Free Software Supporter Issue 96, April 2016
The Last Lighthouse in video
March 19th
Did you miss LibrePlanet? The opening keynote video is up, featuring a conversation between Edward Snowden and Daniel Kahn Gillmor! Catch every second of it!
For more videos, and lots of photos, check out the LibrePlanet 2016 tag on LibrePlanet's MediaGoblin site. Some of the presentation slides are also included and more are being published each day.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Library Freedom Project and Werner Koch are 2015 Free Software Awards winners
- From the Web to the streets: protesting DRM at the World Wide Web Consortium
- LibrePlanet: recapping the conference from various posts
- Apple sues Free Software Foundation for trademark infringement
- The Licensing and Compliance Lab interviews Matt Lee of GNU social
- FSF to begin accepting scanned signatures for copyright assignments from India
- GNU Guix & GuixSD 0.10.0 released
- Free Software Foundation submits comment to Copyright Office with over 1200 co-signers calling for end to DMCA anti-circumvention provisions
- ThinkPenguin VPN mini-router now FSF-certified to respect your freedom
- A short update on GNU General Public License (GPL) compatibility questions
- Interested in a powerful, free software friendly workstation?
- A preliminary analysis of High Priority Projects feedback
- March 2016: photos from Bhopal and Utrecht and through to Quebec City and Montreal
- MediaGoblin 0.9.0: The Three Goblineers
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Group:LibrePlanet Ontario
- GNOME 3.20 Released: Major new features, many refinements
- GNOME to participate in Google Summer of Code 2016
- GNU Spotlight with Brandon Invergo: 15 new GNU releases!
- GNU Toolchain Update
- Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF events
- Thank GNUs!
- Take action with the FSF!
- GNU copyright contributions
View this issue online here: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2016/april
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Library Freedom Project and Werner Koch are 2015 Free Software Awards winners
March 19th
We announced the winners of the 2015 Free Software Awards at a ceremony held during the LibrePlanet 2016 conference at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. FSF president Richard M. Stallman presented the two awards: the Award for the Advancement of Free Software and the Award for Projects of Social Benefit. Video below.
- https://www.fsf.org/news/library-freedom-project-and-werner-koch-are-2015-free-software-awards-winners
- https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/free-software-awards/
From the Web to the streets: protesting DRM at the World Wide Web Consortium
March 22nd
After the conference concluded, we led a protest at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) against the attempt by Netflix, Hollywood and other technology and media companies to weave Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) into the HTML standard that undergirds the Web.
- https://www.defectivebydesign.org/from-the-web-to-the-streets-protesting-drm
- https://www.fsf.org/news/anti-drm-activists-go-to-w3c-meeting-to-protest-digital-restrictions-management-in-web-standards
Show them the world is watching. Stop the Hollyweb.
The action at the W3C was accompanied by a sister protest at the Dutch W3C office, and activists around the world showed their opposition to DRM in Web standards by sharing protest selfies.
LibrePlanet: recapping the conference
Recapping day zero of LibrePlanet 2016
March 19th
We are well past the conference, but I wanted to take the time to share some thoughts on day zero.
LibrePlanet begins with Snowden, ends with DRM protest
March 29th by Deb Nicholson
LibrePlanet is a yearly gathering of free software activists, users, and contributors—and, it's my favorite conference of the year. Here's why.
Apple sues Free Software Foundation for trademark infringement
April 1st
Apple filed a federal lawsuit alleging trademark infringement for the name of the free program GNU Emacs, for which the FSF holds copyright under the GNU General Public License (GPL). In the filing, Apple’s litigation team claimed that the name of the program was too similar to that of Apple’s defunct desktop computer, the eMac.
The Licensing and Compliance Lab interviews Matt Lee of GNU social
March 31st
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 Matt Lee of GNU social.
FSF to begin accepting scanned signatures for copyright assignments from India
March 23rd
The FSF is pleased to announce that we can begin accepting scanned signatures for assignments from contributors residing in India.
GNU Guix & GuixSD 0.10.0 released
March 29th by Ludovic Courtès
We are pleased to announce the release of GNU Guix & GuixSD 0.10.0, representing 2,247 commits by 52 people over 21 weeks.
Free Software Foundation submits comment to Copyright Office with over 1200 co-signers calling for end to DMCA anti-circumvention provisions
March 8th
On March 3rd, 2016, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) submitted a comment along with over 1200 co-signers to the U.S. Copyright Office in response to its Section 1201 Study: Notice and Request for Public Comment in regards to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA) anti-circumvention provisions.
ThinkPenguin VPN mini-router now FSF-certified to respect your freedom
March 10th
We announced that the Free Software Wireless-N Mini Router (TPE-R1100) as sold by ThinkPenguin, Inc has been awarded Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification. The RYF certification mark means that the product meets the FSF's standards in regard to users' freedom, control over the product, and privacy.
A short update on GNU General Public License (GPL) compatibility questions
March 2nd
The Free Software Foundation's Licensing & Compliance Lab has been tracking the public discussion of licensing issues surrounding ZFS and the kernel Linux with interest. We haven't made any statement about it, and we plan to soon, but here is a short update.
Interested in a powerful, free software friendly workstation?
March 15th
Let Raptor Engineering know that you would be interested in purchasing a Talos™ Secure Workstation mainboard that runs only 100% free firmware and software.
A preliminary analysis of High Priority Projects feedback
March 11th
Following is a preliminary analysis of the High Priority Projects list, based on the existing list, feedback received, the panel session held at LibrePlanet 2015, and discussions among the committee.
March 2016: photos from Bhopal and Utrecht and through to Quebec City and Montreal
March 31
Follow RMS in photos through India, the Netherlands, and Canada this past month.
MediaGoblin 0.9.0: The Three Goblineers
March 29th by Deb Nicholson
This release is called The Three Goblineers, because we are finally fully embracing Python 3! You could even think of this release as Py-oneering, which it definitely is. Many traditional web service tools are less-than-ideal for federation and so we’ve had to do a lot of rebuilding and retooling. This release represents lots of intense behind the scenes work to make the user experience smoother, as well as some key improvements for MediaGoblin developers and deployers.
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, April 9th from 12pm to 3pm EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC). Details here:
LibrePlanet featured resource: Group:LibrePlanet Ontario
Every month on LibrePlanet, we highlight one resource that is interesting and useful -- often one that could use your help or is a good reference.
For this month, we are highlighting a local LibrePlanet group, specifically the Ontario group. Take a look at their structure, notes and projects. Remember anyone can start a group and use this wiki space to organize.
Do you have a suggestion for next month's featured resource? Let us know at campaigns@fsf.org.
GNOME 3.20 Released: Major New Features, Many Refinements
March 23rd
The Gnome community is excited to announce the release of GNOME 3.20. This latest version of GNOME 3 is the result of six months of development and includes 28,933 changes, made by approximately 870 contributors.
GNOME to participate in Google Summer of Code 2016
March 1st
GNOME has been accepted to participate in Google Summer of Code 2016. GNOME has participated in the program every year since its inception in 2005 and it’s a pleasure to be participating once again!
GNU Spotlight with Brandon Invergo: 15 new GNU releases!
15 new GNU releases in the last month (as of March 24, 2016)
- autoconf-archive-2016.03.20
- complexity-1.10
- ddrescue-1.21
- denemo-2.0.4
- global-6.5.3
- glpk-4.59
- gneuralnetwork-0.5.0
- gnutls-3.4.10
- grep-2.24
- linux-libre-4.5-gnu
- mcsim-5.6.5
- mpfr-3.1.4
- nano-2.5.3
- octave-4.0.1
- parallel-20160322
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 Jean Michel Sellier as the maintainer of the new GNU package Gneural Network in addition to his many other packages; Jürgen Pfitzenmaier as the new maintainer of polyxmass; Ben Hilburn as the new maintainer of GNU Radio; and Daniel James as the new maintainer of the book TeX for the Impatient.
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.
GNU Toolchain update
From March 24th
The GNU toolchain refers to the part of the GNU system which is used for building programs. These components of GNU are together often on other systems and for compiling programs for other platforms.
This month includes February and the following GDB, GLIBC, and GCC.
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:
- April 11th, Athens, Greece, "Copyrights vs. Community"
- April 12th, Athens, Greece, "Copyrights vs. Community"
- April 15th, Nantes, France, "Le logiciel libre et les libertés numériques"
- April 16th, Choisy-le-Roi, France, "Pour une société numérique libre"
- April 25th, Nevers, France, "Copyright vs. Community"
- May 28th, Monza, Italy, Speaking in Monza
- July 24th, New York, New York, "Freedom and Privacy in Our Lives, Our Governments and Our Schools"
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:
- James Wilson
- Ed Price
- Leah Rowe
- Steve Sprang
- Sudheera Ruwanthaka Fernando
- Brett Smith
- Stefano Di Luca
- Open Invention Network c/o Keith Bergelt
- Sam Halliday
- Kenyon Cotton
- Orlando Ray
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 defned the GPL and keep software free. The following individuals have assigned their copyright to the FSF in the past month:
- John Joseph Foerch, Emacs
- Rafael Laboissiere, Emacs
- Jochen Kellner, Emacs
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/.