April
Issue 37, April 2011
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software Foundation's monthly news digest and action update -- being read by you and 40211 other activists. That's 1033 more than last month!
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We don't expect anything to change for you, but if you see any problems please let us know at info@fsf.org.
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Table of Contents
- Good news about the Novell/CPTN deal
- Internet user arrested for linking to other websites
- We need to keep the pressure on Sony
- Our RSS feeds are now full text
- Farewell, Groklaw, and thanks!
- Volunteers needed to convert pages from a proprietary wiki to MoinMoin
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Hardware Directory Migration
- GNU spotlight with Karl Berry
- Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF events
- Take action with the FSF!
Good news about the Novell/CPTN deal
Earlier this month the US Department of Justice and German Federal Cartel Office announced a joint decision regarding Novell's proposal to sell 882 patents to CPTN Holdings, newly formed by Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, and EMC.
The authorities ultimately approved the sale, but with conditions that prevent the companies from using the patents to attack free software.
Internet user arrested for linking to other websites
Brian McCarthy ran a website that linked to various sites where you could watch online streams of TV shows and sports networks. The U.S. government seized his domain and then arrested him.
We believe that when copyright is used to censor people, it threatens the same kinds of free expression that are at the heart of free software and our movement.
Please take an action by signing Demand Progress's petition, even if you're not in the United States.
We need to keep the pressure on Sony
Our last call for action was very successful, but we need to keep the pressure on Sony.
Another PS3 hacker, Alexander Egorenkov, or graf_chokolo, had his home raided by the police and is now being sued for €1 million. Just recently, representatives of Sony went to his home again and confiscated his equipment.
Please take an action to stop Sony. Email Nicole Seligman, Executive VP and General Counsel at Sony, and let her know that you oppose what Sony is doing -- and as always, please BCC or CC us on emails!
Our RSS feeds are now full text
We've recently made a long overdue improvement to fsf.org -- our RSS feeds are now full text. You can now conveniently read our full stories in your favorite free software news reader, instead of just the short summaries we offered before.
- http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/our-rss-feeds-are-now-full-text
- http://static.fsf.org/fsforg/rss/blogs.xml
- http://www.fsf.org/static/fsforg/rss/news.xml
Farewell, Groklaw, and thanks!
Pamela Jones recently announced that Groklaw will stop publishing new articles on May 16. It's sad news.
The site's collaborative research has been so helpful to free software developers that Groklaw won the FSF's Award for Projects of Social Benefit in 2007.
Volunteers needed to convert pages from a proprietary wiki to MoinMoin
We are looking for volunteers to help write code to convert a free software project's documentation wiki pages and associated history from a proprietary format to MoinMoin, a free software wiki written in Python.
LibrePlanet featured resource: Hardware Directory Migration
Every month on LibrePlanet, we highlight one resource that is interesting and useful -- often one that could use your help.
This month, we are featuring the Hardware Directory Migration group. The FSF Hardware Directory is being phased out in favor of http://www.h-node.com. The old directory was a useful resource, but having it maintained by a single person wasn't the most efficient process. But, we need your help both migrating over to h-node, and in helping to keep h-node up-to-date.
Do you have a suggestion for next month's featured resource? Let us know at campaigns@fsf.org.
GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry
autoconf-archive-2011.04.12 icecat-4.0 ncurses-5.9
coreutils-8.11 less-443 parallel-20110422
freeipmi-1.0.4 libidn-1.21 psychosynth-0.2.0
gcc-4.4.6 libmicrohttpd-0.9.9 swbis-1.10
gnubik-2.4 libsigsegv-2.10 ucommon-4.3.2
gnutls-2.12.3 mpfr-3.0.1 xorriso-1.0.8
gtypist-2.8.5 mtools-4.0.16
To get announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list: http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu. Nearly all GNU software is available from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/, or preferably one of its mirrors (http://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.
Several GNU packages are looking for maintainers and other assistance. Please see http://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint if you'd like to help. The general page on how to help GNU is at http://www.gnu.org/help/help.html. To submit new packages to GNU, see http://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.
As always, please feel free to write to me, karl@gnu.org, with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.
Richard Stallman's speaking schedule
2011-05-02 Le logiciel libre et ta liberté: Tetouan, Morocco
2011-05-07 Le logiciel libre et ta liberté: Marrakesh, Morocco
2011-05-11 Copyright vs. Comunidad: Seville, Spain
2011-05-12 Copyright vs. Comunidad: Seville, Spain
2011-05-14 The Danger of Software Patents: Porto, Portugal
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, free software adoption, OpenDocument, RIAA and more.
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The Free Software Supporter is edited by FSF volunteer Osama Khalid.
Copyright © 2011 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.