After 104 commits from six different people, GNU grep was released Saturday, reports Phoronix.

The biggest change? "It's now made more clear that if you are still relying on the egrep and fgrep commands, it's past due for switching to just grep with the appropriate command-line arguments." The egrep and fgrep commands have been deprecated since 2007. Beginning with GNU Grep 3.8 today, calling these commands will now issue a warning to the user that instead they should use grep -E and grep -F, respectively.

Eventually, GNU Grep will drop the egrep / fgrep commands completely but there doesn't seem to be a firm deadline yet for when that removal will happen.
From grep's updated manual: 7th Edition Unix had commands egrep and fgrep that were the counterparts of the modern 'grep -E' and 'grep -F'. Although breaking up grep into three programs was perhaps useful on the small computers of the 1970s, egrep and fgrep were not standardized by POSIX and are no longer needed. In the current GNU implementation, egrep and fgrep issue a warning and then act like their modern counterparts; eventually, they are planned to be removed entirely.

If you prefer the old names, you can use use your own substitutes, such as a shell script...
Other notable changes from the release announcement:

• The confusing GREP_COLOR environment variable is now obsolescent. Instead of GREP_COLOR='xxx' use GREP_COLORS='mt=xxx'

• Regular expressions with stray backslashes now cause warnings

"Nineteen new GNU releases in the last month," reads a "July GNU Spotlight" announcement from the Free Software Foundation.

Here's (edited and condensed) descriptions of some of the highlights:

• GNU Datamash (version 1.8) — a command-line program performing basic numeric, textual, and statistical operations on input textual data files (designed to work within standard pipelines).

• GNUnet (version 0.17.2) — a framework for secure peer-to-peer networking. "The high-level goal is to provide a strong foundation of free software for a global, distributed network that provides security and privacy. GNUnet in that sense aims to replace the current internet protocol stack. Along with an application for secure publication of files, it has grown to include all kinds of basic applications for the foundation of a GNU internet."

• GnuTLS (version 3.7.7) — A secure communications library implementing the SSL, TLS and DTLS protocols, provided in the form of a C library.

• Jami (version 20220726.1515.da8d1da) — a GNU package for universal communication that respects the freedom and privacy of its users, using distributed hash tables for establishing communication. ("This avoids keeping centralized registries of users and storing personal data.")

• LibreJS (version 7.21.0) — an add-on for GNU Icecat and other Firefox-based browsers that detects non-trivial and non-free JavaScript code from being loaded without your consent when you browse the web. "JavaScript code that is free or trivial is allowed to be loaded."

• GNU Nettle (version 3.8.1) — a low-level cryptographic library. It is designed to fit in easily in almost any context. It can be easily included in cryptographic toolkits for object-oriented languages or in applications themselves.

• GNU Octave (version 7.2.0) — a high-level interpreted language specialized for numerical computations, for both linear and non-linear applications and with great support for visualizing results.

• R (version 4.2.1) — a language and environment for statistical computing and graphics, along with robust support for producing publication-quality data plots. "A large amount of 3rd-party packages are available, greatly increasing its breadth and scope."

• TRAMP (version 2.5.3) — a GNU Emacs package allowing you to access files on remote machines as though they were local files. "This includes editing files, performing version control tasks and modifying directory contents with dired. Access is performed via ssh, rsh, rlogin, telnet or other similar methods."

Click here to see the other new releases and download information.

The FSF announcement adds that "A number of GNU packages, as well as the GNU operating system as a whole, are looking for maintainers and other assistance."

Phoronix reports: The GCC Steering Committee has approved of the GCC Rust front-end providing Rust programming language support by the GNU Compiler Collection. This Rust front-end will likely be merged ahead of the GCC 13 release next year.

The GCC Steering Committee this morning has announced that the Rust front-end "GCC Rust" is appropriate for inclusion into the GCC mainline code-base. This is the effort that has been in the works for a while as an alternative to Rust's official LLVM-based compiler. GCC Rust is still under active development but is getting into shape for mainlining.

The hope is to have at least "beta" level support for the Rust programming language in GCC 13, which will be released as stable around April of next year.

A senior systems administrator at the Free Software Foundation points out that they're running free software in two data centers and over a hundred virtual machine — each and every one with "a freedom-respecting BIOS."

But the "how" is surprisingly intricate: [E]arlier this week, we replaced "Columbia", the last of any FSF-run machines running a nonfree BIOS....

At FSF, our current standard is ASUS KGPE-D16 motherboards with AMD CPUs 6200 series CPUs released in 2012. For the BIOS, we install Libreboot, the easy-to-install, 100% free software replacement for proprietary BIOS/boot programs, or a version of Coreboot that is carefully built to avoid including any nonfree blobs. They are fast enough for our needs, and we expect this to be the case for many more years to come. They are also very affordable systems. We are also working toward supporting Raptor Computer Systems' newer and more powerful Talos II, as well as Blackbird motherboards that use IBM POWER9 CPUs. The POWER9 CPU architecture is called "PowerPC 64-bit little endian," abbreviated "ppc64el...." The Raptor motherboards come with entirely free firmware — and even have free hardware designs!

However, this type of migration has its challenges. For example, the first thing we needed to address before using these motherboards is that the main operating system we use, Trisquel GNU/Linux, didn't previously run on pp64el. So, earlier this year, we set up a Raptor POWER9 computer running Debian (without using any nonfree parts of Debian repositories) and loaned it to the maintainers of Trisquel for as long as needed. And now, we are proud to say that the upcoming Trisquel 11 release will support POWER9...!

Before I decommissioned Columbia, I ran a dmidecode, which told me that the BIOS program fit within a single megabyte of space. Often, very simplistic firmware becomes more complicated in later models, and that also usually means it has a growing significance for a user's software freedom. Some newer nonfree BIOSes have grown into operating systems in their own right, sometimes with large programs such as a full Web browser.

There is no fully-free BIOS available for x86 Intel and AMD CPUs released after about 2013. The key blocking factor is that those CPUs require certain firmware in the BIOS, like Intel Management Engine. Those CPUs will also refuse to run firmware that hasn't been cryptographically signed by private keys controlled by AMD and Intel, and AMD and Intel will only sign their own nonfree firmware. At the FSF, we refuse to run that nonfree firmware, and we applaud the many people who also avoid it. For those people who do run those Intel or AMD systems, running Coreboot or Osboot is still a step up the Freedom Ladder for the software freedom of your BIOS.

The road to freedom is a long road. We hope our dedication to achieve milestones like these can inspire the free software movement.

One of the GNOME developers has suggested that the next major release of Gtk could drop support for the X window system. The Register reports: Emmanuele Bassi opened a discussion last week on the GNOME project's Gitlab instance that asked whether the developers could drop X.11 support in the next release of Gtk. At this point, it is only a suggestion, but if it gets traction, this could significantly accelerate the move to the Wayland display server and the end of X.11.

Don't panic: Gtk 5 is not imminent. Gtk is a well-established toolkit, originally designed for the GIMP bitmap editing program back in 1998. Gtk 4 arrived relatively recently, shortly before the release of GNOME 40 in 2021. GNOME 40 has new user-interface guidelines, and as a part of this, Gtk 4 builds GNOME's Adwaita theme into the toolkit by means of the new libadwaita library, which is breaking the appearance of some existing apps.

Also, to be fair, as we recently covered, the X window system is very old now and isn't seeing major changes, although new releases of parts of it do still happen. This discussion is almost certain to get wildly contentious, and the thread on Gitlab has been closed to further comments for now. If this idea gains traction, one likely outcome might well be a fork of Gtk, just as happened when GNOME 3 came out. [...] A lot of the features of the current version, X.11, are no longer used or relevant to most users. Even so, X.12 is barely even in the planning stages yet.

Today I learned Turkey's Scientific and Technological Research Council has a subsidiary developing a GNU/Linux distro called Pardus, "redesigned to be used in accordance with the practices and habits of users in Turkey."

And this week the Free Software Foundation published a post from the proud project leader of Pardus, explaining exactly why open source was chosen in the district of Eyüpsultan (on the European side of Istanbul) and how they got it implemented: After the municipal elections held in 2014, the new administration realized (through internal financial analysis reports) that a large amount of money was being spent on licensing proprietary software. Looking to cut costs, management asked for a study to be carried out for solutions. As the Eyüpsultan municipality's IT department, we recommended to replace Microsoft Windows with Pardus GNU/Linux instead. We described our preference to transition to free software as "the desire to be independent from a company as well as the savings to be gained from cutting hefty license fees."

Additionally, we spoke about how the four freedoms would improve things outside of the budget. For example, we told the administration that users, when using free software, can fully benefit from the rights they have over the programs running on their computers. We also informed everyone that, when the software they run is proprietary, it means that a company claims rights over the user, and that such a claim of ownership can place restrictions on users in how they may or may not use the software. We told them that this is unacceptable. Arguments such as these were among the deciding factors that influenced our transition to free software.

The plan was presented to the municipal administration and widely accepted.

The municipal administration approved the project, and in January, 2015, the Eyüpsultan municipality started using free software applications such as LibreOffice (e.g. Writer, Calc, Impress, etc.). Prior to the implementations, basic user training on LibreOffice software was provided to the personnel of the institution. Over time, users were gradually and steadily directed to free systems, and, notably, without receiving backlash from users.... Training was an important item in the transition to Pardus GNU/Linux.
Besides an online support forum, they've also set up a live call center to answer questions. "I think we may be the only distribution that helps with issues via a call center."

So how do they feel now about that transition, eight years later? Free software has many advantages, including flexibility, high performance, major cost savings from licensing fees, independence from any particular company, and compliance with interoperability standards. Therefore, the transition of Eyüpsultan municipality to free software has resulted in benefits that were both strategic and practical. We believe, in the near future, more organizations will need to understand the philosophy of free software and the opportunities that free software provides.

The municipal budget has freed up money as a result of the moving from proprietary software to free software. The savings from the "proprietary software licenses" line of the budget was applied to the district in the form of new projects. The money goes now to, among other things, increasing the number of new parks and gardens, bicycle paths, and security cameras in the parks. Additionally, by increasing the number of classes we provide technical training, we started to provide classes in robotics and computation to young people. The Eyüpsultan municipality is now increasing the opportunities for students to further develop their personalities, abilities, goals, and self-discovery. It introduces young people to technology and encourages them to produce new technologies.
One final effect of using free software? It encourages others to do the same: As a result of this brave decision, many of the Istanbul district municipalities have started working to switch or have already made the switch to the Pardus GNU/Linux operating system. Institutions in other cities of the country have also expressed growing interest by asking questions about the Pardus operating system and free software.

"Let's popularize image-based OSes," writes Lennart Poettering, "with modernized security properties built around immutability, SecureBoot, TPM2, adaptability, auto-updating, factory reset, uniformity — built from traditional distribution packages, but deployed via images."

Or, as the Register puts it, the Systemd Linux init system "continues to grow and develop, as does Linux itself." They delve into the rationale for the new systemd-sysupdate and kernel-install features, noting "The former is still described as an experimental feature, so relax — for now." No, this does not mean that systemd is becoming a package manager. Like it or not, though, the nature of operating systems is changing. Modern ones are large, complex, and need regular updates, and as The Register has examined in depth recently, this means that the design of Linux distributions is changing radically....

ChromeOS doesn't have a package manager; neither do Fedora's Silverblue and Kinoite versions. You get a tested, known-good image of the OS. Updates are distributed as a complete image, like they are today with Android or iOS. ChromeOS has two root partitions: one live and one spare. The currently running OS updates the spare partition, then you reboot into that one. If everything works, it updates the now-idle second root partition. If it doesn't all work perfectly, then you still have the previous version available to use, and you can just reboot into that again. When a fixed image becomes available, the OS automatically tries again on the spare instance.

The idea is that you always have a known-good OS partition available, which sounds like a benefit to us. Presumably the users are happy too: Chromebook sales may be down, and they only have a fixed lifespan, but there are still well over a hundred million of them out there.

So, no, systemd is not going to become a package manager, because ordinary distros won't have a package manager at all, except maybe Flatpak, or Snap or something similar. The new functionality, including managing installed kernels, is to facilitate A/B type dual-live-system partitions.

For some insight into this vision, Lennart Poettering, lead architect of systemd, has described this in a blog post titled "Bringing Everything Together."
Other updates include "changes to systemd-networkd, such as systemd-resolved starting earlier in the boot sequence, and more cautious allocation of default routes," the article points out, adding that new releases of systemd "ppear roughly twice a year, so the chances are that this will appear in the fall releases of Ubuntu and Fedora...

"If you still prefer to avoid systemd, don't despair. There are still a selection of distros that eschew it altogether, including Devuan GNU+Linux, Alpine Linux, and Void Linux.

UnknowingFool writes: This weekend, Miguel Ojeda, added support for a set of additional Rust patches in the kernel and separately a new version of Uutils which is the Rust version of GNU CoreUtils. These changes will go towards more inclusion of Rust into Linux. The v7 patches adds in abstractions used by Rust and the Uutils update contained fixes and addresses compatibility issues.

During a 92-minute presentation Wednesday on the state of the free software movement, Richard Stallman spoke at length on a wide variety of topics, including the need for freedom-respecting package systems.

But Stallman also shared his deepest thoughts on a topic dear to the hearts of Slashdot readers: privacy and currency: I won't order from online stores, because I can't pay them . For one thing, the payment services require running non-free JavaScript... [And] to pay remotely you've got to do it by credit card, and that's tracking people, and I want to resist tracking too.... This is a really serious problem for society, that you can't order things remotely anonymously.

But GNU Taler is part of the path to fixing that. You'll be able to get a Taler token from your bank, or a whole bunch of Taler tokens, and then you'll be able to use those to pay anonymously.

Then if the store can send the thing you bought to a delivery box in your neighborhood, the store doesn't ever have to know who you are.
But there's another issue Stallman touched on earlier in his talk: There is a proposed U.S. law called KOSA which would require mandatory age-verification of users -- which means mandatory identification of users, which is likely to mean via face recognition. And it would be in every commercial software application or electronic service that connects to the internet.... [It's] supposedly for protecting children. That's one of the favorite excuses for surveillance and repression: to protect the children. Whether it would actually protect anyone is dubious, but they hope that won't actually be checked.... You can always propose a completely useless method that will repress everyone....
So instead, Stallman suggests that age verification could be handled by.... GNU Taler: Suppose there's some sort of service which charges money, or even a tiny amount of money, and is only for people over 16, or people over 18 or whatever it is. Well, you could get from your bank a Taler token that says the person using this token is over 16. This bank has verified that.... So then the site only needs to insist on a 16-or-over Taler token, and your age is verified, but the site has no idea who you are.

Unfortunately that won't help if user-identifying age-tracking systems are legislated now. The code of Taler works, but it's still being integrated with a bank so that people could actually start to use it with real businesses.
Read on for Slashdot's report on Stallman's remarks on cryptocurrencies and encryption, or jump ahead to...

• Can GNU Taler accounts be frozen?
• Why cryptocurrency shouldn't replace banking
• The problem with VPN apps - and how interoperable encryption could protect your freedom

Last week 69-year-old Richard Stallman gave a 92-minute presentation on the state of the free software movement. Stallman covered numerous topics, but also added as an aside at one point: Ubuntu of course is a non-free distro, and I wouldn't recommend that anyone use it. Some important packages are now distributed only through their non-freedom-respecting package system, and not as Debian packages. So it's even harder than before to get any freedom out of an Ubuntu installation.
But Stallman also sees a larger issue: Another area where we have problems is there are several languages which come with a package library -- basically people post packages in them. And that might be fine if they had a good criterion for the licensing of the libraries people upload into those sites -- but they're not developed by free software activists, and they don't have such a criterion. There are non-free packages in those libraries too.

Now, some of them make it possible to find out whether a library is free. Some of them, it's difficult. Sometimes -- yeah, you could probably look at the source code and see what licenses are in it, and then you could look up those licenses in GNU.org/licenses/license-list.html and see if all those licenses are free... The problem is, they don't help you. At the very least they should make it easy to say, "Show me only the free packages." And then, "Show me only the GPL-compatible packages, because I'm writing a GPL-covered program, and I can't use the libraries that are not GPL compatible. And I certainly won't ever think of using a non-free library."

They're not interested in helping people move forward in freedom. And so we need people to write front-ends for those package archives, which will show only the freely-licensed packages, and which can be asked to show which ones are GPL-compatible, or show only those. This way they will be usable easily by the free software community. If you like one of the languages that has this problem, please show your appreciation for that language by reconciling its use with maintaining freedom.
And this leads Stallman to a related setback for the free software movement: the containers themselves that are packaging some programs with the libraries they need: The old way of doing this was you would make sure that your program said which versions of libraries it was compiled to work with, and in the source code you'd use something like Autoconf so that it could work with the various library versions. And this way you could build the program for a wide variety of free operating systems and versions of them.

Well, that's some work, so some developers, they release a free program -- not all of them release free programs, but some of them do release free programs -- using containers. And the container has one set of libraries in it. And how do you really know what's in there? It's not straightforward to verify that all the libraries in the container are free, and a lot of people won't realize that they should even think about it. So the use of containers, as they are implemented nowadays by people who are not free software activists and are not particularly concerned with this question, is an obstacle to verifying that you're installing free software.

Well, maybe some of these container systems could be improved, or maybe another one could be designed to solve these problems. If a container packaging system were designed by people who care about freedom, they might find good ways to satisfy this goal, as well as others. So it's something you could possibly work on.

Richard Stallman celebrated his 69th birthday last month. And Wednesday, he gave a 92-minute presentation called "The State of the Free Software Movement."

Stallman began by thanking everyone who's contributed to free software, and encouraged others who want to help to visit gnu.org/help. "The Free Software movement is universal, and morally should not exclude anyone. Because even though there are crimes that should be punished, cutting off someone from contributing to free software punishes the world. Not that person."

And then he began by noting some things that have gotten better in the free software movement, including big improvements in projects like GNU Emacs when displaying external packages. (And in addition, "GNU Health now has a hospital management facility, which should make it applicable to a lot more medical organizations so they can switch to free software. And [Skype alternative] GNU Jami got a big upgrade.")

What's getting worse? Well, the libre-booted machines that we have are getting older and scarcer. Finding a way to support something new is difficult, because Intel and AMD are both designing their hardware to subjugate people. If they were basically haters of the public, it would be hard for them to do it much worse than they're doing.

And Macintoshes are moving towards being jails, like the iMonsters. It's getting harder for users to install even their own programs to run them. And this of course should be illegal. It should be illegal to sell a computer that doesn't let users install software of their own from source code. And probably shouldn't allow the computer to stop you from installing binaries that you get from others either, even though it's true in cases like that, you're doing it at your own risk. But tying people down, strapping them into their chairs so that they can't do anything that hurts themselves -- makes things worse, not better. There are other systems where you can find ways to trust people, that don't depend on being under the power of a giant company.

We've seen problems sometimes where supported old hardware gets de-supported because somebody doesn't think it's important any more — it's so old, how could that matter? But there are reasons...why old hardware sometimes remains very important, and people who aren't thinking about this issue might not realize that...

Stallman also had some advice for students required by their schools to use non-free software like Zoom for their remote learning. "If you have to use a non-free program, there's one last thing... which is to say in each class session, 'I am bitterly ashamed of the fact that I'm using Zoom for this class.' Just that. It's a few seconds. But say it each time.... And over time, the fact that this is really important to you will sink in."

And then halfway through, Stallman began taking questions from the audience...

Read on for Slashdot's report on Stallman's remarks, or jump ahead to...

• How far should copyright law go?
• That NPM package that deleted files in Russia
• Does the free software world need more videogames?
• Stallman's upcoming manual for 'GNU C'
• Free Software's role in protecting our planet's environment

LibrePlanet, the annual conference hosted by the Free Software Foundation, will be happening online this weekend. The event "provides an opportunity for community activists, domain experts, and people seeking solutions for themselves to come together in order to discuss current issues in technology and ethics," according to its web page. This year's LibrePlanet theme is "Living Liberation".

And while you're listening to the presentations, you can apparently also interact with the rest of the community: Each LibrePlanet room has its own IRC channel on the Libera.Chat network... Want to interact with other conference-goers in a virtual space? Join us on LibreAdventure, where you'll be able to video chat with fellow free software users, journey to the stars, and walk around a replica of the FSF office!

Our Minetest server is back by popular demand, and now running version 5.x of everyone's favorite free software, voxel sandbox game. You can install Minetest through your GNU/Linux distro's package manager, and point your client to minetest.libreplanet.org with the default port 30000.
Sunday's presentations include "Living in freedom with GNU Emacs" and "Hacking my brain: Free virtual reality implementations and their potential for therapeutic use."

And Sunday will also include a talk from Seth Schoen, the first staff technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (who helped develop the Let's Encrypt certificate authority) titled "Reducing Internet address waste: The IPv4 unicast extensions project."

View the complete schedule here.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine turns up in Mike Melanson's column "This Week in Programming": While the Open Source Initiative's (OSI) definition of open source software is quite clear on the matter — there must be "no discrimination against persons or groups" and "no discrimination against fields of endeavor" — the issue of who should be allowed to use open source software, according to ethical considerations, has long been debated.

Over the last month, this topic has again become a focus of debate as Russia's invasion of Ukraine has led to developers calling for blanket bans by companies like GitHub and GitLab; and to some developers even taking action. Earlier this month, we wrote about how open source gateway Scarf began limiting access to open source packages for the Russian government and military entities, via its gateway.

As we noted at the time, there was a primary distinction made when Scarf took this action: distribution of open source software is separate from the licensing of it. Those points of the OSI definition pertain to the licensing, not to some entity actively providing the software to others.

Since then, discussions around these ideas have continued, and this week an essay by Bradley M. Kuhn, a policy fellow and hacker-in-residence at the Software Freedom Conservancy, argues that copyleft won't solve all problems, just some of them.

The essay specifically takes to task the idea that open source software can effectively affect change by way of licensing limitations. He spent nearly 3,000 words on the topic, before pointedly addressing the issue of Russia — with a similar conclusion to the one reached by Scarf earlier this month. Kuhn argues that "FOSS licenses are not an effective tool to advance social justice causes other than software freedom" and that, instead, developers have a moral obligation to take stances by way of other methods.

"For example, FOSS developers should refuse to work specifically on bug reports from companies who don't pay their workers a living wage," Kuhn offers in an example.

Regarding Russia specifically, Kuhn again points to distribution as an avenue of protest, while still remaining in line with the principles of free and open source software.

"Every FOSS license in existence permits capricious distribution; software freedom guarantees the right to refuse to distribute new versions of the software. (i.e., Copyleft does not require that you publish all your software on the Internet for everyone, or that you give equal access to everyone — rather, it merely requires that those whom you chose to give legitimate access to the software also receive CCS). FOSS projects should thus avoid providing Putin easy access to updates to their FOSS," writes Kuhn.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Last year, the Graph Foundation had to rethink how it develops and distributes its Open Native Graph Database (ONgDB) after it settled a trademark and copyright claim by database biz Neo4j. The Graph Foundation agreed [PDF] it would no longer claim specific versions of ONgDB, its Neo4j Enterprise Edition fork, are a "100 percent free and open source version" of Neo4J EE. And last month, two other companies challenged by Neo4j -- PureThink and iGov -- were also required by a court ruling to make similar concessions.

ONgDB is forked from Neo4j EE, which in May 2018 dropped the GNU Affero General Public License (AGPL) and adopted a new license that incorporates the AGPLv3 alongside additional limitations spelled out in the Commons Clause license. This new Neo4j EE license forbade non-paying users of the software from reselling the code or offering some support services, and thus is not open source as defined by the Open Source Initiative. The Graph Foundation, PureThink, and iGov offered ONgDB as a "free and open source" version of Neo4j in the hope of winning customers who preferred an open-source license. That made it more challenging for Neo4j to compete.

So in 2018 and 2019 Neo4j and its Swedish subsidiary pursued legal claims against the respective firms and their principals for trademark and copyright infringement, among other things. The Graph Foundation settled [PDF] in February 2021 as the company explained in a blog post. The organization discontinued support for ONgDB versions 3.4, 3.5 and 3.6. And it released ONgDB 1.0 in their place as a fork of AGPLv3 licensed Neo4j EE version 3.4.0.rc02. Last May, the judge hearing the claims against PureThink, and iGov granted Neo4j's motion for partial summary judgment [PDF] and forbade the defendants from infringing on the company's Neo4j trademark and from advertising ONgDB "as a free and open source drop-in replacement of Neo4j Enterprise Edition" The defendants appealed, and in February the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that the company's "statements regarding ONgDB as 'free and open source' versions of Neo4j EE are false." "Stop saying Open Source when it's not," said the Open Source Initiative in a blog post. "The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently affirmed a lower court decision concluding what we've always known: that it's false advertising to claim that software is 'open source' when it's not licensed under an open source license."

juul_advocate shares a report from iTWire: A developer who had more than two decades of service in the Debian GNU/Linux project was stripped of his status in December leading to him deciding to leave the project. Norbert Preining told iTWire in response to a query he decided that having been graded down to Debian maintainer was not something he wanted after all these years. He has now joined the Arch Linux project.

Preining said what basically happened was that the [Debian account manager (DAM) team] thought he was bullying members of the project. "I guess they are referring to my run-in with Martina Ferrari where she called me out in very strange and unfounded ways, which started a long lasting disagreement between her and me, and the blog post about Lars [Wirzenius, a project member] which was nothing more than a selection of quotes from Lars' own blogs," he added.

"Anyway, these were all old things, but DAM still prefers to paint me in the light of 'You have been bullying members of the project for years' (quote from Enrico Zini on the debian-private mailing list) and that I cannot communicate with the Community Team, which back then included Martina, and which has again hit me in the back by allowing other members in Debian (I refrain from naming them here, but will do in my blog post) to bully me, even in unrelated forums and on IRC. The bottom line is that Martina, Lars, and those others are close friends of DAM and CT [community team] and the 'leading circle' in Debian, and thus it seems that they are exempted from adhering to the same community standards." Preining said the situation that led to his demotion was "more or less" about political correctness, adding that he'll explain more about the events in a blog post later on.

The nation of Chile "is in the midst of governmental changes," writes the Free Software Foundation, "and with these changes comes the opportunity for the people of Chile to make their voices heard for long-term benefits to their digital rights and freedoms.

"Chilean activists have submitted three constitutional proposals relating to free software and user freedom, but they need signatures in order to have these proposals submitted to the constitutional debate."

FSF community member Felix Freeman writes: Chile is living a historic moment. For the first time, it is drafting a constitution with constituents elected democratically, on a participatory basis, and with the participation of native peoples. 154 people are in charge of drafting the new fundamental charter of the country, and they have arranged a mechanism of popular participation based on the collection of support: 15,000 signatures are required to submit citizen proposals to the constitutional debate directly.

The opportunity to achieve substantive and long-term change for digital rights and freedom of software and other intellectual works is unique in Chile's history, and may not be repeated in our lifetime. This is why four communities historically related to the use and dissemination of free software in Chile got together to draft three of these proposals, which are:

- Access to knowledge
- Technological and digital sovereignty
- Internet privacy

These constitutional proposals explain principles of the nation, the rights of citizens, and the duties of the state concerning them. The inclusion of the constitutional articles will allow and promote the creation of laws that defend our freedoms and rights effectively. They are not the end of the road for intellectual freedoms and digital rights, but only the beginning....

People of any nationality can support us by spreading the word all over the Internet.

[A Spanish-language version is available HERE.]

This week the Free Software Foundation's board announced that for the first time in the organization's 37-year-history, its 5,000-plus associate members will now be able to nominate and evaluate candidates for its board of directors. Under new procedures adopted by the FSF board on January 17 and summarized here, the organization will proactively engage associate members with a sufficient history of association with the FSF in the recruiting process by inviting them to suggest board nominees and then research collectively those nominees' suitability for a position on the board, including most importantly their record of commitment to free software ideals.... Following the new procedures, voting members (which include all current directors and are listed here) can start a process to recruit new directors, or a modified process to reconsider existing directors...

The FSF intends to first add several new directors in 2022, utilizing these new procedures, and then begin a review of existing directors. The FSF staff and board have made this expanded engagement process a high priority and are working together to put in place the necessary infrastructure to support it, with a target to activate it within the first quarter of 2022... Voting members will review the community's nominations.

A nominee may be removed from consideration if at least two voting members vote to do so without opposition from other voting members. The voting members will discuss the candidates and decide which should move forward in the process next. The FSF's associate members will then review each nominee's application, then evaluate and comment on those nominees in a private, staff-moderated discussion forum. Voting members will review this input and privately interview the finalists to assess their candidacy, ideals, and commitment to free software, then vote on their appointment....

The process is designed such that new iterations for both recruiting new directors and reviewing existing directors can be run whenever the need arises in the future.
"Opening the director recruitment process to our associate members is a historic and welcome milestone for the FSF," said FSF president Geoffrey Knauth. "We are pleased to engage the free software community in attracting new talent to our leadership who will keep the freedoms.... We have worked hard to strengthen governance standards at the FSF and to create a transparent leadership recruitment process. We look forward to tackling new challenges and opportunities this year."

The FSF's announcement calls the new "community engagement process" a "key result of a six-month consultant-led review designed to help make FSF governance and recruitment practices more transparent and participatory, while more systematically ensuring their commitment to the FSF's values and principles."

Libreboot.org is publicizing an event this Tuesday of "global importance to Free Software projects, and the movement as a whole... If you live in New Hampshire or in one of the neighbouring states, especially Massachusetts, please listen up!

"If you are further away and unable to reach New Hampshire all that easily, please spread the following news anyway. It's important." An important bill is being proposed in New Hampshire, which would enshrine much of what we know as Free Software into law... [H]ere is a paraphrasing of what it proposes:


- Specifically bans state-run websites from serving non-free javaScript to clients

- Creates a commission to provide oversight, watching the use of Free Software by state agencies

- Bans state agencies from using proprietary software — maybe this could include schools, in the future!

- If a person is tried in a criminal case, they have the right to audit the source code of any proprietary software that collects evidence against them

- Encourages data portability (able to transfer data from one program to another)

- Bans certain non-compete clauses and NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) pertaining to Free Software projects

- Bans state/local law enforcement from assisting with the enforcement of copyright claims against Free Software projects

- Bans state agencies from purchasing non-free software if free software exists, for a given task....


At first glance, it may not seem that the bill affects individuals, but don't be fooled; this is a hugely positive step forward for everyone! If the state is using Free Software, that most likely means it'll be used in education as well. Although perhaps not immediately and readily apparent, this is a stake in the heart of proprietary software's current dominance, because it would remove one key element of its attack against us; its abuse of education services. If education services are using Free Software, that means they'll probably have children (the ones being educated) using it too. This is a huge step, and it will result in more Free Software developers in the future. Free Software will become more and more mainstream to the masses, which can surely only be a good thing...!

[I]magine if more states like what they see and start to copy the new legislation. Now imagine that countries besides the U.S. start doing it, inspired by the US's success (and I think it will be a resounding success). Imagine a world where Free Software, free as in freedom, is the default everywhere. Imagine a world where Free Software licensing is required reading material in schools. Imagine a world where any five year old can install a free operating system such as GNU+Linux, and Computer Science is mandatory in schools from a young age. Imagine filing your tax returns with Free Software, exclusively. Imagine not even thinking about that, because it became the norm.

Imagine a world where proprietary software doesn't exist, because it is obsolete; entire generations of people are taught to value freedom, and to staunchly defend it, helping each other learn and grow (and produce better software in the process, with less bugs, because people are now free to do that, without relying on some evil company)...

Free Software is a revolution that we in the Free Software movement have rigorously upheld and fought for, over many years, but we still face an uphill battle because children are not taught in schools about free computing, nor are they encouraged to learn; they are taught to view computers as products to throw away every 1-2 years, that they can run a few apps on but otherwise are not allowed to do anything with. The concept of a general purpose, fully reprogrammable computer is heavily suppressed in mainstream culture. Most people in the world do not run a free operating system; the idea of a computer being a mere appliance is normalized (as opposed to the idea of it being a highly liberating tool for development and the expansion of human knowledge)....

Something is happening in New Hampshire, which could redefine our movement and give free software real power instead.
The post links to a state representative's tweet describing how supporters can testify in person to support the bill. "If this bill is passed in New Hampshire, more states will likely follow," argues Libreboot.org. "It will lead to a massively renewed drive to liberate all computer users, and U.S. laws tend to be copied/pasted around the world too. This bill, if passed, will have a hugely positive impact on Free Software at a global level...

"The proprietary software companies like Microsoft and Apple will also be there, trying to argue the case against the use of Free Software."

"Do you need a last-minute gift these upcoming holidays," asks the Free Software Foundation, "one that will keep on giving for the rest of the year?

"Free your own digital life and the ones of those you love by opting to give them a gift that will raise their social consciousness, create more lasting cheer, and defend #UserFreedom: Gift a Free Software Foundation (FSF) associate membership!" After donating, you'll receive a code and a printable page so that you can present your gift as a physical object, if you like. The membership is valid for one year, and includes the many benefits that come with an FSF associate membership, including a USB member card [16GB and pre-loaded with the fully free GNU/Linux distribution Trisquel Live], email forwarding, access to our Jitsi Meet videoconferencing server and member forum, discounts in the FSF shop and on ThinkPenguin hardware, and many more.

Looking for more gifts? You can also check out the latest FSF Giving Guide, or have a look at the great list of potential gifts our operations assistant Davis Remmel made for this very purpose!
"If you're unsure what to get that special someone, or just want to treat yourself," Remmel writes, "consider our Emacs de Luxe Bundle: it has manuals, tutorials, references, mugs, shirts, and just like Emacs it includes the kitchen sink stickers.

"For privacy lovers (or those who have ever uttered the word, "cryptography"), we have a NeuG USB True Random Number Generator (RNG). Your cryptographic keys will be stronger than an ox, without any need to trust your CPU's definition of "random." I recommend this RNG in conjunction with our anti-surveillance webcam stickers, which don't leave residue and can also cover microphone holes."

The Free Software Foundation's board "has approved and implemented two new measures designed to help make FSF governance more transparent, accountable, ethical, and responsible," according to an FSF announcement.

First a Board Member Agreement "enumerates the responsibilities of board members." And there's also a Code of Ethics "that lays out principles to guide their decision-making and activities." The new measures are the first products of a six-month, consultant-led review. They formalize crucial aspects of the FSF's governance, and will guide board members to understand and embrace their responsibilities to the nonprofit's worldwide mission to promote computer user freedom.

The new Board Member Agreement spells out nineteen duties and responsibilities, including minimum expectations for organizational and financial oversight, participation in board activities, the recruitment of associate members, and annual performance reviews. The Code of Ethics details thirteen specific provisions establishing how the board of directors will conduct the business affairs of the organization in good faith and with honesty, integrity, due diligence, and competence.

All current board members have signed and committed to upholding the new governance standards.
The agreement clarifies that Board members "do not have individual direct authority over FSF staff. Individual board members will not try to give staff instructions about what to do in their FSF work, nor try to pressure them about what to do." Board members also agree not to participate in discussions and votes where they might have a conflict of interest.

"In signing this document, I understand that no quotas are being set, that no rigid standards of measurement or achievement are being formed. I have confidence that other board members will operate in good faith to carry out these agreements to the best of their ability."

"The FSF has always been a steady beacon for freedom and against the widespread mistreatment of computer users," says FSF president Geoffrey Knauth in the announcement. "In the last year, the board realized that we faced a challenge and opportunity to improve our governance practices and recruit new leaders to the FSF board. I'm proud of this important step in that ongoing work."