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Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2022/may

Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software
Foundation's (FSF) monthly news digest and action update -- being read
by you and 228,806 other activists. That's 620 more than last month!

Join our team fighting for freedom! The FSF is hiring, and we are
currently looking for a program manager, temporary
bookkeeper, (new) licensing and compliance manager, and
summer interns. If you are interested in one of these
opportunities, please apply. If you know someone who might be
interested, please forward and share. Thank you!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Find new ways to "live liberation" with LibrePlanet 2022 workshops


• Ten years of stories behind Guix


• Richard Stallman: The state of the free software movement


• EU Ecodesign: Thirty-eight organizations demand the right to access and to reuse hardware


• Twitter buyout puts Mastodon into spotlight


• Facebook doesn’t know what it does with your data, or where it goes: Leaked document


• Announcing the Hare programming language


• Insteon finally comes clean about its sudden smart home shutdown


• The free software community mourns the loss of Pedro Francisco (MasGNULinux)


• April GNU Emacs news


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


• LibrePlanet featured resource: LibrePlanet 2022 video transcripts


• April GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Twenty new GNU releases!


• FSF and other free software events


• Thank GNUs!


• GNU copyright contributions


• Translations of the Free Software Supporter


• Take action with the FSF!

View this issue online here: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2022/may

Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by
adding our subscriber widget to your Web site.

• Subscribe: https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/subscribe


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Miss an issue? You can catch up on back issues at
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter.

Want to read this newsletter translated into another language? Scroll
to the end to read the Supporter in French and Spanish.

Find new ways to "live liberation" with LibrePlanet 2022 workshops

From April 21

As announced at this year's LibrePlanet, the Free Software Foundation
is hosting a series of online workshops over the coming
weeks. Upcoming workshop topics include "IRCNow Of the users, by the
users, for the users," "Software localization (translation) of
Web-based projects," and "Installing ourselves into LibrePlanet."
Dates, times, workshop descriptions, and registration links are
published in this article. Spots are limited, so please register
early.

• http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/find-new-ways-to-live-liberation-with-libreplanet-2022-workshops

Ten years of stories behind Guix

From April 18 by various Guix hackers

Guix is celebrating ten years of development this year and posted an
article in honor of the achievement. A collection of personal stories
from twenty-eight Guix contributors, this article is demonstrative of
a passionate, strong, and creative community. Happy birthday, Guix,
and happy hacking! Note: The FSF is Guix's fiscal sponsor, and you
can donate to support the project's work.

• https://guix.gnu.org/blog/2022/10-years-of-stories-behind-guix/

Richard Stallman: The state of the free software movement

April 13

On April 13, Richard Stallman gave a talk about "The state of the free
software movement." He spoke about where the free software movement is
making gains, such as GNU Health, and places where we are facing new
challenges, such as the scarcity of Libreboot compatible machines. He
also shared tips for how we can tell others that we would not like to
use nonfree software, signaling to them that this is an issue that we
deeply care about, saying that "even if you only do it once you're
helping the movement, because it's an opportunity to explain to people
why it's bad."

• https://www.fsf.org/events/rms-20220413-online

EU Ecodesign: Thirty-eight organizations demand the right to access and to reuse hardware

From April 27 by Free Software Foundation Europe

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) announced its publication
of an open letter, signed by a total of thirty-eight organizations and
companies, to request European Union (EU) legislators for the right to
install any software on any device. The requests are: 1) Universal
right to install any software on any device, 2) free choice of online
service providers, 3) interoperable and compatible devices, and 4)
publication of source code of drivers, tools, and interfaces. Read the
article for more about this strategic advance toward freedom, as well
as how companies and organizations can sign the letter.

• https://fsfe.org/news/2022/news-20220427-01.en.html

Twitter buyout puts Mastodon into spotlight

From April 26 by Eugen Rochko

News that a single person may be a few months away from closing a deal
to purchase controlling shares in Twitter, Inc., has brought people
flocking to Mastodon (pun intended). Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko
shares his thoughts on the sudden growth they've recently experienced
on the federated social media platform, which is a great solution for
you if you are looking to move to a social media platform that
believes "that your ability to communicate online should not be at the
whims of a single commercial company." Read about this growth, and
everything you need to know to join Mastodon. Also, for more
information about microblogging channels the FSF is on and why, check
https://fsf.org/twitter and https://fsf.org/share.

• https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2022/04/twitter-buyout-puts-mastodon-into-spotlight/

Facebook doesn’t know what it does with your data, or where it goes: Leaked document

From April 26 by Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai

Facebook, which the FSF has long called unethical, is finding it
impossible to reconcile its current data malpractices with laws and
regulations meant to protect people's privacy, according to leaked
internal documents. The documents suggest that the company, due to its
structure, is unable to make necessary adjustments to its algorithms
that would guarantee privacy, and thus cannot follow regulations put
in place to do just that. (For more about why the FSF has never
been used by Facebook, and why you shouldn't either, please see
https://www.fsf.org/facebook.)

• https://www.vice.com/en/article/akvmke/facebook-doesnt-know-what-it-does-with-your-data-or-where-it-goes

Announcing the Hare programming language

From April 25 by Drew DeVault

It is not every month that we can share the news of a new programming
language. In late April, after two years of collaborating in private,
the developers of a new programming language called "Hare" are
releasing their work. Licensed under the GNU General Public License
version 3 (GPLv3) with a standard library licensed under the Mozilla
Public License (MPL), both copyleft free software licenses, Hare offers
features such as simple bootstrapping, a password manager, a
microkernel, and OpenGL support. Notably, Hare fits on a 3.5-inch
floppy disk, which is available for purchase to help fund its
continued development.

• https://harelang.org/blog/2022-04-25-announcing-hare/

Insteon finally comes clean about its sudden smart home shutdown

From April 22 by Ron Amadeo

The perils of nonfree software combined with centralized
dis-services
are on full display with the sudden shutdown of a certain brand of
so-called "smart" homes. This article details what happens when such a
dis-service closes its business.

• https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/04/insteon-finally-comes-clean-about-its-sudden-smart-home-shutdown/

The free software community mourns the loss of Pedro Francisco (MasGNULinux)

From April 19 by Luis Falcon

Pedro created and managed MasGNULinux, a Spanish blog with news about
free software and GNU/Linux. MasGNULinux was the best reference in the
latest free software projects for the Spanish speaking community. The
free software community mourns his death.

• http://savannah.gnu.org/forum/forum.php?forum_id=10163

April GNU Emacs news

From April 25 by Sacha Chua

In these issues: What's new in GNU Emacs 28.1, new Flymake syntax
checker package, Elisp programming magic, and more!

• 2022-04-25


• 2022-04-18


• 2022-04-11


• 2022-04-04

Join the FSF and friends in updating the Free Software Directory

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 Libera.Chat, and usually include a handful of
regulars as well as newcomers. Libera.Chat is accessible from any IRC
client -- Everyone's welcome!

The next meeting is Friday, May 6 from 12pm to 3pm EDT (16:00 to
19:00 UTC). Details here:

• https://directory.fsf.org/wiki/Main_Page

LibrePlanet featured resource: LibrePlanet 2022 video transcripts

For this month, we are highlighting the LibrePlanet 2022 video
transcripts page. This page is for transcripts of videos from this
year's LibrePlanet. As of this writing, there is one transcription
that needs editing. We invite the public to contribute new
transcriptions and edits to existing transcriptions. They help with
and accessibility and future translation work.

• https://libreplanet.org/wiki/LibrePlanet:Conference/2022/Transcripts

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

April GNU Spotlight with Amin Bandali: Twenty new GNU releases!

Twenty new GNU releases in the last month (as of April 29, 2022):

• coreutils-9.1


• emacs-28.1


• gama-2.19


• gcc-11.3.0


• gnuhealth-4.0.3


• gnupg-2.3.6


• gzip-1.12


• help2man-1.49.2


• libgcrypt-1.10.1


• mailutils-3.15


• mtools-4.0.39


• nano-6.3


• octave-7.1.0


• parallel-20220422


• parted-3.5


• poke-2.3


• r-4.2.0


• recutils-1.9


• shepherd-0.9.0


• unifont-14.0.03

For announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu
mailing list: https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu.

To download: nearly all GNU software is available from
https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/, or preferably one of its mirrors from
https://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html. You can use the URL
https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a
(hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.

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

If you have a working or partly working program that you'd like
to offer to the GNU Project as a GNU package, see
https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.

Please feel free to write to me, bandali@gnu.org,
with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.

FSF and other free software events

• May 9, 2022, Online, IRCNow: Of the users, by the users, for the users


• May 16, 2022, Online, Software localization (translation) of Web-based projects


• May 23, 2022, Online, Rescheduled: Installing Ourselves into LibrePlanet


• June 21-24, Austin, Texas and Online, OSSNA


• July 17-24, 2022, Prizren, Kosovo, DebConf


• July 22-24, 2022, St. John's University in Queens, New York, HOPE 2022


• July 25-31, 2022, Hilton Los Angeles Airport, California, SCALE


• September 26-30, 2022, Capital Hilton in Washington, D.C., GRCon 2022

Thank GNUs!

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

• https://www.gnu.org/thankgnus/2022supporters.html

This month, a big Thank GNU to:

• Bo Morgan*


• Brendan Copp*


• Brian Strand*


• Christopher Marusich*


• David Caldwell*


• Douglas Hauge*


• Edward Flick


• Elias Rudberg*


• Ethan Nelson


• František Ku?era


• Ivan Shmakov*


• James Tringali*


• John Eikenberry*


• John Rakestraw


• Kate Peterson*


• Kevin McCarthy*


• Mark Owen*


• Masaru Kimura*


• Michael Mauger*


• Michael Stroucken*


• Michal Toman*


• Olaf Meeuwissen*


• Philip Piantone*


• Raffael Stocker


• Thomas Brown*


• Tony Edwards*

* Indicates donors whose one-time or cumulative donations in 2021
made them eligible for acknowledgement, who agreed to a public thank
you, but who for technical reasons were not recognized until this
month.

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

GNU copyright contributions

Assigning your copyright to the Free Software Foundation helps us
defend the GNU GPL and keep software free. The following individuals
have assigned their copyright to the FSF (and allowed public
appreciation) in the past month:

• Ali Reza Hayati (GNU Education)


• Emmanouil Tsamis (GCC, GDB, GNU C Library, GNU Binutils)


• Felix Dietrich (GNU Emacs)


• Haneda Junya (GNU Emacs)


• Jash Parag Shah (Gnuastro)


• Johannes Joseph Hamelink (GNU Emacs)


• Kai Tetzlaff (GNU Emacs)


• Lucien Cartier-Tilet (GNU Emacs)


• Piotr Kwiecinski (GNU Emacs)


• Syrmia LLC (GCC)


• Visuwesh (GNU Emacs)


• Yuwei Tian (GNU Emacs)

Want to see your name on this list? Contribute to GNU and assign your
copyright to the FSF.

• https://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#dev

Translations of the Free Software Supporter

El Free Software Supporter está disponible en español. Para ver la
versión en español haz click aqui:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2022/mayo

Para cambiar las preferencias de usuario y recibir los próximos
números del Supporter en español, haz click aquí:
https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?reset=1&gid=34&id=59606&cs=852c7f41c0e30dc94aeb5bedc12a4106_1651596942_168

Le Free Software Supporter est disponible en français. Pour voir la
version française cliquez ici:
https://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter/2022/mai

Pour modifier vos préférences et recevoir les prochaines
publications du Supporter en français, cliquez ici:
https://my.fsf.org/civicrm/profile/create?reset=1&gid=34&id=59606&cs=852c7f41c0e30dc94aeb5bedc12a4106_1651596942_168

Take action with the FSF!

Contributions from thousands of individual associate members enable
the FSF's work. You can contribute by joining at
https://my.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!
https://my.fsf.org/join

The FSF is always looking for volunteers
(https://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 campaigns section
(https://www.fsf.org/campaigns) and take action on software
patents, Digital Restrictions
Management, free
software adoption,
OpenDocument,
and more.

Do you read and write Portuguese and English? The FSF is looking
for translators for Free Software Supporter. Please send an email to
campaigns@fsf.org with your interest and a list of your experience
and qualifications.

Copyright © 2022 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.