Join the FSF and friends Friday, April 22nd, from 12pm to 3pm EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory.

Participate in supporting the Free Software Directory 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 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.

While the Free Software Directory 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!

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.

The text of the proposed policy and all comments are available, and we have also published our comment here on fsf.org.

The public comment period for this proposal is open through 11:59pm EDT on Monday, April 18, 2016. Instructions for how to comment are available at https://sourcecode.cio.gov/.

The proposal could be a big step in the right direction for the U.S., and in our comment, we suggest several improvements.

• We urge the federal government to recognize and include the term "free software" and the Free Software Definition, indicating that this policy is designed to protect the autonomy of government and the rights of its people.
• The proposal is to release 20% of custom code each year: we recommend releasing all code as free.
• Additionally, free documentation should be included in the policy.
• The federal government needs to address its contradictory habit of requiring or recommending the use of proprietary software, including non-free JavaScript. * The government should should not require use of GitHub in order to contribute to government projects under this initiative -- our code repository criteria explain important concerns in this area.

You can submit your own comments regarding this proposal, supporting the FSF's suggestions and adding your own ideas for improvement, through 11:59pm EDT on Monday, April 18, 2016. Email your comment to sourcecode@omb.eop.gov or see https://sourcecode.cio.gov/ for other ways to comment.

Join the FSF and friends Friday, April 15th, from 12pm to 3pm EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory.

Participate in supporting the Free Software Directory 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 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.

While the Free Software Directory 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!

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.

Richard Stallman's latest article, When Free Software Depends On Non-Free discusses different kinds of free software "traps" — when a free program's use depends unavoidably on a nonfree program — including the subtle but nefarious problem in which upgrading a free program requires using a nonfree programs. Stallman's various examples of different kinds of traps will help you be able to recognize them, and as he concludes in the article, "all it takes to avoid the trap is to recognize it."

Our friends at FSF Europe are highlighting an important opportunity to help direct 750 million Euro toward fixing the Internet using free software values and expertise:

The European Commission is about to allocate 750 million Euro over the next years on the "future internet", but the really important subjects (like: everything we learned from Edward Snowden) are not on their radar - yet.

However, if we bundle our efforts that is something that is definitely within reach. At the moment we are told there are only a couple of dozens of submissions from mostly the usual suspects, so your response would (at least on paper) count for influencing a few million Euro of this budget. It really makes a difference if you submit something, even if it is really short.

Read Matthias Kirschner's post for more details and for instructions on submitting your ideas.