[Solar-general] Fwd: Free Software Supporter Issue 42, September 2011

Sab Oct 1 01:38:40 CEST 2011

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Free Software Foundation <info en fsf.org>
Date: 2011/9/30
Subject: Free Software Supporter Issue 42, September 2011
To: Diego Saravia <diego.saravia en gmail.com>

Free Software Supporter

Issue 42, September 2011

Welcome to the Free Software Supporter, the Free Software Foundation's
monthly news digest and action update -- being read by you and 47,511
other activists. That's 1647 more than last month!

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

Subscribe: http://www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter
Widget: http://www.fsf.org/associate/widget

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

Multilingual? Send translations of the Supporter to campaigns en fsf.org.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FSF re-launches its Free Software Directory, with over 6500 programs listed
XKCD: Sharing
EU: A presentation about the unitary patent
Petition the White House to end software patents
Amazon Kindle extinguishes the fire of learning
Keep the pressure on Barnes and Noble
Help fix the wireless firmware problem on the Openmoko GTA04
Dyne:bolic GNU/Linux hits version 3!
Is Android really free software?
FSF speaks against patent and DRM provisions at Trans-Pacific
Partnership negotiators' meeting
Over 1,000 sign This American Life petition for Ogg Vorbis
New FSF membership benefit: Digital Credit Union eligibility
FSF speaks against patent and DRM provisions
LibrePlanet featured resource: Support free distributions with BitTorrent
GNU spotlight with Karl Berry
Richard Stallman's speaking schedule and other FSF events
Take action with the FSF!

FSF re-launches its Free Software Directory, with over 6500 programs listed

The FSF has re-launched the Free Software Directory as a wiki system
based on Mediawiki.

Because each entry is individually checked and tested, users know that
any program they come across in the Directory will be free software
with free documentation and without proprietary software requirements.
Programs that run on proprietary operating systems like Mac and
Windows are listed, but only if they also run fully on GNU/Linux. The
new version of the Directory will continue to provide users these same
assurances, but it has been rebuilt so that members of the free
software community can become familiar with the criteria and then work
together to curate and grow the catalog.

Read the behind the scenes details --
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/directory/behind-the-scenes.
Read the press release -- http://www.fsf.org/news/directory-relaunch.
Find out how YOU can participate --
http://directory.fsf.org/wiki/FSD:Participate.

Big thanks go to Josh Gay and Peter Olson at the FSF for their work in
getting this launched.

XKCD: Sharing

If you haven't seen Sharing by xkcd, it's worth a look.

In the strip, some friends discover a tree with a USB port sticking
out of it. Upon connecting a computer to it, they discover an ebook --
Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree, as a DRM'd Amazon Kindle file. The
book cannot be opened and sharing is not allowed.

http://xkcd.com/956/

EU: A presentation about the unitary patent

The battles seen in the US over software patents could spread to the
UK and the rest of Europe if the unitary patent is allowed to come
into force.

The folks at unitary-patent.eu have made a video to explain the
dangers of this proposal:

http://www.unitary-patent.eu/content/presentation-about-unitary-patent

For further information, see

Petition the White House to end software patents

Sign the WhiteHouse.gov petition to "Direct the Patent Office to Cease
Issuing Software Patents".

Sign here: http://wh.gov/gEm -- but, be please note, you may want to
turn off JavaScript as some of the files are nonfree programs.

Read about the White House's petition review and response process and
our reasons why we think it's worth signing this petition:
http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/petition-the-white-house-to-end-software-patents

Amazon Kindle extinguishes the fire of learning

Amazon came out with their newest line of Kindle ebook readers this
week, including the appropriately named "Kindle Fire".

To quote their TV commercial:

"The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our
neighbours, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it
becomes the property of all."

This device does not kindle that fire -- it extinguishes it, with more
of the same digital restrictions.

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/kindle-fire

Keep the pressure on Barnes and Noble

A few weeks ago, we asked you to reach out to Barnes & Noble about
their Nook eBook reader.

Many of you did, and while Barnes & Noble have yet to formally
respond, we can continue to put pressure on them.

If we continue to put pressure on B&N, we can use the increased
pressure from Amazon's Kindle Fire as a reason to make the Nook a
device for everyone, not just large book publishers.

http://www.defectivebydesign.org/nook/blogs/keep-the-pressure-on-barnes-and-noble-nook

Help fix the wireless firmware problem on the Openmoko GTA04

Occasionally, we post tasks that we'd like to draw specific attention
to. Here is one such task: help fix the wireless firmware problem on
the Openmoko GTA04 and move us closer to a phone we can recommend.

The Openmoko GTA04 is currently at the prototyping stage. For us to be
able to recommend it, a piece of nonfree software that is loaded to
allow access to wireless network hotspots needs to be replaced.

http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/task2-openmoko

Dyne:bolic GNU/Linux hits version 3!

A new version of the fully free GNU/Linux distribution Dyne:bolic is
now available! Dyne:bolic is a user-friendly, multimedia-oriented,
deb-based system.

The new version introduced optimization for old hardware, docking,
nesting, good introductory documentation, the modules mechanism and
more possibilities to customize and to cluster machines on the same
network in various ways.

http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/dynebolic-three

Is Android really free software?

In this Guardian-published article, FSF president and founder Richard
Stallman writes about how free Android really is and explains the
difference between Android and GNU/Linux systems.

Google's smartphone code is often described as 'open' or 'free' – but
when examined by the Free Software Foundation, it starts to look like
something different

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/sep/19/android-free-software-stallman

FSF speaks against patent and DRM provisions at Trans-Pacific
Partnership negotiators' meeting

The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) is a free trade
agreement currently under negotiation that could require member
countries to enact strict copyright and patent legislation that hurts
free software users and developers. Our license compliance engineer
Brett Smith talked about the FSF's opposition to these terms with
negotiators last weekend; in this blog post, he shares his perspective
on the event.

http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/fsf-speaks-against-tpp

Over 1,000 sign This American Life petition for Ogg Vorbis

In late July, This American Life aired an episode titled “When Patents
Attack!” that reported on some of the problems that software patents
cause developers and businesses. We just delivered the first batch of
signatures to the show, thanking them and asking them to be part of
the software patent solution by using a free format. If you haven't
signed yet, you still can!

http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/tal-petition-delivered

New FSF membership benefit: Digital Credit Union eligibility

Free Software Foundation members living in the US are now eligible to
join the Digital Federal Credit Union for their banking!

Credit unions are cooperative and often nonprofit financial
institutions which provide the same services as banks, but because
they are member-owned, there can be dramatic differences from banks in
the cost of borrowing money and use of their services.

http://www.fsf.org/blogs/membership/new-fsf-membership-benefit-digital-credit-union-eligibility

LibrePlanet featured resource: Help support free distributions using BitTorrent

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
http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Free_distros_torrent, which provides a
comprehensive listing of free software only distributions. BitTorrent
works by splitting up a large file into hundreds and thousands of
smaller files, which are downloaded equally from all the people who
are sharing, or seeding, the file. You can do your bit to help get
these distributions to the maximum number of people by seeding their
installer CD images.

http://libreplanet.org/wiki/Free_distros_torrent

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

GNU Spotlight with Karl Berry

archimedes-1.5.0 glpk-4.47 libextractor-python-0.6
autoconf-archive-2011.09.17 gnubatch-1.4 libmicrohttpd-0.9.14
bzr-2.4.1 gnuchess-6.0.1 mediagoblin-0.0.5 coreutils-8.13
gnuhealth.1.3.3 nettle-2.4 diffutils-3.2 gnunet-0.9.0pre3
solfege-3.20.3 fdisk-1.3.0a gnunet-gtk-0.9.0pre3
source-highlight-3.1.5 freeipmi-1.0.6 gnutls-2.12.11 wdiff-1.0.1
gdb-7.3.1 gnutls-3.0.3 wget-1.13.4 gengetopt-2.22.5 gsegrafix-1.0.6
zile-2.4.1 global-6.0 icecat-6.0.2

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.

This month I'd like to specially mention the first release of
MediaGoblin as a GNU package,
http://www.gnu.org/software/mediagoblin/, aiming to support
decentralized services for media hosting.

Several GNU packages 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 GNU, see
http://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.

Finally, I regret to report that Brendan Kehoe, a long-time GNU
contributor and supporter, passed away earlier this year
http://www.zen.org. He will be greatly missed.

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

Richard Stallman's speaking schedule

2011-10-01 Free as in Freedom Scranton, PA *
http://www.fsf.org/events/20111001-faif-panel-scranton

2011-10-12 Free Software for a Free Society Yverdon-les-Bains,
Switzerland * http://www.fsf.org/events/20111012-fs-yverdonlesbains

2011-10-18 A Free Digital Society Zurich, Switzerland *
http://www.fsf.org/events/20111018-fds-zurich

2011-10-19 What Makes Digital Inclusion Good or Bad? Paris, France *
http://www.fsf.org/events/20111019-fs-paris

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.

#

The Free Software Supporter is edited by FSF volunteer Osama Khalid.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-No
Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. To view a copy of this
license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/us/ or
send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San
Francisco, California, 94105, USA.

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-- 
Diego Saravia
Diego.Saravia en gmail.com
NO FUNCIONA->dsa en unsa.edu.ar