Since most ebook readers run some version of the kernel Linux (with some even run the GNU/Linux operating system), "This puts ebook readers a few steps closer to freedom than other devices," notes a recent call-to-action in the Free Software Foundation Bulletin. But with e-ink screens and DRM-laden ebooks, "closing the gap will still require a significant amount of work." Accordingly, as we announced at the LibrePlanet 2021 conference, we've decided this year to prioritize facilitating the process for an ebook reader to reach the high standards of our Respects Your Freedom (RYF) hardware certification program, whether this means adapting an existing one from a manufacturer, or even contracting its production ourselves... The free software community has made some good strides in the area of freeing ebooks. Denis "GNUToo" Carikli has composed a page on the LibrePlanet wiki documenting the components of ebook readers and other single-board computers; this has laid the groundwork for our investigation into releasing an ebook reader, and is one of the wiki's more active projects. Also, earlier in the year, a user on the libreplanet-discuss mailing list documented their project to port Parabola GNU/Linux to the reMarkable tablet, thereby creating a free ebook reader at the same time. It's steps like these that make us feel confident that we can bring an ebook reader that respects its user's freedom to the public, both in terms of hardware and the software that's shipped with the device... If the FSF is successful in landing RYF certification on an ebook reader, which I fully believe we will be, we can ensure that users will have the ability to read digitally while retaining their freedom. It's up to all of us to make sure we have the right to read, by avoiding ebook DRM in each and every case, and celebrating free (as in freedom) resources like Wikibooks and the Internet Archive, bridging the divide between the movement for free software and the movement for free culture, empowering both readers and computer users around the globe. The article also warns that ebook DRM has gotten more restrictive over the years. "It's common for textbooks to now require a constant and uninterrupted Internet connection, and that they load only a discrete number of pages at a time... Even libraries fell victim to 'lending' services like Canopy, putting an artificial lock on digital copies of books, the last place it makes sense for them to be."

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Version 9.4 of the GNU Compiler Collection "encompasses more than 190 bug fixes for GCC 9.3, which has been available since March 2020," reports DevClass. But they add that in addition, "Developers who want to contribute to the GNU Compiler Collection but don't feel like signing over copyright to the Free Software Foundation can get busy committing now." GCC Steering Committee member David Edelsohn informed contributors via the mailing list that the committee "decided to relax the requirement to assign copyright for all changes" to the FSF. Speaking for the committee, he wrote that the GCC project "will now accept contributions with or without an FSF copyright assignment", a practice thought of as consistent with that "of many other major Free Software projects, such as the Linux kernel". GCC "will continue to be developed, distributed and licensed" under the GPLv3, so nothing should change for those adding to the project under the old assumptions. There are those who have had troubles with that arrangement before, with Apple often cited as a popular example. They are now free to contribute utilising the Developer Certificate of Origin instead of agreeing to an FSF Copyright Assignment. A reason was not given, though the last sentence of the statement, which affirms the principles of Free Software, might give a clue. In March 2021, the committee commented on the removal of Richard Stallman from the project's steering committee website with a similar declaration... [T]hey felt like an association with Stallman was not serving the best interests of the GCC developers and user community, given that the "GCC Steering Committee is committed to providing a friendly, safe and welcoming environment for all." The Register notes that Red Hat senior principal engineer Mark Wielaard asked why there was no public discussion before making the change.

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John Sullivan became the Free Software Foundation's Executive Director back in 2003 (at the age of 26). But now after 18 years, "I've decided to resign my position..." he tweeted Friday, "effective at the end of a transition period." "We'll be sharing further details, including information about that transition, and a few more words, in the coming days." Meanwhile, the Free Software Foundation announced Thursday that it's seeking "a principled, compassionate, and capable leader" to be its new executive director, working remotely out of their Boston office with the Foundation's current staff and board of directors. "The executive director, working with the president, is the public face of the Foundation." The FSF faces many challenges as software becomes increasingly central in the exercise of all fundamental human freedoms, including speech, association, privacy, and movement, and as software owners seek to exploit their control over us to profit at the expense of those freedoms. The executive director has a vital role in enabling the FSF to continue meeting these challenges, starting from the strong base that has been built in the last thirty-five years. The Foundation has recently reached record-high membership numbers and was awarded a perfect score from Charity Navigator, as well as its eighth consecutive four-star rating. Efforts to improve the Foundation's governance are underway. The executive director is the FSF's chief employed officer. The position reports to the president/CEO and the board of directors, and is responsible for management of all other staff, all day-to-day operations, and oversight of the Boston physical office. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to hire for additional key positions in the management team. One interesting item on their list of job responsibilities: Mentor, inspire, coordinate, and manage all FSF staff, building a culture that upholds the FSF's ideological principles and includes accountability, empathy, efficiency, and excellence A blog post on the FSF site also notes that the last month saw 11 new GNU releases. "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."

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Friday the Free Software Foundation awarded their coveted "Respects Your Freedom" (RYF) certification to another new product: the Free Software Wireless-N Mini Router v3 (TPE-R1300) from ThinkPenguin, Inc. Just 45 products currently hold the FSF's certification "that these products meet the FSF's standards in regard to users' freedom, control over the product, and privacy." (That is to say, they run on 100% free software, allow the installation of modified software, and are free from DRM, spyware and tracking.) The FSF writes: As with previous routers from ThinkPenguin, the Free Software Wireless-N Mini Router v3 ships with an FSF-endorsed fully free embedded GNU/Linux distribution called libreCMC. It also comes with a custom flavor of the U-Boot boot loader, assembled by Robert Call, who is the maintainer of libreCMC and a former FSF intern. The router enables users to run multiple devices on a network through a VPN service, helping to simplify the process of keeping their communications secure and private. While ThinkPenguin offers a VPN service, users are not required to purchase a subscription to their service in order to use the router, and the device comes with detailed instructions on how to use the router with a wide variety of VPN providers... "ThinkPenguin once again demonstrates a long-standing commitment to protecting the rights of their users. With the latest iteration of the Wireless-N Mini Router, users know that they'll have up to date hardware they can trust for years to come," said the FSF's licensing and compliance manager, Donald Robertson, III. Phoronix points its readers to the device's page at ThinkPenguin.com "should you be looking to build out your wireless network using the decade old 802.11n standard."

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Long-time Slashdot reader destinyland writes: This week the Free Software Foundation posted some new answers to frequently-asked questions "as the FSF board sets about the work of strengthening the Foundation's governance structure." The FAQ notes that most of their financial support comes from individuals, and that "At this moment, the FSF has more associate members than at any time in its history," adding that it's in good financial health. (And the FAQ also reminds readers that all board members are uncompensated volunteers.) But it also confirms that a seat on the board was created for union staff "in the aftermath of the March 2021 controversy over the election of Richard Stallman to the board." And apparently in light of Stallman's return, the first question is "What are the responsibilities of a member of the FSF board?" Answer: The board of directors does not usually deal with the everyday work of the FSF, focusing instead on the long-term direction and financial stability of the Foundation, as well as the appointment of the officers. In addition, members of the board do not speak for the board or for the FSF. Outside of the deliberations of the board, they are private citizens. The right to speak for the Foundation is reserved to the president of the FSF and other FSF officers, such as the executive director. When the board does make statements, each statement is carefully deliberated. No one member has this individual authority. The FAQ also clarifies that while Stallman is also a voting board member, "Voting member meetings normally discuss only who should be on the board. They do not take up the issues that come before the board itself... When the Foundation was formed in 1985, the founders were advised that, to qualify for a tax exemption, board members should not be chosen solely by other board members. Legal counsel advised the founders that there should be two bodies with some overlap, one being the active board and the other being a body that appointed the active board. "Governance standards have since changed, and this structure is no longer required. As part of the effort to improve FSF governance, the board can consider possible changes to this overall structure." It also adds that "There is no formal term limit for a board member. Board members are evaluated by the voting members at regular intervals, and occasionally by the other directors." The last question on the list? "In addition to holding a board seat, what other role or roles does Richard Stallman play in the FSF?" The answer? "Richard Stallman frequently gives talks on free software, in his personal capacity, and, when he does so, he sells merchandise from the FSF shop, recruits volunteers for FSF and GNU, and raises donations for FSF. He is the primary author and editor of two books sold by the FSF."

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Friday on Richard Stallman's personal web site, he posed the question: Am I Doctor Stallman? He's received 15 doctorates honoris causa — doctorates "for honor" — in the company of others whose achievements impressed him... So I was shocked to read an article which describes this as a sleazy marketing scheme, and claims that recipients of these degrees are not supposed to call themselves "Doctor." The article says that universities hand out "honorary doctorates" readily to donors who have essentially bought them, and to performing artists so that they will entertain the students at graduation... But my experience is totally different. I am not an entertainer, except for a few minutes when I don the robe and halo of Saint iGNUcius, and that is comic relief for a long, serious talk. I never donated money to the universities that gave me doctorates, nor could they expect me to. What's more, I never saw such people receive degrees along with me. The other recipients, when there were others, were likewise being honored for their work, not as a quid-pro-quo. Why this difference? My doctorates come from universities in other countries, not in the US. I conjecture that buy-a-doctorate and sing-for-your-doctorate are found in the US only. (How sad for the US...!) [O]n reading that Florida Atlantic University explicitly says that recipients of doctorates honoris causa are not permitted the title of Doctor, I began to wonder about the policies of the universities which had given me degrees, so I asked people at some of those universities about their policies. The replies were quite disparate. One said, like Florida Atlantic, that it was not permitted. Another said I should write "Dr.(h.c.)." Another said it had no objection. So it seems that I am entitled to call myself Dr. Stallman. Why do I do that? The personal reason is that these doctorates recognize decades of work for an important cause, and I am proud of them. The reason that is beyond personal is so that people who know little or nothing of my career may decide, based on the title of "Doctor", to pay a little attention to that work and that cause, which is the free software movement. That may help us defeat the totalitarian control that today's digital technology is designed to impose.

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Richard Stallman's name has now been taken off the official web page of the steering committee for GCC, reports IT Wire. But they also note new changes this week in the management team of the Free Software Foundation: A statement from [FSF executive director John] Sullivan, deputy director John Hsieh, and chief technology officer Ruben Rodriguez on 30 March said: "As members of FSF management, we have decided to resign, with specific end dates to be determined. We believe in the importance of the FSF's mission and feel a new team will be better placed to implement recent changes in governance..." The resignations come in the wake of FSF founder Richard Stallman announcing on 19 March, during the organisation's annual LibrePlanet conference this year that he was rejoining the board. "Some of our colleagues in the FSF have decided to resign," reads an official response from the FSF. "We are grateful for the good work they have done for so long, and we will miss them. We regret losing them; we regret the situation that has motivated them to leave." Another FSF board member also resigned last week. Meanwhile, Ars Technica reports the FSF has created a new seat on the board to be filled by someone from FSF union staff, with acting FSF President Geoffrey Knauth calling it "an important step in the FSF's effort to recognize and support new leadership, to connect that leadership to the community, to improve transparency and accountability, and to build trust. There is still considerable work to be done, and that work will continue." Ars Technica adds: The elephant in the room that the FSF's remaining board members seem determined to ignore is the continued presence of Stallman himself — who, along with the rest of the FSF board, will soon need to undergo its new "transparent, formal process for identifying [members] who are wise, capable, and committed to the FSF's mission."

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Early Friday the principal author of GNU Privacy Guard (the free encryption software) warned that version 1.9.0 of its cryptographic library Libgcrypt, released January 19, had a "severe" security vulnerability and should not be used. A new version 1.9.1, which fixes the flaw, is available for download, Help Net Security reports: He also noted that Fedora 34 (scheduled to be released in April 2021) and Gentoo Linux are already using the vulnerable version... [I]t's a heap buffer overflow due to an incorrect assumption in the block buffer management code. Just decrypting some data can overflow a heap buffer with attacker controlled data, no verification or signature is validated before the vulnerability occurs. It was discovered and flagged by Google Project Zero researcher Tavis Ormandy and affects only Libgcrypt v1.9.0. "Exploiting this bug is simple and thus immediate action for 1.9.0 users is required..." Koch posted on the GnuPG mailing list. "The 1.9.0 tarballs on our FTP server have been renamed so that scripts won't be able to get this version anymore."

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Long-time Slashdot reader lee1 shares his recent article from LWN: On November 26, version 6.1 of GNU Octave, a language and environment for numerical computing, was released. There are several new features and enhancements in the new version, including improvements to graphics output, better communication with web services, and over 40 new functions... In the words of its manual: GNU Octave is a high-level language primarily intended for numerical computations. It is typically used for such problems as solving linear and nonlinear equations, numerical linear algebra, statistical analysis, and for performing other numerical experiments. Octave is free software distributed under the GPLv3. The program was first publicly released in 1993; it began as a teaching tool for students in a chemical engineering class. The professors, James B. Rawlings and John G. Ekerdt, tried to have the students use Fortran, but found that they were spending too much time trying to get their programs to compile and run instead of working on the actual substance of their assignments... Octave became part of the GNU project in 1997... Octave, written in C, C++, and Fortran, soon adopted the goal and policy of being a fully compatible replacement for MATLAB. According to the Octave Wiki, any differences between Octave and MATLAB are considered to be bugs, "in general", and most existing MATLAB scripts will work unmodified when fed to Octave, and vice versa... When octave is started in the terminal it brings up an interactive prompt. The user can type in expressions, and the results are printed immediately.

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All the videos have now appeared online for the talks at this year's virtual EmacsConf 2020, "the conference about the joy of Emacs, Emacs Lisp, and memorizing key sequences." And among them are an appearance by 67-year-old Richard Stallman, reminding the audience he'd created the first Emacs editor in 1976 "with some help from Guy Steele," then created GNU Emacs in 1984. Stallman was there to tell the history of the GNU Emacs Lisp Package Archive (and the licensing issues involved) — and how it's ultimately led to the creation of the NonGNU ELPA. "The fundamental plan of NonGNU ELPA is that we won't ask for copyright assignments for those packages, so we won't be able to put them into core Emacs, at least not easily — but we will have some control over how we distribute them. We can put any package into NonGNU ELPA as long as its free software. "If we like it, we can set up that way for users to get it. We can put the package in exactly as it is, if there's no problem at all with it. We can make an arrangement with the package's developers to work on it with us and maintain it directly for distribution by NonGNU ELPA. But if they are not interested, we can put it in ourselves, and if we need to make any changes we can do so. So NonGNU ELPA is not meant to be just a way that others can distribute their packages. Its meant at least in a minimal, technical sense to work with GNU Emacs, and we will make changes if necessary so that it works smoothly with GNU Emacs... "The idea is to have a single Git repository where you can download various packages, but they won't be maintained there. Each of those packages will be copied automatically from some other place, probably some other people have the right access to work on it. This way we can avoid giving a gigantic number of people access to it. "So far NonGNU ELPA is just a plan. We need people to implement the plan, so if you'd like to help, please write to me. I think this is a very important step for progress, and it's got to be implemented. Thanks, and happy hacking." Stallman provided a status update on NonGNU ELPA as part of the 46-minute Q&A that followed. "The creation of it has started. There's an archive and you can download packages. There's a repository to put it in... Still working out the procedures, how to make the arrangements with developers, etc." But he also answered questions on other topics. Some highlights: Q: Which distro of GNU/Linux do you use? guix? or something else? RMS: Trisquel. Q: If you knew that you would get hit by a bus tomorrow, say because of a fortune-teller, what would you leave behind in terms of advice for stewardship of Emacs and its future? RMS: Focus on keeping the community strong in defending freedom. If given the choice to have more people developing the software or defending the software, choose the latter. Guard your soul carefully... :P Q: Would you mind sharing your Emacs configuration files? RMS: Configuration files are personal and will not be shared.

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"Today, on October 4th, the Free Software Foundation (FSF) celebrates its thirty-fifth year of fighting for software freedom," announces a blog post at FSF.org: Our work will not be finished until every computer user is able to do all of their digital tasks in complete freedom — whether that's on a desktop, laptop, or the computer in your pocket. The fight for free software continues, and we wouldn't be here without you. To celebrate, we have a full week of announcements and surprises planned starting today, and we will end in an online anniversary event featuring both live and prerecorded segments this Friday, October 9th, from 12:00 EDT (16:00 UTC) until 17:00 EDT (21:00 UTC). We'd love for you to join in celebration of this amazing community by submitting a short (two-minute) video sharing your favorite memory about free software or the FSF, and a wish for the future of software freedom. We'll be collecting the videos all week and airing a selection during the birthday event on October 9th... If you are able to, please make a donation of $35 or more to help keep the fight for user freedom going another 35 years, we'll send you a commemorative pin... We're another year older, but that doesn't mean we're slowing down our efforts to bring software freedom to users around the globe. Stay tuned for more information on how we plan to ring in the FSF's next year, and the vital role each one of us plays in ensuring free software's success for the future. We hope that you'll be able to take part in our festivities this week! The announcement suggests 10 different ways to celebrate, which include: Try a fully free distribution of GNU/Linux, which can be run "live" without making any permanent changes to your computer's hard drive. Take an hour to follow our Email Self-Defense Guide, and learn how to opt out of bulk surveillance . Download and experiment with one of the oldest parts of the GNU operating system, the GNU Emacs text editor. Try the tutorial by launching the editor and typing Ctrl-h + t (C-h t), or see if you can make it through some of the games included with Emacs, such as Alt-x (M-x) dunnet or M-x tetris. Make the commitment to replace one nonfree program that you use with one that respects your freedom, such as using LibreOffice instead of Microsoft Office. Petition the administrators of your favorite Web site to free the proprietary JavaScript lurking on their page that many users run and download without ever realizing it.

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LWN.net re-visits the emacs-devel mailing list, where the Emacs 28 development cycle has revived discussions about how to make the text editor more "modern" and attractive to new users: A default dark theme may not be in the future, leading one to think that there may yet be hope for the world in general. But there does seem to be general agreement that Emacs could benefit from a better, more centralized approach to color themes, rather than having color names hard-coded throughout various Elisp packages. From that, a proper theme engine could be supported, making dark themes and such easily available to those who want them... Another area where Emacs is insufficiently "modern", it seems, has to do with keyboard and mouse bindings. On the keyboard side, users have come to expect certain actions from certain keystrokes; ^X to cut a selection, ^V to paste it, etc. These bindings are easily had by turning on the Cua mode, but new users tend not to know about this mode or how to enable it. Many participants in the discussion said that this mode should be on by default. That, of course, would break the finger memory of large numbers of existing Emacs users, who would be unlikely to appreciate the disruption. Or, as Richard Stallman put it: It is not an option to change these basic key bindings to imitate other, newer editors. It would create a different editor that we Emacs users would never switch to. It is unfortunate that the people who implemented the newer editors chose incompatibility with Emacs.... The situation with mouse behavior is similar; as several participants in the discussion pointed out, users of graphical interfaces have come to expect that a right-button click will produce a menu of available actions. In Emacs, instead, that button marks a region ("selection"), with a second click in the same spot yanking ("cutting") the selected text. Many experienced Emacs users have come to like this behavior, but it is surprising to newcomers. The right mouse button with the control key held down does produce a menu defined by the current major mode, but that is evidently not what is being requested here; that menu, some say, should present global actions rather mode-specific ones. Stallman suggested offering a "reshuffled mode" that would bring the context menu to an unadorned right-button click, and which would add some of the expected basic editing commands there as well. This would be relatively easy to do, he said, since mouse bindings are separate from everything else. Besides, as he noted, the current mouse behavior was derived from "what was the standard in X Windows around 1990"; while one wouldn't want to act in haste, it might just be about time for an update. Other proposed changes involved "discoverability," including the default enabling of various modes, although to incorporate them into GNU Emacs "would often require the author to sign copyrights over to the Free Software Foundation, which is not something all authors are willing to do..."

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