### Donald Trump’s new social network violated software-licensing terms, tech org says

*From October 22nd by Todd Spangler*

The Software Freedom Conservancy, which enforces free software
software agreements, said Trump’s Truth social Web site — launched
by the newly formed Trump Media & Technology Group — failed to
provide the source code to users, as required under the Affero
General Public License (AGPL), a “copyleft license” published by
the Free Software Foundation.

* <[link removed]>

### Trump's new social media platform found using Mastodon code

*From October 29 by Eugen Rochko*

On Oct 26, we sent a formal letter to Truth Social’s chief legal
officer, requesting the source code to be made publicly available
in compliance with the license. According to AGPLv3, after being
notified by the copyright holder, Truth Social has 30 days to
comply or the license may be permanently revoked.

* <[link removed]>

### From ‘guix environment’ to ‘guix shell’

*From October 26th by Ludovic Courtès*

There are times when what looked like the right design choice
some years back comes out as an odd choice as time passes. The
beloved guix environment tool is having that fate. Its
command-line interface has become non-intuitive and annoying for
the most common use cases. Since it could not be changed without
breaking compatibility in fundamental ways, we devised a new
command meant to progressively replace it; guix shell -- that’s the
name we unimaginatively ended up with -- has just landed after a
three-week review period, itself a follow-up to discussions and
hesitations on the best course of action.

This post introduces guix shell, how it differs from guix
environment, the choices we made, and why we hope you will like
it.

* <[link removed]>

### Honoring Elliot Harmon—EFF Activism Director, Poet, Friend—1981-2021

It is with heavy hearts that we mourn and celebrate our friend
and colleague Elliot Harmon, who passed away peacefully on
Saturday morning following a lengthy battle with melanoma. We
will deeply miss Elliot’s clever mind, powerful pen, generous
heart, and expansive kindness. We will carry his memory with us
in our work.

We at the FSF greatly appreciate the work Elliot did as an
advocate for user freedom, and are deeply saddened by this loss.

* <[link removed]>

### October GNU Emacs news

*From October 25th by Sacha Chua*

In these issues: The Emacs 28 release branch, Consult-dir and Embark, beginner guides, emacs-light, and more!

* [2021-10-25]([link removed])
* [2021-10-18]([link removed])
* [2021-10-11]([link removed])
* [2021-10-04]([link removed])


### 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 Libera.Chat, and usually include a
handful of regulars as well as newcomers. Libera.Chat is
accessible from any IRC client -- Everyone's welcome!

The next meeting is Friday, November 5th from 12pm to 3pm EDT (16:00 to
19:00 UTC). Details here:

* <[link removed]>

### LibrePlanet featured resource: Skype replacement

Every month on [the LibrePlanet
wiki]([link removed]), we highlight one
resource that is interesting and useful -- often one that could
use your help.

For this month, we are highlighting Skype Replacement, which
provides information about real-time voice and video chat
protocols and clients to help you and your loved ones communicate
in freedom. You are invited to adopt, spread and improve this
important resource.

* <[link removed]>

Do you have a suggestion for next month's featured resource? Let us
know at <[email protected]>.

### GNU Spotlight with Mike Gerwitz: 8 new GNU releases!

8 new GNU releases in the last month (as of October 24, 2021):

* [automake-1.16.5]([link removed])
* [gdbm-1.22]([link removed])
* [gnuastro-0.16.1-e0f1]([link removed])
* [gnupg-2.3.3]([link removed])
* [mygnuhealth-1.0.5]([link removed])
* [nano-5.9]([link removed])
* [parallel-20211022]([link removed])

For announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu
mailing list: <[link removed]>.

To download: nearly all GNU software is available from
<[link removed]>, or preferably one of its mirrors from
<[link removed]>. You can use the URL
<[link removed]> 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
<[link removed]> if you'd like to
help. The general page on how to help GNU is at
<[link removed]>.

If you have a working or partly working program that you'd like
to offer to the GNU project as a GNU package, see
<[link removed]>.

### FSF and other free software events

* November 5-6, Seattle, Washington, [SeaGL 2021]([link removed])
* November 6, online, [Legal Education Day (LED)]([link removed])
* November 27-28, online, [EmacsConf
2021]([link removed])
* December 3-4, Hyatt Regency Columbus, [OLF]([link removed])

### 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.

* <[link removed]>

This month, a big Thank GNU to:

* David Joseph Sworin Trust
* Trevor Spiteri
* Camille Akmut
* Steve Ayerhart
* Joseph Cox

You can add your name to this list by donating at
<[link removed]>.

### 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:

* Jai Thomas Crooks Flack (GNU Emacs)
* Corwin Edward Brust (GNU Emacs)
* Christophe Troestler (GNU Emacs)
* Tyler Jeffrey Grinn (GNU Emacs)
* Genki SATO (GNU Emacs)

Want to see your name on this list? Contribute to GNU and assign your
copyright to the FSF.

* <[link removed]>

### Translations of the *Free Software Supporter*

El Free Software Supporter está disponible en español. Para ver la
versión en español haz click aqui: <[link removed]>

**Para cambiar las preferencias de usuario y recibir los próximos
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Le Free Software Supporter est disponible en français. Pour voir la
version française cliquez ici: <[link removed]>

**Pour modifier vos préférences et recevoir les prochaines
publications du Supporter en français, cliquez ici:**
<[link removed]>

O Free Software Supporter está disponível em português. Para ver a
versão em português, clique aqui: <[link removed]>

**Para alterar as preferências do usuário e receber as próximas
edições do Supporter em português, clique aqui:**
<[link removed]>

### Take action with the FSF!

Contributions from thousands of individual associate members enable the FSF's
work. You can contribute by joining at <[link removed]>. 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!
<[link removed]>

The FSF is always looking for volunteers
(<[link removed]>). 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
(<[link removed]>) and take action on software
patents, Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), free software
adoption, OpenDocument, and more.

###

Copyright © 2021 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
<[link removed]>.

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