LibrePlanet 2020: Free the Future is only ten weeks away! On March 14 and 15, we will welcome free software enthusiasts and experts to Boston for the Free Software Foundation's (FSF) annual conference on technology and social justice.

We're hard at work creating an event with engaging talks with speakers from all over the world, and without spoiling any future announcements, we're very excited about the program we have so far. It is promising to be a year filled with talks about interesting and successful projects. Anticipated talks will expose the fascinating parallels between social movements in free software, dig into community-related subjects, and as always, explore the latest issues in licensing, security, education, and government adoption of free software with experts from these fields.

The FSF is proud of the fact that the LibrePlanet audience and speakers come from a diverse range of backgrounds, countries, and cultures. We believe that anyone who wants to attend or speak at the conference should not be held back by financial burdens, so if you have a few dollars to spare, why not make a donation in support of the LibrePlanet Scholarship Fund? You'll be supporting a robust, diverse free software community by helping to reduce the financial barrier for those who need the help.

Those who are awarded travel scholarships bring unique ideas to the conference, and commit to sharing what they learn at LibrePlanet with their local community.

We look forward to sharing this year's LibrePlanet conference program soon, and welcoming members of the free software community from all corners of the world. Registration for the event is open. If you're not already a member of the FSF, we have multiple good reasons for you to join today:

• FSF associate members can attend LibrePlanet free of charge! (We nevertheless ask you to register so we'll know how many people to expect.)

• As part of our current fundraising drive, we're offering exclusive membership gifts to all new members through January 17th!

• FSF associate members get a 5% discount at Technoethical until January 17th.

Volunteers also attend gratis, and get an exclusive LibrePlanet 2020 T-shirt.

On top of all the free software work we fund and do year-round, with your financial support, we can invite speakers who can enlighten us with their knowledge and experience. Your donations will also help free software enthusiasts attend who otherwise would not have the means to do so. Your contribution, even if it's only a couple dollars, can be the difference between someone attending or not.

In the final weeks of 2019, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) welcomed nearly 300 new associate members. That is a strong achievement, but we to boost our numbers further in order to continue our work to educate others about free software and defend copyleft.

Every day, millions of new people globally are gaining access to software, and are integrating it into their lives. We need to continue to spread the message of software freedom far and wide to reach these newcomers, and the millions of longtime software users who are unaware of how proprietary software is being used to exploit and abuse them. It’s a big challenge.

At the beginning of this new decade, we're inspired to dream up a freer future. To help turn this dream into reality, we're extending our membership drive and our offer for exclusive associate membership gifts as an extra incentive for people to join the movement until January 17th.

Will you start out the new decade with an FSF associate membership?

If you can't join us yourself, we also offer these membership gifts as a special thank-you gift if you convince just three others to join the FSF -- email campaigns@fsf.org and let us know who they are.

You care about free software, just like we do. Let your friends, family and followers know that free software needs their support. If you're looking for something to help get the message across online, we recommend using the ShoeTool video, as well as these images.

Let's make 2020 the start of a decade in which we liberate the future for generations to come.

The pace and demands of modern life pressure us to carry computers in our pockets laden with nonfree software (our cell phones), and new threats to our privacy are popping up on every street corner, via proprietary Amazon Ring cameras, and on many kitchen counters, via “smart” home devices. Back when our movement was born, software freedom was only of great concern to people who were actively involved in development. Today, nobody in the world can afford to ignore the crucial importance of knowing what our software is doing, and keeping it from doing us harm.

As the battles and triumphs of 2019 fade into the past and the new challenges of 2020 emerge, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) continues our commitment to the goal we’ve had from our earliest days: a future in which all software is free, and can be trusted to serve the needs and best interests of every user. Our strength depends on your support: we need you to boldly carry the message and goal of software freedom to everyone you know, bring them into the fold, and help us mobilize them to use and talk about free software.

That's why the central message of our fall/winter fundraiser has been membership: because our associate members are the most committed fighters for the cause of software freedom, pledging not just financial support but also a vote of confidence. This is your final chance to help us reach our goal of 600 new members by the end of 2019 (and your last chance for a tax deduction if you're in the US), so today is the day to join the FSF! The numbers matter, and FSF membership is a very powerful gesture to make for only $10 a month ($5 if you are a student).

As a special bonus, all new and renewing annual associate members ($120+) can choose to receive one of our exclusive year-end gifts. If you get a minimum of three people to mention you as a referral, you can get the gifts, too!

While financial support is a must, using your voice to boost our movement is an equally important role for every member and supporter. We're behind on our new membership goal for this fundraiser period, so please help us get the word out today! You can expand our reach by sharing our posts on social media, sharing our articles via email, and talking to your friends, family, and coworkers about why free software should matter to them. We've prepared some images as fun conversation starters you can share: use the hashtag #ISupportFreeSoftware and help them spread!

We’re spending the end of this year making plans to make 2020 the best year for the FSF ever: you can read about some of these plans in the reports from our tech team, licensing and compliance team, and campaigns team. Will this be the year that we make user freedom a kitchen table issue? We’ll never stop trying – and we hope you’ll be by our side all the way.

2019 has been an eye-opening, transformative year for free software and the Free Software Foundation (FSF), bringing some major changes both internally and in the world around us. As we navigate these changes, we are guided by the FSF's founding vision -- the four freedoms that define free software, and our mission to make all software be compatible with human freedom. It must be honest, transparent, and shareable, and it must truly work in service of its users.

For the last sixteen years, I have been steeped in these principles, and along with so many of you, have absorbed them into my heart and soul. Thank you for being a member of this community, for your advocacy and code and commitment. It is your support that has put us in a position to be able to face new challenges, and to continue evolving into an organization that can last for as long as the work still needs to be done.

Over the last month and a half, we've been sharing highlights of the work our campaigns, licensing, tech, and operations team have done in 2019. We don't have a full-time position dedicated to fundraising, so you've heard these details directly from the people doing the work. I'm proud of what our teams have accomplished this year with your support: huge steps forward for the Respects Your Freedom product certification program, significant updates to the infrastructure we provide for thousands of free software developers and users worldwide, an impactful International Day Against Digital Restrictions Management, a successful pilot program to teach public school students about free software, and of course our new ShoeTool video. Our intense focus on program work earned us another 4-star top rating from Charity Navigator.

Author and activist Cory Doctorow said recently of the FSF, "You interact with code that they made possible a million times a day, and they never stop working to make sure that the code stays free." We need your help now to be able to continue this work. But we can't stop there. We need to take the free software vision much further in 2020. We have to be better in the areas of mobile devices, network services, software-driven cars, artificial intelligence, and machine learning.

Most of all, we need to do better at communicating and spreading the free software vision in different ways so that others, from all walks of life, will join us in tackling these problems. This means building a stronger, kinder, more united, and powerful community.

We are behind on our goal of welcoming 600 new associate members by December 31st. But I know we can still reach that goal. In my sixteen years, I have seen single individuals inspire a dozen people to join in a week. Please join us in our final year-end push by becoming a member or renewing your membership? Show your friends, family, and colleagues the ShoeTool video, and explain to them the reasons you support free software. We'll even send you a special thank-you gift if you convince just three others -- email campaigns@fsf.org and let us know who they are.

Thank you for everything you've done for free software, and for believing in us to carry the vision forward into 2020.

• artanis-0.4.1
• bison-3.5
• gama-2.08
• global-6.6.4
• gnuhealth-3.6.5
• gnunet-0.12.1
• gnupg-2.2.19
• libcdio-10.2+2.0.1
• libmicrohttpd-0.9.69
• libredwg-0.9.3
• nano-4.7
• parallel-20191222
• taler-0.6.0
• vc-dwim-1.9

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 Martin Schanzenbach as comaintainer of GNUnet.

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.