Every week free software activists from around the world come together in #fsf on irc.freenode.org to help improve the Free Software Directory. This recaps the work we accomplished on the Friday, November 4th, 2016 meeting.

Last week was a free for all meeting where we worked on a variety of projects. Iankelling worked through a huge chunk of the approval backlog, approving tons of new entries for the directory. beloved had some suggestions for updating the home page of the directory, such as linking to the meeting announcements there, which we were able to implement. They also had some suggestions about the requirements, which they're putting to the mailing list for further discussion. There's more work to be done in refining the requirements to ensure the directory is a great resource for finding only freedom respecting packages, and we will be discussing that more at the next meeting. The upcoming meeting will have a live component as well as we have some space at the upcoming Seattle GNU/Linux conference to work as a group. We hope to see more of you there!

If you would like to help update the directory, meet with us every Friday in #fsf on irc.freenode.org from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST (18:00 to 20:00 UTC).

The GNU Project is built by volunteers from all around the globe. For many packages, sharing your code involves assigning copyright on your changes to the Free Software Foundation (FSF). This enables us to enforce the terms of the license on packages like the GNU Compiler Collection and the GNU C Library to ensure that the software always remains free. In 2010, we wrote that contributors from 66 different countries had assigned their copyright to the FSF. At that time, and for about 30 years prior, each assignment required sending paper documents via the international post, not always an easy or inexpensive process.

In 2012, the FSF announced that it would begin accepting scanned documents for assignments of copyright for contributors residing in the United States. We then set about a long process of trying to expand the countries where we could accept scanned documents. While a few countries have been added over the years, the ultimate goal has always been to smooth the assignment process for all contributors.

Today we have achieved that goal. With the advice of counsel, we can begin accepting scanned copies of assignments from all contributors, regardless of where they reside. With a small update to our assignment contract, we can finally make it possible for all contributors to avoid having to send their forms via the post.

This doesn't end our process. There are lots of ways to sign documents these days, including using GNU Privacy Gaurd or other forms of digital signature. We will keep working to smooth that process and make more options available. While there is still more work to do to make the process as simple as possible, this is one big step that will help contributors from all around the world to share their code.

Participate in supporting the FSD by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be on IRC in the #fsf channel on freenode.

Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the FSD 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.

While the FSD has been and continues to be a great resource to the world over the past decade, it has the potential of being a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help!

This week we're having a free for all meeting. We've had many themed meetings over the past few weeks that started up interesting projects that could still use some work. So this week we're going to be focusing on the projects that we're personally interested in working on. While even themed meetings leave room for anyone to work on whatever they please, this week we want to focus on whatever we please.

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 FSD Meetings pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

Every week free software activists from around the world come together in #fsf on irc.freenode.org to help improve the Free Software Directory. This recaps the work we accomplished on the Friday, October 28th, 2016 meeting.

Last week we were playing as Dr. Frankenstein in bringing new entries to life. We set about adding new entries but also working on approving entries that were already submitted. One issue the channel came across was the fact that not all our entries listed as unapproved actually were unapproved. It turned out that the act of moving an entry to a new location, even without updating the entry, would cause it to be tagged as unapproved. It's a slight hiccup in the system, that probably could be fixed at some point. But for now, it is a simple process of reviewing the entry, seeing that it was only moved, and approving as necessary.

beloved2 also joined in to work on their script for handling Icecat extensions. They've been working on adding these extensions to the directory for a long while, but their new script should help make the process simpler. bill-auger pointed out that the way browsers handle extensions might be changing in the near future, so if the maintainers of particular extensions don't port them over they won't function any longer. All the more reason to speed up the process of getting the extensions added to the directory, so people will have a resource for tracking down and reviving extensions they would like to use.

Calinou brought up some general issues with the directory and how it functions, and mattl jumped in to note that they plan on making some improvements in the future when they have a little extra time. One great suggestion Calinou added was to provide some sort of flag on older entries, so users would know if there hadn't been an update in a while. This could help encourage maintainers to keep their own entry up to date, or help a volunteer to find an older entry that needed updating.

The meeting wrapped up without selecting a new theme, but beloved2 mentioned that they wanted a meeting to focus on different things rather than a particular theme, so next week's meeting is going to be a free for all.

If you would like to help help update the directory in general, meet with us every Friday in #fsf on irc.freenode.org from 1pm to 4pm EDT (17:00 to 20:00 UTC).

• freeipmi-1.5.4
• gdb-7.12
• gnuastro-0.2
• gnuhealth-3.0.4
• gnun-0.11
• grep-2.26
• guile-2.0.13
• guile-ncurses-2.0
• libcdio-0.94
• libmicrohttpd-0.9.52
• linux-libre-4.8-gnu
• mpfr-3.1.5
• nettle-3.3
• parallel-20161022
• pies-1.3
• rush-1.8
• taler-0.1.0
• unifont-9.0.03
• zile-2.4.13

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.

This month, we welcome Tyhender as the new MetaHTML maintainer, and Adrien Béraud and Alexandre Viau as the maintainers of the new package GNU Ring.

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.

As always, please feel free to write to us at maintainers@gnu.org with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.