Do you believe that free software is crucial to a free society? Do you want to help people learn why free software matters, and how to use it? Do you want to dig deep into software freedom issues like copyleft, Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), or surveillance and encryption? Or, do you want to learn systems administration, design, or other tasks using only free software?

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is looking for interns to spend the summer contributing to work in one of three areas: campaigns, licensing, or technical.

These positions are unpaid, but the FSF will provide any appropriate documentation you might need to receive funding and school credit from outside sources. We also provide lunch expense reimbursement and a monthly transportation pass that will give you free access to local subways and buses (MBTA). We place an emphasis on providing hands-on educational opportunities for interns, in which they work closely with staff mentors on projects that match their skills and interest.

Interns can choose from the following fields of work:

• Campaigns team interns might focus on privacy, encryption, or expanding and updating our outreach. Interns can also be part of our promotional efforts for the upcoming LibrePlanet 2020 conference in March.

• Licensing team interns might assist with the Respects Your Freedom hardware product certification program. Or, they might work to improve the Free Software Directory or analyze the compatibility of other licenses with the GPL.

• Tech team interns may choose from our current list of projects, or suggest one of their own. A past sysadmin intern did extensive work to set up a GNU social instance; others created HUBAngl for easy video streaming, worked on porting LibreJS to WebExtensions, penetration tested our network, and researched Ceph distributed object storage and the freedom status of single board computers.

Spring internships have a flexible beginning, with possible start times as early as January, and typically run for a period of twelve weeks. We prefer candidates who are able to work in our Boston office, but may consider remote interns. The deadline to apply is November 29, 2019.

To apply, send a letter of interest and a resume with two references to hiring@fsf.org. Please send all application materials in free software-friendly formats like .pdf, .odt, and .txt. Use "Spring internship application" as the subject line of your email. Please include links to your writing, design, or coding work if it applies -- personal, professional, or class work is acceptable. URLs are preferred, though email attachments in free formats are acceptable, too. Learn more about our internships, and direct any questions to info@fsf.org.

The Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification program helps to connect users with retailers who respect their rights. Retailers in the program sell devices that come with freedom inside, and promise to always ensure that their users are not directed to proprietary software at any point in the sale or ownership of the device. When we launched the program in 2010, we had no idea how quickly the program would grow.

In 2012, when we announced the first certification, we hosted information about the program and retailers as a simple page on the Free Software Foundation (FSF) Web site. With only one retailer selling one device, this was certainly satisfactory. As the program grew, we added each new device chronologically to that page, highlighting the newest certifications. We are now in a place where eight different retailers have gained nearly fifty certifications, including the recently announced Talos II and Talos II Lite mainboards from Raptor Computing Systems, LLC. With so many devices available, across so many different device categories, it was getting more difficult for users to find what they were looking for in just a plain chronological list.

Thus we are proud to announce we're launching a new, stand-alone Web presence for RYF, capable of facilitating its continued expansion. Users can check out the new site at https://ryf.fsf.org. There, they can browse certifications by vendor and device type, and learn about the most recent certifications. Each device has its own page which directs users to the certification announcement, date of certification, and a link to the retailer site where they can purchase it.

We hope that this update will make it even easier for users to find products they can trust from retailers dedicated to promoting freedom and privacy for everyone. With that said, there is always room for improvement, so we would love to hear your feedback about the new site. Here's what you can do to help:

• Check out the new site at https://ryf.fsf.org and let us know what you think by sending an email to licensing@fsf.org.

• Help spread awareness of the RYF program by sharing our RYF flyer with your friends and colleagues.

• Buy certified products and encourage others to do so.

• Encourage a retailer to certify a product by directing them to the RYF criteria page.

• Support this work by donating or joining the FSF as an associate member.

Students and Free Software Foundation (FSF) associate members attend LibrePlanet gratis. Not a member? Join today for $10 per month ($5 for students), or register for LibrePlanet at our non-member rate of $90 for the two day conference.

• Register now to attend the LibrePlanet 2020 conference!

• Apply now for a scholarship to attend the LibrePlanet 2020 conference!

At LibrePlanet 2019, over a thousand people participated either in person or online in the conference. Free software enthusiasts traveled from fourteen countries to explore the theme, "Trailblazing Free Software." You can watch videos from this past March's conference on our MediaGoblin instance. If you can't attend LibrePlanet in person, there will be plenty of other ways to participate, including watching talks on our livestream and participating in the #libreplanet IRC channel on freenode.

You can already pre-order this year's full-color LibrePlanet T-shirt on the conference registration form; if you order ahead, you can pick your shirt up at the event. Or, you can order the T-shirt through the FSF Shop, if you would like to have it shipped to you.

Call for Sessions LibrePlanet 2020: "Free the Future."

The call for sessions for LibrePlanet will close on November 20, at 12:00 p.m. EST (17:00 UTC), so if you haven't submitted yet, there is still time to be part of the program. This year, LibrePlanet will explore the theme "Free the Future", and we are looking forward to seeing free software explored through the lens of this year's theme in sessions about software development, copyleft, community, or other related issues.

Have a look at our call for sessions blog post to learn more about the theme and the kinds of sessions we are looking for. We are also hosting an information session every Thursday to answer any questions you have about submitting a proposal for LibrePlanet, until submissions close on November 20. To participate in these information sessions, join us in the #libreplanet Internet Relay Chat (IRC) channel during these time slots:

• November 7th: 1:00 p.m. - 2.00 p.m. EST (18:00 UTC)

• November 14th: 1:00 p.m. - 2.00 p.m. EST (18:00 UTC)

Don't use IRC? Email your questions to campaigns@fsf.org.

Need help traveling to LibrePlanet?

We have a limited amount of funding to bring conference participants to LibrePlanet from all around the world. You can apply for a scholarship now! The application deadline is Monday, December 2nd, 2019, at 10:00 EST (15:00 UTC). Scholarship recipients will be notified in mid-December.

If you don't need a scholarship, you can help us to free the future, and welcome the broadest possible audience, by making a contribution to support those who do.

Support LibrePlanet

LibrePlanet is organized by the FSF, a 501(c)(3) charity. Your contribution allows us to create a truly valuable event for many people all over the globe by making the production of the event possible and allowing us to livestream the event.

We also offer unique opportunities for businesses to connect to a community that is dedicated to free software. Early bird pricing for exhibitors starts now, and will be available until February 15th, 2020. For information on how your company can have a table in our exhibit hall, or to further sponsor the LibrePlanet conference, please email campaigns@fsf.org.

I hope to see you at LibrePlanet!

Free software is software that you can run, copy, distribute, study, change, and improve as you please. While these freedoms are rights that belong to the individual, they are also intrinsically linked to the concept of community and sharing. It's imperative that we be permitted to use, examine, and alter software as we choose, but we also demand the right to share our improvements with the wider community.

Working Together for Free Software is one of our initiatives that focuses on the broader world of free software: the community, programs, and funding that we’re coalescing to mount the crucial resistance to the abuses of proprietary software. This is a category that covers a lot of people and a lot of work, and the Working Together for Free Software Fund is just one piece of the picture.

This fund enables important, mission-aligned free software projects to utilize the FSF’s nonprofit infrastructure to enhance their fundraising and other capabilities, without the labor and costs of becoming a 501(c)(3) nonprofit on their own. This gives them access to the organizational strengths of the FSF, plus additional capacity and unique benefits.

While all of the projects under the umbrella of the Working Together for Free Software Fund are absolutely worthy of your attention and donations, today we're highlighting just a few projects with some noteworthy announcements. Want to know if your free software project qualifies? Learn more here!

GNU Guix

Guix (pronounced "geeks") promises users and developers three primary qualities: freedom, dependability, and hackability. You can use it either as a package manager compatible with your current GNU/Linux distribution, or you can use it as your distribution. People are happily using Guix for software development, bioinformatics, high-performance computing, research, and more. The Guix project also encompasses the creation of Guix System, which is on our list of endorsed free GNU/Linux distributions.

Thanks to the contributions of nearly 300 volunteers over seven years, version 1.0 of the GNU Guix package manager was released in May 2019. Also, Guix has been helping to lead the way on reproducible builds, which provide large advantages for both security and user freedom -- you can read more about this topic and see videos from LibrePlanet 2018 here. Read about some more of the ways that people are using and modifying Guix here!

Help Guix flourish and grow: donate here

GNU Radio

What can you do with radio in 2019? When the radio software is freedom-respecting, you can do whatever you like! GNU Radio is a free software development toolkit that provides signal processing blocks to implement software radios.

Occasionally, the innovations possible with this system make news: most recently, this June, researchers used GNU Radio to increase the usefulness of the RF tags on rehabilitated orangutans released back into the wild in Borneo. To create a heatmap of orangutan positions, researcher Dirk Gorissen used GNU radio to make a digital signal processing algorithm. You can read more about Gorissen’s research here.

GNU Radio developers and fans have met for several conferences this year: GNU Radio Days in June 2019, and GRCon in September 2019, in Huntsville, Alabama. GNU Radio will also be a big part of the Software Defined Radio devroom at FOSDEM this year, which is currently welcoming submissions.

Turn up the volume on GNU Radio: donate here

SeaGL

As the hometown of the dreaded Amazon and Microsoft, Seattle may not seem like the best free software town – but sometimes the best place to organize is right on the doorsteps of our opposition. Since 2013, the free software community has gathered for the Seattle GNU/Linux Conference (SeaGL), a grassroots technical conference dedicated to spreading awareness and knowledge about the GNU/Linux community, free software, and freedom-respecting hardware. FSF staff are frequent participants in the SeaGL festivities, including former campaigns manager Molly de Blanc and current chief technology officer Ruben Rodriguez.

This year’s conference is at Seattle Central College on November 15-16, 2019, and as usual, the FSF will have a table. Come talk about free software with us, learn how you can contribute to the FSF and the GNU Project, and buy some GNU gear! We also are making plans for an FSF meetup during the conference, so stay tuned.

Help SeaGL stay aloft: donate here

GNU Octave

GNU Octave is a scientific programming language with built-in plotting and visualization tools; it's intended as an ethical replacement for the commonly-used MATLAB, which is nonfree. John W. Eaton began work on Octave all the way back in 1988, and is still the primary maintainer; we interviewed him about Octave back in 2012.

The latest version, GNU Octave 5.1.0, was released in March of 2019, and improves compatibility with MATLAB, among other improved functions.

Help GNU Octave scale up: donate here

The nomination period for the Free Software Foundation (FSF)'s annual Free Software Awards is drawing to a close on November 6th. If you haven't done so already, now's your last chance to honor the outstanding individuals and projects that have either furthered or made significant use of free software in their work toward a free society. This year, we're also recognizing newcomers in a special award category called the Award for Outstanding New Free Software Contributor. We look forward to the award ceremony at this year's LibrePlanet in March in the Boston area.

We value the community's input to identify the movement's most significant new contributors and projects. We rely on award nominations from free software users and activists around the world to help bring those deserving activists to the spotlight. It's been a joy for us to see the nominations that have already come in, and to learn about so many different people and projects in the free software movement. As with the movement itself, every voice matters, and our committee judges every submission we receive very carefully.

Besides the Award for Outstanding New Free Software Contributor, we're also encouraging the community to nominate the individuals that inspire them for the Award for the Advancement of Free Software. If you know a group that makes special use of free software in their campaigning for the good of society, please consider nominating them for the Award for Projects of Social Benefit.

• Submit your nomination for the Award for the Advancement of Free Software!
• Submit your nomination for the Award for Outstanding New Free Software Contributor!
• Submit your nomination for the Award for Projects of Social Benefit!

The deadline to submit your nominations is Wednesday, November 6th, 2019, at 14:59 UTC.

We hold the Free Software Awards as a way to invigorate all those in the free software movement. As free software users, developers, authors of documentation, and community organizers, we all depend on each other to achieve our vision of a world in which all computer users can do all of their work in complete freedom. Let's take a moment to show the people in our community who inspire us that we care, and nominate them today.