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Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2023/march
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read
by you and 230,588 other activists. That's seventy-five more than last
month!
Associate members: Nominate your FSF board candidate by March 3
From February 24
The FSF board is looking for candidates whose firm commitment to free
software values would be of service to the FSF and its board, and is
inviting associate members to nominate candidates today. The board has
listed several requirements and valuable attributes in the FSF board
matrix to assist in judging potential candidates. We encourage people
who share our strong commitment to our mission and values to apply. We
don't want eligible members to miss this important opportunity, so
we're inviting you to participate in this important work. FSF board
nominations are now open until March 3, 2023, 10:00 EST (15:00 UTC)
through the nomination form:
https://my.fsf.org/board-nomination-form
After the nomination period, discussions on the nominated board
candidates will be held in a forum open to eligible participants and
moderated by FSF staff and volunteers. If you are interested in
volunteering to help moderate the nominee forum, please send an email
to [email protected].
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Experience the fifteen years of LibrePlanet celebration firsthand as a volunteer
- The LibrePlanet 2023: Charting the Course schedule is here for March, 18 and 19
- Two bills in support of free software legislation in New Hampshire
- How we celebrated I Love Free Software Day: Share your love, software, and a video
- Governments ought to leave Twitter, but not for something worse
- Zoë Kooyman: Today, the free software message is maybe more important than ever
- Linux-libre turns fifteen!
- Cyber Resilience Act: Good intentions and unintended consequences
- FSF's new procedures & GNU GPL stewardship
- Gnuastro: Two lensed star candidates from 12.56 billion years imaged with JWST
- February GNU Emacs news
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- LibrePlanet featured resource: LibrePlanet 2023 accommodations
- February GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Eighteen 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/2023/march
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.
Experience the fifteen years of LibrePlanet celebration firsthand as a volunteer
From February 23
With just a few weeks left until LibrePlanet 2023, we cannot do this
event without our volunteers, who besides providing their invaluable
help behind the scenes, also contribute to the great atmosphere. We'd
like to extend a huge thank you to all the volunteers who have already
signed up to help us organize LibrePlanet 2023. We are touched by how
much support we've received so far. However, we still would find it
helpful to have more in-person volunteers to fill some important
roles. Read and share this article about what roles we need filled,
in-person training times, and volunteer benefits, and we cannot wait
to see you all at LibrePlanet 2023: Charting the Course!
The LibrePlanet 2023: Charting the Course schedule is here for March, 18 and 19
From February 21
We recently announced the schedule for LibrePlanet 2023. The sessions
cover important topics that show how the free software movement can
chart the course to full digital freedom in areas such as artificial
intelligence, education and research, agriculture, finance, social
media, the public sector, and our personal lives. We have a schedule
full of carefully selected talks by and for both regulars and
newcomers. The schedule also holds our annual Free Software Awards
ceremony for the 2022 awards winners. Check out the confirmed
speakers, and register today to grab your spot at this year's
LibrePlanet, and enjoy talks by iFixit co-founder Kyle Wiens,
Australian hacker Sick Codes, a keynote by researcher and educator
Erin Rose Glass, and more.
Two bills in support of free software legislation in New Hampshire
From February 21
Sponsored by New Hampshire representative Eric Gallager, free software
advocates had two opportunities this month to support free software
legislation in public hearings. The first was House Bill 617-FN,
which, if it passes, would prevent state agencies from requiring New
Hampshire residents to use proprietary software in public interactions
like remote court proceedings, tax filings, and the completion of
public school coursework. The second was House Bill 556-FN, which, if
it passes, would make it a duty of the New Hampshire information
technology council to advise the Department of Information Technology
commissioner on various aspects of software freedom, including, among
other things, the potential cost of replacing all nonfree software
used by state agencies with free software. Both of these bills will be
voted on during upcoming executive sessions on March 8 for 617-FN and
March 13 for 556-FN. No new testimony will be heard during these
sessions.
How we celebrated I Love Free Software Day: Share your love, software, and a video
From February 13
As in previous years, we joined the Free Software Foundation Europe
(FSFE) in celebrating I Love Free Software Day on February 14, the
same day as Valentine's Day. It's an opportunity to say thank you for
free software as well as express our appreciation for the countless
members of the community who work tirelessly to make software freedom
possible. This year, the FSF celebrated by making a recipe for you to
express such appreciation, as well as celebrate your love of free
software, through video. Many who participated in the day's
festivities shared their images, videos, and stories on microblogs
using the hashtag #ILoveFS. Although I Love Free Software Day for
this year is over, this post provides a fun, free template and
informative tutorial recipe to create video greeting cards year-round.
Governments ought to leave Twitter, but not for something worse
From February 9
As organizations are leaving Twitter, will they make the wrong choice
and choose something that requires nonfree software? Now's the time to
tell your government and other groups to make the right move to a
freedom-respecting platform.
For more information on the FSF's current stance on Twitter, please
read: https://www.fsf.org/twitter. While Twitter feeds still remain
accessible through free clients such as Nitter and Choqok, we do
encourage followers to join us on Mastodon or GNU social, whose
platforms guarantee your freedom.
Zoë Kooyman: Today, the free software message is maybe more important than ever
From February 27 by Lucas Pretti and Sara Petti
In this recent interview, FSF executive director Zoë Kooyman discusses
her thoughts on the importance of the free software movement as part
of a series called "100+ conversations to inspire our new direction."
In this discussion, Kooyman shares updates to the FSF governance and
board recruitment process, challenges that the free software movement
faces today and how to meet those challenges, some of the FSF's most
recent activism, and more.
Linux-libre turns fifteen!
From February 25 by Alexandre Oliva
In February 2008, Jeff Moe announced Linux-libre, a fully free version
of the kernel Linux. This article, published on the Free Software
Foundation Latin America (FSFLA) website, reflects upon the past
fifteen years, as well as the challenges ahead.
The FSF is thankful for fifteen years of maintenance work, which
provides the community with a reliable (and reliably free!) version of
the kernel Linux for the GNU operating system. Such work by the
Linux-libre maintainers helps to power all of the freedom-respecting
distros, and thereby helps those of us who aim to drive our hardware
with fully free software.
Cyber Resilience Act: Good intentions and unintended consequences
From February 23 by Mike Milinkovich
Europe's proposed Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) legislation, which
requires strict regulation for "digital products," could be assumed,
if passed, to have a consequential impact on free software development
and distribution. This article examines the foreseeable liability
obligations imposed by the CRA upon projects, communities, and
nonprofit foundations.
FSF's new procedures & GNU GPL stewardship
From February 22 by Ciarán O'Riordan
This article details the FSF's recent update to its by-laws so that
approval by 66% of its directors is required to approve any new
versions of the GNU General Public License (GPL). The GPL, as a strong
copyleft license, ensures that all future versions of a software
package are also free, and such a change to the by-laws is expected to
ensure that all future versions of the GPL meet any unique challenges
the future may hold while maintaining freedom of programs under its
license for future generations.
Gnuastro: Two lensed star candidates from 12.56 billion years imaged with JWST
From February 10 by Ashish Kumar Meena et al.
Two unique features of GNU Astronomy Utilities (Gnuastro),
"NoiseChisel" and "Segment," assisted in a recent scientific
achievement: photometry (measurements of the flux of astronomical
objects) of the second most distant resolved stars behind the
gravitational lens of a large intermediate galaxy cluster by the James
Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which is currently the largest optical
telescope in space. The observed photons from these stars were emitted
12.56 billion years ago (when the universe was only 1.23 billion years
old). Mentioned in Section 4.2 of the article published in the journal
Astrophysical Journal Letters published by the American Astronomical
Society, it was thanks to the unique features of Gnuastro that they
were able to do the photometry and properly identify them as very
distant stars.
Special thanks to the maintainer of Gnuastro, Mohammad Akhlaghi, for
sharing the article for inclusion in this month's Supporter and for
providing valuable scientific context.
February GNU Emacs news
From 27 February by Sacha Chua
In these issues: Controlling a browser with Emacs Lisp, Crazy Theme
for GNU Emacs, all of Shakespeare's plays as a single Org file, 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, March 3 from 12:00 to 15:00 EST (17:00 to
20:00 UTC). Details here:
LibrePlanet featured resource: LibrePlanet 2023 accommodations
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 a resource to find accommodations
for the upcoming LibrePlanet conference. This resource is to help
those who are offering to host (or share a room with) a LibrePlanet
attendee or speaker to match up with those seeking space. If you are
able to help others in this way, or are seeking accommodations
yourself, please add to this resource.
Do you have a suggestion for next month's featured resource? Let us
know at [email protected].
February GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Eighteen new GNU releases!
Eighteen new GNU releases in the last month (as of February 28, 2023):
For a full list with descriptions, please see:
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/february-gnu-spotlight-with-amin-bandali-eighteen-new-gnu-releases
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 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 you may use
https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a
(hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.
This month, we welcome long-time GNU hacker Jose E. Marchesi together
with Vladimir Mezentsev as maintainers of the new GNU package
gprofng-gui.
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
- March 9-12, 2023, Pasadena Convention Center, Pasadena, CA, SCALE 20x
- March 17, 2023, Somerville, MA and online, RMS: A tour of malicious software, with a typical cell phone as example
- March 18-19, 2023, Boston, MA and online, LibrePlanet 2023: Charting the Course
- April 24-25, 2023, Gothenburg, Sweden, FOSS North 2023
- July 13-16, 2023, Oregon Convention Center, Portland, OR FOSSY
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:
- Adam Oberbeck
- Dan and Kathy Tappan
- David Bruce
- Eric Chun
- Iñaki Arenaza
- Jason Compton
- Kim Minh Kaplan
- Nathan Pooley
- Orlando Wingbrant
- Paula Brust
- Valerio Poggi
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:
- Bogdan Drozdowski (GNU Automake)
- Jeremy Bryant (GNU Emacs)
- Nicolas Martyanoff (GNU Emacs)
- Philippe Oliver Altherr (GNU Emacs)
- TAN Yin Hoe (GNU Emacs)
- Tim Rice (GNU awk)
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 aquí:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2023/marzo
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=c9dceb61868f6f513798320f0a2e5ec7_1677730952_168
Le Free Software Supporter est disponible en français. Pour voir la
version française cliquez ici:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2023/mars
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=c9dceb61868f6f513798320f0a2e5ec7_1677730952_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. 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 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 the Free Software Supporter. Please send an
email to [email protected] with your interest and a list of your
experience and qualifications.
Copyright © 2023 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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