Free Software Foundation Plans Year of Celebrations For Its 40th Anniversary (fsf.org) 19
The Free Software Foundation turns forty on October 4, 2025 "and we will end our thirties on a high note!" they announced this week:
We wish we were celebrating the achievement of software freedom for all computer users, but we're not there yet. Until our mission becomes reality and we can retire, instead, we are celebrating forty years of activism, and all that we have achieved.
Since our founding in 1985, we laid out many stepping stones on the road to software freedom, and we're eager to continue building the road ahead. We will celebrate our fortieth in the spirit of bringing the international free software community together, discussing what we can do next to make the world freer, and celebrating how far we've come. We're aiming for a libre planet! Sounds familiar? Instead of hosting one LibrePlanet conference in 2025, we're planning a jam-packed anniversary year, filled with several new and exciting activities!
We'll begin the anniversary year with an unprecedented memorabilia auction, starting as a silent auction on March 17, and culminating in a virtual live auction on March 23. By moving out of the FSF office, we got to sort through all the fun and historically important memorabilia and selected the best ones. This is your chance to get your very own personal souvenir of the FSF, from original GNU art to a famous katana and the very same VT220 that was standing on the FSF's front desk, and which people used to display ASCII art or to play free software games.
Let's claim the month of May as libre planet (or libre local) month! We're inviting free software supporters like you anywhere in the world, to organize an in-person community meetup in your area to bring people together. We're setting up a small fund for these local gatherings, can send stickers, flyers, ideas and tips, and you can invite an FSF staff member to give a talk or workshop during your event and of course, we'll help promote it...
Then, on the actual birthday of the FSF on October 4, 2025, there will be a big celebration in Boston, MA, and the entire free software community is invited... These are just some of the big ticket items we have worked out, but there is more! Keep an eye out on the FSF's pages, we'll be posting exact information on everything upcoming.
They're looking for volunteers — and they also suggest organizing a community meetup in your area. Plus, there's also an FSF Anniversary Logo Contest. "We would like to source the fortieth anniversary logo design directly from a free software supporter. Everyone is welcome to submit a design (or even multiple designs) no matter your previous experience in design."
The winning design "will be chosen by the community and ultimately immortalized in the history of the FSF," according to the announcement — displayed on the FSF homepage, printed on all celebration materials, "and possibly even stamped on some merchandise." But of course, the contest's requirements include respecting everyone's freedoms: - The logo must be produced using exclusively free software editing tools, such as GIMP, Krita, or Inkscape;
- Any fonts used in the design must be under the SIL Open Font license or another free license...
"The final logo will be released under CC BY, attributed to the FSF."
Since our founding in 1985, we laid out many stepping stones on the road to software freedom, and we're eager to continue building the road ahead. We will celebrate our fortieth in the spirit of bringing the international free software community together, discussing what we can do next to make the world freer, and celebrating how far we've come. We're aiming for a libre planet! Sounds familiar? Instead of hosting one LibrePlanet conference in 2025, we're planning a jam-packed anniversary year, filled with several new and exciting activities!
We'll begin the anniversary year with an unprecedented memorabilia auction, starting as a silent auction on March 17, and culminating in a virtual live auction on March 23. By moving out of the FSF office, we got to sort through all the fun and historically important memorabilia and selected the best ones. This is your chance to get your very own personal souvenir of the FSF, from original GNU art to a famous katana and the very same VT220 that was standing on the FSF's front desk, and which people used to display ASCII art or to play free software games.
Let's claim the month of May as libre planet (or libre local) month! We're inviting free software supporters like you anywhere in the world, to organize an in-person community meetup in your area to bring people together. We're setting up a small fund for these local gatherings, can send stickers, flyers, ideas and tips, and you can invite an FSF staff member to give a talk or workshop during your event and of course, we'll help promote it...
Then, on the actual birthday of the FSF on October 4, 2025, there will be a big celebration in Boston, MA, and the entire free software community is invited... These are just some of the big ticket items we have worked out, but there is more! Keep an eye out on the FSF's pages, we'll be posting exact information on everything upcoming.
They're looking for volunteers — and they also suggest organizing a community meetup in your area. Plus, there's also an FSF Anniversary Logo Contest. "We would like to source the fortieth anniversary logo design directly from a free software supporter. Everyone is welcome to submit a design (or even multiple designs) no matter your previous experience in design."
The winning design "will be chosen by the community and ultimately immortalized in the history of the FSF," according to the announcement — displayed on the FSF homepage, printed on all celebration materials, "and possibly even stamped on some merchandise." But of course, the contest's requirements include respecting everyone's freedoms: - The logo must be produced using exclusively free software editing tools, such as GIMP, Krita, or Inkscape;
- Any fonts used in the design must be under the SIL Open Font license or another free license...
"The final logo will be released under CC BY, attributed to the FSF."
Its also... (Score:2)
The 68th anniversary of the launch of the first satellite (sputnik)
Until the GPLv3 anyways (Score:1, Flamebait)
Hardly anybody even uses the GPL anymore because of how hostile the GPL became towards even other open source licenses. Linus Torvalds explicitly carved out the bits about a later version being an option in Linux, meanwhile Richard Marx Stalin insists on calling it GNU/Linux or "the GNU operating system" despite that, not only does a hell of a lot more work go into the kernel than any of the GNU software by a lightyear, but when distros include any of it, it's basically just the coreutils, make, and bash. B
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
A check of the base package list for the latest version of Ubuntu shows that its using a lot of GNU software.
bash.
coreutils
CPIO
diffutils
findutils
grep
groff
grub
gzip
inetutils
readline
tar
binutils
gcc
gdb
glibc
gnutls
GPG
And probably others.
I bet most actual desktop linux distributions include a lot of GNU software out of the box (and/or in their repos)
Re: (Score:2)
That's great for desktop linux, but most linux users aren't desktop users. And there's a reason for that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:1)
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...Do you have the slightest idea what a server even is? When I run servers, they're as minimal as you can get. Shit, some of my servers run bare metal. As in not even protected mode, just some code I wrote that runs realtime on an esp32-c6 without a kernel to abstract anything. During the early 90s, only in your wildest dreams was your server was running on hardware that powerful.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes you can. FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD can be used as servers, and the default installs for all of them don't include GNU utilities.
There are non-GNU versions of many utilities out there. Though because of the way the *BSDs worked, they include both a kernel and userspace portion.
Apple macOS also features a GNU-free userspace.
Now, nothing wrong with GNU utilities - they are well regarded tools and often have excellen
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Of course desktop linux distributions use GNU utilities - since they are available with source code and all that, the GPLv3 makes absolutely no difference to Canonical or other Linux desktops. There is nothing in the GPLv3 that affects any standard Linux distribution for the desktop, or for the most part, on the user experience.
Now, in the embedded world, it's a different story, and GPLv3 is avoided. The good thing the GPLv3 did was it awoken many companies to legal licensing issues with open-source - they
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
But the vast majority of Linux users (in the form of Android, ChromeOS, and several others) do not have a single piece of GNU code anywhere to be seen, period.
That's the whole point of also mentioning GNU. The kernel Linux is also used to support other systems than GNU, such as Android, ChromeOS, etc.
If you expect the typical Bash user environment, then any GNU system will do (also Cygwin for instance). But don't look into Android for that. GNU and Android different systems that both happen to run on Linux.
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That's the whole point of also mentioning GNU. The kernel Linux is also used to support other systems than GNU, such as Android, ChromeOS, etc.
Well I think even desktop users get a lot more use out of the included web browser, which is typically firefox, that also has a lot more work and even code into it than GNU by a landslide.
So let's compromise by calling it Mozilla/GNU/Linux.
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And those which don't have GNU code, the ones Stallman doesn't call GNU/Linux are...
wait what's the problem?
Are you just making up shite about Stallman?
Anyhow those that don't confuse the matter when taking about Linux. It's used to there to the kernel, but also colloquially the very Unix like desktop operating system you run with the kernel. Those that aren't GNU/Linux are not desktop operating systems and nothing like a normal Linux OS. Calling to then Linux muddies the water off course.
If only there was
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Are you just making up shite about Stallman?
No, he really did eat his own toejam in front of a crowd. Didn't you watch the video?
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Ah! A genuine case of ad homenim: you are trying to discredit his point by attacking him personally. Toe jam or not his point still stands and you have said nothing to counter it.
Anyway you should probably figure out why some guy you've never met who made a bunch of free stuff and encouraged others to do the same draws so much ire and visceral hatred from you.
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Toe jam or not his point still stands and you have said nothing to counter it.
I already did in another post. It's now called Mozilla/GNU/Linux. Even though the GNU bits are only a tiny portion of what most desktop users actually use and really barely even falls on the radar, we'll leave it there just to keep his dumb ass happy. When you be objective about this and don't acknowledge his ego, you'll notice something: Aside from the kernel itself, the software most users interact with by far, and also carries a hell of a lot more work, effort, and code than anything GNU could ever dream
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I already did in another post. It's now called Mozilla/GNU/Linux.
That's not a counter, that's you accepting that Stallman was 100% correct but that you're sore about the name he suggested. Suggested in 1992 before Nutscrape, let alone Mozilla existed.
See how stupid that is?
No. It's better to have a sound way of distinguishing desktop Linux from bastardized Linux kernel based operating systems. Otherwise idiots intentionally or otherwise will continue to muddy the waters by saying stupid shit like "but phon
No Funny? (Score:2)
And not worth the effort of searching for solution approaches on Slashdot.
So ask me about the CSB (Charity Share Brokerage) as a way to fund FSS? I double dare ya. Even though I agree "We can't get there from here."