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Free 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 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()(3) Free Software 5 tax-exempt organization, the local government? Are your children being trained to use rather This bulletin was produced using only FSF is eligible to receive United than learning how to be in control of free software: GNU , , 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 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 7 monopolists’ pervasive tools, makes it Software, Free Society signed by Software hard to convince institutions to change ! their ways. Yet the opportunities for GNU talk: Conley 8 change have never been better. Volunteer c 2008 : To learn more, visit In our latest victory, the Free Soft- fsf.org/volunteer . 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 , 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) @fsf.org 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 the FSF.

12 1 that in 1998 opened the floodgates alongside many partners for free and switch to GNU/ 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/ 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 ’s will soon non-software organizations like the themselves from those agreements and ruling we are on the path to lowering carry native support for , 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 . 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 , 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 , 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 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. Recent numbers, for example, indicate only a 6% adoption

2 11 Free Software. Both concepts are very Badvista: We hardly tive effect of many people doing this is members in Portland, Oregon, where tightly linked, and we have to make knew ye a world in which it will also be more board member Mako Hill and (for- that clear. convenient for all of us to use free soft- mer) campaigns manager Joshua Gay Matt: What can free software sup- by John Sullivan ware — a world in which those seeking sparked discussions about Ogg Vor- porters like yourself do every day to Operations Manager control over users under the guise of bis and freedom for network services. help? n December 15, 2006, the FSF convenience will face much stiffer op- In San Francisco, RMS joined mem- Franco: can find a Olaunched its BadVista.org cam- position. bers in a lively conversation about good project to start to experience the paign to advocate for the freedom of the nature of freedom and the im- free software methodology, and work users, opposing adoption of portance of accepting no compromises. in the community. Teachers can teach Microsoft and promot- Board member Henry Poole talked how to use and develop free software, ing free — as in freedom — software about autonomo.us and executive di- artists can help to improve visual qual- alternatives. Two years later, the cam- rector Peter Brown covered some of the ity and usability of free software proj- paign has nearly 7,000 registered sup- exciting sucesses we’ve had in the bat- ects, while other people, like journal- porters, the name Vista is synonymous tle against DRM this year. ists can spread the word about this in the public eye with failure, and we By the time you receive this we’ll fight. I don’t believe the importance of are declaring victory. also have been out to visit with our free software is the software itself, but Like Olympic marathon winner members in San Diego, assisted by making people believe that they can Joan Benoit Samuelson, we look at Hugo Award-winning author Vernor produce and not just consume, that victory as “milestones on a very long Vinge. Early next year we’ll be touch- they can decide, and that they can highway”. We have not yet convinced ing base with folks in Los Angeles and think about the ideas of knowledge and all Windows users or even all Vista we hope to catch up with our Canadian property. users to switch to a fully free operat- members later in the year. We’re also ing system like gNewSense. There is looking for a good opportunity to meet still much work to be done and there up with our members on the other side are many milestones to reach. But the of the Atlantic, so that may become BadVista campaign was launched to part of our member meet-up itinerary achieve specific goals, and as we bring Membership update soon. it to a close we should recognize and celebrate what the campaign and ev- by Deborah Nicholson How free is the G1? eryone who supported it has achieved. Membership coordinator First, we successfully provided an his year the Free Sofware Founda- by John Sullivan entry point for those interested in Ttion has been busy creating more Operations Manager Vista to learn about free software al- opportunities to meet up with our ith the launch of iPhone 3G in ternatives. Prospective Vista users members in person. We want to hear WJuly, we have stepped up our searching for “windows vista” on all from you and we want you all to meet work to support free software mobile popular search engines saw and still each other. We especially want you to devices like the FreeRun- see BadVista.org on the first page of invite your friends and colleagues who ner against nonfree platforms. We’ve results. Microsoft’s attempt to cre- may be interested in free software, but targeted Apple with campaign actions ate pressure on users to change from may not be all that familiar with the that have been effective at keeping prior versions of Windows to Vista work that goes into protecting and pro- the iPhone’s Digital Restrictions Man- created an opportunity for us to sug- moting free software. All of the events agement (DRM) and the Applications gest that if users were going to take we’ve hosted so far have been informal Store policies that ban free software the trouble to change their operat- and fun — perfect for inviting a curi- in the public eye. Many of you have ing system — something inertia of- ous friend! joined us in writing to criticize Steve ten works against — then they should We’ve already communed with our Jobs for his attempt to grab even more

10 3 control over users. As an alternative, are a variety of methods by which and, of course, for 3D mod- please send example artwork (in SVG we’ve been encouraging users to hold the phone can be unlocked, but the elling. format please!) to [email protected]. out for free software devices, which firmware signing requirement is a re- Matt: On the flip side, what are are rapidly catching up in terms of striction intended to make this more we really lacking? features, and if they are developers, difficult. Second, users cannot remove Conley: Video editing. I men- to contribute their skills to improving or replace any of the default applica- tioned , but it is terribly un- these devices. tions. Not only does this mean that stable. I save every couple of min- Along the way, there has been users can’t fix problems or make im- utes because it crashes that frequently. much anticipation in the free soft- provements in the ac- There are several stable video editors, ware community for the arrival of the tually being used, but it also reserves but they just don’t have the same func- “G1” — the first phone to use An- space for Google and T-Mobile to have tionality. We really need something droid, Google’s mobile operating sys- a “kill switch”, as the iPhone has. This to compete with proprietary software tem. The Android base is licensed is a mechanism by which an author- in the way that the GIMP can com- as free software under primarily the ity can remotely disable or remove ap- pete with Photoshop. Patent unen- , and is a more fea- plications running on a user’s phone. cumbered formats and codecs are re- tureful and stable platform than what Google explicitly carves out space for ally vital too — many people don’t currently ships with the FreeRunner. this power in its Android Market De- seem to think it is much of an issue, You can check out the code at code. veloper Distribution Agreement Terms but I say it is. google.com/android. of Service. The G1 became available in late Google says that the kill switch is October, and is currently only offi- required to disable malicious applica- shop.fsf.org cially sold through T-Mobile. Unfor- tions that may be inadvertently dis- by Jasimin Huang tunately, although the base system is tributed through the Android applica- GNU talk: Franco Operations Assistant free, Google and T-Mobile have cho- tion store. While it is to its credit that n August this year, we launched our sen to sell the G1 in a form that is Google does not seem to be exercising Inew online store. With this upgrade, not free. It currently ships with pro- the kind of restrictions that Apple im- Franco Iacomella is a student and re- prietary software — the poses on its store, we should reject this we have a much greater opportunity sercher in Buenos Aires University. to communicate our message to the for several applications, like Gmail, “security” justification the same way He is a free software developer, GNU world, both via our merchandise, but Maps, Amazon, and the Market, is we reject it from Microsoft and Ap- hacker and member of the Free Soft- also via our matching new website. not present in the official tree. ple. Windows Defender and Genuine ware Foundation Latin America. Thanks to everyone who has sup- Also, they have made the decision to Advantage, for example, have already Matt: GNU is 25 years old this tivoize the device, only allowing offi- been used to remove applications from ported us so far, and be sure to check year. How are we doing? out our latest products! In time cially signed firmware to be installed. users’ computers without warning or Franco: I think there is still a lot for the holiday season we have four While users can run, modify, and re- approval. Part of moving to free soft- of work to do, a lot of fighting still to distribute Android applications, they ware operating systems is escaping this new t-shirt designs. From the time- do. We have to remain true to the orig- less GNU head, to the glam-metal in- do not have root access on their own kind of control. These so-called secu- inal message of freedom and we need spired ‘Thanx GNU’. These products devices. rity measures, other than providing an to improve our communication skills. wouldn’t exist without your support, There are a couple evident exam- attack vector, are also about security We have to protect the original prin- both by buying them, but also by help- ples of the way this is be- for Google and T-Mobile, not the user. ciples of the Internet — the freedom ing used to control users, and Google If they were about the user’s security, ing us to design them — Mark Lind- that built the network. So fighting hout, Rob Myers, Aurelio A. Heckert has already started an upgrade war the user would be given the signing against “cloud computing”, spreading and our own Deborah Nicholson de- with users in order to close the loop- keys, the code to all of the software in- the word about free formats and mak- holes that have been used so far to volved, and the means to verify what serve all the credit for these latest shirt ing them standard in the web (like Ogg designs. circumvent the restrictions. First, the external authorities like Google and T- in HTML5). We also have to join ef- If you have an idea for a product phone comes locked to T-Mobile for Mobile are up to. forts with the free culture movement or design you think people would buy, three months after purchase. There Because of restrictions like these, and show them the importance of using

4 9 works, works of opinion and works of ware. neither the iPhone nor the G1 as cur- entertainment and art. What can we do to support the cre- rently available are acceptable. Fortu- This lead me to wonder how the ation of free art? What applications nately, The FreeRunner is already run- by Kelly Hopkins free culture community could work and software do we need to create? ning a basic free Android port, and Directory Maintainer with the free software community. The development on other operating sys- he Free Software Directory is one free culture community is broad, with tem distribution options is progressing Tof our signature projects here at few organizations and many contrib- GNU talk: Conley rapidly. Developers or relatively expe- the FSF. A joint venture between the utors. One effort has been to cre- rienced GNU/Linux users can already FSF and UNESCO, the Free Soft- ate a definition of free cultural works, feel comfortable using the FreeRunner ware Directory is your one-stop-shop onley Owens is studying data min- with the Attri- C for many mobile computer functions for completely free programs for use, bution and Atribution-ShareAlike li- ing at Virginia Tech and currently (I’m very happily using mine as a mu- hacking, and study. working on his masters degree. He is censes being listed as free licenses for sic player, GPS mapping tool, notepad, One of the most important ways for also the founder of Students for Free creative works. This seems reason- wifi internet tablet, and sometimes us to learn about the latest and great- Culture at Virginia Tech. able, and would rightly exclude our phone now). est programs is from you, our mem- Questions were asked by Matt Lee, video from such a classifi- In the meantime, we should avoid bers. Submitting your program to us cation. Many of the images displayed FSF campaigns manager. giving money to help proprietary com- is easy, but to ensure the directory Matt: Conley, what is Students for during the video were taken from var- petitors. Apple needs to know that remains a useful resource, we need a Free Culture? ious photo-sharing services, and made its approach is completely unaccept- bunch of useful information from you. Conley available under an Attribution license, : Students for Free Culture able. T-Mobile and Google should is an international chapter-based stu- which permits its reuse and alteration, know that theirs is not an acceptable • Make sure you send us your proj- dent organization that promotes the as long as credit is given. This is sim- compromise; that their support for free ect’s title and homepage — this public interest in copyright and in- iliar in nature to non- licenses, software is very much appreciated but might seem obvious, but it is eas- formation/communications technology such as the X11 license. not when they deliver the result in ily overlooked. Certainly, one way we can work to- policy. If you don’t know what that this fashion. If you write code, don’t means, it’s okay, because none of us • A link to your source code, both gether is to take the same approach to write for platforms like the iPhone that really does either! a download link, but also a link licensing as the free software commu- refuse entrance to free software com- Matt to your source code repository. If nity — if you’re creating artwork, for : How can artists get involved pletely. Instead, use GPLv3 for your with local student groups like yours? you don’t have one, sign up with a free software project or not, license it code, so that no one has the power Conley: Find us! Talk to us! Savannah! If you’re using a bug under an Attribution or ShareAlike li- to make your work nonfree. Remem- We are cool people! Specifically, some tracker, send us that as well. cense. Musicians can license their mu- ber that your GPLv3 code can gen- chapters struggle in reaching out to sic under these licenses and be included erally be used with Android, because • Don’t forget to list ALL the li- in free games like Frets of Fury. Mak- those in non-technical fields, so having GPLv3 and version 2 of the Apache censes, including the license for artists to bridge that gap is great. ing sources for these things available License are compatible — and GPLv3 your documentation. We recom- Matt: One of the most exciting is important — as more and more art will still protect your code from being mend the GNU Free Documenta- is produced using software, the ability things for me right now is the creation tivoized by anyone distributing it to tion License. of good free creativity software — what to make editable sources for these cre- other users. Finally, please help spread are your favorite pieces of free software ative works. the word about this campaign by shar- • Sell yourself — a good, concise for creativity? Further, we should encourage art- ing the flyer and articles at fsf.org/ description of what your project Conley: I just discovered ists to use free software for their works. campaigns/iphone with your friends, is and what it does. Keep it Recently, the Dutch Ministry of Fi- recently from an article on Linux.com, family and colleagues. We’re very close short, but sweet. and it’s pretty nifty. I think the GIMP nance organized a competition to de- to having free software mobile devices is probably one of the best pieces of • The current version number, and sign a commemorative Euro coin. The that are as powerful as the proprietary tell us the maturity of your proj- winner, Gepostet von Stani, created free creativity software. For video edit- options — your support will help make ing, I use Cinelerra. And to add a ect — is it production ready, or his entire winning design using free it happen. few more for good measure: synfig for just your latest hack project? software, proving, at long last, that animation, for audio editing, you can make money with free soft-

8 5 • Who are you? How can peo- the mailing list. As a con- who to talk to, explained our concerns ally there isn’t a story to publish until ple contact you. . . we’ll make this sequence, almost all supported boards about the older licenses, and discussed those negotiations are complete. But public, so bear that in mind. are based on AMD or VIA chips. severable possible solutions before we this slow, steady work gets us a lot At the FSF, we’ve finished the ini- finally found one that satisfied every- of benefit with a minimum of hassle: • Community! Do you have mail- tial desktop rollout of seven coreboot one. Now, thanks to an upgrade clause just think of what it would’ve required ing lists and IRC channels? Be systems. Work is ongoing to upgrade in older versions of the license, all the to rewrite SGI’s OpenGL implementa- sure to include those with your more of our servers to coreboot. code ever released under the SGI Free tion from scratch, or the improvements submission. License B can now be used under these that can come to now that it free terms. can incorporate CC-BY-SA materials. • Be sure to tell us about any Compliance lab: behind dependencies. Dependencies Another example came in early Ultimately, it’s well worth the effort. should also be free software, and the scenes November, when we ourselves released Don’t be surprised if you hear about try to be as accurate as possible. version 1.3 of the GNU Free Docu- others in the next Bulletin. by Brett Smith mentation License. This is a slight • And finally, don’t forget to tell Licensing Engineer modification to the previous version us about your program’s inter- lot of the work of the Compli- of the FDL: the primary change is Free Culture, Free Soft- face — is it a web application, Aance Lab involves quiet negotia- the addition of a new section 11, ware or a console tool? A great GTK tions, working to convince others to do which allows wikis distributing FDL- app, or a cute program? the right thing for free software. The covered works to relicense those under by Matt Lee end results often seem minor—a few the Creative Commons Attribution- Campaigns Manager Sending us all of this information paragraphs of legalese here, a change of ShareAlike (CC-BY-SA) 3.0 license if n September, we released Stephen might seem a little unwieldy or redun- name there—but they have big conse- certain conditions are met. IFry’s film to mark the 25th anniver- dant, but considering the volume of re- quences, and there’s a lot of work that We made this change at the re- sary of GNU. For me, this was the cul- quests we receive, it’s the fastest way goes into them. There have been a cou- quest of the . mination of six months of work, both to guarantee that your request receives ple of announcements in the news re- They wanted to update Wikipedia’s li- with my colleagues here at the FSF, the attention it deserves. cently that offer good examples. censing so they could make full use but also with Stephen and his col- In late September, SGI released of the wide variety of materials peo- league, Andrew, who was producing Free BIOS update version 2.0 of its SGI B. ple have published under CC-BY-SA. the film. We recorded a lot of footage, The terms of this license are identical Since they don’t hold the to and the running time of the video even- by Ward Vandewege to the X11 License, but with this re- editors’ contributions, they needed an- tually came down to around five min- Senior Systems Adminstrator lease, a lot of software that our com- other way to make a licensing change, utes, with an extra minute for our lav- lot of effort is going into v3, the munity’s been relying on was finally and we have provided it. ish and congratulatory credit sequence Discussions about this change went Anext generation codebase for core- turned into free software. in which we tried to cram in as many boot. It only boots a few boards so Late last year, it came to our atten- on even longer than the SGI nego- GNU contributors as we could name. far, but the code design is far superior tion that a lot of the core support for tiations. We consulted extensively One criticism seen on many blogs with board members of the Wikime- to v2 and thus much easier to work OpenGL on common GNU/Linux sys- was that by not permitting people to with. Speaking of v2 — that code- tems was released under the SGI Free Foundation to find a solution that download and change the video, we base now supports 108 boards — but License B version 1.1 and the GLX would give them a feasible transition were acting hypocritically. In reality, not all of those are still available, and Public License—both of which were path, without hurting those users who this is how we have treated works of on some boards not all components are not free software. After discussing the have come to count on the rights that opinion for many years, with our ver- the FDL provides. The actual license supported. problem with other groups concerned batim licensing. The article you are AMD recently released documen- about this, we approached SGI, and text went through many drafts as well, reading now, is no exception to that — tation and coreboot code for the 690 began working with them to figure out to make sure that this additional per- Richard Stallman outlines the reason- mission would neither be too narrow chipset. VIA has been pushing out a good way to release this code under ing behind this in his talk, Copyright a lot of documentation as well. Both a free . The process nor too broad. vs Community, but it essentially boils AMD and VIA have people active on took over six months, as we figured out It’s hard to make hay out of this down a difference between functional sort of work in the news — gener-

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