TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Tell W3C: We don't want the Hollyweb
- LibrePlanet 2013 conference
- Google backslides on federated instant messaging, on purpose?
- Petition to protect the right to unlock cellphones garners 111,000+ signers; White House must now respond
- Interview with Adam Hyde of Booktype
- 2012 Free Software Award winners announced
- New and improved label for DRM-free files
- Document Freedom Day: 2013
- Trisquel 6.0 LTS “Toutatis” has arrived!
- May 2012: RMS at the Fórum da Revista Espírito Livre, in Vila Velha
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- LibrePlanet featured resource: End Software Patents group
- GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry: 29 new GNU releases!
- GNU Toolchain update
- Richard Stallman's speaking schedule
- Thank GNUs!
- Take action with the FSF
Tell W3C: We don't want the Hollyweb
From March 22nd
Hollywood's latest ploy to take over the Web? Use its influence at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) to weave Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) into HTML5 — in other words, into the very fabric of the Web. Sign Defective by Design's petition to say no to the Hollyweb and keep DRM in HTML5. With your help, we can reach 50,000 signers by the International Day Against DRM on May 3rd.
LibrePlanet 2013 conference
From March 24th
On March 23 and 24, the FSF held its yearly software freedom conference, LibrePlanet. This year's theme was “Commit Change”: a focus on making connections to other movements and building diversity within free software. We at the FSF are very happy with how the conference turned out. If you weren't there this year, we hope to see you in 2014!
See our blog post from the first day of the conference (lots of photos inside):
An article about the conference by Open Media Boston:
If you would like a LibrePlanet shirt, it's not too late:
Google backslides on federated instant messaging, on purpose?
From March 15th
Turns out, Google has started blocking invites sent from non-Google Jabber servers. Subscription requests just disappear mysteriously, confusing both users and server operators. This change is akin to Google no longer accepting incoming e-mail for @gmail.com addresses from non-Google domains.
Petition to protect the right to unlock cellphones garners 111,000+ signers; White House must now respond
From February 28th
On February 13th, we asked you to join in with thousands of others to call on the White House to protect users where the Copyright Office had failed. Because of your actions, the White House now must respond to the call to fix the DMCA anti-circumvention exemptions list in order to protect the right to unlock cell phones.
Interview with Adam Hyde of Booktype
From March 21st
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 interviewed Adam Hyde via email. Adam is the founder of Booktype — a book production platform released under AGPLv3, as well as Book Sprints, and FLOSS Manuals.
2012 Free Software Award winners announced
From March 23rd
Richard Stallman announced the winners of the FSF's annual Free Software Awards at a ceremony on Saturday, March 23rd, held during the LibrePlanet 2013 conference. The Award for the Advancement of Free Software was given to Dr. Fernando Perez for IPython, a tool for scientific analysis, and the Award for Projects of Social Benefit was given to OpenMRS, a medical record-keeping system being implemented in the world's poorest countries.
New and improved label for DRM-free files
From March 7th
We recently announced the DRM-free label, an effort to create recognizable branding for providers of DRM-free files to quickly communicate to users that they don't have to worry about being encumbered by restrictive technologies such as Digital Restrictions Management. Today, we're happy to share with you the next version of the DRM-free label, immediately available for use in multiple languages and styles.
Document Freedom Day: 2013
By FSF Europe, from February 26th
This year the campaign aims to have more events, in additional locations. In 2012 groups of volunteers ran 54 events in 23 different countries, including Brussels, Colombia, and Indonesia.
Trisquel 6.0 LTS “Toutatis” has arrived!
From March 9th
This long awaited release is based on Ubuntu Precise, and as usual comes full of free software goodness. We continue to provide an easy to use classic desktop experience complete with full-featured browsing, office, communications and social networking utilities. Download it while it is hot!
May 2012: RMS at the Fórum da Revista Espírito Livre, in Vila Velha
RMS was in Vila Velha, Brazil, on 29 May 2012, to speak on the free software movement, at the second edition of the Fórum da Revista Espírito Livre, to a diverse audience of about 500 students, teachers, and free software activists.
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 from 2:00pm to 5:00pm EDT (18:00 to 21:00 UTC) . 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.
LibrePlanet featured resource: End Software Patents group
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 LibrePlanet group page those who participate in the End Software Patents campaign. ESP works to abolish all software patents, rather than engaging in the hopeless task of swatting individual patents. There are lots of ways to get involved with this important effort. Check out the group!
Do you have a suggestion for next month's featured resource? Let us know at campaigns@fsf.org.
GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry: 29 new GNU releases!
29 new GNU releases this month (as of March 24, 2013):
- acct-6.6.1
- gnuchess-6.0.3
- mpfr-3.1.2
- cppi-1.18
- gnuedma-0.18.6
- nano-2.3.2
- dejagnu-1.5.1
- gnuhealth-1.8.1
- texinfo-5.1
- emacs-24.3
- gv-3.7.4
- thales-1.1.1
- freeipmi-1.2.5
- libgcrypt-1.5.1
- tramp-2.2.7
- gcc-4.8.0
- librejs-4.9.3
- trueprint-5.4
- gecb-0.8.4
- marst-2.7
- vc-dwim-1.7
- gettext-0.18.2.1
- maverik-6.5
- wdiff-1.2.1
- gidfwizard-0.6.4
- mcsim-5.5.0
- xorriso-1.2.8
- global-6.2.8
- moe-1.5
To get announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list: http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/
This month, we welcome Cynthia Rempel as the new maintainer of the pgccfd document and Jeffrin Jose as the new maintainer of GNU dap (in addition to already maintaining GNU trueprint, with a new release this month).
A number of GNU packages, as well as the GNU operating system as a whole, are looking for maintainers and other assistance. Please see http://www.gnu.org/server/
As always, please feel free to write to me, karl@gnu.org, with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.
GNU Toolchain update
By Nick Clifton, from March 18th
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 has been quiet for the GNU toolchain. The GCC sources are still closed to new features, pending the creation of the 4.8 branch.
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 http://www.fsf.org/events.
So far, Richard Stallman has the following events in April:
- April 01, 2013, 06:00 PM, La Paz, Bolivia, “Copyright vs. comunidad”
- April 03, 2013, 2:00 PM, Potosí, Bolivia, “El movimiento del software libre”
- April 04, 2013, 2:00 PM, Potosí, Bolivia, “Copyright vs comunidad”
- April 06, 2013, 10:00 AM, Cochabamba, Bolivia, “El software libre en la ética y en la práctica”
- April 06, 2013, 3:30 PM, Cochabamba, Bolivia, “Por una sociedad digital libre”
- April 11, 2013, 8:45 AM, Chicago, USA, “Questioning the assumptions of the patent 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, an extra big Thank GNU to:
- Michael Dorrington
This month, a big Thank GNU to:
- Mikaël Cluseau
- Dmitry Sagalovskiy
- Jason Schaefer
- Neil Gower
- Terrance Druggan
- Stephen Compall
- Mikko Värri
- Vinod Kurup
- Yuji Shinokawa
- Rick and Betsy Bronson
- Denis López
- David A. Mellis
- Roland Emile Jacoby
- Jason Self
- Jeff Weston
- John J Watzke III
- Michael J Meehan
You can add your name to this list by donating at http://donate.fsf.org.
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?
The FSF is also always looking for volunteers (http://www.fsf.org/volunteer)
