Older blog entries for mattl (starting at number 655)

15 Dec 2011 (updated 15 Dec 2011 at 23:37 UTC) »

We want to do more for you!

Help us raise $300,000 for free software by January 31st.

With your support this past year, we made a difference and accomplished a great deal for free software around the world. But we don't just want to repeat this in 2012 — we want to make an even bigger impact, and we need your help to do it.

To reach our fundraising goal, we need to raise just $229,000 more over the next seven weeks. If we meet this goal, we will be confident that our existing program expenses will be covered for the remainder of the year, and we can focus on how best to start doing more.

You can help us get there by joining — an FSF membership is $120/year, which is $10/month or 33 cents per day. Note that while you can contribute $10 or more automatically each month, we cannot yet automatically collect your 33 cents each day.

Who we are and what we do

FSF associate members at the LibrePlanet 2011 conference.

  • Last year we helped arrange over 110 events around the world, including our annual LibrePlanet conference.
  • We responded to well over 14,000 email requests from our members, reporters, and the broader public.
  • We gathered tens of thousands of signatures, and broke stories on computer user freedom into the mainstream media.
  • We helped people learn about getting started with free software, and ran educational advocacy campaigns about the efforts of major corporations to eliminate free software.
  • We took in over 100 new copyright assignments for the GNU Project, replied to over a thousand free software licensing questions, and provided important distribution and development infrastructure for GNU developers.
  • We offered feedback to organizations and standards bodies, and gave guidance on legislation and policies being enacted around the world.
  • We run a store and publishing company out of our office, shipping freely licensed books, printed t-shirts, and stickers to dozens of countries.
The FSF is a small, humble organization of passionate individuals working tirelessly for our software freedom.

— Benjamin Mako Hill, FSF board member

But we want to do more — a lot more. And the only way that can happen is if you help us grow.

The Free Software Foundation is a staff of ten dedicated and effective individuals, working with a global network of volunteers and supporters of the free software movement. Our president, Richard Stallman, does not receive a salary from the FSF. Every person and function in our organization is pushed to its capacity, and to do more, we need to grow.

Each week until the end of our fundraiser on January 31st, we will be presenting you short focus pieces detailing our work and our desire to do even more for you!

The goal of our fundraiser is to raise $300,000 for free software. Our goal as an organization is to spend your donations wisely and effectively, so that we can do our very best on your behalf at defending the rights of computer users around the world and encouraging free software development.

How you can help

Sincerely,

Josh, Brett, Donald, Jasimin, Jeanne, John, Martin, Matt, Peter, Richard, and Ward

PS. If you are in the US, please call your representatives this week to stop the Internet blacklist legislation, SOPA, from becoming a law!

Syndicated 2011-12-15 22:22:29 (Updated 2011-12-15 23:37:27) from Free Software Foundation

Help us make LibrePlanet 2012 a success!

Since 2009, the Free Software Foundation has run an annual conference in the Boston area for free software developers, activists, and the FSF's own associate members. This conference grew out of a smaller members-only event which ran successfully for six years.

The conference has featured many free software luminaries over the years, including FSF president Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen of the Freedom Box Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center, EFF co-founder John Gilmore, GNOME Foundation executive director Karen Sandler, Jeremy Allison of the Samba project, Selena Deckelmann of PostgreSQL, Máirín Duffy of Fedora, and veteran GNU developer Rob Savoye.

We are planning the upcoming conference in the midst of our annual winter fundraiser, the time of year when we work the hardest at inviting new people to become FSF associate members. Our associate members are the most important means of financial support for the Free Software Foundation -- individuals in our community, making a financial commitment to software freedom. Because we want the conference to be an opportunity for these free software supporters to meet each other, our associate members can attend the conference without charge.

At last year's event, I promised we would make this conference bigger and better than ever before. As I and the other staff work hard to bring some of the pioneers of our community together, we are relying on your contributions to help make the financial aspect of this event possible, without hanging ugly corporate banners everywhere.

We just need 100 new members, and the conference is paid for entirely. Funding is necessary for us to provide a comfortable venue, devote enough staff time to promote it and have it run smoothly, and offer other features like audio and video recordings of the talks for future use.

Syndicated 2011-12-14 17:14:18 from Free Software Foundation

LibrePlanet 2012 conference announced: March 24th-25th

Previous LibrePlanet conferences have featured many free software luminaries, including FSF president Richard Stallman, Eben Moglen of the Freedom Box Foundation and Software Freedom Law Center, EFF co-founder John Gilmore, GNOME Foundation executive director Karen Sandler, Jeremy Allison of the Samba project, Selena Deckelmann of PostgreSQL, Máirín Duffy of Fedora, and veteran GNU developer Rob Savoye.

"At last year's event, I promised we would make this conference bigger and better than ever before." said Matt Lee, FSF campaigns manager, "All signs point to us making good on that promise."

The conference is open to the public with purchase of a ticket, but associate members of the Free Software Foundation can attend as a benefit of their financial contribution. A goal of one hundred new associate members has been set in order to fund the conference, and new and existing members are encouraged to contribute online at http://www.fsf.org/associate.

More information on the conference, including a mailing list for updates and speaker announcements, is available at http://www.fsf.org/events/libreplanet-2012.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

About Free Software and Open Source

The free software movement's goal is freedom for computer users. Some, especially corporations, advocate a different viewpoint, known as "open source," which cites only practical goals such as making software powerful and reliable, focuses on development models, and avoids discussion of ethics and freedom. These two viewpoints are different at the deepest level. For more explanation, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.

Media Contacts

Matt Lee
Campaigns Manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942 x24
campaigns@fsf.org

Syndicated 2011-12-14 17:14:00 from Free Software Foundation

March

Welcome to the all new Free Software Supporter! -- the Free Software Foundation's monthly news digest and action update.

Each month we will highlight some of the important work being done by the FSF, and give an update on recent happenings in the GNU project and the campaign for software freedom.

Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by adding our subscriber widget to your website.

The FSF's home page gets a new look

Check out the new redesigned, fsf.org site! As we welcome a larger audience to the work of the Free Software Foundation, we will be developing our website and resources to foster understanding of the importance of software freedom.

Thanks to Matt Lee for the design work, and the creative support of Hillary Rettig and Joshua Ginsberg.

End Software Patents campaign launches

On February 28th, the FSF-backed End Software Patents campaign was launched. The FSF has created an action alert mailing list so that you can join us in actions as we try to do our part in the coalition to make the campaign a success.

By attacking software patenting in the US we can reduce the pressure on other countries adopting the same bad practices.

Director of End Software Patents Ben Klemens writes, "Change is happening now. The appeals court of the Federal Circuit has agreed to reconsider the scope of what is patentable, and the ESP project will be on hand with amicus briefs and public information. ESP will provide an overview of how courts self-expanded their jurisdiction to include software despite the protests of practitioners such as Bill Gates or Adobe Microsystems, of the economic damage done, how the story is evolving today, and how you can help restore the software market to a world run by innovators, not judges."

Join us in our first action -- Write to the US presidential candidates and tell them if they want your vote, they need to take a stand against software patents.

"Tackling the Big Issues" at the FSF Annual Associate Member Meeting, Saturday, March 15

Join us at this years associate members meeting. If you can't make it in person, join us on IRC (irc.freenode.net in #fsf) and we will try to relay your questions to the FSF staff and board of directors. Also, we will be posting video coverage of the event afterward.

There will be speeches from FSF board members Mako Hill and Henri Poole and the director of the FSF-backed End Software Patents campaign Ben Klemens. FSF president Richard Stallman will be chairing the members forum session - addressing the 2008 theme, "Tackling the Big Issues."
They will look at the projects that will demand the Free Software Foundation's attention in 2008: from software patents to freedom for web services, from advancing free software adoption to the changing relations with the entertainment industry brought about by this year's Hollywood writers strike. Read more

FSF to host summit on freedom for web services

Preceding the associate members meeting, on March 16, 2008, FSF board members Mako Hill and Henri Poole will gather a small group of free software activists, thinkers, and scholars to identify the important questions that web services raise for free software and to start probing answers.

Mako Hill writes "The FSF is committed to protecting computer users' freedom, and always has been. Last year saw the release of the GNU AGPL, a license that requires service providers to provide the source for applications that users interact with over a network. While this is a helpful option for developers concerned about this use case, it doesn't guarantee users' freedom, and so the FSF plans to begin talking very directly about how web services affect us all. This summit will help us establish goals for a campaign to address the issue more comprehensively, and begin taking action."

Read more in the press release.

March upon the Boston Public Library

On February 9th, DefectiveByDesign.org took action at one of the nation's three largest libraries: the Boston Public Library. Our demand was for them to eliminate Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) and to take a formal stance opposing it. DRM has no place in our publicly funded institutions. You can find photos and a summary of our action at our blog.

Boycott Trend Micro!

Join us and the ScriptumLibre.org Foundation in raising awareness for the boycott of all products and services sold by Trend Micro. The proprietary software company Trend Micro has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Barracuda Networks. They claim that Barracuda is violating their patent by distributing the free software antivirus program ClamAV. Read more.

GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry - Assistant Chief GNUisance

One long-languishing project Richard Stallman (rms) and I have been working on is contacting all GNU maintainers to identify and revive packages that have become moribund. Thanks to all the new volunteers for old packages who have come forward as a result; the most recent are: Bradley Smith (gnurobots) Chris Bryant (vmslib) Denver Gingerich (wdiff) Ian Beckwith (gnuit) Julia Longtin (gift) Klaus Treichel (portable.net) Micah Cowan (wget) Steve White (freefont) Tony Abou-Assaleh (grep) -- with my apologies to any active new maintainers that I missed.

Thanks also to the maintainers (some new, some long-time contributors) of recently dubbed GNU packages -- Aubrey Jaffer (scm and wb), Martin Pool (bazaar), Remco Bras (rpge), and Sam Steingold & Bruno Haible (libffcall).

Lastly, we thank Stefan Monnier and Chong Yidong for taking over the reigns for Richard Stallman as maintainer of GNU Emacs.

The web pages for these and all GNU packages are at http://www.gnu.org/software/PKGNAME. For those who are curious, there are about 500 GNU packages in all, with about 400 official maintainers.

Here, in alphabetical order, are some of the notable GNU releases so far in 2008 (not an exhaustive list). I won't try to describe them; see the software web pages or the distributions themselves. Nearly all are available from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu, or preferably one of the mirrors.

a2ps-4.14 auctex-11.85 automake-1.10.1 classpath-0.97
clisp-2.44 coreutils-6.10 ddrescue-1.7 erc-5.3
findutils-4.2.33 gcc-4.2.3 gengen-1.2 gengetopt-2.22
glpk-4.26 gnuit-4.9.2 gnutls-2.2.2 guile-1.8.4
icecat-2.0.0.11 jacal-1b9 less-418 libextractor-0.5.19
libidn-1.5 libosip2-3.1.0 libtool-1.5.26 mcron-1.0.4
scm-5e5 slib-3b1 smalltalk-3.0.1 solfege-3.10.2
unrtf-0.20.5 wb-2a2 wget-1.11 which-2.19

To get email announcements of most new GNU packages, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list, which is publicly archived.

By the way, except for a few packages with special circumstances, these new releases use GPLv3 or LGPLv3. For a high-level overview (written by rms) of the new licenses released last year, here.

Please feel free to write me with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.

Upcoming talks and events

3/14 New York, NY -- "The World in Your Library: International Users and International Librarians Enriching the Academic Experience." Info.

3/15 Cambridge, MA -- 2008 Free Software Foundation Associate Members Meeting. Sign-up now! Or join us on irc.freenode.net in #fsf to ask questions to the FSF staff and the board as well as follow along with a log of the event.

3/16 Cambridge, MA -- Summit on Freedom for Network Services. Info.

Richard Stallman's speaking schedule

3/25 Blacksburg, VA -- "Copyright vs. Community." Info

3/27 Richmond, VA -- "Free Software in Ethics and in Practice." Info. (From 16:00 to 18:00).

3-27 Richmond, VA -- "Free Software in Ethics and in Practice." Info. (From 19:00 to 21:00).

4-06 Barcelona, Spain -- "Copyright vs. Community." Info.

4-19 Boca del Rio, Veracruz, Mexico -- "Copyright vs. Community." Info.

Take Action with the FSF

The FSF is 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 campaign section and take action on software patents, DRM, Vista, Opendocument, RIAA and more.

Syndicated 2011-12-06 22:32:03 from Free Software Foundation

July

Issue 6, July 2008

Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software Foundation's monthly news digest and action update -- being read by you and 7,824 other activists.

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 http://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/.

Multilingual? Send translations of the Supporter to campaigns@fsf.org.

In this issue

  • It's not the Gates, it's the bars
  • Act on ACTA!
  • Fight the Canadian DMCA!
  • Rhapsody and Naxos go DRM free
  • Refusing Digital Monitoring Policies
  • 5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G
  • autonomo.us activist group to focus on freedom in network services
  • identi.ca is autonomo.us
  • GNU spotlight with Karl Berry
  • Richard Stallman's speaking schedule
  • Take action!

It's not the Gates, it's the bars

Originally published by BBC News, this essay by Richard Stallman, begins:

To pay so much attention to Bill Gates' retirement is missing the point. What really matters is not Gates, nor Microsoft, but the unethical system of restrictions that Microsoft, like many other software companies, imposes on its customers.

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/gates.html

Act on ACTA!

ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is a proposed enforcement treaty between United States, and global coalition. Find out more about how ACTA threatens free software, and join us in action!

http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/acta/

Fight the Canadian DMCA!

In mid-June, Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice introduced a bill that BoingBoing's Cory Doctorow described as making it "flatly illegal to break any kind of digital lock...". Canadian or not, you can take action against the Canadian DMCA, read the full story.

http://defectivebydesign.org/fight-the-canadian-dmca

Rhapsody and Naxos go DRM free

Rhapsody and Naxos (an audiobook distributor) are now offering DRM-free MP3 downloads. Customers are encouraged to put pressure on these services to provide music and audiobooks in free formats too. Read more:

http://defectivebydesign.org/rhapsody-and-naxos-go-drm-free

Refusing Digital Monitoring Policies

Bruce Schneier has brought a new form of Digital Restrictions Management to our attention, "Digital Manners Policies," which, according to him, may "control what you do and when you do it, and [will] charge you repeatedly for the privilege whenever possible."

http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/1147

5 reasons to avoid iPhone 3G

  • iPhone completely blocks free software. Developers must pay a tax to Apple, who becomes the sole authority over what can and can't be on everyone's phones.

  • iPhone endorses and supports Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology.

  • iPhone exposes your whereabouts and provides ways for others to track you without your knowledge.

  • iPhone won't play patent- and DRM-free formats like Ogg Vorbis and Theora.

  • iPhone is not the only option. There are better alternatives on the horizon that respect your freedom, don't spy on you, play free media formats, and let you use free software -- like the FreeRunner.

Share these reasons with your friends, family and colleagues, and read more at:

http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/5-reasons-to-avoid-iphone-3g/

autonomo.us activist group to focus on freedom in network services

Building on its work with the GNU Affero General Public license, the FSF convened a meeting to discuss the impact of network services on free software and user freedom on March 16.

Today, attendees at that meeting launched autonomo.us, a new blog that aims to publish essays and articles exploring the impact of network services on user freedom. Additionally, the group published what it is calling the "Franklin Street Statement on Freedom and Network Services" where it lays out a summary of its thinking so far. While the group is working independently and the statement does not yet represent FSF policy, the FSF will continue to work closely with and within the group, with FSF members, and with the free software community to help inform and refine its strategy and continue to provide leadership in regards to software freedom and network services.

identi.ca is autonomo.us

Speaking of freedom in network services, identi.ca is a microblogging service based on the Laconi.ca microblogging software, available under the GNU Affero General Public License. Evan Prodromou, the lead developer of Laconi.ca and a member of the autonomo.us effort, said "I hope that it brings more attention to the issue of Free Network Services, and sets a good example for how to build them."

If you sign up for an account, 'Subscribe' to our campaigns:

GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry

Here's the list of GNU releases for June (and early July):

  • ccrtp-1.6.1
  • cgicc-3.2.7
  • classpath-0.97.2
  • clisp-2.46
  • coreutils-6.12
  • gcc-4.3.1
  • glpk-4.29
  • gnash-0.8.3
  • gnuit-4.9.4
  • guile-clutter-0.7.6
  • guile-gnome-platform-2.16.1
  • gv-3.6.5
  • libidn-1.9
  • libzrtpcpp-1.3.0
  • mifluz-0.24.0
  • pspp-0.6.0
  • shmm-1.0
  • sipwitch-0.2.1
  • sovix-0.0.1.5
  • ucommon-1.9.3
  • wget-1.11.4

See the packages' announcements, web pages (http://www.gnu.org/software/PKGNAME) or the distributions themselves for details. Nearly all are available from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu, or preferably one of the mirrors: http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html.

To get announcements of most new GNU packages, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu, which is publicly archived http://lists.gnu.org/pipermail/info-gnu.

Some specific notes: the GNU mifluz package for an inverted text index has been revived after many years, thanks to Sebastien Diaz; the new GNU sovix package is a website revision system, by David Englund; and the new GNU shmm package has utilities for working with shared memory, by Jeannie Boffel.

Several GNU packages are still looking for maintainers.
Please see http://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint.

Finally, I'd like to give a warm welcome to the other newly-dubbed GNU maintainers this month: Kevin Harris (panorama), Joel Denny (bison), D E Evans (rottlog), Jim Meyering & Ralf Wildenhues (vc-dwim), and Eric Hutchins (ballandpaddle).

Please feel free to write to me, karl@gnu.org, with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.

Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF speeches

  • Free Software to Free Knowledge -- July 15th, Barcelona, Spain
  • El Movimiento del Software Libre -- July 17th, Puerto la Cruz, Venezuela
  • El Movimiento del Software Libre -- July 22nd, Caracas, Venezuela
  • El Movimiento del Software Libre -- July 24th, Cúcuta, Colombia

    http://www.fsf.org/events/rms-speeches.html

Take Action with the FSF

Contributions from thousands of individual members enable the FSF's work. You can contribute by joining at http://www.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! http://www.fsf.org/jf?referrer=2442

The FSF is also always looking for volunteers (http://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 (http://www.fsf.org/campaigns) and take action on software patents, DRM, Vista, OpenDocument, RIAA and more.

#

Copyright © 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

Syndicated 2011-12-06 22:32:03 from Free Software Foundation

April

Issue 2, April 2008

Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software Foundation's monthly news digest and action update.

Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by adding our subscriber widget to your web site.

Subscribe: http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-fsf Widget: http://www.fsf.org/associate/widget

In this issue

  • FSF Seeks Senior GNU/Linux Systems Administrator and Programmer
  • Free software jobs page gets a facelift
  • Free Software Awards
  • Associate members meeting
  • Amicus brief filed to end software patents
  • DefectiveByDesign.org: Help improve the guide to DRM-free living
  • DefectiveByDesign.org: Battling DRM in the Big Apple
  • GNU: Spotlight with Karl Berry
  • Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF speeches

FSF Seeks Senior GNU/Linux Systems Administrator and Programmer

Please, pass this along to the qualified applicants you know!

The ideal candidate will be a well-rounded, seasoned, experienced GNU/Linux systems administrator and programmer. (S)he will be intimately familiar with the free software community and how it works, and will be more interested in making a substantial contribution to software freedom than obtaining a high salary.

For more details visit: http://www.fsf.org/news/sysadmin.

Free software jobs page gets a facelift

A while back we realized that a search engine query of "software jobs" or "free software jobs" put our jobs page (http://www.fsf.org/resources/jobs) at the top of most search engine results. So, we have given the site a facelift to help the free software community connect with jobs in free software. Read the blog post to find out more: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/jobsannounce.

Free Software Awards

At this year's associate members meeting, the Award for Projects of Social Benefit and the Award for the Advancement of Free Software were given to Groklaw and Harald Welte, respectively. You can read more about the awards and their recipients at: http://www.fsf.org/news/2007freesoftware_awards.

Associate members meeting

We know many of you are eagerly awaiting recordings and photos from this year's associate members meeting and network services summit -- they are coming soon. It was a great event, with over one hundred people attending!

Amicus brief filed to end software patents

The End Software Patents campaign has filed an amicus brief for the rehearing of the Bilski case -- a case that could lead to the elimination of patents on software. You can read the press release, here: http://endsoftpatents.org/2008-04-08-amicus-bilski.

DefectiveByDesign.org: Help improve the guide to DRM-free living

We realized that our Guide to DRM-free Living was a bit outdated. We've added some resources and could use your help to add more. You can submit new sites for the guide by emailing info@defectivebydesign.org.

Read the blog: http://www.defectivebydesign.org/blog/1128 and the Guide: http://defectivebydesign.org/guide

DefectiveByDesign.org: Battling DRM in the Big Apple

This month, in the campaign against DRM, DbD's Joshua Gay gave a talk to the Library Association of the City University of New York discussing free software and DRM in libraries -- the most popular questions asked were: is the Boston Public Library going to drop DRM? (You can find out more about the BPL action: http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/1120).

Two weeks later, DbD's John Sullivan visited the Princeton Club in NYC to discuss the tenth anniversary of the DMCA at the Copyright Society's monthly luncheon as part of a panel that included an attorney from Time-Warner and the CEO of emusic.com. In front of a high-powered audience well-suited to make change in the way the law is practiced, Sullivan advocated repealing the DMCA and treating DRM as a social and ethical problem.

GNU: Spotlight with Karl Berry

GNU is participating in Google's Summer of Code program again this year -- all applications are in, and we look forward to sharing with you who our mentors and mentees will be next month.

The notable new GNU releases for March 2008 include GCC and Emacs. See the packages' announcements, web pages (http://www.gnu.org/software/PKGNAME) or the distributions themselves for details. Nearly all are available from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu, or preferably one of the mirrors: http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html.

classpath-0.97.1 emacs-22.2 findutils-4.4.0 freefont-20080323 gcc-4.3.0 gdb-6.8 global-5.7 glpk-4.27 gnash-0.8.2 gnuradio-3.1.2 icecat-2.0.0.12-g1 libcdio-0.80 libextractor-0.5.20 libidn-1.6 libmatheval-1.1.7 libtool-2.2.tar rpge-0.0.1 smalltalk-3.0.2 solfege-3.10.3 wget-1.11.1

For example, PKGNAME=classpath would be: http://www.gnu.org/software/classpath

To get the announcements of most new GNU packages, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list (http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu), which is publicly archived (http://lists.gnu.org/pipermail/info-gnu).

The GNU gnutrition (nutrition-related functionality), and mifluz (inverted text index) packages are now looking for maintainers. See each package web page at http://www.gnu.org/software/PKGNAME for details.

Please feel free to write to me, karl@gnu.org, with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.

Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF speeches

Upcoming FSF and RMS speaking events can be found on the FSF events page: http://www.fsf.org/events.

04/08 Malaga, Spain -- "El Software Libre en la Etica y la Practica." Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/20080409malaga

04/17 Colchester, Vermont -- "Copyright vs. Community." Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/colchester20080417

04/18 Burlington, Vermont -- "The Free Software Movement." Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/burlington20080418

04/19 Boca del Rio, Veracruz, Mexico -- "Copyright vs. Community." Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/veracruz20080419

05/02 Manchester, UK -- To be announced. Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/manchester20080502

Take action with the FSF

Contributions from thousands of individual members enable the FSF's work. You can contribute by joining at http://www.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! http://www.fsf.org/jf?referrer=2442

The FSF is also always looking for volunteers (http://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 (http://www.fsf.org/campaigns) and take action on software patents, DRM, Vista, Opendocument, RIAA and more.


Copyright (c) 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

Syndicated 2011-12-06 22:32:03 from Free Software Foundation

May

Issue 3, May 2008

Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software Foundation's monthly news digest and action update.

Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by adding our subscriber widget to your web site.

Subscribe: http://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter Widget: http://www.fsf.org/associate/widget

Miss an issue? You can catch up on back issues, here: * http://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter

In this issue

  • Free Software Supporter exclusive: WBUR is streaming Ogg Vorbis!
  • DBD Action Alert - Libraries: Eliminate DRM!
  • Get DeltaH, gNewSense 2.0
  • Get your next machine with gNewSense
  • Silicon Mechanics to ship servers with free BIOS preinstalled
  • Can we rescue OLPC from Windows? by Richard M. Stallman
  • End Software Patents: the Bilski hearing, heard.
  • O Canada -- action alert!
  • Libraries: Eliminate DRM!
  • GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry
  • Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF speeches
  • Take Action with the FSF

Free Software Supporter exclusive: WBUR is streaming Ogg Vorbis!

We haven't blogged about it yet but we wanted to let our Free Software Supporter subscribers know that one of the nation's largest NPR stations, WBUR.org, is now streaming in Ogg Vorbis:

This follows our action and meeting with WBUR from last month: http://www.fsf.org/blogs/wbur-playogg-update.

Robin Lubbock, WBUR's Director of New Media said, "WBUR has a great schedule of news and information programming 24 hours a day, which we are very happy to make available to Ogg Vorbis listeners. It's exciting to work with the Free Software Foundation to give a new audience the chance to listen to WBUR's award winning programing as well as the wonderful programs from NPR and the BBC Worldservice that you can find daily on WBUR."

DBD Action Alert - Libraries: Eliminate DRM!

Recently, we took action against the Boston Public Library (BPL) demanding that they embargo the use of DRM technology on their collection and create a policy that respects the motto that hangs above their door: "free-to-all." To send a message to all libraries that they too should respect their patrons' freedom, we urge you to sign our open letter. To take action against your local library, we urge you to customize a letter from our template.

Please, let us know (info@defectivebydesign.org) if you have contacted or written your local library, and please let your friends and fellow patrons know about the open letter.

Read the blog post about our previous action at the BPL: * http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/1120

Get DeltaH, gNewSense 2.0

The all-free GNU/Linux distribution gNewSense has shipped its second major release, named DeltaH. The gNewSense project dubs itself as "A free as in freedom GNU/Linux distribution, that takes all the non-free blobs out of a rather popular distribution." Read our press release:

Or get a copy of the new distribution:

Get your next machine with gNewSense

Los Alamos Computers is selling laptops, desktops and servers preinstalled with gNewSense. They are interested in selling free BIOS machines as well, and they are donating a portion of their sales from each free GNU/Linux system to the FSF -- find out more on our blog:

Or visit the GNU/Linux Computers page at:

Silicon Mechanics to ship servers with free BIOS preinstalled

Silicon Mechanics, a manufacturer of server hardware, has committed to shipping servers with coreboot, a free BIOS, preinstalled. Find out more at:

Can we rescue OLPC from Windows? by Richard M. Stallman

RMS posted an appeal to One Laptop per Child asking that they continue making a strong commitment to freedom and to not ship the XO laptop with Windows XP, as many are speculating is going to be the case. He has urged the community to step up its efforts in helping OLPC and asked OLPC to make it easier for the community do so. Read more:

End Software Patents: the Bilski hearing, heard.

The en banc hearing for the Bilski case occurred on Thursday, May 8th. We hope that over the coming months the amicus brief filed by the End Software Patents campaign will help lead to the elimination of software patents. We will likely not hear back from the courts until the second half of this year. You can find out more about the case and the brief we filed in our blog post:

Or, check-out Groklaw's summary of the hearing:

O Canada -- action alert!

We made a call to action urging Canadian citizens in Ottawa to attend the Public Policy Forum symposium, on April 28. This call came as a result of finding from Cory Doctorow that, "The lobby for US-style copyrights in Canada has gone into overdrive, recruiting a powerful Member of Parliament and turning public forums on copyright into one-sided love-fests for restrictive copyright regimes that criminalize everyday Canadians." Find out more at:

GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry

As mentioned last time, GNU is participating in Google's Summer of Code program. We were very appreciative of both the quality and quantity of student applications. We had to select just 10 out of the submissions, which was difficult as always, but the result covers a wide array of GNU packages. The list of accepted proposals is at http://code.google.com/soc/2008/gnu/about.html.

In addition, quite a few GNU packages participated in the GSoC as separate organizations, rather than under the generic GNU umbrella above: GCC, GIMP, GNOME, gnucap, Hurd, Gnumeric, and GNUstep. Links for those packages' GSoC pages are at the very end of http://www.gnu.org/software/soc-projects/ideas.html.

Notable GNU releases for April 2008 include tar (now with lzma support), coreutils, and the first release of GNU's C reference manual. Here's the complete list:

aspell-0.60.6 autoconf-2.62 commoncpp2-1.6.2
coreutils-6.11 gama-1.9.05 gengetopt-2.22.1 gjdoc-0.7.9 global-5.7.1 guile-gnome-platform-2.15.98 gnu-c-manual-0.1 gnuit-4.9.3 libextractor-0.5.20a libidn-1.8 libmicrohttpd-0.3.0 libtool-2.2.2
libzrtpcpp-1.1.0 m4-1.4.11 octave-3.0.1
sipwitch-0.1.1 swbis-0.951 tar-1.20
texinfo-4.12 ucommon-1.9.1

See the packages' announcements, web pages (http://www.gnu.org/software/PKGNAME) or the distributions themselves for details. Nearly all are available from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu, or preferably one of the mirrors: http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html.

To get announcements of most new GNU packages, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list, http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu, which is publicly archived at http://lists.gnu.org/pipermail/info-gnu.

Finally, I'd like to specially welcome two new packages to GNU: zile (http://www.gnu.org/software/zile) and libmicrohttpd (http://www.gnu.org/software/libmicrohttpd), and their maintainers, Reuben Thomas and Christian Grothoff, respectively. Welcome and thanks also to other newly-appointed maintainers: Debarshi Ray (inetutils), Daniel Baumann (spell), Joel Granados (parted), Jim Meyering (idutils), and Jose Maria Gomez Vergara (ddd).

A number of GNU packages are still looking for maintainers. Since this note is already longer than usual, let me just point interested readers to http://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint.

Please feel free to write to me, karl@gnu.org, with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.

Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF speeches

05/14 Hsinchu, Taiwan -- "The Danger of Software Patents." Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/20080514hsinchu

05/15 Hsinchu, Taiwan -- "The Free Software Movement." Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/20080515hsinchu

05/24 Shanghai, China -- "Free Software in Ethics and in Practice" Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/20080523Shanghai

05/28 Xi'an, China -- "The Free Software Movement" Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/20080528xian

05/30 Beijing, China -- TBA Info: http://www.fsf.org/events/20080530Beijing

Take Action with the FSF

Contributions from thousands of individual members enable the FSF's work. You can contribute by joining at http://www.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! http://www.fsf.org/jf?referrer=2442

The FSF is also always looking for volunteers (http://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 (http://www.fsf.org/campaigns) and take action on software patents, DRM, Vista, OpenDocument, RIAA and more.


Copyright (c) 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

Syndicated 2011-12-06 22:32:03 from Free Software Foundation

June

Issue 5, June 2008

Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software Foundation's monthly news digest and action update.

Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by adding our subscriber widget to your web site.

Subscribe: http://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter Widget: http://www.fsf.org/associate/widget

Miss an issue? You can catch up on back issues at http://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter.

In this issue

  • New FSF store
  • Farewell Justin, Hello Danny
  • DRM elimination crew at the Apple Store launch
  • Savannah adds Subversion, Mercurial
  • Freedom and privacy in the cloud: a call for action
  • Boycott Windows Media Center!
  • GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry
  • Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF speeches
  • Take Action with the FSF

New FSF store

After many, many years the GNU order form is to be decommissioned and replaced with a brand new store. In addition to the enhanced look and feel of the store, we are very pleased to announce the limited availability of plush gnus. We have a limited supply, and once they're gone, they're gone... so get them while you still can!

  * <http://shop.fsf.org/>

Farewell Justin, Hello Danny

After three years, Senior Systems Administrator Justin Baugh has left the Free Software Foundation to pursue other challenges. Justin remains committed to free software and hopes to be able to work on more GNU projects in the future. Justin said, "It's been a pleasure contributing my time and energy to GNU and the Foundation over the last three years, and I will miss everyone at the FSF and having the chance to work with GNU hackers all over the world."

Justin has been succeeded by Danny Clark, who joins the FSF from One Laptop Per Child. Danny joins our team of systems administrators, Ward and Joshua, and will be working closely with the gNewSense team.

DRM elimination crew at the Apple Store launch

The DRM Elimination Crew attended the grand opening of Apple's new store in Boston -- now its largest US store.

The clear glass front of the store stands in stark contrast to Apple's unethical business practices, including using opaque Digital Restrictions Management software to take rights away from its customers.

Though Apple did attempt to have us evicted, the Boston police apparently did not agree. They watched while we handed out flyers and stickers and asked the people waiting in line to get in to make their opposition to DRM known inside the store.

  * <http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/1138>

Savannah adds Subversion, Mercurial

Savannah has added Subversion and Mercurial support, with more version control options coming in the future.

  * <http://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=5340>
* <http://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=5345>

Freedom and privacy in the cloud: a call for action

Marco at Clipperz writes, "Web apps are great and I'm in love with them. But I think it's time to ask for more freedom and more privacy. Here is a three step plan to achieve both these results."

  1. Choose AGPL
  2. Add zero-knowledge sauce
  3. Build a smarter browser

Boycott Windows Media Center!

Microsoft is using DRM to prevent users from saving certain television shows to their hard drive. Saving such streams is a normal feature that comes with Windows Media Center, but they have locked you out of it for NBC television shows and others. They claim that they are just following FCC regulations -- but the Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC has no authority to make such regulations. The truth is Microsoft is just power hungry and making use of DRM wherever and whenever they can in order to secure media deals for themselves and lock in their customers.

  * <http://defectivebydesign.org/blog/BoycottWindowsMediaCenter>

GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry

Notable GNU releases for May 2008 include gcc, guile, and libtool. Here's the complete list:

autogen-5.9.5 cgicc-3.2.6 clisp-2.45 gcc-4.2.4 gnu-ghostscript-8.62.0 gnurobots-1.1.0 gnutls-2.2.5 gtypist-2.8 guile-1.8.5 libmicrohttpd-0.3.1 libtasn1-1.4 libtool-2.2.4 sipwitch-0.1.2 smalltalk-3.0.3 sourceinstall-2.5rc1 ucommon-1.9.2 wget-1.11.3 zile-2.2.59

See the packages' announcements, web pages (http://www.gnu.org/software/PKGNAME) or the distributions themselves for details. Nearly all are available from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu, or preferably one of the mirrors: http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html.

To get announcements of most new GNU packages, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list (http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu), which is publicly archived (http://lists.gnu.org/pipermail/info-gnu).

Several GNU packages are looking for maintainers. Please see http://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint.

Finally, I'd like to give a warm welcome to the newly-dubbed GNU maintainers this month: Paul Goins (gtypist) and Markus Steinborn (gv).

Please feel free to write to me, karl@gnu.org, with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.

Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF speeches

Watch Richard Stallman's talk in Manchester, England

     * <http://www.files.tdobson.net/mfs/video/20080501-rms.ogg>

07/04 - 07/05 | Libre Software Meeting, Mont de Marsan, France

These speeches will be in French. They will be accessible to all audiences and the public is encouraged to attend.

     * More information: <http://2008.rmll.info/>

Take Action with the FSF

Contributions from thousands of individual members enable the FSF's work. You can contribute by joining at http://www.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! http://www.fsf.org/jf?referrer=2442

The FSF is also always looking for volunteers (http://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 (http://www.fsf.org/campaigns) and take action on software patents, DRM, Vista, Opendocument, RIAA and more.

#

Copyright © 2008 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are permitted worldwide, without royalty, in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

Syndicated 2011-12-06 22:32:03 from Free Software Foundation

6 Dec 2011 (updated 2 Apr 2015 at 00:19 UTC) »

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