The Free Software Foundation (FSF) tech team works everyday to maintain and improve the infrastructure that supports hundreds of free software projects, along with the FSF itself, in its mission to create a world where all software respects our freedom and dignity. Our associate members are the heart of this commitment, and we couldn't do it without your help.

Our annual fundraiser is happening right now. Will you encourage your friends and family to join today to help us reach our goal of welcoming 600 new associate members before December 31st, or to support us with a donation? 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 them too!

Below is a message from our chief technology officer, Ruben Rodriguez Perez, about the services provided by our tech team.

At the Free Software Foundation (FSF), we like to set big goals for ourselves, keeping a relatively small group of dedicated activists determined to cover a lot of ground in a short time.The FSF tech team, for example, has just four members -- two senior systems administrators, one Web developer, and a part-time chief technology officer -- yet we manage to run over 120 virtual servers. These run on about a dozen machines hosted at four different data centers. These include many public-facing Web sites and community services, as well as every single IT requirement for the staff: workstations, data storage and backup, networking, printing, accounting, telephony, email, you name it.

We don't outsource any of our daily software needs because we need to be sure that they are done using only free software. Remember, there is no "cloud," just other people's computers. For example: we don't outsource our email, so every day we send over half a million messages to thousands of free software hackers through the community mailing lists we host. We also don't outsource our Web storage or networking, so we serve tens of thousands of free software downloads -- over 1.5 terabytes of data -- a day. And our popularity, and the critical nature of the resources we make available, make us a target for denial of service attacks (one is ongoing as we write this), requiring constant monitoring by the tech team, whose members take turns being ready for emergency work so that the resources our supporters depend on stay available.

As hard as we work, we still want to do more, like increasing our already strict standards on hardware compliance, so in 2020, we will finish replacing the few remaining servers that require a non-free BIOS. To be compliant to our own high standards, we need to be working with devices that are available through Respects Your Freedom retailers. We plan to add new machines to our farm, so that we can host more community servers like the ones we already host for KDE, SugarLabs, GNU Guix, Replicant, gNewSense, GNU Linux-Libre, and FSFLA. We provide completely virtual machines that these projects use for their daily operations, whether that's Web hosting, mailing lists, software repositories, or compiling and testing software packages.

We know that many software projects and individual hackers are looking for more options on code hosting services that focus on freedom and privacy, so we are working to set up a public site that anybody can use to publish, collaborate, or document their progress on free software projects. We will follow strict criteria to ensure that this code repository hosts only fully free software, and that it follows the very best practices towards freedom and privacy.

Another project that we are very excited about for this year is a long-awaited refresh of https://www.fsf.org. Not only will it be restyled, but also easier to browse on mobile devices. As our campaigns and licensing teams are eager to create and publish more resources in different formats, we will also work to improve the support for publishing audio and video files in the site. And to enable you to do more, too, we are also developing a site to organize petitions and collect signatures, so that together we can run more effective grassroots campaigns and fight for the freedom of all computer users.

All of these efforts require countless hours of hard work, and the use of high quality hardware. These come to us at a significant cost, not just to purchase, but to keep running and to host at specialized data centers (if you have rack space in the Boston area, we are always looking for donors). For all this work, we depend on the continuous commitment of individual contributors to keep providing the technical foundation to fight for software freedom.

Photo by Michael McMahon Copyright © 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc., licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0.

For many of us, the holiday season is about bringing our loved ones together to celebrate. Most of the time, this includes giving them a neatly wrapped present or two. We go through the buying process carefully, using a friend or family member's likes and dislikes to sift through the Web and find the right item. But when choosing a tech gift, we need to be careful to give them something that doesn't harm them instead.

This is why we at the Free Software Foundation (FSF) publish our Ethical Tech Giving Guide each year, as a way to help free software supporters choose gifts that won't burden the people they care about with proprietary software or venomous Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). Devices may come and go, but introducing another person to software freedom is the start of a lifelong journey.

We create resources like the Ethical Tech Giving Guide to let others know that true freedom is dependent on software freedom. Our annual fundraiser is happening right now, and we're looking to bring 600 new associate members into the fold before December 31st. Our membership program is the heart of our work here at the FSF, and we couldn't do it without community support. If you're not already one of our valued members, will you take the next step in your commitment to software freedom and become an associate member today? Beginning at the $120 level of contribution, new and renewing members can choose from a great array of fundraiser premiums, including FSF and GNU patches, an FSF-emblazoned thermos, an FSF backpack, or all at once! We also encourage you to share this Guide, and our message, with friends.

The Giving Guide is a tool that will help you avoid the temptation to get your loved ones the latest offerings from companies like Apple or Amazon, whose business model revolves around subjecting people to proprietary malware and surveillance. Digital personal assistants and other devices running proprietary software did not become the norm overnight. Rather, they achieved their popularity through convincing one person at a time that they were useful. Tech corporations have billions of marketing dollars to convince people to use their products -- but our movement has more and more people every day, who can make daily choices to refuse them, and deprive them of power.

Computing in the free world received a major gift of its own this year with our Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification of the Talos II and Talos II Lite, mainboards that are based on the promising POWER9 CPU architecture. The Talos mainboards and the POWER9 architecture are off to a great start where user freedoms are concerned, and may in time replace the more restrictive X86 motherboards that are popular today. It's a great start for the next phase of the RYF program, something we've taken into consideration when making major improvements to its Web site.

The Purism Librem 5 cell phone is another exciting addition to the Giving Guide this year: we're giving it a tentative recommendation because the company has publicly committed to doing the right things for prioritizing user freedom and privacy. We also have evaluated and endorsed the operating system that the Librem 5 will run, the fully free PureOS, and the phone is designed for maximum privacy, security, and user freedom.

We are still strong in our resistance, and Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, and company still haven't won the fight despite their efforts. The free software movement continues on, and the FSF is still here to fight for the freedom of computer users around the globe.

Share the Guide with your friends and family, and use it to give a few gifts yourself! Just like the free software movement, the FSF community is spread around the globe. Earlier this month we sent over 12,000 letters to supporters far and wide, and take our own holiday joy in seeing how far the fight for a free society has come since its humble beginnings. Although it's winter here in Boston, your sustained support, feedback, and positivity helps us keep the free software fires burning.

• auctex-12.2
• cpio-2.13
• emms-5.3
• gcc-7.5.0
• gnuastro-0.11
• gnunet-0.11.8
• gnupg-2.2.18
• guile-ncurses-3.0
• health-3.6.2
• libidn-3.3.0
• libredwg-0.9.2
• libtasn1-4.15.0
• linux-libre-5.4-gnu
• mailutils-3.8
• mcron-1.1.3
• mes-0.21
• parallel-20191122

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 Mark Weaver as maintainer of GNUzilla.

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.

On Saturday, November 2nd, the office of the Free Software Foundation (FSF) was lively with discussion on everyone's favorite extensible editor, GNU Emacs. We were proud to join the 200ok collective in Zürich, Switzerland as one of two physical satellites to the conference, which was the first installment to be held since 2015. EmacsConf 2019 was conducted live over the Web through a fully free software setup utilizing Jitsi and Icecast. To assist the organizers, the FSF tech team employed some of the technical know-how we've gained from years of streaming the LibrePlanet conference. Such an undertaking would have been unthinkable a decade ago, but highlights the enormous advances free software has made since the days when the FSF sold Emacs for $200 USD on reel to reel tape.

The FSF satellite hosted local guests and two conference presenters, who streamed their talk to all of those watching in Zürich and online through the power of free software. Together, we watched presentations by Emacs luminaries who included current maintainer John Wiegley, as well as Sacha Chua and Perry Metzger. We capped off our viewing party with a raffle of Emacs-emblazoned merchandise from the GNU Press shop, giving a manual, shirt, mug, and Emacs reference cards to a few lucky attendees.

As users (and occasionally, hackers) on GNU Emacs, all of us here at the FSF were proud to take part in the conference. We wish EmacsConf the best of luck in the future, and look forward to the forthcoming audio/video recordings of each session. Many thanks to organizers Amin Bandali and Sacha Chua for their initiative and dedication in running the conference. We'll see you at EmacsConf 2020!

Here at the Free Software Foundation (FSF), we strongly believe that one person can make a difference. Our main task, as the principal organization in the fight for user freedom, is one of connection; to bring people together around an unwavering set of principles. We will achieve global software freedom by staying the course, by focusing on education, and by making tools and solutions available, all by working together with this passionate and diverse community.

Every individual that takes action now will help us reach our goal of welcoming 600 new associate members by December 31st. Associate members give us the strength to amplify the free software message -- each new member exponentially increases our reach and our ability to make change. Visit fsf.org/appeal to learn more about all the different ways we can stand strong together and for access to engaging images to help you spread the message using the hashtag #ISupportFreeSoftware!

The FSF is supported by thousands of individuals like you who form the heart of the movement. This is an opportunity for you to be an even more central part of an exciting and important community, one determining the future of freedom. Joining as an associate member is easy. You can start for as little as $10 per month, or $120 per year ($5 for students). We have exclusive associate membership gifts if you join or renew before December 31st and you will enjoy all the year-round member benefits, like merchandise discounts, a bootable membership card, and gratis event admissions. If you motivate others to become members, you will also be rewarded with our year-end gifts. Read more about this offer and our exclusive gifts.

Besides associate memberships, the FSF relies on individual donations. Any amount that fits your budget will make a real difference and can help us bring people together around free software. Have a look at "other ways to donate" to see if there is a simple action you can take to give further support to the FSF.

This year, our staff of only fourteen used your financial support to unite people all over the world around our mission, with increased opportunities both in-person and online.

The only way to make sure free software stays free is through enforcing copyleft licenses, like the GNU General Public License, according to the Principles of Community-Oriented GPL enforcement. In addition to their GPL enforcement work, our Licensing and Compliance Lab also provides educational resources to guide people through myriad licensing choices. With the help of a dedicated volunteer team, they help organizations and individuals properly distribute software while protecting user freedom.

• This October we organized a Continuing Legal Education (CLE) seminar on GPL Compliance and Legal Ethics, educating law professionals, students, and anyone interested about a range of relevant free software licensing topics.

• We invested in the development of a brand new Respects Your Freedom (RYF) Web site, so that we can connect retailers with potential customers. Our RYF program provides anyone looking for freedom-respecting products with an increasingly wide range of options. Our licensing and compliance team does the important leg work of verifying devices for users.

More and bigger seminars are in the pipeline, and we are currently processing 55 RYF certification applications. Any financial support will go into increased infrastructure, sourcing volunteers, certification, and hosting in-person, educational events.

• For years, people everywhere have been able to participate remotely in the annual LibrePlanet conference through our fully free livestream. This year, our tech team was able to share that knowledge with the EmacsConf team, as well as with the WikiConference team so that they could successfully stream their online conferences using only free software for the first time. For EmacsConf, the FSF also organized one of only two satellite instances, and hosted two of the speakers.

• Our tech team supports the development of free software by providing server space for FSF infrastructure, for the GNU Project, and for other free software projects. We recently moved our cluster of 100+ virtual machines to a new location, where we will continue to work on upgrading and expanding it. With an upgraded cluster, we'll be able to provide even more new and promising free software projects with a fully free hosting location. Rent, equipment, and RYF-compliant hardware are necessary to be able to offer this service more professionally to the public.

• The thirteenth International Day Against DRM (IDAD) hosted activists in Boston for protests and a sprint on writing educational materials, but also brought together fourteen online partners who amplified IDAD further worldwide. They organized activities ranging from promotional offers to increased writing and local activism. The dust jacket that was specially designed for the event was translated into eight languages by supporters from around the world, which is a testament to its effectiveness and our reach.

• Lastly, every six months, we find ourselves in the FSF office working with some thirty volunteers to hold true to our promise of sending the print version of our biannual free software publication to our associate members. A combined 300 hours of connecting with local free software enthusiasts allows us to send over 12,500 Bulletins to dedicated advocates in 49 countries. It will soon be published online as well.

This is just a snapshot of the many ways we were able to form new connections this year. Upholding free software and copyleft standards; providing technical infrastructure for free software developers globally; educating about free software; campaigning; organizing events; speaking and tabling at other industry events; and publishing advocacy articles, are at the core of the Foundation's work. We use funds for design, venue logistics, equipment, and operational support; we offer the possibility of attending our events to those who typically would not have the funds; and we also provide guidance and fiscal sponsorship for other free software projects and conferences who are making a difference.

We will continue to do this work and to establish and motivate connections that allow us to build awareness about the unjust power of proprietary software. We achieve a lot for little with the help of volunteers, and often repurpose equipment where we can. We have received Charity Navigator's top rating for six consecutive years. And you can read our financial statements and annual reports online.

Thank you for everything you do to help this cause. The faces behind the free software movement may change, but with your support, the Free Software Foundation will not diverge from our continued defense of the four freedoms -- not now, not ever. We advocate for and facilitate the creation of free software because it is the right thing to do -- and we need you. Our connection with you is valuable to us because you connect the movement to the world.

Thank you.

Zoë Kooyman
Program Manager

Photo 1 by Zoë Kooyman, Copyright © 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc., licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0.
Photo 2 by Ruben Rodriguez, Copyright © 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc., licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0.
Photo 3 by Valessio Brito, Copyright © 2019 Free Software Foundation, Inc., licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0.