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Bulletin Issue 13

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Bulletin Issue 13 Free Software Supporter and Groups Wiki How to Contribute Associate Membership: ver the past ten months over Become an associate member of O12,000 people have subscribed to the FSF. Members will receive Issue 13 the monthly Free Software Supporter a bootable USB card and e-mail Bulletin November 2008 newsletter. Don’t miss out! You can forwarding. To sign-up or get subscribe and read back issues at fsf. more information, visit member. org/fss. fsf.org or write to membership@ Change we can believe If you’re an activist, please add fsf.org. Contents yourself to our groups wiki, groups. in... Online: Use your credit card or fsf.org. We intend to make much PayPal account to make a dona- Change we can 1 by Peter Brown more use of this in the coming months. tion at donate.fsf.org. believe in... Executive Director Groups like Manchester Free Software o you use nonfree software? Does in the UK (manchester.fsuk.org)are Jobs: List your job offers on our Membership update 3 Dyour employer or school require making extensive use of this wiki al- jobs page. See fsf.org/jobs for you to use Microsoft software? Are ready. details. HowfreeistheG1? 3 you required to use proprietary for- mats to interact with your bank or United Way: As a 501(c)(3) Free Software 5 tax-exempt organization, the local government? Are your children Directory being trained to use computers rather This bulletin was produced using only FSF is eligible to receive United than learning how to be in control of free software: GNU Emacs, Inkscape, Way funds. See fsf.org/uw for Free BIOS update 6 the computers they use? GIMP, markdown, Ikiwiki and LAT X. more information. E As advocates for free software we Extra special thanks go to Joshua Gay Buy GNU Gear: Order one of Compliance lab: 6 are often faced with these challenges. for all his hard work over the last 18 our T-shirts, stuffed gnu toys or behind the scenes We know that the support for the sta- months. Good luck with the new job! manuals at shop.fsf.org. You tus quo, or the convenience of using the can even get a copy of Free Free Culture, Free 7 monopolists’ pervasive tools, makes it Software, Free Society signed by Software hard to convince institutions to change Richard Stallman! their ways. Yet the opportunities for GNU talk: Conley 8 change have never been better. Volunteer Copyright c 2008 : To learn more, visit In our latest victory, the Free Soft- fsf.org/volunteer Free Software Foundation . shop.fsf.org 9 ware Foundation through its End Soft- 51 Franklin Street, 5th Floor ware Patents (ESP) campaign filed an Free Software Supporter: GNU talk: Franco 9 Boston, MA 02110-1301 Make sure you’re getting all the amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Ap- (617)542-5942 very latest news from the FSF at peals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) [email protected] Badvista: We hardly 10 in their en banc hearing of in re Bil- fsf.org/fss. knew ye 1 Verbatim copying and distri- ski. We saw this as an historic oppor- Groups wiki: Find local groups tunity to undo the harm inflicted by bution of this entire bulletin Free Software 12 is permitted in any medium, in your area or start your own at software patents on free software devel- groups.fsf.org! Supporter and opers. The Bilski ruling didn’t disap- provided this notice is pre- Groups Wiki served. point, as it gutted — if not technically Contact: [email protected] for overturned — the State Street ruling more information on sup- 1endsoftpatents.org/bilski porting the FSF. 12 1 that in 1998 opened the floodgates alongside many partners for free and switch to GNU/Linux instead. In this rate by businesses. The fact that Mi- to the patenting of business methods open standards, particularly for Open- way, we were successful in transform- crosoft has both repeatedly extended and software. The vast bulk of soft- Document Format (ODF) and against ing Microsoft’s unprecedented market- XP cutoff deadlines and is already ware patents that have been used to Microsoft’s OOXML. In June of this ing blitz into a moment introduc- promising a public beta of Windows threaten developers writing code for year, Microsoft finally announced that ing many new people to free soft- 7 for release in early 2009 is further a GNU/Linux distribution running on they would adopt ODF and many na- ware. Evidence of this can be seen strong evidence of Vista’s failure. In general purpose computers has in the- tion states have been adopting policies at freesoftwarefreesociety.org, a places where Vista was adopted, the ory been swept away. The Bilski rul- in support of ODF.4 Our free audio statement published by our campaign reason was often coercive support con- ing undoubtedly represents a break- and video codecs campaign has also against Vista that was signed by not tracts imposed by Microsoft — it’s go- through for free software and a success been winning hearts and minds,5 and only over 1,600 individuals but also ing to take time for people to extricate for the FSF’s campaign. And with this Mozilla’s Firefox web browser will soon non-software organizations like the themselves from those agreements and ruling we are on the path to lowering carry native support for Ogg, giving us Green Party, Friends of the Earth In- it is part of our long-term work to help the threats that institutions face when an unprecedented opportunity to pro- ternational, People & Planet, New In- them do so. considering adopting free software. mote free codecs. ternationalist, and Legambiente. Thank you to all of you for making Completely free distributions like Combined, these breakthroughs are Second, we helped expose the re- this campaign a success. We are retir- the FSF-sponsored gNewSense are now important because they give us an op- strictions Vista imposes on its users. ing the web site and ending the cam- viable, something that just a few years portunity to put aside the claims of Our Vista Watch section collected over paign in order to devote more effort ago seemed far out of reach. Our work convenience that are used to promote 250 news stories describing Vista’s new and resources to new campaigns that with SGI earlier this year2 means that the monopolists’ pervasive tools, and Digital Restrictions Management sys- will help us reach the next set of mile- even the latest 3D graphic acceleration ask important questions of our em- tem as well as security holes and other stones on the road toward a world in can now be achieved with free software ployer. Why are we using this propri- problems with Vista that stemmed which all users can safely choose free and gNewSense. And the relaunch of etary software that locks us to this ven- from its being proprietary software. In software. Buoyed by this success, we our High Priority Projects3 list high- dor when we could be using free soft- addition to aggregating such stories, will need all of you to continue lending lights that the proprietary software for ware that would give us control? It we served as an information resource your energy and creativity to this new which there is currently no free alter- gives us the chance to demand open for reporters writing about Vista, giv- work as together we counter the en- native and that users feel forced to use, government. Why is it, that my local ing straight answers about its restric- croachments of all proprietary software is being tackled aggressively. government is forcing me to purchase tions that they couldn’t get from Mi- on our freedoms. BadVista.org has Hardware manufacturers friendly one vendor’s software to access public crosoft. Our campaign actions, in- both advanced this cause and shown us to free software have given us the first records, when there are free formats cluding street protests in New York’s all what we can achieve in the future. free software smartphone, the Open- that we can use that work with free Times Square and near Boston’s Fen- Moko FreeRunner. The OLPC proj- software? And why does this school way Park, helped keep these concerns ect gave us the first free software lap- accept corporate donations of propri- in the news and counter the propa- top, the XO, that has quickly estab- etary software that come with hand- ganda distributed to people attending lished the low-cost sub-notebook mar- cuffs on my child’s education, rather Microsoft events. Our organized la- ketplace — where the economics have than use free software that will give my beling efforts on Amazon ensured that made GNU/Linux a popular choice. child the opportunity to be in control anyone considering purchasing a copy And for the past few months, FSF sys- of the technology she learning to use? of Vista there would see information tems administrators have been working These are just some of the changes about its restrictions. on the forthcoming free Lemote laptop, that we can all bring about by voicing Now, two years later, it is appar- which Richard Stallman plans to use support for free software. While it’s ent that Vista has missed its window and that we hope will be widely com- important that people adopt free soft- for widespread adoption. Individu- mercially available. ware out of concern for their freedom als, governments, corporations, univer- The FSF has been campaigning and not just convenience, the cumula- sities and organizations have largely taken a pass or even abandoned Mi- 2fsf.org/news/thank-you-sgi 4fsf.org/campaigns/opendocument 3fsf.org/campaigns/priority.html 5fsf.org/resources/formats/playogg crosoft entirely.
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