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 Assaf Gordon as a new comaintainer of GNU Coreutils.

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.

I am the maintainer of a piece of free software called GNU Parallel. Free software guarantees you access to the source code, but I have been wondering how many actually read the source code.

To test this I put in a comment telling people to email me when they read this. The comment was put in a section of the code that no one would look to fix or improve the software -- so, the source code equivalent to a dusty corner. To make sure the comment would not show up if some one just grepped through the source code I rot13'ed the source code.

Two-and-a-half months later I received an email from someone who not only managed to find the comment, but also managed to guess the code had to be rot13'ed.

The first cookie was released on January 24, 2011 and was won by AEvar Arnfjord Bjarmason on April 10, 2011.

I inserted a new cookie on August 18, 2013, that was a bit harder as you would have to use rot14. On July 19, 2015 Mark Maimone won that cookie.

This brings me to the conclusion that there are people who are not affiliated with the project who will read the source code -- though it may not happen very often.

Join the Free Software Foundation and friends in Boston, MA, USA on the evening of Saturday, October 3rd for our 30th Birthday Party. We'll share hors d'oeuvres, drinks, and an address by FSF founder and president Richard Stallman, as well as plenty of social time for catching up with old friends and making new ones.

RSVP now! If you want to brag about it on social media, use the hashtag #FSF30.

If the free software movement is coming together for a party, we might as well get some work done, too. We're planning a mini-conference for the day of October 3rd, before the party, where we'll share what we've learned from the first thirty years of the free software movement and swap ideas about the future. Stay tuned for more details about this, as well as a possible dinner on Friday night.

Bookmark the event homepage for lodging suggestions and more information about the mini-conference and other festivities that weekend, coming soon.

Not coming to Boston?

We've been flattered by supporters around the world asking to hold their own local events for the FSF's birthday. Of course! We'd even love to write about it, or come up with a creative way of connecting it to the event in Boston. Contact us at campaigns@fsf.org if you're interested.

We also intend to stream the event and post videos online afterwards.

Support our work for computer user freedom

Our supporters have made our thirty wonderful years possible. By becoming an associate member you'll help us achieve even more in the next thirty. Members also get special benefits, including gratis admission to our LibrePlanet conference each spring.

If you'd rather not become a member, you can also help by making a donation when you RSVP, or on our donation page.

Volunteer or sponsor

If you are interested in helping out at the mini-conference or the party, we welcome you! In addition to setting up the venue and greeting guests, we need people with skills in free software livestreaming. All volunteers will receive a special reverse birthday gift from us to you.

The FSF is also seeking general event, beer, or food sponsors. To sponsor or recommend a sponsor, or to volunteer, reply to this email.

Also, we'd like to introduce Georgia Young, our newest FSF staffer, in the role of program manager. Georgia is planning the thirtieth birthday events, so expect to hear more from her soon.

See you in October!

Read the New Yorker Article, The GNU Manifesto Turns Thirty by Maria Bustillos.

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

If you are eager to help and you can't wait or are simply unable to join on IRC on Friday, our participation guide will provide you with all the information you need to get started helping the Directory today!

Still can't figure out what time the meeting starts? Open up a terminal and enter the following to get the start time in your time zone:

date --date='TZ="America/New_York" 12:00 this Fri'

First, we’re thrilled to announce the keynote addresses will be delivered by the FSF’s own Richard M. Stallman, and Shauna Gordon-McKeon, the main organizer of OpenHatch’s campus events. This year we’re honoring the origins of free software while recognizing the importance of growing the movement through recruiting new activists, users, and enthusiasts.

We are also accepting nominations for the first annual Cascadia Community Builder award recognizing a person who has significantly contributed to the free software movement in Washington, Oregon, British Columbia, or Idaho. Please take a minute to nominate someone who is doing great community work in the area!

We’re also looking for speakers. Our Call for Participation is open until July 26. SeaGL welcomes a diverse range of topics. It doesn’t matter if this is your first conference presentation or your fifteenth; If you’re excited about a topic related to GNU/Linux or free software, then we want to hear about it. We’ll be helping folks edit and flesh out their proposals in our IRC channel, #seagl, a few times over the next couple of weeks.

Finally, for groups or businesses interested in sponsoring the event, the Exhibitor & Sponsor Prospectus is now posted. We will have a small hall with tables available for sponsors and exhibitors, with free tables available for local nonprofit or educational organizations.

Here are the details:

http://seagl.org

Friday, October 23 to Saturday, October 24, 2015

Seattle Central College

Cost: Free (as in beer). No registration necessary.

Do you want to help people learn why free software matters, and how to use it? Do you want to dig deep into software freedom issues like copyleft, Digital Restrictions Management, or surveillance and encryption?

The Free Software Foundation is looking for fall interns to work in one of three areas: spend the semester contributing to our campaigns, licensing, or technical team.

These positions are unpaid, but the FSF will provide any appropriate documentation you might need to receive funding and school credit from outside sources. We place an emphasis on providing hands-on educational opportunities for interns in which they work closely with staff mentors on semester-long projects that match their skills and interest.

Our current campaigns intern is focusing on computer user privacy and encryption, expanding our Email Self-Defense project. Past licensing interns have worked to improve the Free Software Directory and analyzed the compatibility of other licenses with the GPL. And a past sysadmin intern did extensive work to set up our StatusNet instance.

Fall internships begin on or about August 31st and run through December 4th. We prefer candidates who are able to work in our Boston office, but may consider remote interns. The deadline to apply for a fall internship at the Free Software Foundation is July 31st.

To apply, send a letter of interest and a resume with two references to hiring@fsf.org. Please send all application materials in free software-friendly formats like .pdf, .odt, and .txt. Use "Fall internship application" as the subject line of your email. Please include links to your writing, design, or coding work if it applies -- personal, professional, or class work is acceptable. URLs are preferred, though email attachments in free formats are acceptable, too. Learn more about our internships, and direct any questions to info@fsf.org.

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 http://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 Thien-Thi Nguyen as the new maintainer of GNU Superopt.

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.

What inspired you to create AGS?

I'm a long time GNU/Linux user and enthusiast. I had dislikes about Rosegarden but it was you're only choice in 2002 to do composition on a free operating system. So, I decided to write new software. I chose to write it in C, because it is my favorite programming language, and further, GObject does a great job to do basic tasks for implementing a library.

What features do you think really set AGS apart from similar software?

For users, the modular GUI and multi-channel editing. For example, you may edit each audio channel on its own or as a group. Also, in the latest version there is also a new pattern editor. For developers, its atomic design, its multi-threaded capabilities, and that it is object orientated are what make it stand apart.

Why did you choose the GNU GPLv3 as the license for AGS?

It's evident software must be free in order the give you freedoms to share, learn or improve. I read the GNU GPL and decided it fit my needs.

How can people help contribute to AGS?

Contributing good code, good documentation, or reporting bugs is probably the best way someone can help to contribute. But, there are many other ways to contribute, like spreading the word.

Right now, users need to download source code or binary distro packages provided on the project's website. So getting distributions to provide those packages in their repositories would also be a good way to contribute.

What's the next big thing for AGS?

AGS 0.4.3 brings extended MIDI support and LV2 host implementation. Down the road, LibAGS 1.0 will be released, and it will give users users remote and scripting capabilities, as well desktop integration for GNU/Linux.

Enjoy this interview? Check out our previous entry in this series, featuring François Marier, of Libravatar

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 Free Software Directory 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!

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!

My workshop on Email Self-Defense took place at the 12th annual Porcupine Freedom Festival in Lancaster, New Hampshire. Around eight people attended, which was a few more than I expected. Christopher Waid and Bob Call of ThinkPenguin joined me in helping everyone who brought a laptop to set up GnuPG properly. Those who didn't bring a laptop participated by observing the process on the system most similar to their own and asking questions about particular steps, so as to enable them to achieve the same configuration when they returned home.

The workshop was part of the Alternatives Exposition, which brings together people with a broad range of interests with the intention of helping strengthen community and build alternative infrastructure. Free software supporter François-René Rideau also participated in the AltExpo, delivering an excellent talk titled Who Controls Your Computer? which swayed many attendees to investigate the benefits of free software. Thank you, François!

Although I attended PorcFest as an individual (as opposed to a representative of the FSF), I encouraged everyone I talked with to switch to free software. Without freedom, security and privacy are unrealistic goals.

I'm back at the Free Software Foundation now, and I'm processing my experiences. The workshop went well, and provided me with insights on how to better organize similar workshops in the future. Right now, I'm formalizing those insights into a Facilitating Email Self-Defense Workshops guide, to be published within the next two months.

In the meantime, I'd like to ask all of you: what unusual and extraordinary people do you know about who use GnuPG? I'm going to include a list of inspiring people who use GnuPG in my guide, and I'd love hear your suggestions! Send them to campaigns@fsf.org or, for encrypted messages, adaml@fsf.org with the GnuPG key fingerprint 9D7E D11A F670 9719 F854 A307 198C 9A1E 9309 EF0C.

I'm a campaigns intern at the FSF -- learn more about our internships.

RMS gave his speech "Logiciels Libres & Éducation" at the Université de Bretagne Occidentale's Guilcher amphitheatre in Brest, France, on May 12th, 2015, twenty years after his first visit to the city, to an audience of over five hundred people.

(Photos under CC BY-SA 3.0 and courtesy of Romain Heller.)

He was also in Greece later in May, to speak:

…at CommonsFest in Athens on May 16th,

(Photos under CC BY-SA 3.0 and courtesy of dkoukoul.)

…at the Lecture Hall of Natural History Museum of Crete, in Heraklion, on May 22nd,

(Photos under CC BY-SA 3.0 and courtesy of dkoukoul.)

…and at the Technical University of Crete (speech available in Ogg Vorbis and WebM formats), in Chania, on May 27th.

(Photos under CC BY-SA 3.0 and courtesy of the Technical University of Crete.)

Please fill out our contact form, so that we can inform you about future events in and around Brest, Athens, and Heraklion and Chania. Please see www.fsf.org/events for a full list of all of RMS's confirmed engagements and contact rms-assist@gnu.org if you'd like him to come speak.

Thank you to everyone who helped make this tour a success!

TTIP is in many respects similar to TPP, and covers much of the same ground. But, whereas TPP covers agreements between the U.S. and many Asian countries, TTIP address similar issues between the U.S. and the European Union. Some documents have been made public for these negotiations, though the actual negotiation texts for the copyright and patents chapter is notably still secret. Despite that, we can still draw some disturbing conclusions. Like TPP, TTIP would grant proprietary developers supra-national power to interfere with local laws and policies in the form of investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS). TTIP also has provisions about software patents that could lock the U.S. and EU into their current terrible situation. Trying to end software patents locally is difficult enough already, but if TTIP passes, for signatory countries there may not be any way out. Ever fond of secrecy, the negotiators for TTIP are pushing a possible expansion of penalties relating to trade secrets.

TISA has the potential for the most widespread impact, with Europe, the U.S., and many more countries negotiating in secret. A recent leak included a particularly nefarious term: a prohibition on governmental mandates for free software. Article 6 states that "No Party may require the transfer of, or access to, source code of software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition of providing services related to such software in its territory." Governments around the world have come to understand the importance of free software to ensuring a free society. Many governments have chosen to mandate the use of free software in their offices and in their software service contracts. Ensuring that government-used and -purchased software is free for anyone to review, share, and modify promotes the safety and security of the people. TISA would stop governments all around the world from putting into action their dedication to the principles of free software.

Even if Article 6 were modified or interpreted more narrowly to allow free software mandates, it would still be extremely problematic. Even if the section is simply meant to prevent governments from demanding source from proprietary developers as part of their contracts, it would still leave the same holes in security that only access to source can provide. Even if a government isn't able to use free software in a particular instance, it should still be able to demand that source code be given to the government to ensure that the code has no back doors or vulnerabilities. Furthermore, the government should still be able to review source to handle bug fixes or make the software compatible with other systems; governments shouldn't be beholden to a single company for support and customization of the software they pay for with tax dollars.

TPP, TTIP, and TISA all include the U.S. as a bargaining nation, meaning that the deal on Trade Promotion Authority being negotiated in the Senate right now could fast track all of them this week. But there are other agreements that are as nefarious and must be stopped with the same urgency. Case in point: the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between Canada and the EU. Like the other agreements, CETA has terrible provisions, including a copyright extension and anti-circumvention provisions for Canada. While the text is now public, that publication came only after negotiations were complete.

While each of these agreements varies the trouble they would implement slightly, they are all being negotiated in secret, and for good reason: if people knew what was in them, they would fight back. And that's exactly what we must do. These agreements are being put together with tons of input from corporations and trade groups who seek to benefit from the restrictions these treaties will implement. The people they will control are not welcome at the table, but we still have a voice. Now is the time to speak up and let the leaders in every country subject to these negotiations know that these bargains made in the shadows must be brought into the light to die.

The time to fight back is now. Here is how you can help:

• If you only have a moment to help, please spread the word by sharing this article with your friends, or microblogging the following:

I oppose secret international trade agreements in all forms. Protect free software by stopping #TTP #TTIP and #TISA (shortened link to article)

Note that if you use Twitter for microblogging, you can do so in a way that avoids using proprietary software.

• If you are in the US, join EFF's action and write to your representatives telling them not to grant Trade Promotion Authority, and that you oppose these secret negotiations. EFF's action uses the free software tool Phantom of the Capitol. Today may be your last chance to stop TPA.

• If you live in Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, or Vietnam, contact your local representative and let them know you oppose TPP.

• If you live in the European Union, contact your local representative and let them know you oppose TTIP, TISA, and CETA.

• If you live in Australia, Canada, Chile, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Liechtenstein, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Taiwan, Uruguay, Colombia, Costa Rica, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Turkey, Pakistan, or Paraguay contact your local representative and let them know you oppose TISA.

• Canadian users should likewise contact their representatives to demand an out from CETA.

• Support our work representing you in this area by becoming an FSF member or making a donation.

Last summer, I worked for ThinkPenguin, where I gained a much greater appreciation for the history of free software. I'm currently studying Free and Secure Computing at Hampshire College, where I also lead LibreHamp (the free software student group) and write for a free speech publication called The Omen.

Every day it seems, I find a new place where digital technology exists that it didn't before. As this influx of the digital realm into our physical world continues, I find it increasingly worrisome that many people don't know – or even care to know – who actually controls the technology they regularly interact with. The FSF informs users about the importance of free software better than any other organization I am aware of, and for that reason, I feel very honored to have been chosen as a summer intern. I'm particularly excited to working on the Email Self-Defense project, which will give me the opportunity to promote free software and computer security awareness together.

If you would like to contact me, you can find me on freenode IRC as jupelluri. Of course, my preferred method of communication is encrypted email. The aforementioned guide is a great place to start if you're new to GnuPG. If you would like to send me some encrypted love mail, my email is adaml@fsf.org, and my fingerprint is 9D7E D11A F670 9719 F854 A307 198C 9A1E 9309 EF0C.

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 Free Software Directory 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!

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!