Free Software Supporter -- Issue 56, November 2012

# Free Software Supporter 
Issue 56, November 2012

Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software Foundation's
monthly news digest and action update -- being read by you and
64,307 other activists. That's 1,124 more than
last month!

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## TABLE OF CONTENTS

* Give freely this Cyber Monday: Introducing the 2012 Giving Guide  
* Tell Amazon: Books and libraries shouldn't have a kill switch  
* MediaGoblin crowdfunding campaign: huge success!  
* Let’s limit the effect of software patents, since we can’t eliminate them  
* Left wondering why VLC relicensed to LGPL  
* Good "End Software Patents" video – not by us  
* Finnish activist, Danish hacker share Nordic Free Software Award 2012  
* LibreWRT: What we use for wifi at the FSF  
* FSFE meeting the FSF crew in Boston  
* Fall 2012: Photos from ICT Goes International, in Helsinki  
* FSF to begin accepting scanned assignments from Germany  
* Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory  
* LibrePlanet featured resource: 2013 LibrePlanet conference  
* GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry: 22 new GNU releases!  
* GNU Toolchain update  
* Richard Stallman's speaking schedule  
* Thank GNUs!  
* Take action with the FSF  

### Give freely this Cyber Monday: Introducing the 2012 Giving Guide

*From November 26th*

Holiday shopping has begun! Unfortunately, most technology gifts are
Trojan horses that will spy on their recipients, prevent them from
doing what they want with their device, or maybe even block access to
their favorite books or music.

The Free Software Foundation is proud to introduce the antidote: our
2012 Giving Guide. The Giving Guide features gifts that will not only
make your recipients jump for joy, these gifts will also protect their
user freedom.

  *
<http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/give-freely-this-cyber...>

Go directly to the Giving Guide:

  * <http://www.fsf.org/givingguide>

Or check out the Defective by Design blog post about the Giving Guide:

  * <http://www.defectivebydesign.org/node/2251?pk_campaign=11...>

And our press release:

  *
<http://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-encourag...>

### Tell Amazon: Books and libraries shouldn't have a kill switch

*From November 8th*

Imagine if you came home and discovered all of your bookshelves
ransacked, their contents nowhere to be found. That's what happened to
Amazon customer Linn, but the bookshelves were digital. Read more
and take action against Amazon's unfair use of DRM.

  * <http://www.defectivebydesign.org/node/2250?pk_campaign=11...>

### MediaGoblin crowdfunding campaign: huge success!

*From November 12th*

Chris Webber of MediaGoblin writes "This is no small accomplishment
and we should feel proud of it... we deserve to feel proud of it!

"So you are probably wondering! What exactly did you all finance? How
can you expect this set of money to be used? Well, let me tell you!
Basically: you have bought a year (plus a couple bonus months,
actually) of me working on MediaGoblin fulltime!"

  * <http://mediagoblin.org/news/we-did-it.html>

### Let’s limit the effect of software patents, since we can’t eliminate them

*From November 2nd*

In this WIRED article, Richard Stallman shares his radical proposal to
end the crisis of software patents, writing "My suggestion is to
change the effect of patents. We should legislate that developing,
distributing, or running a program on generally used computing
hardware does not constitute patent infringement."

  *
<http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/let-s-limit-the-effect-of-so...>

Here's the article on the WIRED website:

  * <http://www.wired.com/opinion/2012/11/richard-stallman-sof...>

Here's a post from the End Software Patents campaign about RMS's
article:

  * <http://news.swpat.org/2012/11/completely-shielding-software/>

### Left wondering why VLC relicensed to LGPL

*From November 22nd*

FSF board member Bradley Kuhn asks, "Do they want proprietary
application interfaces that use their core libraries? If so, I'm left
wondering why: VLC is already so popular that they could pull adopters
toward software freedom by using the strong copyleft of GPL. It seems
to me they're making a bad trade-off to get only marginally more
popular by allowing some proprietary derivatives."

  * <http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/left-wondering-why-vlc...>

### Good “End Software Patents” video –- not by us

*From November 28th*

There’s a good anti-software-patent video on YouTube (in WebM video
format). Despite the name it has no connection to the End Software
Patents campaign, but it’s a very good two-minute video explaining
some of the problems of software patents.

  * <http://news.swpat.org/2012/11/good-end-software-patents-v...>

To download the video directly without using YouTube's nonfree
JavaScript, install youtube-dl and run this command:

  youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkWPGwfuQcM&webm=1" -o EndSoftwarePatents.webm -f 45

### Finnish activist, Danish hacker share Nordic Free Software Award 2012

*From November 12th*

With the Nordic Free Software award, given out for the 6th time this
year, the Swedish Association for Free Software and Free Culture
(FFKP, Föreningen Fri Kultur och Programvara) honors people and
projects who have made important contributions to software freedom.

  * <http://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20121112-01.en.html>

### LibreWRT: What we use for wifi at the FSF

*From November 6th*

Sysadmin Martin Dluhos would like to take a few moments to introduce
Buffalo, the access point and router which provides network
connectivity to portable computers in the FSF's office.

  * <http://www.fsf.org/blogs/sysadmin/librewrt-what-we-use-fo...>

### FSFE meeting the FSF crew in Boston

*From October 30th*

Matthias Kirschner of FSF Europe writes: "I like it when I have the
opportunity to talk to people with whom I usually just write e-mails.
So before my vacation, I made a side trip to visit some FSF activists
in Boston."

  * <https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=1017>

### Fall 2012: Photos from ICT Goes International, in Helsinki

On November 6th, RMS was in Helsinki, Finland, at Haaga-Helia
University of Applied Sciences to deliver a couple of speeches to some
250 teachers and students, including a how-to for beginning
contributing to a free software project and doing a good job.

  * <http://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/20121106-helsinki>

### FSF to begin accepting scanned assignments from Germany

*From November 15th*

The FSF is pleased to announce that we can begin accepting scanned
copyright assignments from contributors residing in Germany.

  * <http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/fsf-to-begin-accepting...>

### Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory

*From November 29th*

Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to
discover free software. Each entry in the Directory contains a wealth
of useful information, from basic category and descriptions to version
control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing. The Free Software
Directory has been a great resource to software users over the past
decade, but it needs your help staying up-to-date with new and
exciting free software projects.

To help, join our weekly IRC meetings on Fridays. Meetings take place
in the #fsf channel on irc.gnu.org, and usually include a handful of
regulars as well as newcomers. Everyone's welcome.

The next meeting is Friday, December 7th from 2 PM to 5 PM EDT (19:00 to 22:00 UTC). Details here:

  *
<http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/join-the-fsf-and-frien...>

After this meeting, check <http://fsf.org/events> for the rest of November's weekly meetings.

### LibrePlanet featured resource: 2013 LibrePlanet conference

Every month on LibrePlanet, we highlight one resource that is
interesting and useful -- often one that could use your help.

For this month, we are highlighting the page for the March 2013
LibrePlanet conference, a yearly gathering of the global free software
community. Visit the page to stay up-to-date on conference details and 
make suggestions for lightning talks.

  * <http://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet:Conference/2013>

Do you have a suggestion for next month's featured resource? Let us
know at <campaigns@fsf.org>.

### GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry: 22 new GNU releases!

22 new GNU releases this month (as of November 27, 2012):

* autoconf-archive-2012.11.14
* gengetopt-2.22.6
* libzrtpcpp-2.3.2
* automake-1.12.5
* global-6.2.5
* parallel-20121122
* binutils-2.23.1
* gnunet-0.9.4
* pyconfigure-0.1
* bison-2.6.5
* gnunet-gtk-0.9.4
* sipwitch-1.4.0
* ccrtp-2.0.5
* gnutls-3.1.5
* solfege-3.20.7
* complexity-1.0
* libmicrohttpd-0.9.23
* ucommon-6.0.1
* ed-1.7
* librejs-4.9.2
* freeipmi-1.2.3
* libtasn1-3.1

To get announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu
mailing list: <http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu>. Nearly
all GNU software is available from <http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/>, or
preferably one of its mirrors (<http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html>). You
can use the url <http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/> to be automatically
redirected to a (hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.

I'd like to specially mention the first release of GNU pyconfigure
<http://www.gnu.org/software/pyconfigure/>, which provides developers
using Python's setup.py for their package with ways to support the
standard GNU configure && make installation method.

Another special mention for Ludovic Courtes for his new GNU package
(system) Guix, <http://www.gnu.org/software/guix/>, going along with all
his work on Guile.

We also welcome Dimitry Bogatov as the new maintainer of GNU Thales,
Brian Lane and Phillip Susi as new co-maintainers of GNU parted,
Hellekin and Daniel Reusche as new co-maintainers of GNU social,
Fabio Gonzalez as the author and maintainer of the new GNU package fcrypt,
and Paulo Cesar Pereira de Andrade as the new maintainer of
GNU lightning.

A number of GNU packages, as well as the GNU operating system as a
whole, are looking for maintainers and other assistance. Please see
<http://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint> if you'd like to
help. The general page on how to help GNU is at
<http://www.gnu.org/help/help.html>. To submit new packages to the GNU
operating system, see <http://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html>.

As always, please feel free to write to me, <karl@gnu.org>, with any
GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.

### GNU Toolchain update

*From November 19th*

The GNU toolchain refers to the part of the GNU system which is used
for building programs. These components of GNU are together often on
other systems and for compiling programs for other platforms.

  * <http://nickclifton.livejournal.com/12012.html>

### Richard Stallman's speaking schedule

For event details, as well as to sign-up to be notified for future
events in your area, please visit <www.fsf.org/events>.

So far, Richard Stallman has the following events in December and January:

* Dec 01, 2012, 05:30 PM, Goiânia, Brazil, ["El software libre y tu
libertad"](http://www.fsf.org/events/20121201-goiania)
* Dec 11, 2012, 10:00 AM, Sao Carlos, Brazil, ["A Free Digital
Society"](http://www.fsf.org/events/20121211-saocarlos)
* Dec 12, 2012, 02:00 PM, Sorocaba, Brazil, ["Free Software and Your
Freedom"](http://www.fsf.org/events/20121212-sorocaba)
* Jan 17, 2013, 04:15 PM, Ann Arbor, MI, ["A Free Digital
Society"](http://www.fsf.org/events/20130117-annarbor)

### Thank GNUs!

We appreciate everyone who donates to the Free Software Foundation,
but we'd like to give special recognition to the folks who have
donated $500 or more in the last month. 

  * <http://www.gnu.org/thankgnus/2012supporters.html>

This month, a big Thank GNU to:

* Chapman Shoop  
* Trevor Spiteri  
* Aaron Culich
* Peter Kunze
* Alessandro Vesely
* Colin Carr
* Neal Pawar
* Alison Chaiken
* Norman Richards
* Adam Klotblixt
* Jelte van der Hoek  
* Ken Wong  
* Boulder Labs, Inc.  
* Aeva Palecek
* Sebastian Spaeth
* Nathan Yergler
* Jeffrey Moe

You can add your name to this list by donating at
<https://donate.fsf.org>.

### Take action with the FSF

Contributions from thousands of individual members enable the FSF's
work. You can contribute by joining at <http://www.fsf.org/join>. If
you're already a member, you can help refer new members (and earn some
rewards) by adding a line with your member number to your email
signature like:

  I'm an FSF member -- Help us support software freedom!
  <http://www.fsf.org/jf?referrer=2442>

The FSF is also always looking for volunteers
(<http://www.fsf.org/volunteer>). From rabble-rousing to hacking, from
issue coordination to envelope stuffing -- there's something here for
everybody to do. Also, head over to our campaign section
(<http://www.fsf.org/campaigns>) and take action on software patents,
DRM, free software adoption, OpenDocument, RIAA and more.

###

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