Solar-general Fwd: FSF Free Software Supporter – Issue 21, January 2010

Forwarded message
From: Free Software Foundation
Date: 2010/1/8
Subject: [FSF] Free Software Supporter – Issue 21, January 2010 To: info-fsf@fsf.org

# Free Software Supporter
Issue 22, January 2010

Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software Foundation’s monthly news digest and action update — being read by you and 27,389 other activists.

Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by adding our subscriber widget to your web site.

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DON’T MISS the …

/ /(_) |__ _ __ ___ / _ | __ _ _ __ ___| |_
/ / | | ‘_ | ‘__/ _ / /_)/ |/ _` | ‘_ / _ __|
/ /__| | |_) | | | __/ ___/| | (_| | | | | __/ |_
____/_|_.__/|_| ___/ |_|__,_|_| |_|___|__|

…LibrePlanet

CONFERENCE. MARCH 19-21nd 2010. CAMBRIDGE, MA.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

* LibrePlanet 2010 free software community conference: March 19-21 * «Defining the contours of freedom»: a video appeal from Lawrence Lessig
* GNOME and FSF highlight women in free software
* On Selling Exceptions to the GNU GPL
* Does the Windows ballot screen for choosing a browser represent meaningful progress in Europe?
* European GNU Hackers Meeting
* Israel: one month to end software patents
* Bootable membership cards, now with Trisquel!
* Fall 2009 FSF Bulletin now online
* FSF credit card (initially for US residents only)
* GNU spotlight with Karl Berry
* Richard Stallman’s speaking schedule and other FSF events
* Take action with the FSF!

## FSF announces LibrePlanet 2010 free software community conference: March 19-21

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has announced the 2010 dates for its LibrePlanet international free software community conference. The three day event will be held in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the Harvard University Science Center, from March 19th to March 21st, 2010.

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## «Defining the contours of freedom»: a video appeal from Lawrence Lessig

The Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman’s work represents the most important work for freedom that this culture (the American culture) has seen in many many generations, because it takes the idea of freedom and it removes it from the ivory tower and it removes it from lawyers and places it in a community–a technology community– that is one of the most important communities defining the contours of freedom that most people in our culture–and increasingly around the world–will know.

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## GNOME and FSF highlight women in free software

One of the most important programs I’ve seen for fostering women in the free software community is being run by the GNOME Free Desktop Project. The GNOME community provides a unique outreach program for women that encourages their participation throughout the year and makes available paid stipends for interns in the summer.

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## On Selling Exceptions to the GNU GPL

When Richard Stallman co-signed the letter objecting to Oracle’s planned purchase of MySQL (along with the rest of Sun), some free software supporters were surprised that he approved of the practice of selling license exceptions which the MySQL developers have used. They expected him to condemn the practice outright. This article explains what he thinks of the practice, and why.

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## Does the Windows ballot screen for choosing a browser represent meaningful progress in Europe?

Thanks to the European Commission’s antitrust like activities, European citizens will soon be presented with a ballot choice between twelve browsers when first using a newly purchased
computer preloaded with the Microsoft Windows operating system. But is this really progress?

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## European GNU Hackers Meeting

GNU maintainers and contributors from across Europe gathered in Stockholm for a 3 day «GNU Hackers Meeting» at the FSCONS free software conference last month. The meeting was supported by FSF and FSF Europe and was a chance to discuss new ideas for advancing GNU and protecting users’ freedom in the years ahead.

Upcoming meetings of GNU Hackers are scheduled for FOSDEM (Brussels, 6-7 Feb 2010) and the FSF’s LibrePlanet Meeting in Boston.

Videos, audio and slides of the talks are online:

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## Israel: one month to end software patents

I need help contacting groups in Israel. With a February deadline, the Israeli patent office is asking if it should grant software patents.

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## Bootable membership cards, now with Trisquel!

If you signed up as a member and ordered a card in the last few months your wait is over. The new cards, now with Trisquel (a great fully-free GNU/Linux distribution from Spain), have been shipped!

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## Fall 2009 FSF Bulletin now online

The latest FSF Bulletin for Fall 2009 is now online. For this semester’s update in free software and free software activism, check it out.

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## FSF credit card (initially for US residents only)

More than 75% of our members and donors use a credit card when donating to the FSF. Now you can add to that support by using a credit card with an FSF logo on it.

(Please don’t let the thought of supporting us encourage you to start using a credit card if you don’t already, or discourage you from buying anonymously with big-brother-resistant cash.)

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## GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry

Here are the recent GNU software releases:

bash-4.1 gnunet-gtk-0.8.1 nano-2.2.1
bazaar-2.0.3 gnunet-qt-0.8.1 parted-2.1
coreutils-8.2 gnupg-2.0.14 patch-2.6.1
enscript-1.6.4 gsegrafix-1.0.5 pies-1.2
gdb-7.0.1 gv-3.6.8 readline-6.1 gengetopt-2.22.4 help2man-1.37.1 sipwitch-0.5.12 glibc-2.11.1 icecat-3.5.6 solfege-3.14.10 global-5.7.7 inetutils-1.7 source-highlight-3.1.2 glpk-4.41 libgcrypt-1.4.5 xnee-3.05
gnu-c-manual-0.2.1 libsigsegv-2.8
gnunet-0.8.1 libunistring-0.9.2.1

In addition, videos of the talks at the recent GNU Hackers Meeting in Sweden are now available at .

To get announcements of most new GNU packages, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list: . Nearly all GNU software is available from , or preferably one of its mirrors (). You can use the url to be automatically redirected to a (hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror; for example, will redirect to the GDB directory on a mirror.

This month we welcome Martin von Gagern as a new co-maintainer of wdiff, and previous maintainer Robert Millan for also taking on mkisofs.

Several GNU packages are looking for maintainers and other assistance. Please see if you’d like to help. The general page on how to help GNU is at
. To submit new packages to GNU, see .

As always, please feel free to write to me, , with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.

## Richard Stallman’s speaking schedule and other FSF events

* 2010-01-12 | Richard Stallman et la révolution des logiciels libres: une biographie autorisée
Paris, France – Amphithéatre Eyrolles, Librairie Eyrolles, 5, 57, 61 et 63 boulevard Saint-Germain

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* 2010-01-13 | Logiciels libres, société libre
Lyon, France – Université Lyon 2, Grand Amphithéâtre, 18 Quai Claude Bernard

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* 2010-01-14 | Le logiciel libre dans l’éthique et dans la pratique Grenoble, France – Amphithéatre de l’École de Management de Grenoble, 12, rue Pierre Sémard

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2010-01-15 | Comment soutenir les arts sans porter atteintes à nos libertés fondamentales
Autrans, France – L’Escandille, Village Vacances Cap France, Route de la Sure

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2010-02-06 | GNU hackers at FOSDEM, including a lightning talk on Savannah by Sylvain Beucler
Brussels, Belgium. FOSDEM Conference (ULB Campus Solbosh)

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2010-02-10 | El Software Libre en la Ética y en la Práctica
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

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2010-03-19 | Libre Planet 2009

We’re expanding on last year’s LibrePlanet conference; by hosting a GNU Hackers Meeting and a track featuring presentations from women in free software. We’ll also have an address from the GNU project founder and FSF Board president Richard M. Stallman.

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### Take action with the FSF

Contributions from thousands of individual members enable the FSF’s work. You can contribute by joining at . 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!

The FSF is also always looking for volunteers
(). 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
() and take action on software patents, DRM, free software adoption, OpenDocument, RIAA and more.

###

Copyright © 2010 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 or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

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