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This post was written by GNU Guix maintainer Ludovic Courtès and FSF executive director John Sullivan.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced that we would begin accepting donations as part of our support for GNU Guix, a dependable and customizable package manager, along with GuixSD, GNU's advanced free GNU/Linux distribution. Donations will primarily go to increasing the project's build farm capacity so it can manage the growing number of packages and users.

You can help GNU Guix by making a contribution at the FSF-hosted page for the campaign. 10% of your contribution to Guix will also go to help the FSF meet its current fundraising goal! Donations are accepted in US dollars, Euro (email donate@fsf.org for transfer info), Bitcoin, and Litecoin.

There is no shortage of GNU/Linux distributions and package managers, but GNU Guix and GuixSD distinguish themselves in several important ways. As a package manager, Guix offers uncommon features such as transactional upgrades and rollbacks -- users can run package upgrades, possibly unattended, confident that they can roll back to the previous state should the upgrade trigger bugs.

GuixSD, the Guix System Distribution, takes that to the level of the complete operating system: instead of modifying configuration files and other parts of the system state in a possibly irreversible fashion, GuixSD sysadmins provide a declaration of what they want the system to be like, and then instantiate it. The declaration specifies details ranging from locale and timezone settings, mounted file systems, and system services and their configuration. It can be instantiated on the "bare metal" or in virtual machines or containers, which simplifies testing.

Last but not least, Guix and GuixSD provide a unified set of programming interfaces, making the whole system highly customizable. The package recipes and build tools themselves are essentially a set of libraries of GNU Guile, the host language. Core parts of the system, from initialization code to system service management, are similarly available as libraries.

Guix builds on low-level techniques pioneered by the Nix package manager. These techniques notably maximize package reproducibility: Builds are performed in isolated environments, so independent builds are likely to produce bit-for-bit reproducible binaries. This property, in turn, is what allows users to check whether they really get the Corresponding Source of binaries they run. Guix provides tools for users to take advantage of reproducible builds, and is part of a broader community of free software projects committed to addressing the remaining roadblocks to reproducible builds.

The GNU Guix project was started three years ago. Today, Guix provides almost 3,000 packages available on 4 hardware platforms. GuixSD itself is in beta stage, currently targeted primarily at experienced users. Its small developer community has been growing continuously, with more than 50 people who contributed packages or code in 2015, and a number of people helping with the key tasks of localization, Web design, and artwork.

In addition to funding, GNU Guix needs more developers. Interested hackers are invited to join the #guix IRC channel on irc.freenode.net or the project's other communication channels. The Web site's contribution page lists the technical and non-technical ways in which you can help.

Support for GNU Guix is part of the FSF's Working Together for Free Software initiative, a broad campaign to connect software freedom advocates with projects that need their help. Other projects that have benefited from this program include the Replicant free mobile operating system, and the federated Web media-publishing platform GNU MediaGoblin.

Help the Free Software Foundation by doing your holiday shopping at GNU Press. If you are not a member, join today! Any purchase made during this time will count toward our fundraising goal of $450,000.

Hardcover copies of Free Software Free Society, 3rd edition, which was released on October 3rd, can now be purchased with Richard Stallman's signature. We have also restocked many of the shirts and hoodies in the shop, so if you couldn't find a size you were looking for this fall, be sure to check again.

As always, if you can't find something in the store but think we should offer it, please add your suggestion to our Ideas page.

The FSF's Giving Guide is designed to make it easy for you to choose tech gifts that respect recipients' rights and avoid those that don't. But to have the greatest possible impact, we also need you to spread the word about ethical tech this season.

This guide is an easy-to-use resource that can make a difference in what people buy. We just need to get it in front of them, and we're doing that with events called Giveaways.

Can you spread the word by organizing a Giving Guide Giveaway in your community? Get started now with our primer.

Giveaways are public meet-ups where we gather to hand out our attractive Giving Guide flyer to holiday shoppers trying to decide which electronics to pick up. By having face-to-face interactions with people in your area, you'll be getting your message across way more effectively than we can by talking about it online. And you'll be building our activist community as well, as you meet and make friends with like-minded people in your area. The flyer is available in multiple languages thanks to the work of many volunteers, and we hope to have more soon!

The FSF is organizing our own Giveaway in Somerville, Massachusetts, on Wednesday, December 16th. If you're in our area, we'd love to have you join us! See the details and RSVP.

We've created a primer to get you started organizing a Giveaway. Get a few friends together for a small Giveaway, or make a splash with a big one -- it's about spreading the message this season in whatever way is best for you. If you aren't able to get people together for the Giveaway, you can have an impact just by printing out some flyers and leaving them at your office or a community space. Check out the primer now, and organize your Giveaway!

One more thing: a key FSF directive is to educate people about computer user freedom, so that they can be empowered to fight for it. With the Giving Guide, our LibrePlanet conference and our internship programs, we go offline and use face-to-face interaction to light a fire of knowledge and ethical conviction in those we touch. The impact is multiplied when each member of our community lights the flames of others. But as powerful as we are together, we cannot keep our flame burning without financial support. If you can, please donate or become a member today, and carry us towards our goal of $450,000 by January 31st.

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These proposed regulations are meant to facilitate public reuse of works funded by Department of Education grants. Currently, as explained in the NPRM, grantees are allowed to make their federally-funded works proprietary. The Department of Education receives a special license to share the works with the public, but in practice it rarely does so. Worse, teachers and students absolutely cannot use them in freedom (except for those few that happen to be made free).

Since the course materials are works of practical use, they should carry the four freedoms of free software, just as programs and manuals should.

The proposal would require grantees to publish the works under an "open" license. In the case of software, they may be thinking of "open source", which is not quite as strong as free; in the case of courseware, many "open" courses are not free. The flaw in the proposed specific rules is that they don't require that the license permit redistribution of modified versions. Without that freedom, the works will be nonfree.

With a small change, this proposal will more clearly do what is needed. The small change is to add "redistribution of modified versions" to the list of uses these works must permit users to do.

If you are a US citizen or you are living in the US, then you can help make that change happen by submitting a comment advocating it.

If you are not a US citizen, then we hope you will use this as an opportunity to reach out to the department of education or the appropriate government rule makers in your own country and encourage them to adopt similar rules -- ones that require grant funded works of a functional nature be distributed under free licenses. If you do contact your own government with such a request, please, email licensing@fsf.org and let us know!

Unfortunately, submitting a comment digitally requires the user to run nonfree JavaScript (JS) code. We are taking a stand against that by submitting the FSF's comment another way. We are going to submit it by post so that it gets to the DOE by Friday, December 18th (the date comments are due).

To help you submit a comment without running the US government's nonfree JS, we offer to print and send your comment along with ours. To do that, we need to receive your comment by email sent to licensing@fsf.org with the subject "DOE comment" by 12:00PM EST on December 15th. We can print PDF files, ODF files and plain text. You need to follow the rules for submissions 100%, because we don't have staff to correct even minor errors. The eRulemaking Initiative has some guidance on how to write a good comment. But in the very least: your comment should clearly cite the above referenced NPRM, it should express your support for these proposed regulations, and it should cite the exact section (§3474.20 (a)) that you believe should be updated and why you think it should, including any relevant personal or professional experience or knowledge.

We may skip comments that are too long or that are inconsistent with the goal. Please say in your email message whether you give permission for us to publish your comment.

While we would like to deliver a large packet of comments to the Department of Education, you can also mail your own: address them to Sharon Leu, U.S. Department of Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW., Room 6W252, Washington, DC 20202-5900.

In addition, if you are interested in becoming a cosigner to the comment the FSF is going to write and submit, then please email us at licensing@fsf.org with the subject "DOE comment cosigner." In your email please provide your full name, city and state, and be aware that we will be making that information public as part of publishing our comment.

Lastly, there should be no doubt in your mind that the FSF's work in free licensing, licensing education, and advocacy has played a meaningful part in the circumstances that have lead to the US Department of Education reforming its policy from promoting proprietary works to one that requires the development of only free works. We know that the GNU GPL and the FSF's work in free licensing education serves as a guiding light to policy makers everywhere. But, in order for us to continue positively influencing public policy, we need your help: please, become an associate member or make a donation today.

Your support makes us who we are. Without the generosity and passion of the free software community, we would not have been able to spend the last three decades supporting free software development and fighting for the rights of computer users. As tiny computers proliferate, from home temperature regulation to automobiles to our own bodies, the Free Software Foundation's ability to shine a light on the ethical issues inherent in proprietary software is more important than ever. When you give, you help us keep computer users informed about where proprietary software is hiding, and how free software can aid the fight for a free society.

The Free Software Foundation is seen as a guiding light for the free software community. Here's just a sampling of our work:

• We light a fire under free software development by sponsoring the GNU project, providing infrastructure support to hundreds of free software projects, and maintaining a list of high-priority projects that are especially important to the adoption and use of free software. We also enable fundraising and promotion for some of these projects, including Replicant (a fully free version of Android) and GNU MediaGoblin (free, decentralized network services). We spark production of hardware that supports free software, too, through our Respects Your Freedom certification program.
• We enforce the GNU General Public License, offer canonical licensing educational materials, answer thousands of licensing questions for free software developers each year, and help steward the community guide to copyleft at copyleft.org. This work is necessary to make sure that companies who incorporate copyleft-licensed software in their products understand how it works, uphold their end of the bargain to respect user freedom, and become good participants in the community.
• We organize global action around urgent issues related to software freedom. At the government level, we (under protest) participate in the exemptions process for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and put a spotlight on the Trans-Pacific Partnership's threats to free software worldwide. In the private sector, we battle against Restricted Boot in computers distributed with Windows, and through our Defective by Design campaign, we work toward the elimination of all DRM, including organizing a coalition to keep it out of HTML5.
• Our resources light the way for free software activists. The Free Software Directory is a curated database of 15,000 (and counting) free software packages, the User Lib video introduces new audiences to the basics of free software, and our annual Giving Guide helps people consider free software principles when buying gifts for their loved ones.
• We gather the free software community for idea sharing and project planning at our annual LibrePlanet conference, and at other events around the world.

We've made big gains over the last 30 years -- but there's so much more to do. We know we can share free software around the world, from the halls of government to the classroom to your home, by shining a light on the dark side of proprietary software and helping important free software projects thrive. But we need your support.

Over 80 percent of our funding comes from individuals. Will you help us shine brighter by becoming a new member or making a donation by January 31st? Your generosity in the next two months will help us plan for the next few years. You can become an FSF member for just $10/month ($5/month for students). When you join, you'll get many benefits, including a USB membership card loaded with the free GNU/Linux distribution Trisquel, a digital member button, member.fsf.org email aliases and Jabber instant messaging, gratis admission to the annual LibrePlanet conference, a 20% discount on all purchases in the FSF shop, a printed copy of the biannual FSF Bulletin, and the newest benefit: 5% off free software-friendly hardware from ThinkPenguin.

Most importantly, your support enables more people to work tirelessly protecting your freedom. We need to raise $450,000 to maintain our current capacity, and if we raise more, we can do more. Help our light shine brighter by sharing this appeal. You can light another person's candle with yours, convincing others to use free software, give to the FSF, or even become a member. We are deeply grateful for your support.

Happy hacking!