Issue 34 Bulletin Spring 201 9

We reached out to these schools Contents to offer workshops that introduce FSF teaches to public children to the fundamentals of school youth ...... 1 commands, scripts, and Free software: It's not just for computation, followed by an introduction to the principles of privacy ...... 3 software freedom. For the Sparking change: What free software workshops, we chose Music Blocks can learn from social justice (musicblocks. sugarlabs. org), movements ...... 4 a visual programming language for What "Respects Your Freedom" is music, which is licensed under for, and what it isn't ...... 6 AGPLv3 or later by SugarLabs, a The free software movement needs community-driven organization with the mission to construct free you: How to become a volunteer. . 7 software tools for teaching and On the road with RMS ...... 9 learning. News from the tech team . . . . . 10 Music Blocks is a good tool for introducing children to musical and FSF teaches free software programming concepts for many to public school youth By Devin Ulibarri Free Software Activist & Sugar Labs Oversight Board Member ree software is a critical component to a free society, and nowhere is society's influence more apparent than in the public school system. Software that students use in schools greatly impacts the students' lives, and consequently impacts society as a whole. This spring, the FSF, with funding from the Staples Foundation, This is an example of code used to create brought free software to two public music in Music Blocks, the program we used middle schools and an after-school to teach public school children about free program in the Boston area. software 1 reasons: first, music is fun, and it’s fun to make sounds with a computer. Also, music is forgiving: mistakes present relatively little risk to a new learner, since the "mistakes" result in unexpected, often funny sounds. Since Music Blocks is a programming language, it offers the opportunity for students to create their own scripts/programs beyond Music Blocks, which they can share with their friends. Remixing becomes a vehicle for exchanging both programming and musical ideas. As such, Music Blocks is a Devin, and FSF's Web developer Michael, waypoint on the path to learning working with kids in the classroom more about software and the four After the lesson, we collected freedoms. some feedback from the students in When we walked into the order to assess the project’s efficacy. classroom, there was a palpable One student said, "I learned that excitement in the room. We started music is in code," and another said each class with everyone in a circle, they learned "how to music-code." A to do a musical activity together few students talked about software that would later be scripted in freedom specifically, saying they Music Blocks. Students learned a learned "the four freedoms" and snippet of music by first listening "what freedom means." and singing back the snippet. Then, For this project, we used we studied a graphical representation computers that fully respected the of the music, and even explored students' freedom. FSF tech intern modifying the original musical Valessio Brito put in many hours snippet, to engage their creative flashing 25 T400 laptops with thinking. The students then inputted Libreboot and installing Trisquel the music into Music Blocks using GNU/. As part of the laptops we prepared for them with overarching project to bring free all free software. The lessons were software to these schools, the FSF basic, but not simple (see handouts then donated ten of the fully freed at u. fsf. org/2uo); they required T400s to the participating schools. a fair amount of problem-solving The laptops are accompanied with and collaboration to complete, handouts that explain the four which helped to give the students a freedoms, the importance of free frame of reference when we software for education, an introduced the four freedoms of free introduction to Trisquel, and software. bootable Trisquel USB sticks. This 2 gives the schools access to freedom- these tragic stories to illustrate the respecting computers and software urgent importance of free software throughout the year. to the general public. The ever- This project is a small step to expanding collection of mistakes ensure that students, teachers, parents, and abuses committed by and administrators understand the proprietary software and unethical implications for free software in network services should make a education. Education needs free strong case for changing software software, but free software also needs culture from one that inherently education (see: u. fsf. org/spb10). mistreats and exploits users to one The free software movement needs that respects us. to find entry points into education so says part of that youth can be introduced and his inspiration for starting the free empowered at an early stage. This software movement was the project is the first in an anticipated frustration he encountered when he series of projects by the FSF to bring was refused the source code free software philosophy and ethics necessary to fix a bug in a printer. to the educational system. Over the years, this story has been persuasive to others as well. Similarly, stories about privacy leaks and other bad behavior by proprietary software and unethical Free software: It's not just network services can be signposts for privacy that lead new people to join the By John Sullivan movement. But right now, those signs are pointing in the wrong Executive Director direction. rivacy violations by large The mainstream response to P technology companies continue stories of major privacy violations to be big news in 2019. In April, we has not been to demand user learned that Amazon employs control over the software. Instead, thousands of people around the the calls have been almost world to review and transcribe exclusively for policy measures like conversations overheard by its fines and antitrust actions. In a Alexa-enabled Echo devices (see: recent New York Times special u. fsf. org/spb1). In May, we section on Privacy and Technology, read that Snapchat employees used neither free software nor open their access to spy repeatedly on source were even mentioned users (see: u. fsf. org/2ui). And (u. fsf. org/spb2). Facebook is facing a potential five We've also seen the narrative billion dollar fine for its privacy around privacy actually boost failures (see: u. fsf. org/2uj ). proprietary companies. This year, The FSF and other free Apple launched an advertising software activists have highlighted campaign focused entirely on 3 claims that it protects user privacy and Apples of the world. We should (u. fsf. org/spb3). Other then point at free software, not as a companies, especially Facebook, suite of perfect software solutions, have attempted to flip the script but as a set of cultural values where by offering more user-configurable we can empower ourselves to solve privacy settings. these and other problems instead of Policy measures might be good, being kept helpless. but we know that free software is a The FSF has shared many of precondition for true privacy. the inspiring stories we've heard Without the source code, claims like from people energized to help their Apple's can never be fully verifiable. communities, refusing to be pushed Without a switch to decentralized around by unethical software. We free software, Facebook's settings published several in a video at can just be "placebo buttons" – like u. fsf. org/1mb. We need to do phony office thermostats that let more of that, in order to seize these you think you're controlling the opportunities to make free software temperature. And without control a salient issue for everyone. I over the software, users will never encourage you to share your story have privacy from the company publicly, and let us know about it that claims to own it. at campaigns@fsf. org! Because free software is a prerequisite, this movement's work advocating and developing it is Sparking change: What free clearly helping to protect user software can learn from privacy. The New York Times and regulators need to hear us on that. social justice movements But we also must be careful about By MK Fain what we promise, and what we Software Engineer and Activist emphasize. All software has bugs; even free I n his celebrated 1963 Letter From software can fail at privacy. Like Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin any other practical benefit of free Luther King, Jr. contrasted "a software – better stability, speed, negative peace which is the absence compatibility with older hardware of tension to a positive peace which – privacy claims are also vulnerable is the presence of justice." Negative to exploitation by proprietary peace, he claimed, was the greatest software pushers – as we see Apple force against civil progress. King's doing now. The most important description of negative and positive benefit of free software, and the peace is something that still rings only justification it needs, is true across social movements freedom. today; from movements for racial We should keep pointing to equity, to ending sexual violence, abuses committed by the to animal rights, or to economic Facebooks, Amazons, Snapchats, justice. Those who take direct 4 action are often chided, even by ground has primarily focused on those who support their end goal, one method: #72, non-consumption for being too radical, too of boycotted goods. confrontational, or too emotional – In a movement that is so vital yet these actions are vital for social to the freedom of not just software, change. but to the toppling of all To apply this concept to the oppression, we can’t afford to just free software movement, the use one tool in our box. Boycotting general public remains largely proprietary software is crucial, but unaware of the consequences of the it is not enough: while free software software they use. Meanwhile, advocates have also engaged in under the surface, it is violating development, written letters and their privacy and stomping on their called government representatives, freedom by giving corporations and provided educational resources control over their computing and and legal tools, there's so much thus, by extension, what they read, more we can do. As software think, and know. Despite the fact freedom activists, we also need to that proprietary software poses focus on bringing visibility to this unprecedented risks to individual social crisis, so that it can no liberty, democracy, and societal longer be ignored. freedoms, Google, Facebook, In past social movements, Microsoft, and Apple act with ending the state of negative peace impunity. Software is deeply through nonviolent direct action intertwined with all means of has been a necessary part of production, communication, and achieving change. Taking an travel. We are quickly approaching example from the suffragettes in a society in which every action is England, real change was only determined, predicted, or prevented achieved by those activists with a by an algorithm. This lack of disruptive and confrontational tension, while injustice remains the approach to the cause. For status quo, is what negative peace example, in 1906, Emmeline and looks like. Christabel Pankhurst started Throughout history hundreds of disrupting political events and got methods of protest, resistance, themselves arrested on purpose. direct action, and subversion have They used their time in jail to been used to topple oppressive garner more public attention and regimes and systems. The Albert sympathy through hunger strikes. Einstein Institution recognized 198 This breaking of the negative Methods of Nonviolent Action (see: peace, and the creation of u. fsf. org/spb4). Although controversy, meant that the men in there have been notable exceptions power could no longer ignore the by organizations such as the FSF issue. and its partners, the bulk of the The free software movement free software movement on the can learn from such successes. We 5 can start by building grassroots rigorous review process – can gain networks of connected and certification under our Respects empowered activists through Your Freedom (RYF) program for conferences (such as LibrePlanet particular devices they sell. Once and SeaGL), as well as local they gain certification, they are organizations. Connect with able to use the RYF certification activists in other movements, and mark in association with those learn from them. Plan protests and certified devices. marches together, coordinate sit-ins You can think of the and disruptions of events, organize certification mark as being like a walk-outs, and raise the tension trademark, in that it is a name and (see: u. fsf. org/spb5). Attend logo that helps inform users about these events when others plan them, the products that bear it. But even if you’ve never protested rather than referring to either before. (See u. fsf. org/spb6 for everything a company sells, or a tips for your first protest!) product no matter where it is sold, If you can’t take direct action the mark refers to specific products yourself, support the activists who as sold by a specific retailer. The do. Become comfortable with RYF mark on a device means that nonviolent confrontation in your the user knows that the device daily life. Correct language comes with freedom inside, and normalizing proprietary software that the point of purchase is also (see: u. fsf. org/spb7). Challenge freedom-respecting. its use even when you know you Sometimes people get confused won’t win. Refuse to remain silent. as to what RYF means exactly. The threat of proprietary One point of confusion is around it software is too great for us to allow being a "hardware" certification the state of negative peace to program. RYF only refers to remain. Breaking it is our clear devices that are sold by the path forward, and this will be how particular retailer who gained we spark change. certification for that device. You can find a list of certifications at fsf. org/ryf. On that list, you will find that there are several What "Respects Your companies that offer the same Freedom" is for, and what hardware, and those devices will it isn't even come with basically the same By Donald Robertson, III software. But each retailer had to go through certification for their Licensing and Compliance Manager version of the device. That is because we don't certify hardware, etailers who meet the FSF's we certify a retailer's process of criteria for protecting the delivering that device in a way that rights of users – verified by a respects the user. 6 If a different company comes more retailers start working for along and offers the same users instead of against them, you hardware, then that is not can support that work by automatically an RYF-certified supporting those retailers who are device, because that retailer has up to the task of gaining RYF not received certification. Their certification for the products they Web site may require proprietary sell. And keep an eye out for RYF's JavaScript in order to make a new and improved Web site, purchase or review support coming soon! information. They could add other nonfree software to the device, or steer users toward nonfree software in connection with the product. In order to make sure that users get the freedom they deserve, we need to review how the particular retailer actually offers the device. The free software So even though a different retailer movement needs you: How might offer exactly the same to become a volunteer hardware, it is not guaranteed to By Andrew Engelbrecht respect your rights as a user. In the same vein, you could Senior Systems Administrator Libreboot your own device, and load it up with a fully free W hen I first got into free GNU/Linux distribution like software, I had a lot of fun Trisquel. But even though your learning how to administer my machine would have all the machine when I ran into small freedom that you need, it still issues. One day I saw a posting by wouldn't be an RYF-certified the FSF looking for help on a free device. social network, so I went in to The retailers in the RYF volunteer. After a while, I was certification program work very given the opportunity to learn hard to find and root out freedom- about system administration, and related issues for their devices. And after an internship, was later hired in order to gain certification, they by the FSF as a Web developer, each promise to continue that hard and then as a senior sysadmin. work, and to fix any problems that While I have ended up in a may arise. It is more than just technical position at the FSF, "hardware that works with free much of my volunteer work was software" (for that, you should nontechnical, and many check out h-node. org): it is organizations and free software dedication on the part of the projects benefit from volunteers retailer to protect their users. As who help in ways other than the program continues to grow, and software programming. These 7 groups need help with Web site ago, I was fortunate to meet a few and application design, bug people who inspired me to use reporting and triage, fundraising, GNU/Linux and to learn more writing, outreach through social about software freedom, and to media, answering questions online, them I am thankful. and other creative work. By If you are a programmer and helping the free software movement want to contribute to free software in these ways, you have the while building your programming opportunity to personally grow as skills, ask a project maintainer for you contribute. a list of entry-level software issues One of the biggest volunteering to start with. If you do your best opportunities offered by the FSF is to create quality patches, you will the annual LibrePlanet conference. grow your coding skills as you We don't have enough staff to run contribute. the entire conference ourselves, so If you're new to coding, or we depend upon the help of would like to contribute your non- volunteers. At our last conference, coding skills, there are many free over 50 volunteers assisted with software projects that could use tasks like registration, GNU Press your help. If you care a lot about a shop sales, room moderation, program that you use, find its project answering questions, and streaming Web site for more information. video live over the Internet. Our Nontechnical contributions are also streaming software was created by valued immensely, and volunteering a previous FSF tech team presents an opportunity to develop volunteer intern, David Testé, who your skills further, whether you flies in every year from Paris to design Web sites, update help us with the event. documentation, or spread the word. Another job that requires a lot I encourage you to volunteer of hands is our twice-annual your time and skills to whatever Bulletin mailing: we stuff over project or organization that may 10,000 envelopes, with the help of need your help. You have the about 35 volunteers. It's a fun time opportunity to meet great people that involves many passionate and to grow in the process. It also activists filling our conference room, can be a lot of fun. The FSF, and working together, connecting, and other free software organizations, talking about our shared interests. benefit from your contributions, The free software movement and we hope to work with more also relies upon activists to help wonderful people like you! For a spread the message of software list of ways to volunteer, see freedom. We're indebted to the fsf. org/volunteer. people who tell their friends and loved ones about the value of free software, and the technical issues that matter to us all. Many years 8 On the road with RMS By Jeanne Rasata Assistant to the President

SF founder and president Richard Stallman (RMS) continued traveling the world this past semester, to raise awareness of free software. He visited twenty- two cities, in eight countries, across three continents, taking part in two panels and giving a total of twenty- eight speeches, ten of them part of larger events. Starting out in Europe, in RMS at the LibrePlanet 2019 conference in November, he spoke twice (in Boston Burgos and in Madrid, both in the Kerala Literature Festival (KLF), Spain) at the III Foro de la in Kozhikode, and in the Kochi- Cultura, a forum for examining Muziris Biennale, an art exhibition "the ethical and moral issues and festival that is part of the KLF. around technology" and the need Finally, in Mandya, he took part in for human beings to "defend [their] the inauguration of this year's Free values in the face of the increasing Software Movement Karnataka power of the machine." Then, in Camps (FSMK Camps), a five-day Amsterdam, he took part in the training program for students to year's edition of the Stichting learn how to adopt free software Nationaal Informatica Congres and help their schools transition to (SNiC), SingularIT, at which the using it. speakers shared "how their field Back in North America, in [would] be affected by technology February, he spoke at York that [was] smarter than humanity." University, in Toronto, Canada; in RMS delivered a speech on whether the United States, at Montana we should "have more surveillance State University, in Bozeman; and, than the USSR." Back in Spain, he back in Boston, at LibrePlanet gave a couple of freestanding 2019, he both spoke and presented speeches, in Burjassot and in the Free Software Awards, as is Valladolid, and spoke at LibreCon custom. and at ConsulCon, in Bilbao and In March and April, RMS was Madrid, respectively. back in Europe for a series of talks In January, RMS went to India, in France and Switzerland. He where he gave speeches in New Delhi, started out in Rennes, at inOut, an Kozhikode, Thiruvanamthapuram, event that "explores new mobility and Bengaluru. He also took part in solutions," and at which he had 9 spoken last year as well. He took months, the FSF tech team part in a panel focused on continued our daily work of anonymous transportation. He then maintaining and improving gave freestanding speeches at the infrastructure for the FSF and University of Rennes and in Anthy- GNU, as well as supporting the sur-Léman, before giving several mission of growing the free speeches in Switzerland, in Geneva, software movement. We welcomed Grandvaux, Bern, Gland, and Web developer Michael McMahon Lausanne. as a new addition to the team. He finished up stateside, in April, with an event at Cold Spring At LibrePlanet 2019, in April, Harbor Laboratory, on Long Island, we took charge of streaming all the in New York. talks live, and publishing the videos See fsf. org/events for a list in our GNU MediaGoblin instance of RMS's confirmed engagements. If at media. libreplanet. org. All you would like to extend him a systems were automatically speaking invitation, write him at deployed and managed using rms-assist@. org. Please send Ansible provisioning software, us any photographs you would like us including the streaming and to share on his blog, at recording tool HUBAngl, written fsf. org/blogs/rms, or recordings by former FSF intern David Testé. of his speeches for our audio-video Our spring intern, Valessio Brito, archive, at audio-video. gnu. org. created an information screen system showing schedule information and announcements in the lobby and in News from the tech team talk rooms. All of the tools used to By Andrew Engelbrecht, Ian Kelling, run LibrePlanet are 100% free Michael McMahon, and Ruben software, from registration to video Rodriguez streaming. The tech team herds over a n addition to our role in the hundred virtual machines running I educational project you read on nine servers across four about on page one, for the last six locations. At the main data center, Get 10% off! a new donor, Hurricane , agreed to provide our Internet Support the Free Software service. Migrating to the new IP range took many hours of carefully Foundation by purchasing changing and testing configurations, GNU Press merchandise! which was accomplished without causing any significant downtime. Visit our shop. fsf. org We continued to migrate with new stuff coming soon! virtual machines into our new Enter discount code cluster, also upgrading them to SPRING2019. newer software based on Trisquel 10 8. Senior systems administrator Ian compatible with the WebExtensions Kelling is upgrading and fixing our API, which was continued with email server infrastructure, which research by FSF intern Ethan will make it follow best practices Dorta, and code by FSF chief and be more reliable. As we write technology officer Ruben Rodriguez. this, he has just finished upgrading Since then, it has been extensively GNU Mailman on our internal improved by Giorgio Maone, the instance, and is tackling our main author of the NoScript extension, instance at lists. gnu. org. We as an FSF contractor funded by have also been upgrading other Handshake. His work made LibreJS systems, including our CiviCRM fast, robust, and compatible with instance, a freedom-respecting mobile Mozilla-derived browsers. relationship manager. He also added automated testing Last year, we deployed a Ceph for developers, revamped the user redundant storage system to host interface, implemented whitelist our critical infrastructure (see: and blacklist management, and u. fsf. org/spb8). One server fixed many quirks and corner cases. eventually developed hard-to- The next step for LibreJS will diagnose hardware issues that be to extend and perfect the required intervention, resulting in a methods it implements for tagging lengthy research and testing and recognizing licenses on scripts process, ending with replacing the and Web pages. With that, we will disk controllers on all the servers. be launching new, attractive The incident was resolved with materials to provide technical little downtime, and a performance reference for Web masters on how to upgrade. properly state the licenses used on In the last year, we have also their sites, and information on how given a big push to the GNU LibreJS to integrate licensing data with other project (see: u. fsf. org/librej s). common practices for JavaScript This is an extension for Mozilla-based deployment, documentation, and browsers that makes sure that you maintenance. don't run unintended proprietary All our work would not be JavaScript. It also detects free possible without the continuous software licenses, and it allows you to support of our members and blacklist or whitelist individual scripts donors, and the work of thousands or full domains. LibreJS comes of free software contributors. You preinstalled with the fully-free, can help by joining the GNU privacy-respecting browser GNU developer community, or by IceCat. You can read more about it applying for an internship at the in our previous Bulletin (see: (see: u. fsf. org/spb9). u. fsf. org/gj ). In 2017, GNU volunteer Nate Nichols started a reimplementation of the LibreJS code to make it 11 How to Contribute

Associate Membership: Become an associate member of the FSF. Members will receive a bootable USB card, email forwarding, and an account on the FSF's Jabber/XMPP server. Donate to the FSF with Bitcoin: Plus: participate in our members 13appuhi1CK54BCx73RbBSjesFMYVE Uejt forum at forum. members. fsf. org! To Copyright ©2019 sign up or get more information, Free Software Foundation, Inc. visit member. fsf. org or write to membership@fsf. org. The articles in this Bulletin are individually licensed under the Creative Donate: Make a donation at Commons Attribution No Derivative donate. fsf. org, or contact Works 4.0 license. donate@fsf. org for more https: //creativecommons. org/l information on supporting the icenses/by-nd/4. 0/ FSF. Published twice yearly by the Free Software Foundation, 51 Franklin Jobs: List your job offers on our Street, 5th Floor, Boston, MA 02110­ jobs page: fsf. org/j obs. 1335, (617) 542­5942 ­ info@fsf. org Free Software Directory: This Bulletin was produced using all free Browse and download from software, including Scribus and GIMP. thousands of different free software projects: Photo credits: directory. fsf. org. Page 1: Screenshot of Music Blocks © Copyright 2019 Devin Ulibarri. This Volunteer: To learn more, visit image is licensed under a Creative fsf. org/volunteer. Commons Attribution ShareAlike 4.0 International license. Page 2: Photo Copyright ©2019 Free LibrePlanet: Find local groups in Software Foundation, Inc., by Valessio your area or start your own at Brito. This image is licensed under a libreplanet. org! And join Creative Commons Attribution us for the yearly LibrePlanet ShareAlike 4.0 International license. conference next spring. Page 9: Photo Copyright ©2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc., by Madi Free Software Supporter: Receive Muhlberg. This image is licensed under our monthly email newsletter: a Creative Commons Attribution fsf. org/fss. ShareAlike 4.0 International license.