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Bulletin November 2011 Forwarding

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Bulletin November 2011 Forwarding Copyright c 2011 Free Software Foundation How to Contribute 51 Franklin Street, 5th Floor Boston, MA 02110-1301 Associate Membership: (617) 542-5942 Become an associate member of [email protected] the FSF. Members will receive http://www.fsf.org/ a bootable USB card and e-mail Issue 19 Bulletin November 2011 forwarding. To sign up or get If you recently joined as a more information, visit member. member, your mailing includes fsf.org or write to membership@ Born to run a USB flash drive membership fsf.org. Contents card preloaded with a full live by John Sullivan distribution of Trisquel 4.0. Online: Use your credit card or Borntorun 1 Executive Director You can download source code PayPal account to make a dona- The new Free Software 3 for the distribution at http: tion at donate.fsf.org or con- Directory //fsf.org/associate/source/. tact [email protected] for more Automating systems at 4 If you would like us to send you information on supporting the the FSF primary goal of the Free Soft- the source code on two DVDs FSF. A PlayFreedom campaign 5 ware Foundation is a world where for 5 dollars, please write to Jobs: List your job offers on our Holiday Buying Guide 5 everyone can do what they need to [email protected] or at the address jobs page. See fsf.org/jobs for Growing trends in free 7 do with their computers using only above. details. software licensing free software. Great progress has been GNU contributors 7 made toward this goal. Free software This bulletin was produced using United Way: As a 501(c)(3) update has reached a point where it is now eas- only free software. tax-exempt organization, the In defense of negativity 8 ily possible to buy an affordable com- FSF is eligible to receive United How I became aware of 10 puter with hardware — including Wi- The articles in this bulletin are Way funds. See fsf.org/uw for free software Fi and accelerated graphics — that is individually licensed under the more information. fully supported by free software (an ex- Creative Commons Attribu- cellent resource for choosing appropri- Free Software Directory tion No Derivative Works : ate hardware is h-node.com). 3.0 United States License. Browse and download from thou- But just when our community has To view a copy of this license, sands of different free software achieved this, we are faced with the visit http://creativecommons. projects! directory.fsf.org possibility that most computers in the org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/ Volunteer: To learn more, visit future could be made by design incom- or send a letter to Creative Com- fsf.org/volunteer. patible with free software. They will mons, 171 Second Street, Suite be born to run only proprietary oper- 300, San Francisco, California, Free Software Supporter: ating systems. 94105, USA. Make sure you’re getting all the Microsoft has recently announced very latest news from the FSF at that if computer makers wish to dis- fsf.org/fss. tribute machines with the Windows 8 compatibility logo, they will have to LibrePlanet : Find local groups implement a measure called “Secure in your area or start your own at Boot.” However, it is currently up for libreplanet.org! grabs whether this technology will live The new baby gnu from shop.fsf.org (brick wall not included) up to its name, or will instead earn the 12 1 name Restricted Boot.1 As an FSF supporter, I don’t need to be superior compared to closed ers. This idea strongly resonated with When done correctly, “Secure to tell you how frightening and un- source software because anyone could me because of the incident with my Boot” is designed to protect against acceptable expansion of this trend to take part in the development process, laptop. Free software would ensure malware by preventing computers from other computers would be. Users fix bugs, and innovate. But there that users are not beholden to compa- loading unauthorized binary programs would have to go through complicated were plenty of instances where I felt nies to use their own computers. when booting. In effect, this means and risky measures to circumvent the the closed sourced software was clearly Free software even addresses the is- that computers implementing it won’t restrictions; the popular trend of re- better than its open source counter- sues I had with open source. It doesn’t boot unauthorized operating systems. viving old hardware with GNU/Linux part. For example, it was much easier matter if proprietary software is tech- This could be a feature deserving would come to an end, causing more to create high-quality presentations in nically superior; it fails the most basic of the name, as long as the user is able hardware to be tossed in landfills; and Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 compared test of providing freedom to users. We to authorize the programs she wants proprietary operating system compa- to OpenOffice.org at the time. Why just have to develop alternatives that to use, so she can run free software nies would gain a giant advantage over was it that companies such as Apple do. The idea of free software sits very written and modified by herself or peo- the free software movement, because of and Microsoft were regularly able to well with me. There truly is something ple she trusts, and not run software by their connections with manufacturers. create software that was technically su- magical about being able to study how people she doesn’t trust. This should This summer, we launched a lo- perior to the open source movement’s any of the software I’m using works also extend to the firmware (which cal initiative we’re calling Free Soft- if open source was supposed to be bet- and make changes. performs much the same tasks as the ware Fridays, where FSF staff and ter? I’m taking steps to contribute to BIOS on other computers); users must volunteers went out into the busy While searching for satisfying an- free software and advance it. Count- be able to replace their computers’ pro- Boston downtown area at lunch time, swers to my questions, I noticed some- less like-minded people have done so prietary firmware with free software. and handed out copies of Trisquel thing interesting in discussions about despite facing tremendous challenges However, we are concerned that GNU/Linux. In addition to the open source: a few people often used and discouragement. In the process, Microsoft and hardware manufacturers GNU/Linux operating system, we have the terms “FOSS” or “FLOSS.” I they have made society a better and will collude to implement these boot future plans to distribute copies of found they stood for “free/open source freer place. I don’t see why I can’t join restrictions in a way that will prevent other useful cross-platform free soft- software” and “free/libre/open source them and do the same. users from changing the firmware or ware like LibreOffice, so that even peo- software” respectively. I wondered booting anything other than Windows. ple still stuck on proprietary operat- why anyone would attach “free” next In this case, a better name for the tech- ing systems can start giving free soft- to “open source,” and I found “libre” nology would be Restricted Boot, since ware a try. This is the easiest, most just confusing. So I looked up free soft- such a requirement would be a dis- basic form of free software activism — ware and found that it was backed by astrous restriction on computer users sharing software with your community. the Free Software Foundation (FSF). and not a security feature at all. And it would be made impossible if Re- Intrigued by what this foundation The specter of Restricted Boot is stricted Boot were pushed on users un- stood for, I explored their Web site and especially worrisome because it is not der the guise of “security.” found that they were going to release alone. Some of the most successful mo- We will be monitoring develop- new editions of their books explaining bile devices (Apple’s iPhone and iPad, ments in this area closely, and ac- free software and its motivations soon. and many Android phones) enforce re- tively campaigning to make sure this A few months ago, the books became strictions aimed at preventing users important freedom is protected. Our available for purchase, and I bought from installing a different or modified first step is to demonstrate that people them almost immediately. operating system — despite the fact value this freedom, and will not pur- Everything started to click in my that they are general purpose comput- chase or recommend computers that mind when I read the books. The fun- ers. Apple seems to be moving toward attempt to restrict it. If you aren’t damental principle of free software is a similar world for their desktop and one of the 20,000 people who have al- that users should have basic freedoms laptop systems. ready signed our statement affirming over their software. This includes the that, I hope you will take a minute to freedom to study how a software works, 1fsf.org/campaigns/ secure-boot-vs-restricted-boot to modify it, and to share the soft- ware and any modifications with oth- 2 11 I found a GNU/Linux distribution add your name.2 already listed there. What we haven’t and used it to boot my laptop. It It has been very encouraging to written about is how you can begin to started up correctly and detected my see so much support behind this state- help improve the functionality, design, hard disk.
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