Wednesday, February 27, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Excitement building for LibrePlanet! Sign up before it fills up!
Hi ,
It's only a month before LibrePlanet 2013: "Commit Change" and the campaigns team is in a flurry of activity, putting the finishing touches on the conference plans. People are registering quickly and it's great to see how much everyone is looking forward to the conference.
Want to be part of LibrePlanet 2013? It's March 23-24 at Harvard University. Register now. Remember, it's gratis for FSF members and discounted for students.
Since our last email, the program has grown a lot, now including:
- Leslie Hawthorn, community manager at Red Hat
- Upstream University, a seminar where developers will learn to contribute more successfully and efficiently to free software. (This requires separate registration. Space is limited!).
- An exhibit hall of free software organizations and companies
- Rubén Rodriguez from Trisquel, the FSF-endorsed fully free GNU/Linux distribution
And of course Richard Stallman and Karen Sandler (executive director of GNOME) will still be there to anchor the conference.
One more thing: only people who register before March 6th will be able to order a LibrePlanet 2013: Commit Change t-shirt. These shirts are a great way to show off your love of free software during the conference and start conversations afterwards. So if you want to represent LibrePlanet with a spiffy t-shirt, don't wait to sign up.
Hope to see you at the conference! If you're going and would like to connect with other attendees, check out the #libreplanet IRC channel on irc.freenode.org.
Zak Rogoff and Libby Reinish
Campaigns Managers
Read this message online at http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/excitement-building-for-libreplanet-sign-up-before-it-fills-up.
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Friday, February 22, 2013
For immediate release: Winners announced for free software gaming's highest honor, the Liberated Pixel Cup
You can view this press release online at https://www.fsf.org/news/winners-announced-for-free-software-gamings-highest-honor-the-liberated-pixel-cup
BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Friday, February 22, 2013 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today is proud to announce the winner of the first Liberated Pixel Cup, a design competition of free software video games using only freely licensed art and media. The cup has been awarded to Lurking Patrol Comrades, a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG) featuring a vast world with plenty of characters and both a melee and a magic-based battle system.
Chris Webber, co-organizer along with Bart Kelsey of OpenGameArt, said, "Liberated Pixel Cup was a bigger success than our wildest imaginings when initially planning the project. We hoped to create a standard, useful base and style of artwork and get a few submissions of art and games. Instead, we got nearly one hundred entries of games and artwork, most of them excellent. In the process we've proven the interest and potential for free software and free culture in gaming. We've also shown that with careful planning, we can have collaboration in this area that helps everyone. And, of course, we've had a lot of fun! Congratulations to everyone who participated in the contest!"
"The FSF was happy to support the Liberated Pixel Cup, and we are excited about this new model to facilitate the production of free games. Games are one area that make it hard for people to leave proprietary operating systems behind. The Liberated Pixel Cup model is not only an innovative way to address this by encouraging collaborative game development, it's just plain fun," said Libby Reinish, campaigns manager at the FSF.
The LPC was sponsored by the FSF, which collected donations to fund the prizes, Mozilla, Creative Commons and OpenGameArt. The competition attracted significant attention in the free software community, and in fact the number of submissions overwhelmed the judges, causing a delay in the announcement of the the winners.
More information about the prize-winning games is at http://lpc.opengameart.org/content/code-judging-is-in. The winners of the earlier art-only phase of the competition are announced at http://lpc.opengameart.org/content/liberated-pixel-cup-art-winners-announced.
Discussions are in the works for a possible follow-up competition. In the meantime, people interested in the area of free software gaming might also want to get involved in the LibrePlanet Gaming Collective.
About the Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
Media Contacts
Libby Reinish
Campaigns Manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
campaigns@fsf.org
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Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Why some governments are struggling with open source implementation
- Smaller open source software (OSS) companies have effectively organized themselves into alliances and are growing into pure open source consortia, which has helped them access the legal expertise to participate in tenders and to better educate policy makers and ICT (information and communications technology) professionals.
- France has the largest open source market in Europe and demand for open source from public agencies is high.
- The French government actively supports open source R&D projects through so-called "competitiveness clusters," which consist of large, medium, and small companies, as well as academics.
- The government at the highest level not only encourages administrations to consider open source, but now also allows savings realized through open source deployment to be used to invest in in-house OSS expertise and participation in upstream projects.
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Free Software Supporter -- Issue 58, January 2013
Free Software Supporter Issue 58, January 2013
Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software Foundation's monthly news digest and action update -- being read by you and 66,316 other activists. That's 1,114 more than last month!
View this issue online here: http://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2013/january
Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by adding our subscriber widget to your web site.
- Subscribe: http://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter
- Widget: http://www.fsf.org/associate/widget
Miss an issue? You can catch up on back issues at http://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter.
Para cambiar las preferencias de usuario y recibir los próximos números del Supporter en español, haz click aquí: https://crm.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?gid=34&reset=1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
- RIP Aaron Swartz
- Interview with Matthieu Aubry of Piwik
- Popular self-publishing and book printing company, Lulu, drops DRM
- What can we ask of the USPTO?
- Where in the world is RMS? community contest
- GNU Press releases new edition of the Emacs manual!
- Don't miss our daily highlights on fsf.org!
- GNU Press now selling GNU/Linux Inside stickers!
- Help us sign up 71 new members by January 31st, and use your new Jabber account
- May/June 2012: In Florianopolis and at Porto Alegre's Palácio Piratini
- LibrePlanet featured resource: Promote Free Software
- GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry: 27 new GNU releases!
- Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF events
- Thank GNUs!
- Take action with the FSF!
RIP Aaron Swartz
From January 11th
On January 11th, Aaron Swartz, a social justice advocate, free software author, and friend of the FSF, committed suicide. His loss has been deeply felt by many.
- Lawrence Lessig on Aaron Swartz's death: http://lessig.tumblr.com/post/40347463044/prosecutor-as-bully
- Remembrance site: http://www.rememberaaronsw.com
Interview with Matthieu Aubry of Piwik
From January 22nd
This is the latest installment of our Licensing and Compliance Lab's series on free software developers who choose GNU licenses for their works. In this installment, I interviewed (via email) Matthieu Aubry, the creator of Piwik, a freely licensed web analytics package. The FSF encourages people to use Piwik as a replacement for Google Analytics, since Google Analytics requires nonfree JavaScript to run in visitors' browsers, and to be careful with Piwik's privacy settings to make sure that visitor IP addresses and other identifiable bits of information are not recorded.
Popular self-publishing and book printing company, Lulu, drops DRM
From January 22nd
Online self-publishing platforms have lowered barriers for authors to get their works published, giving rise to a new kind of literature that works without big publishers. Lulu is one of the most popular solutions for writers to easily sell their works in print or as ebooks. A few years ago, they defended their DRM-encumbered ebooks, but they have just announced that they are saying goodbye to DRM.
What can we ask of the USPTO?
From January 23rd
The USPTO is organising roundtables to get suggestions from software developers. The FSF has requested to participate.
Where in the world is RMS? community contest
RMS and his laptops are inseparable, and they've been around the world together. In January we challenged our members to identify where RMS and his laptop are in this picture.
The first to answer correctly received a free software tshirt.
GNU Press releases new edition of the Emacs manual!
From January 3rd
GNU Emacs manuals are back, now in the updated seventeenth edition for version 24.2, complete with a matching Emacs reference card. Enjoy learning to program (or write poetry!) with Emacs while sipping a hot coffee in our Emacs reference mugs.
Don't miss our daily highlights on fsf.org!
From January 3rd
When you visit http://www.fsf.org now through the end of January (and maybe beyond!), you'll notice something different about our home page. It's our new "daily highlight," a little tidbit of free software history, wisdom, art, and even goodies like shop.fsf.org coupons for you to enjoy.
GNU Press now selling GNU/Linux Inside stickers!
From January 18th
By popular demand, we are now selling the GNU/Linux Inside sticker pack. For $15, you receive 10 GNU/Linux stickers. Because these stickers are high-quality and durable, they won't fade away or scratch off your computer, making it the ideal way to rep your use of free software!
Help us sign up 71 new members by January 31st, and use your new Jabber account
From January 29th
We've launched an XMPP (Jabber) server for FSF members to use. If you're not already a member, join today and help us reach our "stretch" goal of 71 new members by January 31st.
May/June 2012: In Florianopolis and at Porto Alegre's Palácio Piratini
From January 28th
RMS was at the "II Fórum Mundial de Educação Profissional e Tenológica: Democratização, Emancipaçao e Sustentabilidade" in Florianopolis, to deliver his speech "Free Software and Your Freedom," on May 30th, and, on the 31st, to speak on the "The Free Software Movement: Appropriation, Designing and Use" panel, in front of about 500 students, professors, researchers, government workers, and union members. His message was simple: "For ethical education, the software used must be livre, and the teaching materials must be livre too."
Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory
Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org 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 from 2:00pm to 5pm EDT (19:00 to 22:00 UTC) . 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.
LibrePlanet featured resource: Promote Free Software
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 Promote Free Software, which provides information about working together to raise the profile of free software. You are invited to adopt, spread and improve this important resource.
Do you have a suggestion for next month's featured resource? Let us know at campaigns@fsf.org.
GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry: 27 new GNU releases!
27 new GNU releases this month (as of January 24, 2012):
autogen-5.17.1
gnunet-0.9.5
mtools-4.0.18
automake-1.13.1
groff-1.22.1
nettle-2.6
cgicc-3.2.10
gsrc-2013.01.06
parallel-20130122
freeipmi-1.2.4
help2man-1.41.1
pycdio-0.18
gawk-4.0.2
libcdio-paranoia-10.2+0.90
pyconfigure-0.1.1
gettext-0.18.2
libmicrohttpd-0.9.24
remotecontrol-1.0
glibc-2.17
libopts-37.0.12
sharutils-4.13.3
gnu-ghostscript-9.06.0
mifluz-0.25.0
sipwitch-1.5.0 gnun-0.7
motti-3.0.1
solfege-3.20.8
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.
We welcome Lucas Bonnet as a new co-maintainer of GNU EMMS, Stephen Dawson as the maintainer of the new package remotecontrol (first release already made), Holger Hans Peter Freyther as the new maintainer of GNU Smalltalk, Shaunak Shaha as the new maintainer of GNU DDD, and Jose Marchesi as the new maintainer of GNU sed (in addition to the many things he already does).
A number of GNU packages, as well as the GNU operating system as a whole, 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 the GNU operating system, 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
For event details, as well as to sign-up to be notified for future events in your area, please visit .
So far, Richard Stallman has the following events in February and March:
February 04, 2013, 07:00 PM, Dublin, Ireland, The free software movement"
March 15, 2013, 05:30 PM, Krakow, Poland, "Free software and your freedom"
March 18, 2013, 03:00 PM, Poitiers, France, "The free software movement"
March 19, 2013, 07:30 PM, Niort, France, "A free digital society"
Other FSF and free software events
February 2nd-3rd, 2013, Brussels, Belgium, FOSDEM 2013. FSF executive director John Sullivan speaks on February 3rd at 10am.
March 23-24, 2013, Cambridge, MA, LibrePlanet 2013
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:
- Anthony J. Stieber
- Daniel Dehennin
- Dennis W. Tokarski
- Marinos J. Yannikos
- James A Cole
- David Klann
- Luiz Paternostro
- Daniel Kahn Gillmor
- Pete Batard
- Brett Smith
- William Pollock
- Lawrence Lessig
- Rhandeev Singh
- Terence O'Gorman
- Gary Steinmetz
- Eric Rollins
- Alan H. Guthrie
- Michael D'Errico
- Erick Rudiak
- iFixit
- Andrew Dougherty
- Kimura Masaru
- Wen Chen
- Lawrence Ho
- Paul Eggert
- Irene & Richard Van Slyke
- Dr. Venkateswarlu Pothapragada
- Matt Kraai
- Roaring Penguin
- Sverre H. Huseby
- Eric Rollins
- Dr. Mirko Luedde
- Aaron Culich
- Adam Klotblixt
- Adam Kunigiel
- Alejandro Luis Bonavita
- Alessandro Vesely
- Alex Chekholko
- Andrew Dougherty
- Andrew Lewman
- Matt Ettus
- Andrew Dougherty
- Andrew Lewman
- Andrew V. Belousoff
- Antonio Carzaniga
- Ashley Fryer
- Ben Sturmfels
- Brett Smith
- Iñaki Arenaza
- Colin Carr
- Craig Andrews
- Daniel Dehennin
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 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.
Copyright © 2013 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.
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Friday, February 1, 2013
Will you be at LibrePlanet? Register today for March 23-24
Hi ,
We're excited to announce that registration is now open for LibrePlanet 2013: "Commit Change."
LibrePlanet is a yearly conference where the global free software community comes together to learn from each other, face challenges and welcome newcomers. This year, the conference focuses on bringing together the diverse voices that have a stake in free software, from software developers to activists, academics to computer users. The theme is called "Commit Change," and it's about drawing ideas from everyone to create the software freedom we need.
If you're an FSF associate member, you can sign up now at no cost! Otherwise, we invite you to become a member for gratis admission and a host of other benefits, including an account on our brand new Jabber chat server. You can also attend the conference at the non-member rate.
The conference will feature a keynote address by Karen Sandler, executive director of the GNOME Foundation and renowned software freedom advocate. LibrePlanet will also include workshops in using free programs, talks and discussion panels with free software luminaries, plentiful networking opportunities and a pre-conference social gathering. In addition to Karen, the program includes sessions with Stefano Zacchiroli, Project Leader at Debian, Wendy Seltzer of the W3C, and our own Richard Stallman.
If you're interested in technology's role in struggles for justice, community, and freedom, then you will find a lot to be excited about at LibrePlanet. Join us at LibrePlanet 2013 and help Commit Change.
Register for the conference now or become a member to attend at no cost.
Hope to see you at LibrePlanet!
Zak Rogoff,
Campaigns Manager
PS: Today is the very last day of our recruitment drive, and we're very close to reaching our goal of 120 new members. If you become a member today, you'll help us shatter our goal and do more for software freedom in 2013.
Read this message online at http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/will-you-be-at-libreplanet-register-today-for-march-23-24.
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Make sure we have your correct location information — please do not forward this email with this link intact.
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