Bulletin Issue 27

November 2015

Contents

For our thirtiethanniversary, thirtythings we do at the FSF

1

FSF is seen as a guidinglight: help us shinebrighter

4

The time to fight backagainst TPP is now

5

Winter Book Club withGNU Press!

6

Popular education,movements and freesoftware

7

Administrate files, notsystems

8

On the road with RMS 9Privacy – who needs it? 10

For our thirtieth

anniversary, thirty

things we do at the FSF

by John Sullivan

Executive Director

The Free Software Foundation (FSF)turned thirty years old on Octo-

ber 4th, 2015. We celebrated the oc-casion — not just what it means forthe organization, but what it meansfor the success and longevity of thefree software movement — with a day-

Share the badges at u.fsf.org/badges.

time User Freedom Summit, followedby an evening party featuring toastsby longtime friends and associates ofthe FSF, and an address by our pres-ident Richard M. Stallman (RMS).Friends around the world also cele-brated, putting on over 22 events in 8countries. Individuals who couldn’t at-tend events watched our free-software-powered video stream.1

At the FSF and in the GNU Proj-ect, we want all computer users to beable to do everything they need todo on any computer, using only freesoftware. The FSF has been workingtoward this goal for thirty years.

In order to make steady progresstoward our goal, the FSF divides its re-

1fsf.org/fsf30

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sources (over 80 percent of which comefrom individuals) between three ma-jor areas of work — advocating andspreading free software ideals; promot-ing and facilitating use of free softwarelicenses, especially the copyleft GNUGeneral Public License; and drivingactual development of free programs.

In honor of the thirtieth anniver-sary, here are thirty concrete things wedo at the FSF to transform our globalsociety into one which respects com-puter user freedom.

1. Provide general infrastructuresupport for GNU developers, in-cluding software hosting, Webspace, mailing lists, copyright as-signment, and more

2. Support fundraising and promo-tion for Replicant, as part of ourinitiative to create fully free mo-bile devices

3. Support fundraising and promo-tion for GNU MediaGoblin, aspart of our initiative to ad-vance free, decentralized replace-ments for network services thatthreaten user freedom

4. Maintain the High Priority Proj-ects List to inspire and organizefree software development in keyareas

5. Speak at events all over theworld advocating free softwareand copyleft

6. Organize the annual Interna-tional Day Against DRM (Dig-ital Restrictions Management)

7. Run the annual LibrePlanet con-ference

8. Submit briefs to key SupremeCourt cases, such as those onsoftware patents and copyrightissues, and file other official com-ments to agencies like the FCCand Library of Congress

9. Fight against plans to have an of-ficial DRM extension to HTML5

10. Certify and promote hardwarethat requires only free software,under our Respects Your Free-dom program

11. Produce an annual Giving Guideencouraging freedom-friendly gifts,and organize events around theworld to distribute it in key shop-ping areas

12. Help people get started usingspecific free programs, such asour Email Self-Defense Guide,which teaches people how to en-crypt their email

13. Speak to journalists at all kindsof publications about the neces-sity of free software and fun-damental flaws with proprietarysoftware

14. Host the monthly Boston Civi-CRM meetup at our office

15. Receive frequent visitors fromaround the world who want tosee the home of GNU and theFSF

16. Encourage and help other non-profits use free software for theiroperations like we do, whethertheir mission focuses on technol-ogy or not

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17. Celebrate achievements by oth-ers in the free software move-ment, such as through our annualFree Software Awards

18. Answer thousands of questionsemailed (and snail mailed!) to usby people wanting to know moreabout free software

19. Build the Free Software Direc-tory and the community of con-tributors around it so that peo-ple can find free software to doeverything they need to do

20. Build a database of hardwarethat works with free operatingsystems, at h-node.org, so peo-ple know what to buy

21. Enforce the GPL family of li-censes, following up on reportsof companies not following theirterms

22. Answer hundreds of questionseach year from developers abouthow to properly use free softwarelicenses for their work

23. Fund Outreachy, as part of oursupport for initiatives to improvediversity in the free softwaremovement

24. Make attractive materials ex-plaining the basics of free softwareto newcomers, like our “Usr Lib”video, and organize translationsof our materials into many dif-ferent languages

25. Campaign for the abolition ofsoftware patents (not just fight-ing “bad” patents or “trolls”)

26. Campaign against Restricted Bootand other attempts to lock downour devices

27. Run a Tor relay node, and par-ticipate in efforts to expand theTor network

28. Produce and sell printed freelylicensed documentation, bothtechnical and philosophical

29. Contribute code to free softwarethat we use

30. Host GPL compliance seminarsand help steward copyleft.org

This list does not cover everythingthat we do. Nor does it cover all of thethings we need to be doing. But wehave to consider whether it’s too manythings for our staff of twelve, our ninevolunteer board members, and our coreteam of community contributors, totackle at once. We take on so manythings because we don’t want to ig-nore any threats to user freedom, ormiss any opportunities to expand thismovement.

During his address at the anniver-sary event in Boston, RMS said, “Ifyou want to finish something tak-ing decades, nothing’s more importantthan remembering where you’re tryingto get to.” I’d also add, you’d betterknow where you are.

We’re taking the occasion of thissignificant anniversary to start a year-long intensive process of reviewingwhere we are — taking stock of ourcurrent initiatives, making sure wehave appropriate metrics and desiredoutcomes associated with each one,and assessing how we use our resourcesin light of that information. With aclearer sense of where we are, we canimprove our efficiency, and do a bet-ter job at prioritizing what’s most im-portant. Being able to clearly demon-strate our successes will in turn lead to

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more resources, enabling us to expandand take on more projects.

You can help with this effort —you can always send your thoughts toinfo@fsf.org, but we’ll also be offer-ing more structured opportunities toprovide feedback. I hope you’ll partic-ipate. Make sure you are on our mainmailing list at fsf.org/fss to receivethe announcements.

I look forward to sharing the re-sults of this reflection with you. Wegreatly appreciate all the contributionsyou make in the form of time, money,and ideas. We couldn’t do any of thiswork without you, and all of us at theFSF are determined to be the most ef-fective organization we can be for you.

Here’s to the next thirty years!

FSF is seen as a

guiding light: help

us shine brighterby Georgia Young

Program Manager

Autumn has arrived here in Boston,and as the leaves change, the FSF

has, too. There are several new faceson staff, and a few people have shiftedroles. We celebrated our thirtieth an-niversary, but there’s no time to reston our laurels — we’re looking aheadto the free software community’s futureactions and achievements.

What keeps us going, you mightwonder. Of course, our vision of aworld where all software is free isparamount to the work we do. Butthe twelve of us who make up the FSFstaff rely on you. You give your time:translating FSF materials into multi-ple languages, coming to the FSF of-fice to help with our semi-annual Bul-letin mailing, contributing to the Free

Software Directory, assisting with ev-ery aspect of the annual LibrePlanetconference, representing us at the FSFbooth at conferences around the world,even pointing out bugs on our Websites. Your passion and dedication tothe cause extends our reach and helpsour small staff make the most of thework we do.

And yes, your financial support iscrucial to our work, too. We haveabout 3,400 members, each of whomhas agreed to put their money wheretheir mouth is, on a monthly or an-nual basis. Memberships account fornearly half of our funds each year, andin the last year, more than 80 per-cent of our funding came from individ-uals, both members and non-memberdonors. That’s a staggering amount ofsupport from people like you, and clearproof that the FSF simply could notexist without you.

Raising money takes work. Atpresent, the FSF does not have astaff position dedicated exclusively tofundraising. The campaigns team —Zak, Georgia, and Stephen — overseemuch of our fundraising work, but ev-

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erybody on staff helps out, by encour-aging free software enthusiasts to be-come members, helping with the Bul-letin mailing, and most of all, by sim-ply working hard to fulfill the missionof the FSF, which is why you give inthe first place.

We at the FSF have been think-ing about our strengths and identify-ing places where we can be more effec-tive. We know that the FSF is seen as aguiding light for the free software com-munity, and that we achieve that bylistening to your ideas and your needs,and gratefully accepting the time yougive and your participation in oppor-tunities for activism, along with yourgenerous financial contributions. Per-haps our biggest strength is that whenit comes to free software, we don’t justtalk the talk, we walk the walk: all ofour work is done using free software.It’s important to us to show that itcan be done: a nonprofit with an in-ternational scope can do its work with-out proprietary software. One way wecan expand the reach of free softwareis by inspiring other nonprofits to fol-low our example. Do you know a non-profit that would benefit from usingfree software for their work?

For me, the next big thing on thehorizon is our LibrePlanet conferenceon March 19-20, 2016, in the Bostonarea.2 By the time you read this, wewill be reviewing responses to our callfor sessions. The theme of this year’sconference is “Fork the System.” We’lllook at how free software creates theopportunity of a new path for its usersand their communities, allows develop-ers to fight the restrictions of a systemdominated by proprietary software bycreating free replacements, and is the

2u.fsf.org/1hb

foundation of the philosophy of free-dom, sharing, and change that we alllove so well. Most likely, if you receivedthis newsletter in the mail, you’re anFSF member already — and membersget gratis admission to LibrePlanet.Registration is open now.3 If you’renot yet a member, consider joining now— you’ll get to take advantage of thisgreat benefit, and you’ll help make theFSF’s light burn brighter.4

Get 10% off!

Support the Free Software

Foundation by purchasing

GNU Press merchandise.

Visit shop.fsf.org and enter

discount code

BulletinNov2015.

The time to fight back

against TPP is nowby Donald Robertson, III

Copyright and Licensing

Associate

At the start of October 2015, itwas announced that negotiators of

the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)had reached an accord, meaning thatthe agreement would now go back tothe member countries for ratification.The FSF has long been arguing againstthese secret negotiations, which havebeen going on for years. Shortly afterthe accord was reached, the final textwas apparently leaked as well, and un-fortunately all the issues that we de-

3u.fsf.org/lp16reg4fsf.org/join

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cried as further restricting user free-dom were still included in the final doc-ument. From the point that the agree-ment was reached until it is ratified,the process is now on a set schedulethat could see TPP come to pass bythe start of 2016.

On October 23rd, I had the chanceto speak at the Seattle GNU/LinuxConference about the threat of TPPand other international “trade” agree-ments. The talk was on the facts ofthese agreements, which have little todo with trade, and a lot to do withcontrol. After the talk, there were stilla lot of questions and it was great tosee so many come by the FSF booth todiscuss the issues further. Many foundit frustrating that the threat of TPPis something that they hadn’t heardmuch about previously. But one com-ment in particular stuck in my mind,from an audience member who foundit strange that our talk about TPPwas in such a calm tone. Hearinghow TPP and other trade agreementslike it could lock countries all aroundthe world into potentially perpetualcopyright, spreading the worst aspectsof the Digital Millennium CopyrightAct (DMCA) everywhere, and muddy-ing the waters around other issues likesoftware patents or net neutrality, theywere getting angrier and angrier.

Anger is a natural response, and ifyou’re just learning about TPP now,we hope you are angry about our free-dom being traded away. Getting theword out hasn’t always been easy;international trade agreements aren’tthe type of simple-to-digest stories thatmake the nightly news. It’s generallyseemed like the voices from those of usspeaking up about the issue were notbeing heard, and that often leaves onein a state of frustration. But in many

ways anger is something you feel whenyou don’t have the power to changethings. Anger is born out of helpless-ness at a situation that seems insur-mountable. But the truth of the mat-ter is, we’re not powerless. If you’veonly heard of TPP recently, then getangry, but then get active!

If you’re hearing us now for thefirst time, help spread our voice, as theclock is ticking. Contact your repre-sentatives, organize local actions, andkeep up-to-date on what you can do.Join us in this fight and don’t let free-dom be traded away. Don’t let theanger you feel now turn into the resent-ment of what could have been done.

To keep up to date on the latest ac-tions and news join us at u.fsf.org/

trading-freedom.

The new edition of Free Software, Free

Society has a redesigned cover.

Winter Book Club with

GNU Press!by Chrissie Himes

Operations Assistant

This fall, GNU Press launched neweditions of two old favorites, the

Emacs Reference Manual and FreeSoftware, Free Society. Proceeds fromthe book sales will go to fund our ef-

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forts to protect and promote computerusers’ freedom.

Learn GNU Emacs via the EmacsReference Manual (version 24.5). Eachmanual comes with an Emacs Refer-ence Card, which can also be pur-chased separately at shop.fsf.org.By embracing GNU Emacs, program-mers can revel in having an extensi-ble Lisp playground to automate theirworkflow environment. There is nowa channel on Freenode called #emacs-beginners that is dedicated to assistingpeople through the learning process.

Free Software, Free Society: Se-lected Essays of Richard M. Stallmanis now in its third edition. Thebook showcases the relevancy of freesoftware and addresses the evolving listof threats to both our freedom and ourprivacy. The book is available in pa-perback and in hardcover.

Fans of both books or many ofthe others listed on GNU Press shouldshare their thoughts in #fsf on Freen-ode. Free software advocates here inBoston have even created their ownfree software reading group, similar toa book club. We also welcome discus-sion on the LibrePlanet mailing list.5

As always, please add your GNUPress suggestions to our Ideas page.6

Associate members of the Free SoftwareFoundation get a 20% discount onall purchases made through the GNUPress store, so if you are not a mem-ber already, join today! For announce-ments about new products available inthe GNU Press store, subscribe to themailing list.7

5u.fsf.org/1ho6u.fsf.org/1hm7u.fsf.org/1hn

Popular education,

movements and free

softwareby Stephen Mahood

Outreach and Communication

Coordinator

One of the great challenges in lifeand movement work is connecting

ideas and philosophies from one groupto another. Oftentimes, while unin-tended, the discussions may trail awayfrom each other and parts of the com-munity can be left out or disconnectedfrom the rest. This occurs in both techand non-tech communities, as well asamong experienced and inexperiencedactivists in different communities.

In attempting to address dispar-ities between different communities,one can look at popular education.Some may be familiar with books likePedagogy of the Oppressed orWe Makethe Road by Walking. The methodol-ogy is to connect to people where theyare, which may require learning aboutthe participants’ backgrounds and un-derstanding. The education modelworks in both directions from the stu-dent to the instructor. It is a com-mon thread in the work of various so-cial movements, such as labor unions.

In October, I participated in a pop-ular education experience that tack-led the topic of free/libre software insocial movement work. Software Li-bre Izquerda (“leftist free software”),is a conference, or what some may callan “unconference” with no predeter-mined agenda.8 A theme is agreedahead of time, but the structure of ses-sions is left open. It brought togethera number of people from various or-ganizations stemming from groups in-

8sl-izq.net

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volved in struggles across the world,with a focus on Mexico and LatinAmerica. Attendees had diverse back-grounds and many were not technicalat all, so some did not understand con-cepts like “software libre.” To addressthis, we tackled different parts of theoverall theme, including licensing, freesoftware, free culture, digital security,and cooperative hardware. We vis-ited each theme to discuss and submitquestions. Questions were then sharedwith interested participants to developa session to try to answer them.

Our group on the theme of freesoftware and free culture had activistswith backgrounds in radio and edu-cation. Together, we created a sce-nario to connect with the larger group.In our scenario, we developed a ra-dio show featuring a very popular dishin Mexico and Latin America calledmole, which has many different recipes.One of the disc jockeys (DJ) sharedtheir grandmother’s recipe. When weopened up the telephone lines, the firstcaller asked if she could make it with-out chicken, as she is vegan. After dis-cussion, another person asked if theycould use it in any form that they wish.Another caller inquired whether theycould modify it and then distributetheir modifications. These discussionsbrought up the four freedoms of freesoftware. For a juxtaposition, I calledin posing as a representative from amultinational company offering to buythe recipe and make the DJ millions ofdollars, but my company would copy-right the recipe and never allow it tobe shared without permission.

Through these popular educationmethods, we included the experiencesof the facilitating group and connectedto the local cultural norms. We fo-cused on the four freedoms to express

the importance of them without focus-ing on the technical end, which notonly kept interest but brought under-standing to the concepts and the baseof the movement. We should celebratethese methods, while sharing with ev-eryone how to connect the groups tothat struggle. Come to libreplanet.organd share your ideas with us on waysyou have connected.

Administrate files, not

systemsby Lisa Marie Maginnis

Senior SysAdmin

For as long as computer sciencehas allowed us to build large com-

plex networks out of various individ-ual nodes, the problem of how to ad-ministrate the systems has always beentrouble. There are many theories, ap-proaches, and practices people use totry to overcome this simple problem,but sometimes there are strings at-tached to managing a large group ofmachines with minimal time and effort.

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At the FSF, we have a very small(but talented!) technical team. Tocope with this resource shortage, wesubscribe to the paradigm of meta-system-administration. The concept issimple: instead of trying to administerall the machines individually, with thepotential of creating unique snowflakeissues, we manage a set of configura-tion files that define all the hosts on thenetwork, actually limiting the amountof snowflakes to make a more main-tainable network. This way, we spendour time managing a central store ofconfiguration files and not each ma-chine. In addition, it allows us to re-build hosts on short notice since eachhost is fully reproducible.

To achieve this we use Fully Au-tomatic Installer (FAI), and routinemaintenance of our network.9 The FAIproject has the added bonus of beingwritten completely in GNU Bash, fromthe configuration files themselves, tothe FAI client and server software it-self. This makes debugging simple,since you can debug it as you wouldany other shell script. In addition,this means that any feature you thinkFAI is missing can be added by addingfunctionality to the configuration files,or even the Bash scripts.

We share our FAI configurationfiles with the entire world, at vcs.

fsf.org/fai-configs.git so otherscan use and modify the same config-urations the FSF uses. By the sametoken, other organizations and individ-uals who also share their configurationfiles allow us to simply pick and choosethe parts we want or need to add to ournetwork.

9fai-project.org

Current and former FSF Board, staff and

interns at FSF30

On the road with RMSby Jeanne Rasata

Assistant to the President

For over thirty years, Richard Stall-man has been campaigning for

software freedom, reaching out to au-diences large and small, advocating,seemingly indefatigably, for computerusers’ rights, in a broad range of venuesacross the globe. While these pastsix months were no exception, sincehe gave almost forty speeches in overthirty cities in eleven countries, theydid provide a formal opportunity topause and take stock, to reflect onall that’s been accomplished, and toplan for and look forward to what liesahead: on October 3rd, RMS and therest of the free software communitycame together to celebrate thirty yearsof the Free Software Foundation.

RMS was in Boston for the fes-tivities, and helped mark the anniver-sary with an address and the launchof the third edition of his selected es-says, Free Software, Free Society. Thebook remains an excellent introductionto the fundamentals of free softwareand makes an even stronger case forsoftware freedom. It raises the issue offreedom as it relates to hardware de-signs and holds updates on the trapsand challenges we face, including the

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dangers of digital surveillance. It’sa book that RMS “hope[s] can showyou how you might lose your freedom,teach you how to protect it, and inspireyou to value it.”

RMS’s new book is available fromthe FSF’s shop, at u.fsf.org/zi.Please write to rms-assist@gnu.org

with any photographs you would likeus to share on RMS’s blog, at fsf.

org/blogs/rms, with recordings of hisspeeches for audio-video.gnu.org,or to extend a speaking invitation toRMS. See u.fsf.org/129 for a list of

his confirmed engagements.

Privacy – who needs it?by Zak Rogoff

Campaigns Manager

Though not everyone agrees on theexact extent to which surveillance

should be limited, there are many fac-ing a kind of surveillance that is def-initely unethical, and educating yournetwork is a good way to build a move-ment against this. Teaching peopleabout privacy is also a perfect oppor-tunity to explain computer user free-dom, because real privacy solutionsmust start with free software.

This essay provides two resourcesfor someone seeking to educate or learnabout free privacy tech: a list ofarchetypal characters that can benefitfrom the software, to help personalizethe issue, and an explanation of whyfree privacy tech is worth using, even

for those that don’t identify with thearchetypes.

This is only an introduction — any-one in real danger must work to under-stand these tools and verify for them-selves that they are using them ap-propriately. A Web search will revealmyriad resources for each of the toolsmentioned, and the Electronic FrontierFoundation’s Surveillance Self-DefenseGuide provides a good starting placefor further research.10

Archetypes of people that need

free privacy tech

• A teenager in an oppressive fam-ily who wants to read queer lit-erature

• A young woman that is secretlypregnant, looking for health in-formation

• A domestic violence victim search-ing for a hotline to get help

The threat: abusive family mem-bers with traffic-sniffing tools

Some privacy tools that would

help:

• HTTPSWeb encryption with theHTTPS Everywhere browser ex-tension

• strong passwords created with arandom password generator

• a VPN (virtual private network)

• GnuPG email encryption (seeemailselfdefense.fsf.org fora beginner-friendly guide)

This is probably the most commontype of threat. However, people who

10ssd.eff.org

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have a visible presence on the Internetoften face more technologically sophis-ticated snoopers. For example:

• A journalist challenging sexismin online communities

• Activists from an oppressed cul-tural minority fighting for theirhuman rights

The threat: harassment orthreats by political opponents

Some privacy tools that would

help:

• all of the above, plus

• anonymous browsing with Tor

As people are increasingly aware,speaking about controversial subjectson the Internet can provoke some meanand violent harassment. Sometimestechnologically skilled online harasserscan identify their victim’s phone num-bers, address or employer and sharethe information publicly, to provokeeven worse harassment. This is calleddoxxing.

Last but not least, there is the best-known category of people that needprivacy tools — those that are beingspied on by large organizations withlots of technological resources:

• An employee that has witnesseda corporate crime and wants totell a journalist about it

• A government employee thatneeds to expose illegal bulksurveillance

The threat: communication andtech companies, potentially cooperat-ing with government cyber military

organizations like the NSA (USA),GCHQ (UK), Golden Shield (China)

Some privacy tools that would

help:

• all of the above, plus

• full-disk hard drive encryption,

Even if you can’t relate to thesearchetypes, there are good reasons touse free software privacy and securitytools. It helps you practice in case youneed them later or want to teach some-one. It encourages other people youcommunicate with to learn how to usethem, and it makes it more sociallymainstream to use the tools. Rightnow, many of the people that needthem most have no idea they even ex-ist. It’s also a great opportunity topromote free software in general. It in-creases the total amount of protectedtraffic moving through the Internet,which means that it’s harder for somekinds of bulk surveillance techniques tooperate. Finally, it gives you a chanceto find problems with the tools andreport them to the developers, poten-tially improving the situation for ev-eryone.

We live in a time of rapid tech-nological change and our culture andgovernment do not always keep pacewith the new threats that these techno-logical changes bring against our free-dom and privacy. Innocent peopleare threatened by surveillance everyday, and spreading free software pri-vacy tools can help them. Let’s resistunethical surveillance together!

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The articles in this bulletin areindividually licensed under theCreative Commons Attribu-

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