The Free Software Foundation (FSF) tech team is involved in every
aspect of the FSF's work. Besides maintaining the infrastructure for
GNU and FSF, as well as virtual machines for several other important
free software projects, they continually take on work to secure
freedom by, for example, freeing all BIOSes of FSF's servers,
workstations, and laptops. They run livestreamed audio and video for
the annual LibrePlanet conference and make sure the office and
its databases run smoothly. They are also always ready to assist the
other FSF teams with new scripts, tools, and platforms to service new
ideas, projects, or public activities.
In doing this work, the tech team operates sixty-three different
services, platforms, and Web sites for the FSF staff, the GNU Project,
community projects, and the wider free software community. The FSF
tech team maintains infrastructure which includes:
Conference streaming infrastructure such as Icecast, hosting
our own videoconferencing platform BigBlueButton, and our very
own LibrePlanet online conference's fun and social
LibreAdventure;
Web browser extensions like JShelter, which we have been
developing this last year to help secure education about, and
protection from, harmful proprietary JavaScript; and
Most organizations our size probably run a small handful of the
technology they use and outsource the rest. Sixty-three is a very high
number for an organization with only twelve people on staff, only
three of whom are on the tech team.
Tech team members Andrew (left), Ian (middle), and Michael (right) running the streaming systems at LibrePlanet.
We go out of our way to keep it free. We don't use any of the
so-called "cloud" services, since the "cloud" they typically refer
to is just someone else's computer. We do not abstract away
problems with frameworks on top of Docker containers running in
Kubernetes assembled by someone who tells you to directly pipe curl
output into bash and install the software as root without looking at
it. We do not naively trust, and when we run into elements we are
unsure about, we work our way through them, in freedom. We assemble
our software stacks in a way that we can understand and keep track of
by configuring services orchestrated by Ansible in virtual machines
with libvirt on Trisquel GNU/Linux, running on bare-metal ASUS
KGPE-D16 servers that we own, operate, and trust.
We do this all ourselves. We do not outsource a necessary service to a
provider that grants us access to their service for a fee. Instead, we
self-host everything we possibly can so that the software we use can
be trusted. It won't be pulled out from under us, nor will it leave us
stuck in a vendor lock-in situation. Moreover, we know that we will
never find ourselves at the mercy of an organization that cares much
less about freedom than we do.
We do it ethically. We only run code that we can run, modify, copy,
and share, right down to running a fully free BIOS on our
servers. With the help of our licensing team and licensing volunteers,
we go the extra mile and verify that all of our software that we run
does not have any nonfree dependencies before adding anything to our
stack.
I am in my third year working with the FSF and I am truly amazed every
time I take a step back and see all of the work that we are able to
achieve with such a small team of three people. Maintaining all this
work in freedom is not easy. The three of us are able to do this work,
which is supported by an team of volunteers from around the
globe, thanks to the team's dedication to free software, hard work,
and by constantly challenging ourselves and using our talents to come
up with creative solutions to challenges that this work throws at us.
We need your help to to continue this work. How can you help? Become
an associate member of the FSF today. You can start for as little
as $10 per month ($5 for students), or $120 per year. With your
support, we can continue to show people how the freedom to share
can effect change in all areas where software touches modern
life. Besides that, your membership gives strength to the idea of
free software. Plus, your membership will count towards achieving our
fall goal of 455 new associate members before December 31, and you
will be eligible for this year's snazzy and secure webcam cover when
you join as an annual associate member at $120 or more. You'll also be
able to enjoy all the member benefits, which include merchandise
discounts, a 16GB bootable membership card, and use of our associate
member videoconferencing server.
