Free Software Supporter Issue 95, March 2016
Get ready to "Fork the System" at LibrePlanet on March 19th & 20th
From February 17th
In little more than a month, free software hackers, lawyers, activists, students, educators, librarians, and community organizers will gather to Fork the System in the LibrePlanet conference held at the MIT Stata Center. We encourage you to register by March 9th.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- You did it! The FSF's winter fundraiser was a success!
- The Licensing and Compliance Lab interviews Michael Zahniser of Endless Sky
- We are sending a co-signed comment to the U.S. Copyright Office that the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions are Defective By Design
- Encryption: probably better than a box of chocolates
- I Love Free Software Day 2016
- Confused by license compatibility? A new article by Richard Stallman may help
- RMS in Switzerland and Spain
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- April releases its 2015 activity report
- Indian Patent Office says no to software patents
- Conservancy welcomes Homebrew as a member project
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Skype Replacement
- GNU Spotlight with Brandon Invergo: Twenty new GNU releases!
- Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF events
- Thank GNUs!
- GNU copyright contributions
- Take action with the FSF!
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You did it! The FSF's winter fundraiser was a success!
From February 12th
You did it: thanks to your generous support, the Free Software Foundation raised $452,000, exceeding our goal of $450,000 in our winter fundraiser. Thank you!
The Licensing and Compliance Lab interviews Michael Zahniser of Endless Sky
From February 29th
This is the latest installment of our Licensing and Compliance Lab's series on free software developers who choose GNU licenses for their works. In this edition, we conducted an email-based interview with Michael Zahniser of Endless Sky.
We are sending a co-signed comment to the U.S. Copyright Office that the DMCA anti-circumvention provisions are Defective By Design
From February 16th
We asked people to co-sign the Free Software Foundation's comment to the U.S. Copyright Office regarding DMCA anti-circumvention provisions. On Thursday, March 3rd, we will be delivering the comment to the U.S. Copyright Office (see other FSF events below for details).
- https://www.defectivebydesign.org/dmca-anti-circumvention-comment
- https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/the-u-s-copyright-office-requiring-proprietary-software-in-dmca-anti-circumvention-study
Encryption: probably better than a box of chocolates
From February 14th
Roses are red, violets are blue; I use free software to encrypt my online communication and you can too.
I Love Free Software Day 2016
From February 9th by FSFE
For I love Free Software Day 2016, the Free Software Foundation Europe asks all free software users to use the traditional day of love to think of the hardworking people contributing to the free software we all depend on.
Confused by license compatibility? A new article by Richard Stallman may help
From February 8th
Richard Stallman published a new licensing guide on gnu.org regarding license compatibility and relicensing.
RMS in Switzerland and Spain
From February 29th
RMS photos from his trips in Fribourg, Bern, Zurich, Sierre, Santa Coloma de Gramene, and Barcelona.
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 irc.gnu.org, and usually include a handful of regulars as well as newcomers. Everyone's welcome.
The next meeting is Friday, March 4th from 12pm to 3pm EST (17:00 to 20:00 UTC). Details here:
April releases its 2015 activity report
From February 25th by April
At a national level, in France the year was marked by the preparatory work for the "Digital Republic" bill. April led many campaigns to raise policymakers' awareness of the issue of free computing and to push for the adoption of a serious public policy in favor of free software.
Indian Patent Office says no to software patents
From February 22nd by SFLC India
Prasanth Sugathan, counsel at SFLC.in, said "The legislature by limiting the scope of patentable subject matter in the field of software wanted our software professionals and industry to innovate and not be stifled by companies holding a stockpile of patents. We are grateful to the government and the Patent Office for listening to our feedback and suggestions and preserving the freedom of our coders and entrepreneurs to innovate without shackles."
- http://sflc.in/press-release-indian-patent-office-says-no-to-software-patents/
Conservancy welcomes Homebrew as a member project
From February 22nd
Software Freedom Conservancy proudly announces the addition of Homebrew, software package manager for Apple's OS X operating system, as its newest member project. Homebrew is now one of the dozens of free software projects who call Conservancy their nonprofit corporate home.
LibrePlanet featured resource: Skype Replacement
Every month on LibrePlanet, we highlight one resource that is interesting and useful -- often one that could use your help.
For this month, we are highlighting the Skype Replacement group, which provides information about researching and planning strategy to replace Skype with popular free software alternatives. We know it can be improved a lot. 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 campaigns@fsf.org.
GNU Spotlight with Brandon Invergo: Twenty new GNU releases!
20 new GNU releases in the last month (as of February 24, 2016):
- binutils-2.26
- bzr-2.7.0
- denemo-2.0.2
- ed-1.13
- gdb-7.11
- glibc-2.23
- glpk-4.58
- gnuhealth-3.0.1
- gnupg-2.1.11
- gnutls-3.4.9
- grep-2.23
- icecat-38.6.0-gnu1
- libgcrypt-1.6.5
- mcsim-5.6.4
- moe-1.8
- nano-2.5.2
- nettle-3.2
- parallel-20160222
- texinfo-6.1
- vera-1.23
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 http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a (hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.
This month, we welcome David Pirotte as the maintainer of the new package Foliot and Chris Webber (maintainer of GNU Mediagoblin) as the maintainer of the new package 8sync.
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 us at maintainers@gnu.org with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.
Richard Stallman's speaking schedule
For event details, as well as to sign-up to be notified for future events in your area, please visit https://www.fsf.org/events.
So far, Richard Stallman has the following events this month:
- March 5th, Bhopal, India, "Free Software and Your Freedom"
- March 6th, Roorkee, India, "Richard Stallman to speak in Roorkee, India"
- March 9th, Utrecht, Netherlands, "Computing, Freedom and Privacy"
- March 16th, Quebec City, Canada, "Logiciel libre et société libre"
- March 17th, Montreal, Canada, "Free Software and Your Freedom"
Other FSF and free software events
- March 3rd, Washington, DC, "Join us this Thursday to fight an unjust DRM law"
- March 19th & 20th, Cambridge, Massachusetts, "LibrePlanet 2016: Fork the System"
Thank GNUs!
We appreciate everyone who donates to the Free Software Foundation, but 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:
- Savoir-faire Linux, in memory of Mr. Ian Murdock
- Iñaki Arenaza, in memory of Mr. Mauricio Saint-Supery
- Martynas Aandrisiunas, in memory of Mr. Neo Max
- Dennis Clarke, in memory of Mr. Ian Murdock
- Paul Allen, in honor of Mr. Aaron Swartz
- Philippe Ombredanne, in memory of Mr. Ian Murdock
- Gordon Crowe Associates
- Evan Klitzke
- Andrew Zapenas
- AskApache, in honor of RMS Last MIT Hacker
- James Wilson
- Ed Price
- Leah Rowe
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 GPL and keep software free. The following individuals have assigned their copyright to the FSF in the past month:
- Jussi Henrikki Lahdenniemi (emacs)
- Masamichi Hosoda (texinfo)
- Erik George Baird Hetzne (emacs)
- Sergio Lopez Pascual (GNUstep)
Want to see your name on this list? Contribute to GNU and assign your copyright to the FSF.
https://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#dev
Take action with the FSF
Contributions from thousands of individual 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 also 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 campaign section (https://www.fsf.org/campaigns) and take action on software patents, DRM, free software adoption, OpenDocument, RIAA, and more.
Copyright © 2016 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/.