Help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. Every Friday we meet on IRC in the #fsf channel on irc.freenode.org.

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 providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

When a user comes to the Directory, they know that everything in it is free software, has only free dependencies, and runs on a free OS. With over 16,000 entries, it is a massive repository of information about free software.

While the Directory has been and continues to be a great resource to the world for many years now, it has the potential to be a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help! And since it's a MediaWiki instance, it's easy for anyone to edit and contribute to the Directory.

40 years ago, American management consultant Marilyn Loden first coined the term "glass ceiling" to describe invisible career barriers for women at a panel discussion. Despite the passing of two generations, Loden notes that the matter is still very alive, which readily displays how insidious a problem we have. To honor Loden's contribution, this week's theme for the Directory meetup is business software.

If you are eager to help, and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly Directory Meeting pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting. To see the meeting start time in your time zone, run this in GNU bash: date --date='TZ="America/New_York" 12:00 this Fri'

Help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. Every Friday we meet on IRC in the #fsf channel on irc.freenode.org.

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 providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

When a user comes to the Directory, they know that everything in it is free software, has only free dependencies, and runs on a free OS. With over 16,000 entries, it is a massive repository of information about free software.

While the Directory has been and continues to be a great resource to the world for many years now, it has the potential to be a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help! And since it's a MediaWiki instance, it's easy for anyone to edit and contribute to the Directory.

During this week in 1928, Mickey Mouse made his first appearance in the cartoon Plane Crazy. However, his first appearance before the public was officially in the short Steamboat Willie, since it was released first. 70 years later, Mickey became infamous in a new way: as the derisive namesake of the US Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) of 1998, which extended, and thereby harmonized the US and EU length of copyright.

To honor this dubious milestone, the theme of the Directory meeting is graphics and drawing software. One immediate item that needs a refresh is GIMP. The other big drawing projects could be helped by adding screenshots and updating the entries. Of course, if you know of any projects that aren't listed, we hope you will take the time to add them to the Directory.

If you are eager to help, and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly Directory Meeting pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting. To see the meeting start time in your time zone, run this in GNU bash: date --date='TZ="America/New_York" 12:00 this Fri'

Help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. Every Friday we meet on IRC in the #fsf channel on irc.freenode.org.

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 providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

When a user comes to the Directory, they know that everything in it is free software, has only free dependencies, and runs on a free OS. With over 16,000 entries, it is a massive repository of information about free software.

While the Directory has been and continues to be a great resource to the world for many years now, it has the potential to be a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help! And since it's a MediaWiki instance, it's easy for anyone to edit and contribute to the Directory.

On May 11, 1981, Bob Marley died from cancer. Whether you're a fan or not, his cultural significance cannot be underplayed. For many, he is seen as a iconic proponent of peace and love. This week, the directory will honor Bob Marley with a focus on freshening up the music software.

If you are eager to help, and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly Directory Meeting pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting. To see the meeting start time in your time zone, run this in GNU bash: date --date='TZ="America/New_York" 12:00 this Fri'

The fight for net neutrality isn't over -- yet. In the next two weeks, the United States Senate will vote on whether to save net neutrality and we need you to take action.

Inform yourself and others

In December 2017, the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) voted to repeal the policies that protected net neutrality.

Rather than merely accepting this, Senator Ed Markey launched a Congressional Review Act (CRA) to save net neutrality. A CRA allows a simple majority (more than 50%) of Congress (the Senate and House of Representatives) to overturn an FCC vote. You can read more about CRAs on Wikipedia.

Already, 50 senators are supporting the CRA. We need one more vote to pass this effort to overturn the FCC's ruling.

Take action!

If you're not in the US, let us know your country by updating your profile so we can send you more relevant info. In the meantime, please also help us spread the word to your contacts in the US.

This Wednesday, May 9th, call your senator and urge them to vote to protect net neutrality.

Nervous? Try using the following script:

Hello, I live in CITY/STATE. I am calling to urge you to support net neutrality. I hope SENATOR will do the right thing and vote in for the CRA to overturn the FCC's repeal of net neutrality protections. Thank you for your time.

Don't know who to call?

• Call your senator directly. Find their number here.

• Dial the Senate at (202) 224-3121 and they will connect you.

Does your senator already support the CRA?

If your senators are already supporting the CRA, call to thank them for their hard work and dedication to net neutrality.

Read these posts by the FSF

Want to know even more? Check out these posts from the FSF.

• OneMoreVote is needed to save net neutrality
• Free software needs net neutrality! This is our LAST CHANCE to save it
• Protect software freedom: Support net neutrality

Without a free Web and free Internet, what we -- this includes you -- can do online will be limited by the desires of ISPs like Comcast and Verizon. They will have the legal right to control which Web sites we can access and how fast that access will be. This is a major free software issue: free software as we know it would not exist without a free Internet and a free Web. The future of free software is tied to the future of net neutrality.

We're asking you to take the time this Wednesday to call Congress. Tell your friends and family. Save the Internet.

On Tuesday, at the Facebook developers conference, CEO Mark Zuckerberg once again asked the social media site's users for their trust, when he announced a new privacy control for the site. Called "clear history," Zuckerberg claims it will allow users to clear their browsing history on Facebook, apparently including activity like which Web sites one has visited.

This is an empty gesture. Facebook is clearly attempting to placate an angry public and defend itself against scrutiny by the US government, but it is still putting the impetus to protect user privacy on users, rather than simply choosing not to collect information on Facebook users in the first place.

It will surprise many people clicking this new button to learn that, while Facebook says you will be able to clear your history, the company will still have a copy of that activity -- it just won't be associated with your account.

This is a symptom of a fundamental problem. When you interact with Facebook, you are giving up control over your computing to a server run by someone else -- it's Service as a Software Substitute. The parts of it that do run on your local system are nonfree JavaScript.

Even if they did promise to delete your activity from their servers, there is no way to verify that, because you cannot inspect either the nonfree JavaScript or the server-side software. Users are left to trust that the code only Facebook can read does what Facebook says it does. No company can be trusted with that kind of power over users, least of all one with Facebook's track record.

Though they want you to believe they care about protecting your privacy, unless Facebook decides to completely overhaul itself using exclusively free software and decentralize, allowing people to run federated nodes of that software on their own computers, nobody should expect to go untracked.

US Congress battered Zuckerberg with questions in a hearing following the Cambridge Analytica scandal earlier this year, and though no concrete action has come from those conversations so far, there are ways in which governments could act to prevent covert mass data collection online in the future. Even the nodes in a decentralized free software social network could inappropriately collect data, and quality regulation could prohibit the practice.

But regulation alone will not be enough. Technology itself must be built in ways that respect users. We urge you to #DeleteFacebook and try one of the decentralized social Web options discussed on the Free Software Foundation's High Priority Projects list -- you may even try self-hosting a node for others to use. Send us your first message on Diaspora or GNU social (which can talk to Mastodon accounts, too).

Zuckerberg probably wishes he could "clear history" of the Cambridge Analytica scandal that put Facebook under scrutiny in the first place. We encourage him to #DeleteFacebook in favor of a decentralized, free software-driven option, too.