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Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2022/september
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read
by you and 229,851 other activists. That's 317 more than last month!
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Escape to Freedom now also available in Mandarin and Spanish
- A gold record year for SecuRepairs and the Right to Repair
- FFDW Grant & DWebCamp: Our decentralized community industry debut
- XScreenSaver was released thirty years ago
- A new jailbreak for John Deere tractors rides the Right to Repair wave
- DreamWorks Animation to release MoonRay as free software
- Textbook publisher: NFTs will let us squeeze even more money out of students
- August GNU Emacs news
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- LibrePlanet featured resource: DRM-free textbooks
- August GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: 12 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/september
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 or Spanish.
Escape to Freedom now also available in Mandarin and Spanish
From August 16
Escape to Freedom is the animated video from the Free Software
Foundation giving an introduction to the concepts behind
software freedom: both what we gain by having it, and what rights are
at stake. The video focuses on protagonist Zara, which allows viewers
to relate to her challenges and concerns. And now we now have it
video available in Mandarin and Spanish language tracks. The free software
awareness videos have already reached
thousands of viewers. Let's continue to get the word out by sharing them widely.
A gold record year for SecuRepairs and the Right to Repair
From August 29 by Paul Roberts
Right to Repair activists, and the SecuRepairs group of
pro-repair IT and information security professionals had many
bright spots in the last year. And, as Paul Roberts writes in this
article, "in the midst of all that, our intrepid group landed some
important kudos from one of the most important organizations
fighting for a free, fair and equitable Internet: The Free
Software Foundation. FSF named SecuRepairs the winner of its
Award for Projects of Social Benefit for 2021."
FFDW Grant & DWebCamp: Our decentralized community industry debut
From August 17 by Spritely Institute
Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web (FFDW) has
announced an award to Spritely Networked Communities Institute
(Spritely Institute) to support the creation of free
standards for decentralized social media. Spritely's mission is to put
people directly in control of their online identities and
relationships, and this award will further the organization's efforts.
Christine Lemmer-Webber (GNU Mediagoblin) and Randy Farmer
are the institute's founders.
XScreenSaver was released thirty years ago
From August 17 by Jamie Zawinski
XScreenSaver, the familiar screensaver that comes preinstalled on many
GNU/Linux distributions, just had its thirtieth anniversary. The
original author reminisces about its development and life thus far,
and shares the initial announcement with a link to the first blog
post. XScreenSaver is
free software and has its own entry in the Free Software Directory.
In celebration of its anniversary, please consider exercising some of
your freedoms -- anything from using it as you like to developing your
own screensaver creations to be used for the next thirty years.
A new jailbreak for John Deere tractors rides the Right to Repair wave
From August 13 by Lily Hay Newman
If the software in tractors were free, the farmers would be able
to take ownership over their machines again, and they would truly
have the right to repair. This write-up explains how farmers around
the world have turned to tractor hacking so they can bypass the digital
locks that manufacturers impose on their vehicles. Like insulin pump
"looping" and iPhone jailbreaking, this allows farmers to modify
and repair the expensive equipment that’s vital to their work,
the way they could with analog tractors. The article shows that for the
farmers to have access to true right to repair, it starts with free software.
DreamWorks Animation to release MoonRay as free software
From August 5 by Dan Sarto
DreamWorks intends to make MoonRay available under the Apache 2.0
license. Further information and updates will be available at
openmoonray.org;. While the move to the free software license is still
yet to happen, this initial announcement is promising.
Textbook publisher: NFTs will let us squeeze even more money out of students
From August 3 by Adi Robertson
Pearson's CEO, and former chairman of Walt Disney
International, Andy Bird, recently explained his plan to sell digital textbooks
as NFTs in a scheme that allows the publisher to profit from secondary
sales, as well as track the ownership of a book even when it changes
hands. Although the details have yet to be divulged, Pearson has made
its intent clear that they would like to skirt legal grounding such as
the first-sale doctrine, which permits physical book buyers to own
their books outright and sell it without sending any money back to the
original publishers (nor notifying them of the sale). Notably, Pearson
already employs Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) of various kinds,
using their unjust power to squeeze money out of teachers and
learners, which made them the target of the FSF's International Day against DRM (IDAD)
in 2019.
August GNU Emacs news
From August 29 by Sacha Chua
In these issues: Themes to give your eyes a rest, a comics builder,
EmacsConf 2022 information, "encrypt-region" encryption package 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, September 2 from 12pm to 3pm EDT (17:00 to
19:00 UTC). Details here:
LibrePlanet featured resource: DRM-free textbooks
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 DRM-free textbooks, which provides
information about textbooks and other educational books that do not
implement DRM. 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].
August GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: 12 new GNU releases!
For a full list with descriptions, please see:
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/august-gnu-spotlight-with-amin-bandali-twelve-new-gnu-releases
To download: nearly all GNU software is available most reliably from
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/. Optionally, you may find faster download
speeds at a mirror located geographically closer to you by choosing
from the list of mirrors published at
https://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html, or using
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.
As always, please feel free to write to me, [email protected], with
any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.
FSF and other free software events
- September 16-18, 2022, Paris, France, Ten Years of Guix
- September 26-30, 2022, Washington, D.C., GRCon 2022
- October 7, 2022, Barcelona, Spain, KDE Academy
- November 4-5, 2022, Online, SeaGL
- December 3-4, 2022, Online, EmacsConf
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:
- Casper Freksen
- Felix March Tantoso
- Matomo.org
- Minoru Sekine
- Stellenanzeigen.de Technologie Entwicklungs-GmbH
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:
- Joshua Allen Branson (GNU Emacs)
- Malik Tuwebti (GNU Emacs)
- Peter Povinec (GNU Emacs)
- Randy James Taylor (GNU Emacs)
- Trevor Edwin Pogue (GNU Emacs)
- Valentin Lab (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/septiembre
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=3660cb6b274c6582608dcd75f4a583b2_1662081282_168
Le Free Software Supporter est disponible en français. Pour voir la
version française cliquez ici:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2022/septembre
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=3660cb6b274c6582608dcd75f4a583b2_1662081282_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/.
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