Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the FSD contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

While the FSD has been and continues to be a great resource to the world over the past decade, it has the potential of being a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help!

This week's theme is friends and family. We have a great team of regulars showing up to help improve the directory each week, but as the saying goes, the more the merrier. So this week we're hoping that you invite your friends and family to join in on the fun. We'll be focusing on training new volunteers on how to update and improve the directory. We'll be continuing work on other projects from previous weeks as well.

If you are eager to help and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly FSD Meetings pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

Last week started off with a theme of outreach to maintainers of free software packages. mangeurdenuage and donaldr3 put together template volunteers can use to contact package maintainers to get them interested in keeping their own entries up to date. mangeurdenuage then went on to contact many maintainers. We hope to see everyone they contacted at upcoming meetings or at least in the revision log.

While the theme was maintainer outreach, there was still a lot of excitement about the previous week's discussion on how to deal with certain edge cases. David_Hedlund and IanKelling worked out that using categories to tag potential issues was probably the best system, as tagged categories could still flag a post with text explaining the potential issue. Lots of different categories of issues were discussed, with David_Hedlund implementing some of them for review. Those categories, their text, and implementation are still being reviewed and iterated on. That work will continue in this upcoming meeting as well, so be sure to join us all in directing the future of the directory.

If you would like to help update the directory, meet with us every Friday in #fsf on irc.freenode.org from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST (18:00 to 20:00 UTC).

An activist sharing the Giving Guide at a Giveaway.

As software permeates more and more aspects of society, the FSF must expand our work to protect and extend computer user freedom. On Monday, we launched our yearly fundraiser with the goal of welcoming 500 new members and raising $450,000 before December 31st. Please support the work that we do: make a donation or -- better yet -- join as a member today.

Electronics are popular gifts for the holidays, but people often overlook the restrictions that manufacturers slip under the wrapping paper. From surveillance to harsh rules about copying and sharing, some gifts take more than they give.

The good news is that there are ethical companies making better devices that your loved ones can enjoy with freedom and privacy. Today, we're launching the 2016 Giving Guide, your key to smarter and more ethical tech gifts.

Explore the Giving Guide online and in print. To sweeten the deal, many of the recommended gifts are specially discounted for the holiday season.

If you appreciate the guide, we invite you to to spread the word about it. Here's what you can do:

• Lead a Giving Guide Giveaway at a local shopping area to show that conscientious giving applies to computers and software. We've prepared a primer to answer common questions and help make your Giveaway a success.

• Share the guide on social media with the hashtag #givefreely and comment about it on gift or tech-related online articles.

• Email it to your family and friends – heck, you might even get a gift out of it!

Some translations are already available, but we need more volunteers to port the Giving Guide to their own languages. Check out the primer page for translation instructions.

Millions of people will open tech gifts this holiday season, and most of them will be walled gardens encumbered with nonfree software and DRM. But things are changing. With each year, our message spreads further and more people start thinking critically about technology and voting with their wallets. Join us in fueling the movement for ethical tech – use and spread this guide.

Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the FSD contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

While the FSD has been and continues to be a great resource to the world over the past decade, it has the potential of being a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help!

This week we're having a focus on reaching out to maintainers of packages to help keep their entries up to date. Plenty of maintainers like to add their package to the directory in order to take advantage of all the extra publicity it can bring to a project. But keeping things up to date will have the most impact, letting users know that the package is still under active development. So this week we'll be reaching out to maintainers to help get their directory entry looking the best it can.

If you are eager to help and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly FSD Meetings pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

Last week was a live meeting at the Seattle GNU/Linux Conference. Iankelling and donaldr3 were joined by helpful attendees in checking whether their favorite free software packages were already included in the directory. While the directory is very robust these days, most packages suggested were actually already included, there were a few new entries added. It was just a great opportunity to meet with people who weren't already involved in the directory and to help them get involved by learning about the project.

On the channel, there was also a long discussion about updating the requirements for the directory. The channel discussed two different scenarios which we have name 'bait and surrender' and 'freedom betrayed'. In 'bait and surrender', a developer offers an inferior free software version of their work in attempt to get users to surrender their freedom and switch to a more fully featured proprietary version. In 'freedom betrayed', a formerly free software project changes to a proprietary license. In both cases, we want to make clear to users that while there may be a free software version available that they have to be wary of the project, and understand that there are proprietary versions. The channel came up with a proposal to tag these different situations, which is now being discussed on the mailing list.

The meeting concluded with deciding that the next meeting should focus on contacting maintainers to help them include their packages on the directory or keep their entries up to date.

If you would like to help update the directory, meet with us every Friday in #fsf on irc.freenode.org from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST (18:00 to 20:00 UTC).

Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the FSD contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

While the FSD has been and continues to be a great resource to the world over the past decade, it has the potential of being a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help!

This week we're having an in person meeting at the Seattle GNU/Linux conference. If you are going to be at the conference (attendance is gratis!) join Iankelling and donaldr3 in the expo hall at the usual meeting time (10:00 a.m. PST) for a directory hackfest. If you can't make it to the conference, we'll still be working in the #fsf channel, so make sure to join us their as well.

If you are eager to help and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly FSD Meetings pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

Last week was a free for all meeting where we worked on a variety of projects. Iankelling worked through a huge chunk of the approval backlog, approving tons of new entries for the directory. beloved had some suggestions for updating the home page of the directory, such as linking to the meeting announcements there, which we were able to implement. They also had some suggestions about the requirements, which they're putting to the mailing list for further discussion. There's more work to be done in refining the requirements to ensure the directory is a great resource for finding only freedom respecting packages, and we will be discussing that more at the next meeting. The upcoming meeting will have a live component as well as we have some space at the upcoming Seattle GNU/Linux conference to work as a group. We hope to see more of you there!

If you would like to help update the directory, meet with us every Friday in #fsf on irc.freenode.org from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. EST (18:00 to 20:00 UTC).

In 2012, the FSF announced that it would begin accepting scanned documents for assignments of copyright for contributors residing in the United States. We then set about a long process of trying to expand the countries where we could accept scanned documents. While a few countries have been added over the years, the ultimate goal has always been to smooth the assignment process for all contributors.

Today we have achieved that goal. With the advice of counsel, we can begin accepting scanned copies of assignments from all contributors, regardless of where they reside. With a small update to our assignment contract, we can finally make it possible for all contributors to avoid having to send their forms via the post.

This doesn't end our process. There are lots of ways to sign documents these days, including using GNU Privacy Gaurd or other forms of digital signature. We will keep working to smooth that process and make more options available. While there is still more work to do to make the process as simple as possible, this is one big step that will help contributors from all around the world to share their code.

Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the FSD contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

While the FSD has been and continues to be a great resource to the world over the past decade, it has the potential of being a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help!

This week we're having a free for all meeting. We've had many themed meetings over the past few weeks that started up interesting projects that could still use some work. So this week we're going to be focusing on the projects that we're personally interested in working on. While even themed meetings leave room for anyone to work on whatever they please, this week we want to focus on whatever we please.

If you are eager to help and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly FSD Meetings pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

Last week we were playing as Dr. Frankenstein in bringing new entries to life. We set about adding new entries but also working on approving entries that were already submitted. One issue the channel came across was the fact that not all our entries listed as unapproved actually were unapproved. It turned out that the act of moving an entry to a new location, even without updating the entry, would cause it to be tagged as unapproved. It's a slight hiccup in the system, that probably could be fixed at some point. But for now, it is a simple process of reviewing the entry, seeing that it was only moved, and approving as necessary.

beloved2 also joined in to work on their script for handling Icecat extensions. They've been working on adding these extensions to the directory for a long while, but their new script should help make the process simpler. bill-auger pointed out that the way browsers handle extensions might be changing in the near future, so if the maintainers of particular extensions don't port them over they won't function any longer. All the more reason to speed up the process of getting the extensions added to the directory, so people will have a resource for tracking down and reviving extensions they would like to use.

Calinou brought up some general issues with the directory and how it functions, and mattl jumped in to note that they plan on making some improvements in the future when they have a little extra time. One great suggestion Calinou added was to provide some sort of flag on older entries, so users would know if there hadn't been an update in a while. This could help encourage maintainers to keep their own entry up to date, or help a volunteer to find an older entry that needed updating.

The meeting wrapped up without selecting a new theme, but beloved2 mentioned that they wanted a meeting to focus on different things rather than a particular theme, so next week's meeting is going to be a free for all.

If you would like to help help update the directory in general, meet with us every Friday in #fsf on irc.freenode.org from 1pm to 4pm EDT (17:00 to 20:00 UTC).

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 Tyhender as the new MetaHTML maintainer, and Adrien Béraud and Alexandre Viau as the maintainers of the new package GNU Ring.

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.

Tens of thousands of people visit directory.fsf.org each month to discover free software. Each entry in the Directory contains a wealth of useful information, from basic category and descriptions, to providing detailed info about version control, IRC channels, documentation, and licensing info that has been carefully checked by FSF staff and trained volunteers.

While the FSD has been and continues to be a great resource to the world over the past decade, it has the potential of being a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help!

This week we're playing the part of Dr. Frankenstein by adding and approving new entries to the directory, but our creations won't be monsters! Helping to grow the directory is one of the best ways to make sure it is a great resource for users looking for free software they can use. While we've focused the past few meetings on improving and updating existing entries, there are still plenty of packages looking to make their way onto the directory.

If you are eager to help and you can't wait or are simply unable to make it onto IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started on helping the Directory today! There are also weekly FSD Meetings pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

Our guide, "How to choose a license for your work" is one stop browsing for answering many of the questions you may have when it comes to finding the right license. It provides recommendations based on the state of the work, but also based on the type of work that it is. While the Affero GNU General Public License version 3 works great for server software, documentation would probably be better served with a license directed at such, like the GNU Free Documentation License version 1.3. Smaller works can often get away without a strong copyleft, but still need to address patents, and so Apache License version 2.0 might be appropriate. The guide explains the reasoning behind the different recommendation for these and more. It also links to all those other resources mentioned above in case you need to dive in deeper when picking out a license.

Choosing a license isn't always the easiest decision, but it can be one of the most important ones you make when starting out your project. The license is the document that grants users the freedoms outlined in the free software definition. Without a license (or the right license), users won't have the ability to study, share, and modify your work, so choose wisely. This guide should make it easy to pick the right one for you, but if you need a little extra help, you can always contact the licensing and compliance team here at the FSF by emailing licensing@fsf.org.

We hope you'll take a look at our guide the next time you start up a project, or that you'll review it right now if your current project is without a license! Resources like "How to choose a license for your own work" are made possible thanks to the users who support our work, here's what you can do to help:

• You can keep up to date on this series and more free software news by subscribing to our newsletter, the Free Software Supporter and subscribing to our RSS feed.
• You can help fund our work in creating these licensing resources by becoming a member or by making a donation.

Enjoy this article? Check out our previous entry on Free GNU/Linux distributions & GNU Bucks

Last week we were hunting 'Ghost' entries in the directory, and the ghost of our previous meeting time was present with some volunteers starting early. The meeting kicked of with Iankelling outlining their ideas on how to handle older, historical packages. The first order of business was determining what criteria would be needed for treating a package as historical. The criteria we came together on was that a package should be tagged as historical if it had not been updated in a long while and could no longer run on current versions of GNU/Linux. That way, the tag would let people know that the package, while still potentially useful, probably wasn't something you can just download and easily get running on your machine. After getting the criteria squared away, Iankelling also help update the version status and tool-tips to enable tagging actual entries.

Once we had the criteria and tools in place we turned to marking packages as historical. Iankelling once again helped out by producing a list of packages by their version date. Several entries apparently came out at the beginning of time all the way back in 1970 and so we focused our energies on those packages. mangeurdenuage and donalr3 worked on GNU ghost packages and were able to get them either appropriately tagged our updated. fmkb worked over a number of packages, nominating some for deletion where the package was truly a ghost and had no software or other remnants available. The channel was able to get through quite a few packages but more work will need to be done in future to root out all the ghosts. With the tools and criteria in place, that would should be easy to continue.

cmhobbs pointed out that with all the focus on the past, we've accumulate a bit of a backlog of new entries awaiting approval. So it was decided that next week we will be working as Dr. Frankenstein, working to bring new entries to life.

If you would like to help add new entries or just help update the directory in general, meet with us every Friday in #fsf on irc.freenode.org from 1pm to 4pm EDT (17:00 to 20:00 UTC).

If you know a free software contributor or project that deserves celebration, don't hesitate to nominate them! This is your opportunity to publicly recognize people and projects that have inspired you. Your nominations will be reviewed by our awards committee and the winners will be announced at LibrePlanet 2017.

Award for the Advancement of Free Software

The Free Software Foundation Award for the Advancement of Free Software is presented annually by FSF president Richard Stallman 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.

Last year, Werner Koch was recognized with the Award for the Advancement of Free Software for his work on GnuPG, the defacto tool for encrypted communication.

Award for Projects of Social Benefit

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, in a project that intentionally and significantly benefits society in other aspects of life.

We look to recognize projects or teams that encourage people to cooperate in freedom to accomplish tasks of great social benefit, and those that apply free software ideas and lessons outside the free software community. A long-term commitment to one's project (or the potential for a long-term commitment) is crucial to this end.

This award stresses the use of free software in the service of humanity. We have deliberately chosen this broad criterion so that many different areas of activity can be considered. However, one area that is not included is that of free software itself. Projects with a primary goal of promoting or advancing free software are not eligible for this award (we honor individuals working on those projects with our annual Award for the Advancement of Free Software).

We will consider any project or team that uses free software or its philosophy to address a goal important to society. To qualify, a project must use free software, produce free documentation, or use the idea of free software as defined in the Free Software Definition. Projects that promote or depend on the use of non-free software are not eligible for this award. Commercial projects are not excluded, but commercial success is not our scale for judging projects.

Last year, the Library Freedom Project received the award, for their work teaching librarians about surveillance threats, privacy rights and responsibilities, and offering digital tools to stop surveillance, all with the aim of creating a privacy-centric paradigm shift in libraries and the local communities they serve.

Eligibility

In the case of both awards, previous winners are not eligible for nomination, but renomination of other previous nominees is encouraged. Only individuals are eligible for nomination for the Advancement of Free Software Award (not projects), and only projects can be nominated for the Social Benefit Award (not individuals). For a list of previous winners, please visit https://www.fsf.org/awards. Current FSF staff and board members, as well as award committee members, are not eligible.

Winners will be decided by a committee to be announced, including several previous winners. Last year's committee was:

• Suresh Ramasubramanian
• Rob Savoye
• Jonas Öberg
• Fernanda Weiden
• Wietse Venema
• Matthew Garrett
• Vernor Vinge
• Hong Feng
• Andrew Tridgell
• Marina Zhurakhinskaya

Instructions

After reviewing the eligibility rules above, please click on the links below to submit your nominations. All nominations need to be submited before Sunday, November 6th, 2016 at 23:59 UTC.

• Nominations for the Award for Projects of Social Benefit

• Nominations for the Award for the Advancement of Free Software

Attend the Free Software Awards at LibrePlanet 2017

Want to be in the room when the winners are announced? Registration is already open for the LibrePlanet conference, March 25-26 2017, in the Boston area. You can meet the award winners and take part in a program devoted to the world of free software. Remember: Free Software Foundation members attend LibrePlanet gratis!