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Contents Work It worked, and it continues to Contents work. Last year, member dues ac- Fifteen years of FSF associate counted for over half of our total members...................1 revenue, and nearly ten times as Finding a free software silver lining much as we received from corpora- tions. But membership from the to the Facebook Cambridge start has been much more than a Analytica scandal ............3 way to donate. Members form a Tech updates, episode 2018: proud community united around A GNUHope................4 the idea that people, in order to be The threat of government-run Digital free, must be in control of the soft- ware they rely on to live their lives. Restrictions Management . 6 Today, we have members in Uber takes software users for a ride over eighty countries. I feel very ..........................8 close to this community—especially On the road with RMS.........9 to the 136 members who have been GNU needs you: How to contribute with us all fifteen years. I've gotten to a GNU project............10 to know their names through stuff- ing thousands of envelopes, ex- Fifteen years of FSF changing many emails, and shaking associate members hands—first at the annual member meetings we held, at the Libre- ast fall marked fifteen years of Lthe FSF's associate membership program. Shortly after, I celebrated my own fifteenth anniversary with the FSF. I've never known an FSF without associate members. The membership program was launched in late 2002 to stabilize the FSF fin- ancially, as some previous sources of support—like sales of software and In March, the FSF celebrated our tenth manuals on physical media—were annual LibrePlanet conference, with over falling out of fashion. 300 participants. 1 Planet conferences they grew into, many news and news-sharing plat- and at many other events around forms require nonfree software. the world. We need your help. If you're Members drive the success of not yet a member, please become our campaigns for universal free one. If you are, help recruit others. software adoption and ideological When you log into your account at support for user freedom. They are you'll find a mem- the early adopters of decentralized, bership badge you can use on social federated social networks, and the media profiles or your Web site. dedicated users of Replicant, the Let your friends and coworkers free version of Android. They ad- know why you support user free- vocate in their local schools and dom and ask them to join you. places of work. They write much of We have a comprehensive list the free software that makes the of benefits at modern world operate. I'm incred- ; the instant mes- ibly proud to know these folks, and saging service we provide is notable to work side by side with them. for people who are tired of their But increasingly, members are communications being surveilled joining us who are not long-time and manipulated by Facebook. free software users or developers. We're also expanding resources to They include folks who don't have help members meet and collabor- the technical know-how to be early ate. We're relaunching the FSF adopters. They see the havoc Associate Membership Forum at wreaked on people's lives by the , likes of Microsoft, Apple, and and putting on more events for Facebook, and they want someone members alongside conferences to do something about it. These around the world. members are just as important. This year, we received a $1 mil- They are key to this movement's lion Bitcoin donation from the Pine- success at turning free software in- apple Fund. That will give our work to a kitchen table issue. a powerful shot in the arm. But it If the movement is to succeed, was associate members who drove we're going to need many more the technological and activist work than 4,600 members. But we are that attracted the donation. There finding it increasingly difficult to would be no FSF without them. We break through the daily tidal wave need you now more than ever. While of technology news to reach the we've done very well as small but audiences we need to reach. In mighty," I hope that fifteen years 2002, getting on Slashdot guaran- from now, we'll be counting our teed a flood of attention. That is members in the millions. no longer true, as so many more news sources and newsmakers com- pete for attention. It is particularly challenging for the FSF, because so 2 Finding a free software silver lining to the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal n 2018, the political data firm ICambridge Analytica was ex- tributed, user-controlled, free soft- posed for exploiting social media ware to our friends, family, and site Facebook's lax data policies to community. gather information on millions of Here are some Facebook-related people for Donald Trump's presid- discussion points. Try them out on ential campaign. Their micro-tar- someone who is considering leaving geted messages, based on that the site or making the switch to free cache of online activity, aimed to software (visit for win votes for Trump—and Face- libre social media alternatives like book did not tell users their in- Mastodon, GNU social, and Dia- formation was used. spora). This latest violation by the site didn't surprise free software activ- ists, but others were stunned that . the data gathered by privacy-un- Using Facebook, or any Service as friendly sites like Facebook (which a Software Substitute or nonfree force you to relinquish control over software, practically guarantees your computing to someone else's your privacy will be violated (see server—see —and ). Facebook impose nonfree JavaScript for the claims to provide a personalized parts that do run on your local experience," but its terms of service system) might be used to influence (at ) say this is elections. based on the data it gathers about We have long been aware that you, including what you share and nonfree software harms people, and do on and off our Products." Face- that companies like Facebook are book admits it is gathering as deliberately tracking as much of much information as possible about your Web activity as possible, be- you, always. cause, whether they're selling shoes or a political candidate, advertisers Some people say they aren't con- will pay for it. But a silver lining cerned about privacy, because they can be salvaged from these highly have nothing to hide. Talk to them publicized violations of (unwarran- about Cambridge Analytica influ- ted) trust by proprietary peddlers: encing political votes via micro- we get to tout the benefits of dis- targeting—no matter your politics, 3 the fact that one's personal inform- amount of personal data. Using dis- ation could be used for political tributed, free software puts control propaganda is pretty creepy. back in the hands of the user: you can self-host a personal or social Web This sort site, or use the same software by of corporate surveillance is tied to choosing from among many smaller mass government surveillance. As hosts, which you may feel are more revealed in 2013, the US National trustworthy. Security Agency's PRISM program has gathered massive amounts of (There's still a risk of privacy viol- information, including emails, ation with decentralized free soft- search history, and chats from ware, which is why government Facebook, Google, Apple, and oth- regulation prohibiting those viola- ers since 2007 (see tions is important: read more about If you do any political organizing in decentralized and federated soft- private" Facebook groups, or just ware on the FSF High Priority RSVP to a protest via a Facebook Projects list at .) event, governments know about it. If you don't think you're at risk in The free software movement your own country, you could be gets stronger as it grows. The libre targeted if you travel to another silver lining to dastardly behavior country where beliefs you've ex- like Cambridge Analytica's use of pressed on Facebook are unaccept- Facebook user information is that able or illegal. it gives you the opportunity to in- troduce people to privacy-respect- Finally, ing, decentralized free software. there are many reasons for using Help everyone #DeleteFacebook free, distributed software instead. and get free! With free software, the code can be examined by anybody—if I don't Tech updates, episode 2018: have the technical knowledge to analyze how code behaves, I can A GNUHope read independent analyses by people who can. I do not have to go in blind, forced to trust that software is not acting with ill intent. Over the last six months, the Sites like Facebook take control away FSF tech team has been busy with from the user, because the software system upgrades. We migrated ser- you are running is not on your own vices to our new Ceph-based server computer. They also consolidate con- stack, which we are calling trol and surveillance—nearly 2 billion GNUHope," and added more code people use Facebook, which means to our Ansible configurations to in- the site has gathered a truly massive crease automation. 4 In January, we upgraded our to be a very positive step overall. A CiviCRM instance to the latest recent survey says that 15% of busi- version, and fixed issues with our nesses said they think they will be custom code. With the help of a GDPR compliant by the May 25, previous intern and many 2018 enforcement date (see volunteers, we successfully ). Based on our streamed and recorded video at our experience, many widely used free annual LibrePlanet conference, software projects still have a lot of uploading the recordings to our room for improving documentation GNU MediaGoblin instance (see and functionality to enable their ).
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