Free Software Supporter Issue 99, July 2016
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- Tell EU regulators: Net neutrality isn't just for the US and India!
- Building a better LibrePlanet: What we learned from the conference surveys
- Do you GNU? Attend the GNU Hackers' Meeting in France this summer!
- Intel & ME, and why we should get rid of ME
- LulzBot TAZ 6 3D printer now FSF-certified to respect your freedom
- The Licensing and Compliance Lab interviews Brett Smith of dtrx
- Licensing resources series: A Quick Guide to GPLv3
- GCC developers are pleased to announce the release of GCC 5.4
- Defending our brand [updated]
- In defense of free software: my case against Lenovo in Mexico
- Economic impact of usage of free software in government – IIMB report
- Progress report on April's campaign around the French "Digital Republic" bill
- Call for participation in the Libre Application Summit sponsored by GNOME
- European Commission's Public Consultation: Revision of the European interoperability framework
- Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Action Items
- GNU Spotlight with Brandon Invergo: Seventeen new GNU releases!
- Richard Stallman's speaking schedule
- Thank GNUs!
- Take action with the FSF
View this issue online here: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2016/july
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Tell EU regulators: Net neutrality isn't just for the US and India!
From June 24th
The Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communications (BEREC) has followed the US and India by releasing draft net neutrality protections that would cover all countries in the EU. But they've left huge holes allowing some instances of neutrality violations known as zero-rating and traffic throttling. Thankfully, we have a chance to fix this: BEREC has asked the public, along with industry leaders and entrepreneurs, to give feedback on its draft rules.
Building a better LibrePlanet: What we learned from the conference surveys
From June 21st
For the last three years, we've surveyed attendees of the LibrePlanet conference about their experience and applied that feedback to the next conference. We'd like to share what we've learned from the results of the past few surveys, and from the process of designing them.
Do you GNU? Attend the GNU Hackers' Meeting in France this summer!
From June 21st
The GNU Hackers' Meeting, August 18-20, 2016, is a friendly, semi-formal forum to discuss technical, social, and organizational issues concerning free software and GNU. This is a great opportunity to meet GNU maintainers and active contributors.
Intel & ME, and why we should get rid of ME
From June 10th
If you did not know, built into all modern Intel-based platforms is a small, low-power computer subsystem called the Intel Management Engine (ME). It performs various tasks while the system is in sleep mode, during the boot process, and also when your system is running. If you had control over ME, then it would be a powerful subsystem that could be used for security and administration of your device. Unfortunately, we don't.
LulzBot TAZ 6 3D printer now FSF-certified to respect your freedom
From June 13th
We awarded Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification to the TAZ 6, the sixth model in the LulzBot TAZ line of 3D printers by Aleph Objects, Inc., and their 10th product to be awarded 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.
The Licensing and Compliance Lab interviews Brett Smith of dtrx
From June 16th
This is the latest installment of our Licensing and Compliance Lab's series on free software developers who choose GNU licenses for their work. In this edition, we conducted an email-based interview with Brett Smith of dtrx, a tool for smartly extracting archives.
Licensing resources series: A Quick Guide to GPLv3
From June 15th
This is the first installment in the Free Software Foundation's Licensing & Compliance Lab's series highlighting licensing resources.
GCC developers are pleased to announce the release of GCC 5.4
From June 3rd
This release is a bug-fix release, containing fixes for regressions in GCC 5.3 relative to previous releases of GCC.
Defending our brand [updated]
From June 24th by Josh Aas, Internet Security Research Group Executive Director
Let's Encrypt is a revolutionary project to improve security on the Web by making HTTPS encryption easy to implement and free of charge. An existing firm, Comodo Group, Inc., which provides HTTPS certificates at a price, had initially sought a conflicting trademark for the name "Let's Encrypt." They have since submitted Requests for Express Abandonment for all three trademark registration applications in question. Here is Let's Encrypt's post on the matter:
In defense of free software: my case against Lenovo in Mexico
From June 16th by Jacobo Nájera and translated by Erin Gallagher
When Jacobo tried to install the operating system of his choice, he found it wasn't possible because the computer had a broken Secure Boot implementation. This feature requires that any operating system installed on the computer must be authorized through digital signatures issued by Microsoft. He tried to disable Secure Boot since it prevented the installation of the operating system he wanted, but his attempts to deactivate the feature were unsuccessful.
So he sought support from Enjambre Digital and Rancho Electrónico, a hackerspace in Mexico City.
Economic impact of usage of free software in government – IIMB report
From June 9th by Software Freedom Law Centre of India
The report studies the implementation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in education and police departments in multiple states in India and concludes that adoption of free software in government entities can save thousands of crores of taxpayer money, which could in turn be utilized for better essential services for all.
Progress report on April's campaign around the French "Digital Republic" bill
From June 8th by April
In 2013, through the Higher Education and Research Act, the French parliament enacted legislation that for the first time gives priority to free software. April took an important part in these debates and, while the organization was very pleased by this favorable vote, it stated that this was only a first step in a process that ought to be generalized by true public policy in favor of free software.
Call for participation in the Libre Application Summit sponsored by GNOME
From June 13th by the GNOME Foundation
The GNOME Foundation is pleased to announce the Call for Participation for the Libre Application Summit — hosted by GNOME (LAS GNOME). The conference will be held from September 19-23 in Portland, Oregon, and brings together developers, entrepreneurs, and free software enthusiasts for discussion and debate of the future of GNU/Linux apps.
European Commission's Public Consultation: Revision of the European interoperability framework
From June 24th by the Free Software Foundation Europe
The European Commission is asking for public input regarding its plans to renew the European Interoperability Framework (EIF). The EIF aims to promote enhanced interoperability in the EU public sector. The document, originally intended as a set of non-binding guidelines for the EU public administration, is going through its third revision since its initial adoption in 2004. The Free Software Foundation Europe has prepared its comments for the draft of the revised guidelines.
Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
Tens of thousands of people visit 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, July 8th from 12pm to 3pm EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC). Details here:
LibrePlanet featured resource: Action Items
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 Action Items, which provides information about simple actions that free software supporters can take to promote free software.
Do you have a suggestion for next month's featured resource? Let us know at campaigns@fsf.org.
GNU Spotlight with Brandon Invergo: Seventeen new GNU releases!
- emms-4.1
- gcc-5.4.0
- gdb-7.11.1
- gettext-0.19.8.1
- gmp-6.1.1
- gnuastro-0.1
- gnupg-2.1.13
- gnutls-3.5.1
- liberty-eiffel-2016.05
- libgcrypt-1.7.1
- libmicrohttpd-0.9.50
- make-4.2.1
- parallel-20160622
- screen-4.4.0
- taler-0.0.0
- units-2.13
- wget-1.18
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 https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a (hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.
This month, we welcome Bob Weiner as the new co-maintainer of Hyperbole and Assaf Gordon and Jim Meyering as new co-maintainers of GNU sed.
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.
Richard Stallman's speaking schedule
For event details, and 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:
- July 2nd, Choisy-le-Roi, France, "Informatique et Droit: quelles politiques seraient justes"
- July 24th, New York, NY, USA, "Freedom and Privacy in Our Lives, Our Governments and Our Schools" (The Eleventh HOPE)
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:
- Matthieu Aubry
- Donald and Jill Knuth
- David Turner
- Shawn C a.k.a "citypw"
You can add your name to this list by donating at https://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 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/.