We recently updated our list of various licenses and comments about them to include the Universal Permissive License (UPL). The UPL is a lax, non-copyleft license that is compatible with the GNU GPL. The UPL contains provisions dealing explicitly with the grant of patent licenses, whereas many other simple lax licenses only have an implicit grant. While making the grant perfectly clear is a reasonable goal, we still recommend using Apache 2.0 for simple programs that don't require copyleft. For more extensive programs, a copyleft license like the GNU GPL should be used to ensure that all users can enjoy software freedom.

• To keep up to date on newly added licenses, as well as current topics and activities in free software, please sign up for our monthly newsletter The Free Software Supporter
• Help support the Compliance Lab's work in reviewing licenses and more by donating to the Free Software Foundation
• Join us in celebrating the 30th anniversary of the FSF

Software Freedom Day means hundreds of fun, educational events, planned by activists all over the globe using resources provided by the Digital Freedom Foundation. Here's a map where you can find an event near you.

Have you encountered a bug in one of your favorite free software projects, or is there a feature you think might make a project even better? Let the developers know today by submitting a bug report or feature request. If you've never done this before, it's easy. Just review the existing open items first to see if someone else has already taken action. Many GNU projects, from the LibreJS Web browser add-on to the GIMP image editor, make it easy for users to submit a bug report for review by developers.

As in past years, the Free Software Foundation encourages the free software community to spend this holiday introducing a friend to free software. Our User Liberation video will help explain what free software is and why it's important. Our Email Self-Defense site is a straightforward guide to email encryption using free software, and the Free Software Directory is a great place to browse for free software for specific tasks. You can place these shareable badges on your social media account, Web site, or blog to spread the word about free software online.

If you do submit a bug for Software Freedom Day, tell us about it! Use your GNU Social, Pump.io, or Twitter account (but read our critique of Twitter first) to tell us about it by tagging us @fsf. We'd love to reshare your effort with the free software community.

Of course, you can help support, celebrate, and educate others about free software year-round. The FSF celebrates its 30th anniversary in two weeks, on Saturday, October 3rd. You can find a birthday event in your region (or plan one of your own) in our party network, or RSVP to our birthday party and User Freedom Summit if you can be in Boston on October 3rd. And you can wear your free software pride with our commemorative FSF30 t-shirt, available for preorder now.

Free software is worth celebrating every day, but we hope you find a way to make Software Freedom Day 2015 extra special. Submit a bug report, teach a friend, or spend some time hacking on your own free software.

As always, happy hacking.

However, things took a turn for the worse this month when the US government's Department of Homeland Security and local law enforcement intimidated the library into shutting down the relay (also known as a node). In response, the FSF, the ACLU of Massachusetts, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Freedom of the Press Foundation, and others signed a public letter supporting the library and its Tor initiative. Even more importantly, local patrons of Kilton Library crammed a public hearing yesterday to express their conviction that the relay should be reactivated. The campaign worked and, as of this morning, the relay is running again!

Tor relies on thousands of relay servers worldwide, which route traffic in tricky ways to dodge surveillance and circumvent censorship. The more relays, the stronger and faster the network, and more are always needed. That's why Alison Macrina of the Library Freedom Project and Nima Fatemi, a Tor developer, are working to launch nodes in American libraries. Kilton was the pilot for this project.

This isn't the first time that law enforcement has worked to shut down a Tor relay -- in fact, it's common for those who run relays to be harassed by police. The stated justification is usually that anonymity software can be used by criminals, but by that argument, roads should also be illegal because some people drive drunk.

The FSF has long supported the Tor project in its effort provide free software-based anonymity. We run a Tor middle relay on one of our servers, and have been partners with Tor and the Electronic Frontier Foundation in holding the Tor Challenge, an initiative to encourage people to run Tor nodes. In 2010 we awarded Tor the Free Software Award for Projects of Social Benefit.

Our support for Tor is connected to our work to fight bulk surveillance and its pernicious effects on computer users' rights. This is a historic moment in that battle, and a major success. Expect to see more Tor relays in libraries soon! If you think your local library would be interested in running a relay, check out the Library Freedom Project's resources to get started.

About 75 million Web sites depend on WordPress. If you are one of its many users who recently upgraded to Version 4.3, you may have noticed something new. Recently, a coop worker-member, Pea, informed me that this version includes a new tab with a reference to the GNU General Public License. With some quizzical interest, I ran the upgrade on a WordPress instance I maintain.

I eagerly waited for the upgrade to finish. When it loaded, what I saw was typical for a WordPress upgrade, a description of the version's new features. Then I saw a tab prominently named "Freedom." I clicked on it, and boom: right there were the four freedoms of free software, starting with Freedom 0. Take a look for yourself.

When the developers of software like WordPress make an effort to promote free software, explicitly informing their community about the importance of the freedom underlying their software, they educate countless users. The more people who are aware of the GPL and the four freedoms, the more opportunities we all have to build support for and advance our work fighting for user freedom.

Thank you WordPress! And thank you to Pea from Glocal.coop for bringing this to our attention.

FSF 30 Commemorative Shirt

Commemorate the Free Software Foundation's 30th anniversary with this limited edition tee-shirt. The high-quality cotton, charcoal shirt is double-sided with the FSF 30 Years Propelling User Freedom slogan. We have unisex and women's sizes. The shirts are manufactured by Bella Canvas, a WRAP-certified company, meaning they comply with ethical, health, and safety standards in manufacturing.

Free Software, Free Society, 3rd Edition

We are excited to announce the launch of the third edition of Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman,. Most of the essays of the second edition that were kept have been updated, and a third of them are new. The publication of the book is timely, not only because it marks thirty years of fighting for software freedom, but also because, with the evolving list of threats to both our freedom and our privacy, free software is now more important than ever.

I hope this book can show you how you might lose your freedom, teach you how to protect it, and inspire you to value it.

- from the preface, by Richard Stallman

The book is available for pre-ordering, both in paperback and in hardcover, and proceeds from its sale will go to fund our efforts to protect and promote computer users' freedom.

---

Join the Free Software Foundation and friends in Boston, MA to celebrate the culmination of our 30th year fighting for computer user freedom, powered by supporters like you. There will be plenty of social time for catching up with old friends and making new ones, and an address by FSF founder Richard Stallman as the centerpiece of the party.https://fsf.org/fsf30/celebration.

Items will arrive the first week of October. To claim an item at the event, please use the discount code FSFBDAY . If you are ordering to have the item shipped, please do not use this code as it will not be shipped. Order the shirt by September 18th, 7am EDT/11am UTC to guarantee availability in your size.