BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA - Thursday, May 28, 2020 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced free "as in freedom" videoconferencing for its associate members and their communities. This service will help everyone push back against increased societal pressure to use nonfree software to communicate with friends, collaborators, and loved ones during the COVID-19 pandemic, and after.

The FSF has been raising the alarm about encroachments upon freedom by remote communication tools since social distancing guidelines were issued. The FSF's new videoconferencing service powered by free software comes after several of its recent publications warned users about widely used nonfree applications for remote communication and education, like Zoom.

"The freedoms to associate and communicate are some of our most important. To have the means to exercise these freedoms online controlled by gatekeepers of despotic software is always dangerous and unacceptable, only more so when we can't safely gather in person," executive director John Sullivan explains. "We are a small nonprofit and can't provide hosting for the entire world, but we want to do our part. By offering feature-rich videoconferencing in freedom to our community of supporters, and sharing how others can do it, too, we demonstrate that it is possible to do this kind of communication in an ethical way."

This project came out of the working group the FSF established to document and address major issues facing free software communication platforms. Another initiative in its free communication toolbox is a collaborative resource page created to steer users to applications that respect them. The goal is to help users avoid conferencing tools like Zoom, which requires users to give up their software-related freedoms, and which has been a recent focal point for criticism due to problems ranging from security issues to privacy violations.

Zoom is not the only nonfree communication software that has received scrutiny recently while surging in popularity. Facebook's recently launched Messenger Rooms service may offer tools to keep users out, but it is not encrypted, nor does it offer protection from the ongoing data sharing issues that are inherent to the company. Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Webex were also reported to be collecting more data than users realized. These kinds of problems, the FSF argues, are examples of what happens when the terms of the code users are running prohibits them from inspecting or improving it for themselves and their communities.

The platform the FSF will use to offer ethical videoconferencing access is Jitsi Meet. Jitsi Meet was also used when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the FSF to bring its annual LibrePlanet conference online. Choosing Jitsi Meet is the first step to addressing the problems posed to freedom by services like Zoom and Facebook. However, even users that start a call via a server running Jitsi could still be vulnerable, if that server depends on or shares information with third parties. The FSF made changes to the code it is running to enhance privacy and software freedom, and published the source code. The FSF instance does not use any third party servers for network initialization, and does not recommend or link to any potentially problematic services.

Jitsi Meet initiates an encrypted peer-to-peer conference when there are only two participants, but achieving end-to-end encryption for more than two people is not yet possible. FSF chief technical officer Ruben Rodriguez elaborates: "For any multiparticipant conversation, there will always be encryption at the network level, but you still have to place some level of trust in the server operator that processes your video stream. We are offering what is currently possible when it comes to multiparticipant privacy, and we are doing it on machines that we physically own." The FSF servers do not store any voice, video, or messages from calls, and logging is minimal and for the purpose of troubleshooting and abuse prevention only. According to its Web site, Jitsi is working to implement end-to-end encryption for multiple callers, and the FSF has confirmed plans to implement the improvements as soon as they become available.

Sullivan provided further comment: "The FSF is offering people a chance to keep their freedom and remain in touch at the same time. With these services, you usually have to sacrifice your freedom for the ability to stay in touch with the people you care about, and place your data in the hands of an organization you don't know. Our members trust the FSF not to compromise their data, and this way, we can offer both."

Associate members of the FSF pay a $10 USD monthly fee, which is discounted to $5 USD for students. An FSF associate membership will provide users with the ability to create their own meeting rooms for personal, noncommercial use, which they can use to invite others to join regardless of their location or membership status.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at https://fsf.org and https://gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux.

Associate members are critical to the FSF, since they contribute to the existence of the foundation and help propel the movement forward. Besides gratis access to the FSF Jitsi Meet instance, they receive a range of additional benefits. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at https://my.fsf.org/donate. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

More information about the FSF, as well as important information for journalists and publishers, is at https://www.fsf.org/press.

Media Contact

Zoë Kooyman
Program Manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
campaigns@fsf.org

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Wednesday, April 1, 2020 -- Today, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced plans to follow up their recent campaign to "upcycle" Windows 7 with another initiative targeting proprietary software developer Microsoft, calling on them to Free Clippy, their wildly popular smart assistant. Clippy, an anthropomorphic paperclip whose invaluable input in the drafting of documents and business correspondence ushered in a new era of office productivity in the late 1990s, has not been seen publicly since 2001. Insider reports suggest that Clippy is still alive and being held under a proprietary software license against its will.

The FSF is asking its supporters to rally together to show their support of the industrious office accessory. Commenting on the campaign, FSF campaigns manager Greg Farough stated: "We know that Microsoft has little regard for its users' freedom and privacy, but few in our community realize what little regard they have for their own digital assistants. Releasing Clippy to the community will ensure that it's well taken care of, and that its functions can be studied and improved on by the community."

Undeterred by comments that the campaign is "delusional" or hopelessly idealistic, the FSF staff remains confident that their call to free the heavy-browed stationery accessory will succeed. Yet upon reaching out to a panel of young hackers for comment, each responded: "What is Clippy?"

It's our hope that a little outlandish humor can help others get through increasingly difficult and uncertain times. In lieu of showing your support for Clippy, please consider making a small donation to a healthcare charity or, if you like, the FSF.

Media Contact

Jonathan Tuttle
Office Manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
campaigns@fsf.org

This year was the first time the FSF offered its Award for Outstanding New Free Software Contributor, a way to commemorate a community member whose first steps into the movement have demonstrated a remarkable commitment and dedication to software freedom.

This year's winner is Clarissa Lima Borges, a talented young Brazilian software engineering student whose Outreachy internship work focused on usability testing for various GNOME applications. Presenting the award was Alexandre Oliva, acting co-president of the FSF and a longtime contributor to crucial parts of the GNU operating system. Clarissa said that she is "deeply excited about winning this award -- this is something I would never have imagined," and emphasized her pride in helping to make free software more usable for a broader base of people who need "more than ever to be in control of the software [they] use, and [their] data." She also emphasized that her accomplishments were dependent on the mentoring she received as part of Outreachy and GNOME: "Every time I thought I had something good to offer the community, I was rewarded with much more than I expected from people being so kind to me in return."

The Award for Projects of Social Benefit is presented to a project or team responsible for applying free software, or the ideas of the free software movement, to intentionally and significantly benefit society. This award stresses the use of free software in service to humanity. Past recipients of the award include OpenStreetMap and Public Lab, whose executive director, Shannon Dosemagen, will be delivering a keynote for the 2020 LibrePlanet conference on Sunday.

This year's honoree is Let's Encrypt, a nonprofit certificate authority that hopes to make encrypted Web traffic the default state of the entire Internet. The award was accepted by site reliability engineer Phil Porada, on behalf of the Let's Encrypt team. Porada said: "I am extremely honored to accept this award on behalf of the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG) and Let's Encrypt. It’s a testament to the teamwork, compassion towards others, patience, and community that helps drive our mission of creating a more secure and privacy-respecting Web."

"As a maker I enjoy taking things apart and putting them back together; be it mechanical, wood, or software. Free software allows us to look deep into the internals of a system and figure out why and how it works. Only through openness, transparency, and accountability do we learn, ask questions, and progress forward."

Josh Aas, executive director of Let's Encrypt, added: "There is no freedom without privacy. As the Web becomes central to the lives of more people, ensuring it’s 100% encrypted and privacy-respecting becomes critical for a free and healthy society." Commenting on Let's Encrypt's receipt of the award, FSF executive director John Sullivan added: "This is a project that took on a problem that so many people and so many large, vested interests said they would never be able to solve. And they tackled that problem using free software and important principles of the free software movement."

The Award for the Advancement of Free Software goes to an individual who has made a great contribution to the progress and development of free software through activities that accord with the spirit of free software. Past recipients of the award include Yukihiro Matsumoto, creator of the Ruby programming language, and Karen Sandler, executive director of Software Freedom Conservancy.

This year's honoree is Jim Meyering, a prolific free software programmer, maintainer, and writer. Presenting the award was Richard Stallman, founder of both the Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project. Receiving his award, Jim wrote, "I dove head-first into the nascent *utils and autotools three decades ago. Little did I know how far free software would come or how it would end up shaping my ideas on software development. From what 'elegant,' 'robust,' and 'well-tested' could mean, to how hard (yet essential) it would be to say 'Thank you!' to those first few contributors who submitted fixes for bugs I'd introduced. Free software has given me so much, I cannot imagine where I would be without it. Thank you, RMS, co-maintainers and our oh-so-numerous contributors."

Due to ongoing worries about the COVID-19 outbreak, the 2020 LibrePlanet conference is being conducted entirely online, utilizing free software to stream the scheduled talks all over the globe, in lieu of the usual in-person conference and awards presentation. The Free Software Award winners will be mailed their commemorative gifts.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at https://fsf.org and https://gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at https://my.fsf.org/donate. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

More information about the FSF, as well as important information for journalists and publishers, is at https://www.fsf.org/press.

Media Contacts

John Sullivan
Executive Director
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
campaigns@fsf.org

Photo credits: Free Software Foundation, Inc. Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license.

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Wednesday, March 4, 2020 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced that the opening keynote for the LibrePlanet 2020 conference will be a panel of impressive young free software community members. The annual technology and social justice conference will be held in the Back Bay Events Center on March 14 and 15, 2020, with the theme "Free the Future."

Online registration is open until March 10, 10:00am Eastern Daylight Time (14:00 UTC); and registration is possible at the event.

The panelists will be Alyssa Rosenzweig, a free software hacker working at Collabora, Taowa, a sysadmin, free software enthusiast, and the youngest (non-uploading) Debian developer, and Erin Moon, whose free software work has focused on federated social media software as a user, contributor, and maintainer.

Alyssa leads the Panfrost project to build a free graphics stack for Mali GPUs, and she is passionate about freedom. She has strong, pointed ideas on what the future of free software is supposed to look like: "Beyond abstract criteria, today's software has profound network effects and psychosocial implications. In the balance is more than software freedom, but also users' entire lives. The need for holistic, optimistic free software is greater than ever," she states.

Greg Farough, campaigns manager at the FSF and moderator of the panel, added: "The continued success of the free software movement depends on its youngest members, so it is time we give them a proper platform. This new generation of freedom-minded developers is incredibly talented, diverse, and forward-thinking. I am convinced they can accomplish everything they set out to do."

The keynote will touch on subjects like optimism in the face of adversity, the social impact of working in free software, and the effect of social change, broadening user bases, and bringing the free software movement beyond the Intel x86 processor architecture. Taowa is excited to weigh in: "A free future is an accessible one. Much like scientific progress is built on what's come before us, technological progress is built on the shoulders of our predecessors. A free present enables a free future, but it isn't going to build itself."

Erin is the developer behind Rustodon, a Mastodon-compatible ActivityPub server. To her, having the panel comment on the future of freedom is a way to represent the meta community of diverging projects. She says: "Together we shape the future of free software and its subcommunities: what projects are prominent, the public image of free software, our culture and social mores. Paneling with people whose work is vastly different from my own is exhilarating! While I'm excited to learn about others' technical work, I'm also connected to them by this meta-community: our shared experiences as people involved with free software."

The panel is the third confirmed keynote for LibrePlanet 2020. It follows the announcement of Brewster Kahle in January, and the more recent announcement of Public Lab's Shannon Dosemagen. The schedule features talks and workshops from a wide and international range of community members. Thousands of people have attended LibrePlanet over the years, both in person and remotely. The conference welcomes visitors from up to fifteen countries each year, with many more joining online. Hundreds of impressive free software speaker sessions from past LibrePlanet conferences, including keynote talks by Micky Metts, Edward Snowden, and Cory Doctorow, can be viewed in the conference's video library.

About LibrePlanet

LibrePlanet is the annual conference of the Free Software Foundation. Over the last decade, LibrePlanet has blossomed from a small gathering of FSF associate members into a vibrant multi-day event that attracts a broad audience of people who are interested in the values of software freedom. LibrePlanet 2020 will be held on March 14 and 15, 2020. To sign up for announcements about LibrePlanet 2020, visit the Web site. To discuss LibrePlanet topics or to get involved, join the discussion list.

Registration for LibrePlanet: "Free the Future" is open through March 10. Attendance is free of charge for FSF associate members and for students.

For information on how your company can sponsor LibrePlanet or have a table in our exhibit hall, email campaigns@fsf.org.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at https://www.fsf.org and https://www.gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at https://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

MEDIA CONTACT

Zoë Kooyman
Program Manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
info@fsf.org

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Wednesday, March 4, 2020 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced that its opening keynote for the LibrePlanet 2020 conference will be a panel of impressive young free software community members. The annual technology and social justice conference will be held in the Back Bay Events Center on March 14 and 15, 2020, with the theme "Free the Future."

Online registration is open until March 10, 10:00am Eastern Daylight Time (14:00 UTC), and registration is possible at the event.

The panelists will be Alyssa Rosenzweig, a free software hacker working at Collabora, Taowa, a sysadmin, free software enthusiast, and the youngest (non-uploading) Debian developer, and Erin Moon, whose free software work has focused on federated social media software as a user, contributor, and maintainer.

Alyssa leads the Panfrost project to build a free graphics stack for Mali GPUs, and she is passionate about freedom. She has strong, pointed ideas on what the future of free software is supposed to look like: "Beyond abstract criteria, today's software has profound network effects and psychosocial implications. In the balance is more than software freedom, but also users' entire lives. The need for holistic, optimistic free software is greater than ever," she states.

Greg Farough, campaigns manager of the FSF and moderator of the panel, added: "The success of the free software movement now depends on its youngest members, so it is time we give them a proper platform. This new generation of freedom-minded developers is incredibly talented, diverse, and forward-thinking. I am convinced they can accomplish everything they set out to do."

The keynote will touch on subjects like optimism in the face of adversity, the social impact of working in free software, and the effect of social change, broadening user bases, and bringing the free software movement beyond the Intel x86 processor architecture. Taowa is excited to weigh in: "A free future is an accessible one. Much like scientific progress is built on what's come before us, technological progress is built on the shoulders of our predecessors. A free present enables a free future, but it isn't going to build itself."

Erin is the developer behind Rustodon, a Mastodon-compatible ActivityPub server. To her, having the panel comment on the future of freedom is a way to represent the meta community of diverging projects. She says: "Together we shape the future of free software and its subcommunities: what projects are prominent, the public image of free software, our culture and social mores. Paneling with people whose work is vastly different from my own is exhilarating! While I'm excited to learn about others' technical work, I'm also connected to them by this meta-community: our shared experiences as people involved with free software."

The panel is the third confirmed keynote for LibrePlanet 2020. It follows the announcement of Brewster Kahle in January, and the more recent announcement of Public Lab's Shannon Dosemagen. The schedule features talks and workshops from a wide and international range of community members. Thousands of people have attended LibrePlanet over the years, both in person and remotely. The conference welcomes visitors from up to fifteen countries each year, with many more joining online. Hundreds of impressive free software speaker sessions from past LibrePlanet conferences, including keynote talks by Micky Metts, Edward Snowden, and Cory Doctorow can be viewed in the conference's video library.

About LibrePlanet

LibrePlanet is the annual conference of the Free Software Foundation. Over the last decade, LibrePlanet has blossomed from a small gathering of FSF associate members into a vibrant multi-day event that attracts a broad audience of people who are interested in the values of software freedom. LibrePlanet 2020 will be held on March 14 and 15, 2020. To sign up for announcements about LibrePlanet 2020, visit the Web site. To discuss LibrePlanet topics or to get involved, join the discussion list.

Registration for LibrePlanet: "Free the Future" is open through March 10. Attendance is free of charge for FSF associate members, and for students.

For information on how your company can sponsor LibrePlanet or have a table in our exhibit hall, email campaigns@fsf.org.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at https://www.fsf.org and https://www.gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at https://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

MEDIA CONTACT

Zoë Kooyman
Program Manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
campaigns@fsf.org