Hi, I'm Saurabh. I'm working as an intern with the campaigns team during the spring semester.

I worked with Mozilla when I was in college as a Campus Rep and as a Rep later. I'm also a member of Greenpeace and have done a little online activism with DemandProgress, SumOfUs, etc. Since college, I've been working as a professional web developer for the past two years, and I love my job. My areas of interest include accessible technical documentation, standardization, realtime communication technologies and freedom. I blog sometimes at rebugged.com and write pretty obsolete and useless code for my own entertainment by the name jsx. You can also find me on Freenode by that name.

I'm a huge fan and follower of the free culture. I believe that freedom -- whether digital or otherwise -- is a fundamental right of everyone. This includes all kinds of freedoms: freedom to live, learn, express and share. Even when you 'buy' software from Microsoft (or the like), you don't own it in reality. And the overpriced shiny Apple gadget that you bought is no different, if not worse. What kind of freedom is it when the program you are supposed to "own" doesn't allow you to modify it or let you learn how it works, or even share it with your grandmother? How can we say that we are living in a free society when we are not allowed to install programs on our mobile phone that are not pre-approved by the device manufacturer? I, like many others, dream of a world where we control the devices we use and where information is a shared wealth that's accessible to all. I believe that free software and software freedom are the way to that goal.

When it comes to digital freedom, we often overlook how far away we are from being "free." We adjust with the way things are just because we don't think it's worth fighting it. Organizations like the FSF, EFF, etc. are our last resistance against this corporate control. We take these guardians and their efforts for granted and don't realize or acknowledge how they are making the world a better place until one day they are gone -- until the day no one else is left fighting for us. I don't know what more to say. I'm so proud and excited that I got this chance to work with the FSF. Everyone I've met here so far is really nice and I look forward to working with them. I know I won't be changing the world overnight, but I do believe I can do something that amounts to something.

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We want to commend Google for doing the right thing.

by John Sullivan, Executive Director, and Ward Vandewege, CTO

We reported a few weeks ago that Google had started blocking invites sent from non-Google Jabber servers.

This was done as a crude anti-spam measure.

We are happy to report that Google has since rolled out proper antispam filtering for its Jabber service, and has removed the invite block. This was announced a few days ago in another public mailing list post.

This means that users of Jabber servers like the one we provide for our members will once again be able to fully communicate with Google users.

We want to commend Google for doing the right thing and respecting the importance of full federation.

Google users can still send subscription requests to contacts whose accounts are hosted elsewhere. But they cannot accept incoming requests. This change is akin to Google no longer accepting incoming e-mail for @gmail.com addresses from non-Google domains. That would be unthinkable.

by John Sullivan, Executive Director, and Ward Vandewege, CTO

Update: Google has now done the right thing and corrected this problem.

Earlier this year, we announced an instant messaging service for our members using Jabber (XMPP). This service is federated, so like email, you can talk to people whose account is hosted somewhere else than the FSF. Your account is, say, johns@member.fsf.org, but you could still seamlessly talk to someone who is sergey@gmail.com.

Until now. Recently, some of our members started reporting that they were no longer able to add contacts at GoogleTalk, which is the Jabber service Google provides to Gmail users. Since Google has run a fully federated Jabber service for a long time and ours is new, we investigated under the assumption the problem was on our end.

Turns out, Google has started blocking invites sent from non-Google Jabber servers. Subscription requests just disappear mysteriously, confusing both users and server operators.

Google users can still send subscription requests to contacts whose accounts are hosted elsewhere. But they cannot accept incoming requests. This change is akin to Google no longer accepting incoming e-mail for @gmail.com addresses from non-Google domains. That would be unthinkable.

According to a public mailing list thread, Google is doing this on purpose, to handle a spam problem. We sympathize; we spend a disappointing amount of energy combating similar problems on the services we provide for the free software community. But the solution can't be something that breaks legitimate communication channels, and especially not in a way that enhances Google's disproportionate control of the network. While Google is offering to whitelist servers whose operators write to them, this just accentuates the inequality and doesn't realistically solve the problem.

We hope that Google will retract this change and find a solution that does not undermine the distributed nature of the Internet. We have already reached out to them toward this end.

Meanwhile, we will continue offering our Jabber server as part of our commitment to the vision of the Internet as a place of free federation. You can join the FSF as a member and start using yourname@member.fsf.org anytime.

Join the FSF and friends on Friday, April 19th, from 2:00pm to 5pm EDT (19:00 to 22:00 UTC) to help improve 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!