GNU Project renews focus on free software in education

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Monday, January 30, 2012 -- The GNU Project today announced the relaunch of its worldwide volunteer-led effort to bring free software to educational institutions of all levels. The new effort is based at http://www.gnu.org/education.

The newly formed GNU Education Team is being led by Dora Scilipoti, an Italian free software activist and teacher. Under her leadership, the Team has developed a list of specific goals to guide their work:

• Present cases of educational institutions around the world who are successfully using and teaching free software.

• Show examples of how free programs are being used by educational institutions to improve the learning and teaching processes.

• Publish articles on the various aspects involved in the use of free software by educational institutions.

• Maintain a dialogue with teachers, students and administrators of educational institutions to listen to their difficulties and provide support.

• Keep in contact with other groups around the world committed to the promotion of free software in education.

GNU and its host organization, the Free Software Foundation (FSF), emphasize that free software principles are a prerequisite for any educational environment that uses computers:

Educational institutions of all levels should use and teach free software because it is the only software that allows them to accomplish their essential missions: to disseminate human knowledge and to prepare students to be good members of their community. The source code and the methods of free software are part of human knowledge. On the contrary, proprietary software is secret, restricted knowledge, which is the opposite of the mission of educational institutions. Free software supports education, proprietary software forbids education.

In an article at http://fsf.org/blogs/community/gnu-education-website-relaunch, Scilipoti adds insights about the project's organizing philosophy, current contributors, and progress so far. Of her basic motivation for being involved, she says, "As a free software advocate and a teacher, I always felt that the GNU Project needed to address the subject specifically and in depth, for it is in the education field that its ethical principles find the most fertile ground for achieving the goal of building a better society."

In her article, Scilipoti also highlights some of the free software success stories from around the world, especially Kerala, India, where the government has migrated over 2,600 of its public schools to free software.

While the Education Team has already compiled a collection of useful materials, they are also looking for more volunteer contributors. People who want to help, or who have information about instructive examples of existing use of free software in schools, should contact education@gnu.org.

"Education really is one of the most fundamental areas we need to focus on to achieve real social change," said Free Software Foundation executive director John Sullivan. "We need to be acknowledging and assisting schools that are doing the right thing, and helping those who aren't yet on board understand why those giveaway Microsoft Office, iPad, and Kindle deals aren't so great for classrooms after all. We're very thankful to all of the Team members for stepping up to meet this challenge. I hope others will be inspired by their work and join the effort."

The Education Team has also been working closely with GNU's Translation Team to make the new materials available in as many languages as possible. People interested in helping with the translation component of the project should see the information at http://www.gnu.org/server/standards/README.translations.html.

About the Free Software Foundation

The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.

About Free Software and Open Source

The free software movement's goal is freedom for computer users. Some, especially corporations, advocate a different viewpoint, known as "open source," which cites only practical goals such as making software powerful and reliable, focuses on development models, and avoids discussion of ethics and freedom. These two viewpoints are different at the deepest level. For more explanation, see http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html.

About the GNU Operating System and Linux

Richard Stallman announced in September 1983 the plan to develop a free software Unix-like operating system called GNU. GNU is the only operating system developed specifically for the sake of users' freedom. See http://www.gnu.org/gnu/the-gnu-project.html.

In 1992, the essential components of GNU were complete, except for one, the kernel. When in 1992 the kernel Linux was re-released under the GNU GPL, making it free software, the combination of GNU and Linux formed a complete free operating system, which made it possible for the first time to run a PC without non-free software. This combination is the GNU/Linux system. For more explanation, see http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html.

Media Contacts

John Sullivan
Executive Director
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
campaigns@fsf.org

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[FSF] Part 4: Brett Smith wants to do more for you!

We have raised $228,907 for free software. Help us raise another $71,093 to reach our goal of $300,000 before January 31st! Become an associate member for just $120 or $10/month at https://my.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom?referrer=2992.

The GNU General Public License (GPL) is one of the main tools the FSF provides to help protect computer user freedom. Every programmer can use the GPL as the license for software they write. When they do, they guarantee all the software's users permission to use, share, and change the program as they see fit.

In xkcd comic 225, two ninjas, conspiring to stop the GPL at its source, break through Richard Stallman's ceiling and awaken him in the night. As you would expect, Stallman jumps alert, drawing a katana with a shing and revealing himself as a true GPL ninja. (Of course, the real-life Stallman is too peaceful to threaten someone with even a butter knife, but you get the metaphor.)

I must confess, when I first saw in our office archives the katana someone sent as a gift to Stallman after reading that comic, I didn't think much of it. But over time, I saw some oddities in and around the office that made me start to think there might be something more to it. For example, I noticed that GPL violation reports (about people distributing GPL software but claiming users don't have the rights guaranteed to them) submitted to us over the past few years, some about rather large corporations, have quietly been resolved. For reasons unknown to me, corporations would simply fix the issues and start following the GPL, without anything coming into the public light.

This alone isn't anything that should seem unusual. After all, Brett Smith has been the FSF's license compliance engineer for several years now. Surely he's just a regular guy from Kentucky, experienced at his job, and not some sort of secret agent. Right?

Wrong.

Brett Smith is a GPL ninja

It took me a while to figure it out, but once I examined the evidence in front of me, I realized it was the only logical conclusion.

The first hint is the sheer volume of Brett's output. This past year alone, he answered hundreds of complex licensing questions from the public, wrote some widely read and timely posts for the FSF's blogs, coded up Python scripts during breaks, and dashed across the country to give input to policy makers. Despite the pressure he worked under, he managed to do it all in a timely fashion and with the kind of poise that makes you think, "I bet this kid is cool enough to beat a lie detector test."

Even when he's not working, hearing about Brett's hobbies reinforces the idea he's some sort of free software samurai warrior. He hacks on personal projects like dtrx, an all-purpose archive extraction tool. He knows some Japanese and has taken a couple of long trips to Japan. Lately he's been getting into amateur radio -- he's already got a call sign (KB1WJE).

Proprietary software companies love to talk about how they hire "ninjas." Well, don't worry, we've got ninjas too.

But we are six short of having seven samurai

Despite Brett's skills, the battle to defend freedom and the GPL is a job too big and too important to be left to a single ninja. And there is a lot more that Brett wants to do. He could take even more license violation reports head on, or publish more educational material to teach the way of the GPL ninja to a new generation.

Plus Brett has racked up more vacation time than anyone I know, and he would love to take another long vacation to Japan one of these days.

You don't have to take just my word for all of this. Here's what a couple of our colleagues at other freedom-friendly organizations have to say:

Brett has brought a very professional, constructive approach to working with me on the license. Without his dedication and patience the new GPL compatibility approach would not have succeeded.

-- Luis Villa, on the Mozilla Public License 2.0

This year we managed to announce the acceptability of CC0 for usage with software and its compatibility with the GPL. Licensing issues are complex, and this probably couldn't have happened if we hadn't been able to take advantage of the excellent knowledge and skills of Brett Smith.

-- Christopher Allan Webber, on Creative Commons' CC0 Public Domain Dedication

Here is how you can help Brett do more:

• Become an associate member. Average donations of members are $169/year, and memberships start at $120 or $10/month. When you donate $500 or more, you can be listed on our Thank GNUs web page: https://my.fsf.org/associate/support_freedom?referrer=2992

• Donate any amount you can: https://my.fsf.org/donate

• Add our fundraising widget to your site or blog: https://my.fsf.org/associate/widget

• And simply let your friends and co-workers know about our fundraiser! http://www.fsf.org/appeal/2011/we-want-to-do-more-for-you

Sincerely,
Josh, Brett, Donald, Jasimin, Jeanne, John, Martin, Matt, Peter, Richard, and Ward

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[FSF] Can you help the FSF get colocated hosting?

If you know a Boston-area company or institution that could offer us colocated hosting and bandwidth, we could use your help!

At the FSF, we've been fortunate enough the last several years to have hosting and bandwidth donated by Global NAPs in Quincy, Massachusetts.

This generous donation has enabled us to provide many services to the free software community, like mailing list and code hosting, without taking from the financial support we receive from our thousands of individual donors to do important free software advocacy work. All of our public-facing web sites have been hosted at Global NAPs, including www.gnu.org, lists.gnu.org, savannah.gnu.org, and www.fsf.org.

We're very thankful to them for their many years of support!

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end, and we now need to find colocated hosting and bandwidth elsewhere in the Boston area.

This is a great opportunity for a company or institution to give back to the free software community, and make a direct, tangible contribution to free software development. Every dollar we don't have to spend on hosting is a dollar we can spend protecting and advancing software freedom. We will recognize hosting donors at http://patron.fsf.org, and in a public announcement of thanks.

Our timeline for moving is very short — we need to know our plans by the end of this month. Please contact us at sysadmin@gnu.org if you might be able to offer colocated hosting and bandwidth, and we can talk in more detail about what's needed. While we strongly prefer something in the Boston-area, it would be good to hear about other possibilities as well.

If you're not able to donate hosting, but are able to chip in to help with this unexpected potential expense, please join as a member or make a donation.

Thank you,

John Sullivan
Executive Director
Free Software Foundation

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[FSF] Part 3: We want to do more for you!

We have raised $198,245 for free software. Help us raise another
$101,755 to reach our goal of $300,000 before January 31st!
Become an associate member for just $120 or $10/month

We must to do more.

Over 15,000 individuals joined the Free Software Supporter mailing list in 2011 to follow our progress and to help us do more for free software. Over 22,000 verified signatures were added to our statement opposing Microsoft's Restricted Boot. Over 130 individuals donated to help us mail 200 cardboard bricks to Nintendo executives in opposition to their terrible Terms of Service and Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) on the Nintendo 3DS. And we joined with thousands of others in the US to oppose Internet blacklist legislation. Time and time again, we managed to make sure the free software message was heard around the world.

Our campaigns managers, Matt Lee and Josh Gay, not only design and carry out our advocacy campaigns — they also do a large share of our public relations, fundraising, web development, and graphic design. In 2011, they answered over 1,500 emails from members, the public, and reporters. They overhauled and relaunched the Free Software Directory. And they worked diligently on campaigns to end software patents, eliminate DRM, promote free document formats, support the GNU Operating System, and promote free audio and video formats.

But, for as many actions as they were able to launch last year, there were also missed opportunities.

Matt wanted to do much more to improve all of our web sites, making them more useful and attractive places for people new to free software to learn about it and for those more experienced to keep up on the latest issues they should be acting on. He wanted to work on some new publications, including case studies of prominent free software users and better handouts explaining the basics of free software and the problems of DRM and software patents. He wanted to attend more events on behalf of the FSF to meet and work with others in the community, and he wanted to blog more frequently and effectively about important free software issues.

Most importantly, he wanted to design a new GNU hat to be sold through shop.fsf.org, because it's January in Boston and it's hard to type when our heads are so cold.

Josh wanted to do more too. He wanted to build stronger connections with other organizations whose work overlaps with ours. He wanted to spend more time talking with and writing for major publications to ensure that the free software message is always heard in mainstream discussions of technology. He wanted to spend a few more years turning the Free Software Directory into a fully sentient being powered by Semantic MediaWiki. He wanted to get the history of free software into museums like the Smithsonian, and he wanted to focus more time on promoting free software in educational institutions.

To do even more than last year, to do more for free software, we need to grow. Another campaigns manager would be a huge help and would give us almost enough to field a softball team against the local Microsoft office. Over the last month, we've seen some of our peer organizations receive grants in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. There's a good chance we can also get such funding, but someone needs to have the time to pursue it without neglecting other important work that must be done.

Your donation puts us in a position where we can be successful.

Here is how you can help Josh and Matt:

• Become an associate member. Average donations of members are $169/year, and memberships start at $120 or $10/month. When you donate $500 or more, you can be listed on our Thank GNUs web page.
• Donate any amount
• Add our fundraising widget to your site or blog
• And simply let your friends and co-workers know about our fundraiser! 

Sincerely,

Josh, Brett, Donald, Jasimin, Jeanne, John, Martin, Matt, Peter, Richard, and Ward

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