Free Software Foundation Celebrates 39th Anniversary (fsf.org) 16
"Can you believe that we've been demanding user freedom since 1985?" asks a new blog post at FSF.org:
Today, we're celebrating our thirty-ninth anniversary, the "lace year," which represents the intertwined nature and strength of our relationship with the free software community. We wouldn't be here without you, and we are so grateful for everyone who has stood with us, advocating for a world where complete user freedom is the norm and not the exception.
As we celebrate our anniversary and reflect on the past thirty-nine years, we feel inspired by how far we've come, not only as a movement but as an organization, and the changes that we've gone through. While we inevitably have challenges ahead, we feel encouraged and eager to take them on knowing that you'll be right there with us, working for a free future for everyone. Here's to many more years of fighting for user freedom!
Their suggestions for celebrating include:
As we celebrate our anniversary and reflect on the past thirty-nine years, we feel inspired by how far we've come, not only as a movement but as an organization, and the changes that we've gone through. While we inevitably have challenges ahead, we feel encouraged and eager to take them on knowing that you'll be right there with us, working for a free future for everyone. Here's to many more years of fighting for user freedom!
Their suggestions for celebrating include:
- Try a fully free distribution of GNU/Linux or help someone else give it a try
- Learn how to encrypt your emails and opt out of bulk surveillance
- Take a small step with big impact and swap out one nonfree program with one that's truly free
- If you have an Android phone, download F-Droid, which is a catalogue of hundreds of free software applications
- Wish us happy birthday on social media. [Which for the FSF is Mastodon, PeerTube, and GNU social.]
- Join a Free Software Directory (FSD) meeting, which we host every Friday from 16:00 to 19:00 UTC.
- Become an associate member or gift a membership to a friend
- Donate $39 to help support free software advocacy
- Print off stickers of our 39th birthday cake
- Change your desktop background to an early-2000s-cyberspace-inspired image of our former front desk. (And then switch out your browser theme to match your new desktop background.)
And to help with the celebrations they share a free video teaching the basics of SuperCollider (the free and open source audio synthesis/algorithmic composition software). The video appears on FramaTube, an instance of the decentralized (and ActivityPub-federated) Peertube video platform, supported by the French non-profit Framasoft and powered by WebTorrent, using peer-to-peer technology to reduce load on individual servers.
I guess they are OK (Score:3)
I guess they are still OK but at high risk of being infiltrated by people who can't see well.
Anyway, last I checked they still had my support so feel free to tell me if I should change my mind.
Given that, happy birthday FSF!
Re: (Score:2)
"can't see well?" Please explain, I'm genuinely curious.
And yeah, Happy Birthday FSF!
Re: (Score:2)
Looking at the botched perspective drawing on the desktop backdrop this already has happened.
Re: (Score:2)
Looking at the botched perspective drawing on the desktop backdrop this already has happened.
Yeah, I know. I suspect they didn't have money to hire a graphic artist, so they whipped up something themselves.
Happy birthday FSF (Score:2)
but you'll get my money again when you finally ditch RMS.
Re: Happy birthday FSF (Score:2)
I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for someone to apologize to RMS. Witch hunters rarely, if ever, apologize. In contrast to RMS himself, who apologized multiple times for doing things that were not wrong, or for defending other victims of witch hunts (respected professor Minsky comes to mind), or for just voicing his opinion (witch could be controversial, but it was still just an opinion). But no, witch hunters never stop until they finally burn their victim at the stake, and smear his/her name with feces.
Re: (Score:2)
Ironically any lawyer would have defended Marvin Minsky on the same grounds against those public allegations. RMS countered smear on a mailing list and was caught in the middle.
Ironically also Bill Gates - now without his wife - who brought his friend Mr. Epstein to MIT and channeled his donations to the Media lab is still up. RMS and Ito are gone from MIT.
Good times (Score:4, Funny)
RMS is celebrating with his annual shower and yes he will be using soap!
Re:Good times (Score:5, Funny)
Are you sure he uses SOAP and not REST?
Re: Good times (Score:2)
This is neurotypical-ism.
Man, these really are great people. (Score:4, Insightful)
I think its important to say it. Almost all of the oppression of our time comes from what they were trying to fight against. No one saw the importance early on but them. And now:
https://archive.org/details/En... [archive.org]
We are actually in this situation where we allowed private sector to become more powerful than any government in terms of surveillance. All these people are like 'why is everyone voting for this or that' because they have to, they live in these controlled settings that are not actually free. The violations of the spirit of the fourth amendment are so obvious, but we accepted as normal. Now, it is so pervasive no one can stand against it. We should have listened as critical to FSF since the beginning.
Re: (Score:2)
The FSF and GPL are more important than ever (Score:5, Insightful)
I pity the gullible newbies who believe that the GPL is "too restrictive", while in fact it has been the only reason why (some) corporations actually started to contribute something back to the software projects they otherwise took for granted.
May the FSF live long and stay clear of activists with an agenda that is not free software!