The translation effort, coordinated by FSF campaigns staff working with volunteer translators, has been gathering pace over the last few months. All the work has been done using free software tools with our collaboration efforts achieved via the GNU Mailman software. The first translation to go live was French, translated by members of the French activist organization, April.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Christ. You're only licensed for five loaves of bread and two fish."

By translating Windows 7 Sins into as many languages as possible, we are making this an international campaign for computer user freedom.

One way everyone can help the campaign is by putting a link to windows7sins.org on a website or blog you control. We have a widget which you can easily put on your site, and help increase our ranking in the major search engines -- meaning that when people search for 'Windows 7' they will see our campaign listed as well.

Translations allow non-English speaking readers to understand the stakes of FSF's campaign. With the French translations, April and Framasoft called on the French speaking Free Software community to take advantage of the release of Microsoft Windows 7 to inform their friends, family, colleagues about the dangers of proprietary software, Microsoft unfair practices, and the existence of Free Software.

• Arabic
• German
• English
• French
• Italian
• Russian
• Spanish

Up and coming translations

• Telugu
• Japanese

Bill Gates/Jesus cartoon by Phil Garcia and Don Berry. Verbatim copying and distribution of the cartoon are premitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice and the copyright notice are preserved.

Good news for the free software movement! The Theodor Heuss Foundation has announced that Free Software Foundation Europe has been awarded the 2010 Theodor Heuss Medal for its contribution "to the development and establishment of rules for good global governance."

About the Theodor Heuss Prize

The Theodor Heuss prize and medals are given annually to people and organizations that are models of democratic behavior.

The Theodor Heuss Foundation is named for Germany's first president, who served 1949-1959, as a reminder of Heuss's committment to moral courage and democracy. The foundation seeks "to bring attention to something, which has to be done and shaped in our democracy, without being finished" (Carl Friedrich v. Weizsäcker, 1965).

This piece of Ogg activism is getting some traffic on identi.ca and Twitter right now. If you haven't already, you should jump in.

YouTube is, obviously, the largest source of videos in the world by far, so keeping pressure on Google to support web standards and free formats (over proprietary formats like Flash) is really important.

Google has closed the window on HTML5 feedback, saying that peoples' voices have been heard. However, notably absent is any mention of Ogg. Google leaving Ogg out of the picture here makes sense, because it would be very easy for them to offer HTML5/h264 videos that play in Chrome and Safari, while still excluding free formats and users of free browsers like Firefox and Icecat.

It also means that, from our point of view anyway, votes for Ogg Theora support are still welcome. PlayOgg can play an important role here by stressing free formats.

If you don't already have a Google account, please don't let this encourage you to make one. You can call YouTube at 650-253-0000 and make the same request there.

Make your voice heard! And tell a friend.

Translations

• Italiano

We wanted to call attention to two free software projects that have been involved in the Haiti humanitarian effort, both because of the usefulness of their work and because they can surely use the help of skilled volunteers.

The first, Sahana, is free software for disaster management developed in response to the Sri Lanka tsunami in 2004. Sahana won FSF's 2006 Free Software Award for Projects of Social Benefit. The Sahana software provides a portal page to disaster relief efforts. The best place to help out seems to be the wiki page devoted to development of Sahana's Haiti response.

The second is OpenStreetMap, a project which uses free data and volunteer contributions to map the world. There was a massive volunteer effort to improve the maps of Port au Prince immediately after the earthquake (see the before and after photos) and this community-created, freely licensed map has been used by a long and interesting list of crisis responders. Check out their Project Haiti wiki page to get involved (see the list of editing tools).

Of course, while technology can and will help, there is a massive need for basic aid and resources. We found this resource from Charity Navigator to be useful for donating:

Haiti earthquake aid in Charity Navigator

Steven is an official FSF campaigns volunteer. He edited an enormous amount of video for the FSF, as well as assisting on Software Freedom Day 2009 and the launch of our Windows 7 Sins Campaign back in August. In addition, he helped coordinate translation volunteers.

GNU Generation will be going through some changes in the near future. More details about this will be announced shortly, however Steven has agreed to cease participation in this program in order to help administer the new, updated GNU Generation. He was the first participant to join GNU Generation back in July, and is a excellent person for the job.

Thank you, Steven, for all of your work!