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Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2022/may

Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read by you and 228,806 other activists. That's 620 more than last month!

Join our team fighting for freedom! The FSF is hiring, and we are currently looking for a program manager, temporary bookkeeper, (new) licensing and compliance manager, and summer interns. If you are interested in one of these opportunities, please apply. If you know someone who might be interested, please forward and share. Thank you!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  • Find new ways to "live liberation" with LibrePlanet 2022 workshops
  • Ten years of stories behind Guix
  • Richard Stallman: The state of the free software movement
  • EU Ecodesign: Thirty-eight organizations demand the right to access and to reuse hardware
  • Twitter buyout puts Mastodon into spotlight
  • Facebook doesn’t know what it does with your data, or where it goes: Leaked document
  • Announcing the Hare programming language
  • Insteon finally comes clean about its sudden smart home shutdown
  • The free software community mourns the loss of Pedro Francisco (MasGNULinux)
  • April GNU Emacs news
  • Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
  • LibrePlanet featured resource: LibrePlanet 2022 video transcripts
  • April GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Twenty 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/2022/may

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Want to read this newsletter translated into another language? Scroll to the end to read the Supporter in French and Spanish.


Find new ways to "live liberation" with LibrePlanet 2022 workshops

From April 21

As announced at this year's LibrePlanet, the Free Software Foundation is hosting a series of online workshops over the coming weeks. Upcoming workshop topics include "IRCNow Of the users, by the users, for the users," "Software localization (translation) of Web-based projects," and "Installing ourselves into LibrePlanet." Dates, times, workshop descriptions, and registration links are published in this article. Spots are limited, so please register early.

Ten years of stories behind Guix

From April 18 by various Guix hackers

Guix is celebrating ten years of development this year and posted an article in honor of the achievement. A collection of personal stories from twenty-eight Guix contributors, this article is demonstrative of a passionate, strong, and creative community. Happy birthday, Guix, and happy hacking! Note: The FSF is Guix's fiscal sponsor, and you can donate to support the project's work.

Richard Stallman: The state of the free software movement

April 13

On April 13, Richard Stallman gave a talk about "The state of the free software movement." He spoke about where the free software movement is making gains, such as GNU Health, and places where we are facing new challenges, such as the scarcity of Libreboot compatible machines. He also shared tips for how we can tell others that we would not like to use nonfree software, signaling to them that this is an issue that we deeply care about, saying that "even if you only do it once you're helping the movement, because it's an opportunity to explain to people why it's bad."

EU Ecodesign: Thirty-eight organizations demand the right to access and to reuse hardware

From April 27 by Free Software Foundation Europe

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) announced its publication of an open letter, signed by a total of thirty-eight organizations and companies, to request European Union (EU) legislators for the right to install any software on any device. The requests are: 1) Universal right to install any software on any device, 2) free choice of online service providers, 3) interoperable and compatible devices, and 4) publication of source code of drivers, tools, and interfaces. Read the article for more about this strategic advance toward freedom, as well as how companies and organizations can sign the letter.

Twitter buyout puts Mastodon into spotlight

From April 26 by Eugen Rochko

News that a single person may be a few months away from closing a deal to purchase controlling shares in Twitter, Inc., has brought people flocking to Mastodon (pun intended). Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko shares his thoughts on the sudden growth they've recently experienced on the federated social media platform, which is a great solution for you if you are looking to move to a social media platform that believes "that your ability to communicate online should not be at the whims of a single commercial company." Read about this growth, and everything you need to know to join Mastodon. Also, for more information about microblogging channels the FSF is on and why, check https://fsf.org/twitter and https://fsf.org/share.

Facebook doesn’t know what it does with your data, or where it goes: Leaked document

From April 26 by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai

Facebook, which the FSF has long called unethical, is finding it impossible to reconcile its current data malpractices with laws and regulations meant to protect people's privacy, according to leaked internal documents. The documents suggest that the company, due to its structure, is unable to make necessary adjustments to its algorithms that would guarantee privacy, and thus cannot follow regulations put in place to do just that. (For more about why the FSF has never been used by Facebook, and why you shouldn't either, please see https://www.fsf.org/facebook.)

Announcing the Hare programming language

From April 25 by Drew DeVault

It is not every month that we can share the news of a new programming language. In late April, after two years of collaborating in private, the developers of a new programming language called "Hare" are releasing their work. Licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3 (GPLv3) with a standard library licensed under the Mozilla Public License (MPL), both copyleft free software licenses, Hare offers features such as simple bootstrapping, a password manager, a microkernel, and OpenGL support. Notably, Hare fits on a 3.5-inch floppy disk, which is available for purchase to help fund its continued development.

Insteon finally comes clean about its sudden smart home shutdown

From April 22 by Ron Amadeo

The perils of nonfree software combined with centralized dis-services are on full display with the sudden shutdown of a certain brand of so-called "smart" homes. This article details what happens when such a dis-service closes its business.

The free software community mourns the loss of Pedro Francisco (MasGNULinux)

From April 19 by Luis Falcon

Pedro created and managed MasGNULinux, a Spanish blog with news about free software and GNU/Linux. MasGNULinux was the best reference in the latest free software projects for the Spanish speaking community. The free software community mourns his death.

April GNU Emacs news

From April 25 by Sacha Chua

In these issues: What's new in GNU Emacs 28.1, new Flymake syntax checker package, Elisp programming magic, 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 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, May 6 from 12pm to 3pm EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC). Details here:

LibrePlanet featured resource: LibrePlanet 2022 video transcripts

For this month, we are highlighting the LibrePlanet 2022 video transcripts page. This page is for transcripts of videos from this year's LibrePlanet. As of this writing, there is one transcription that needs editing. We invite the public to contribute new transcriptions and edits to existing transcriptions. They help with and accessibility and future translation work.

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

April GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Twenty new GNU releases!

Twenty new GNU releases in the last month (as of April 29, 2022):

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.

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.

Please feel free to write to me, [email protected], with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.

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:

  • Bo Morgan*
  • Brendan Copp*
  • Brian Strand*
  • Christopher Marusich*
  • David Caldwell*
  • Douglas Hauge*
  • Edward Flick
  • Elias Rudberg*
  • Ethan Nelson
  • František Kučera
  • Ivan Shmakov*
  • James Tringali*
  • John Eikenberry*
  • John Rakestraw
  • Kate Peterson*
  • Kevin McCarthy*
  • Mark Owen*
  • Masaru Kimura*
  • Michael Mauger*
  • Michael Stroucken*
  • Michal Toman*
  • Olaf Meeuwissen*
  • Philip Piantone*
  • Raffael Stocker
  • Thomas Brown*
  • Tony Edwards*

* Indicates donors whose one-time or cumulative donations in 2021 made them eligible for acknowledgement, who agreed to a public thank you, but who for technical reasons were not recognized until this month.

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:

  • Ali Reza Hayati (GNU Education)
  • Emmanouil Tsamis (GCC, GDB, GNU C Library, GNU Binutils)
  • Felix Dietrich (GNU Emacs)
  • Haneda Junya (GNU Emacs)
  • Jash Parag Shah (Gnuastro)
  • Johannes Joseph Hamelink (GNU Emacs)
  • Kai Tetzlaff (GNU Emacs)
  • Lucien Cartier-Tilet (GNU Emacs)
  • Piotr Kwiecinski (GNU Emacs)
  • Syrmia LLC (GCC)
  • Visuwesh (GNU Emacs)
  • Yuwei Tian (GNU 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/2022/mayo

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=4f01cacc2e1570258c086f346b8c48a6_1651620548_168

Le Free Software Supporter est disponible en français. Pour voir la version française cliquez ici: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2022/mai

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=4f01cacc2e1570258c086f346b8c48a6_1651620548_168

Take action with the FSF!

Contributions from thousands of individual associate 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, free software adoption, OpenDocument, and more.

Do you read and write Portuguese and English? The FSF is looking for translators for Free Software Supporter. Please send an email to [email protected] with your interest and a list of your experience and qualifications.


Copyright © 2022 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/.