June
Issue 5, June 2008
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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."
- Choose AGPL
- Add zero-knowledge sauce
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.
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