News

From the The Other Foot dept.:
European antitrust regulators have received a formal complaint about Google’s Android operating system for mobile devices, even as they move to the final stages of their inquiry into the company’s search practices.

The complaint was filed by Fairsearch Europe, a group of Google’s competitors, including the mobile phone maker Nokia and the software titan Microsoft, and by other companies, like Oracle. It accuses Google of using the Android software “as a deceptive way to build advantages for key Google apps in 70 percent of the smartphones shipped today,” said Thomas Vinje, the lead lawyer for Fairsearch Europe, referring to Android’s share of the smartphone market.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF), a Boston-based 501(c)(3) charity with a worldwide mission to protect freedoms critical to the computer-using public, seeks a motivated and organized tech-friendly Boston-based individual to be its full-time outreach and communication coordinator.

NOTE: The application period for this job ended on May 21st, 2013. Keep an eye on fsf.org/jobs for future postings.

This newly created position, reporting to the executive director, will work closely with our campaigns, licensing, and technical staff, as well as our board of directors, to edit, publish, and promote high-quality, effective materials both digital and printed.

These materials are a critical part of advancing the FSF's work to support the GNU Project, free software adoption, free media formats, and freedom on the Internet; and to oppose DRM, software patents, and proprietary software.

Some of the position's more important responsibilities include:

• stewarding the online publication and editing process for all outreach staff; including copyediting, formatting, posting, and maintaining material on our Web sites; and sending out e-mail messages to our lists;

• producing and improving our monthly e-mail newsletter the Free Software Supporter;

• improving the effectiveness of our audio and video materials use;

• editing and building our biannual printed Bulletin;

• promoting our work and the work of others in the area of computing freedom on social networking sites;

• helping to produce fundraising materials and assisting with our fundraising drives;

• cultivating the community around the LibrePlanet wiki and network, including the annual conference;

• working with and encouraging volunteers; and

• being an approachable, humble, and friendly representative of the FSF to our worldwide community of existing supporters and the broader public, both in person and online.

A successful candidate will have strong editing skills, especially in the area of copyediting, and will take pride in working with a team to create consistently polished and effective materials.

While this is a job for a person who is passionate about technology and its social impact, it is not a technical position. The main technical requirement is the willingness to learn to use many new and possibly unfamiliar pieces of software, with a positive attitude. That being said, experience with any of the following technologies will be considered a big plus: GNU/Linux, Plone, Drupal, CiviCRM, Ikiwiki, Subversion, Git, CVS, Ssh, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, Emacs, LaTeX, Inkscape, GIMP, Markdown, and MediaWiki.

Because the FSF works globally and seeks to have our materials distributed in as many languages as possible, multilingual candidates will have an advantage. English, German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Mandarin, Czech, and Malagasy, are represented among current FSF staff.

With our small staff of thirteen, each person makes a clear contribution. We work hard, but offer a humane and fun work environment.

The FSF is a mature but growing organization that provides great potential for advancement; existing staff get the first chance at any new job openings. If you're hired and don't like your job title, we might be able to change it. We're flexible like that.

Benefits and salary

The job must be worked on-site at FSF's downtown Boston offices. An on-site interview will be required with the executive director.

This job is a union position. The salary is fixed at $49k and is non-negotiable. Other benefits include:

• full family health coverage through Blue Cross/Blue Shield's HMO Blue program,
• subsidized dental plan,
• four weeks of paid vacation annually,
• seventeen paid holidays annually,
• public transit commuting cost reimbursement,
• 403(b) program through TIAA-CREF,
• yearly cost-of-living pay increases, and
• potential for an annual performance bonus.

Application instructions

Applications must be submitted via email to hiring@fsf.org. The email must contain the subject line, "Outreach and Communications Coordinator". A complete application should include:

• resume,
• cover letter,
• writing sample (1000 words or less),
• links to published work online, and
• three edits you would suggest to this job posting.

All materials must be in a free format (such as plain text, PDF, or OpenDocument, and not Microsoft Word). Email submissions that do not follow these instructions will probably be overlooked. No phone calls, please.

Applications must be received by 10:00am EDT on Monday, May 20th.

The FSF is an equal opportunity employer and will not discriminate against any employee or application for employment on the basis of race, color, marital status, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, national origin, handicap, or any other legally protected status recognized by federal, state or local law. We value diversity in our workplace.

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.

From the XP Actually Wasn't That Bad dept.:
One year from today, the world's most popular PC operating system, Windows XP, will no longer be supported by Microsoft.

As of April 8, 2014, the software vendor will no longer provide security patches or other updates to the software.

The deadline - which Redmond has moved several times - will prove a challenge for many of Australia’s largest users of IT, all struggling to migrate to new Microsoft environments.

From the PayMoz dept.:
Mozilla has developed an open payment service API to support app purchases in Firefox OS, and has released a draft version allowing app developers to process payments. Pointing out the drawbacks of the different models for payments on the web that are currently available, Mozilla has revealed that it is looking to introduce a common web API that would make payments through web devices easier and more secure while being flexible and retaining today's checkout button features that are available for merchants. Partly based on Google Wallet, Mozilla's WebPayment API will remain open to ensure that it is used by a wide range of payment service providers.

Want to run Linux on the Google Computer Engine cloud? Starting immediately, Debian Linux is Google's Linux of choice.

This shouldn't come as any great surprise, but Linux is faster than Windows, and at least one anonymous Microsoft developer is willing to admit it and explain why that's the case.

Does Linux really need another application packaging and installment system? Ubuntu will be adding another one for its Ubuntu Touch smartphones and tablets.

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Thursday, May 9, 2013 -- The HTML Working Group of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) today released a First Public Working Draft of the controversial Encrypted Media Extension (EME) specification, despite massive opposition from public interest organizations and members of the public.

W3C CEO Jeff Jaffe also released a statement justifying the Working Group's decision. The proposal, which is supported by the entertainment industry and giants like Netflix, Google, and Microsoft, would endorse and facilitate use of proprietary Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) in HTML, and would have a dramatic impact on streaming audio and video on the Web.

Defective by Design (a project of the Free Software Foundation devoted to fighting DRM) and a coalition of 26 other organizations publicly opposed the proposal in an April letter to the W3C. Last week, on International Day Against DRM, Defective by Design delivered tens of thousands of signatures opposing the proposal, and continues to collect petition signatures at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5.

Free Software Foundation executive director John Sullivan made the following statement:

"We and the 26,000 concerned individuals who signed Defective by Design's petition so far are extremely disappointed in the W3C's statement today. The situation is actually worse than we thought, because the W3C now appears to be bizarrely insisting that Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) is a necessary component of a free Web. We were under the impression that the standardized Web was meant to be a structure that mitigated against holders of particular proprietary technologies bullying Web users and developers, or extracting royalties from them as preconditions for participation. If companies want to do such bullying, they can do it on their own time and their own dime; the W3C should not help them or endorse them. In this statement, the W3C unfortunately hitches its wagon to the contentious and frankly irrelevant empirical claim that DRM is key to what Microsoft during the Vista launch referred to as a 'next generation content experience.' In adopting the doublespeak of the Hollyweb, the W3C is betraying the interests Web users have in experiencing the amazing universe of human culture enabled by the Internet. Instead, they are backing the desire of Netflix, Google, and Microsoft, to capture those users in media silos with walls enforced by proprietary software and criminal law like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (and similar laws around the world). Despite the W3C's claim to have listened, we do not feel heard. We will step up our efforts to stop them from committing this terrible error, including issuing a comprehensive refutation of this statement's reasoning."

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.

Media Contacts

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

Libby Reinish
Campaigns Manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942
campaigns@fsf.org

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Microsoft has had trouble getting people to use its Windows Phone operating systems, however, it might make as much as $3.4 billion on Android phones.

See if for yourself: With one major software update, the Barnes & Noble HD e-reader has been transformed into an excellent, low-end Android tablet.

The recent Google app store software update has turned Barnes & Noble's HD e-reader into a good, low-end Android tablet.

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Wednesday, April 24th, 2013 -- Today a coalition of twenty-seven organizations released a joint letter to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the Web's standards-setting body, condemning Encrypted Media Extensions (EME). EME is a proposal to incorporate support for Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) -- the systems used by media and technology companies to restrict watching, sharing, recording, and transforming digital works -- into HTML, the core language of the Web.

The coalition opposing EME includes the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and its sister organizations FSF Europe, Latin America, and India; the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Creative Commons; Fight for the Future; Open Knowledge Foundation; Free Culture Foundation; April; Open Technology Institute; and several chapters of the Pirate Party. In the letter (full text of which is visible at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/sign-on-against-drm-in-html), these organizations lay out their reasons for opposing EME, and encourage principled Web users to sign Defective by Design's petition against DRM in HTML at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5. On May 3rd, the International Day Against DRM, the Defective by Design campaign plans to hand-deliver 50,000 petition signatures to the W3C's Cambridge, Massachusetts, office.

The letter argues that "DRM restricts the public's freedom, even beyond what overzealous copyright law requires," and warns that for the W3C, "ratifying EME would be an abdication of responsibility; it would harm interoperability, enshrine nonfree software in W3C standards and perpetuate oppressive business models. It would fly in the face of the principles that the W3C cites as key to its mission and it would cause an array of serious problems for the billions of people who use the Web."

EME is sponsored by a handful of powerful companies who are W3C members, like Microsoft, Google, and Netflix. These companies have been promoting DRM both for their own reasons and as part of their close relationships to major media companies.

In order for watching, sharing, recording, and transforming media to be restricted, computer users must be prevented from modifying the plug-in software used to view the media (otherwise people would modify the software to remove the restrictions). This makes DRM by nature incompatible with free "as in freedom" software. The letter argues that by enshrining nonfree software in HTML itself, EME would comparatively diminish the values of freedom, self-actualization and decentralization so critical to the Web as we know it.

FSF executive director, John Sullivan, said, "Building DRM hooks into HTML is another attempt by Hollywood and its friends to gain control over our home and mobile computers in order to restrict the way we use media on the Web. DRM turns these companies into gatekeepers capable of filtering and controlling not just movies and music but also educational materials -- anything digital. The FSF and its partners won't allow these companies to sneak this change into the Web's core language. We want the World Wide Web, not the Hollyweb."

Web expert and W3C HTML Working Group member Manu Sporny has also warned that EME would spur a new proliferation of incompatible proprietary browser plug-ins for playing DRM-encumbered media, harming interoperability on the Web. This would run counter to the W3C's stated principles, which include an explicit commitment to "global interoperability," as part of the Open Stand guidelines to which W3C is a signatory.

The coalition signing the letter is an international group of free software and Internet freedom organizations. Frédéric Couchet, executive director of the French free software organization April, wrote, "DRM is an outrageous threat made by the entertainment industry against its own customers. Accepting the EME proposal would make the W3C complicit in forcing DRM on every computer user."

The W3C hosts the full text of the EME proposal on its site at https://dvcs.w3.org/hg/html-media/raw-file/tip/encrypted-media/encrypted-media.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.

Media Contacts

Zak Rogoff
Campaigns Manager
Free Software Foundation
Office: +1 (617) 542 5942 x31
Cell: (202) 489 6886
zak@fsf.org

The International Space Station's laptops are moving from Windows to Linux, and R2, the first Linux-powered humanoid robot in space, is now under-going in-flight testing.

After two years of waiting, Debian Linux, one of the most important core Linux distributions, has a new release: Wheezy.

From the Rabies dept.:
The Ubuntu team is pleased to announce the final beta release of Ubuntu 13.04 Desktop, Server, Cloud, and Core products.

Codenamed "Raring Ringtail", 13.04 continues Ubuntu's proud tradition of integrating the latest and greatest open source technologies into a high-quality, easy-to-use Linux distribution. The team has been hard at work through this cycle, introducing new features and fixing bugs.

Building on the ground-breaking work of billionaire genius Tony Stark, the first Linux-powered Iron Man suits may soon be within the reach of homebrew builders.

Barnes & Noble seeks to revitalize its Android-powered Nook tablet line over arch-rival Amazon's Kindle tablets by adding Google Play and full Android app support.

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Friday, May 3, 2013 -- Today, the Free Software Foundation's Defective by Design (www.defectivebydesign.org) campaign rolled out the red carpet and staged an impromptu awards ceremony during a petition delivery action outside of the W3C's offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The campaign's "DRM Elimination Crew" presented W3C with an award for "Best Supporting Role in "The Hollyweb" and delivered more than 22,500 verified signatures asking the organization not to weave Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) into the fabric of the Web. The action was part of the 5th annual International Day Against DRM. Photos of today's event are available at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/oscar-awarded-w3c-in-the-hollyweb.

The petition (which is available to sign at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5) calls on W3C to reject the Encrypted Media Extensions proposal (EME), which would incorporate support for DRM -- the systems used by media and technology companies to restrict watching, sharing, recording, and transforming digital works -- into HTML, the core language of the Web. As the petition explains, "EME would be an irreversible step backward for freedom on the Web. It would endorse and enable business models that unethically restrict users, and it would make subjugation to particular media companies a precondition for full Web citizenship. Just as Flash and Silverlight are finally dying off, we should not replace them with the media giants' latest control fantasy."

"This isn't the award we would like to be giving to W3C this week, as the Web celebrates its 20th anniversary. Ideally, we'd be hailing W3C for its role in protecting Internet freedom. While companies like Netflix, Microsoft, and Google (and their friends in Big Media) are really the stars of the Hollyweb, the W3C's supporting role has been crucial to this attempt to restrict the public's freedom. W3C still has time to do the right thing, but if they don't reject EME, they will be sanctioning the use of proprietary digital restrictions in every interaction we have online," said John Sullivan, executive director of the Free Software Foundation.

"The decision that W3C makes will influence millions of Internet users around the globe. The signatures delivered today represent the overwhelming public opinion that the EME proposal would be harmful to their online freedoms and to the overall health of the World Wide Web. We will continue to keep this proposal in the public eye and work to ensure that people everywhere have an opportunity to make their voices heard," said Libby Reinish, a campaigns manager at the Free Software Foundation.

Public opposition to the proposal is growing. Last week, W3C received a letter condemning the proposal from an international coalition of over 27 organizations, including the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and its sister organizations FSF Europe, Latin America, and India; the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Creative Commons; Fight for the Future; Open Knowledge Foundation; Free Culture Foundation; April; Open Technology Institute; and several Pirate Party groups. The full text of this letter is visible at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/sign-on-against-drm-in-html.

Defective by Design encourages concerned Web users to sign the petition at http://www.defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5 and to participate directly in W3C's public process by joining their mailing list at http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-html-comments.

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.

Media Contacts

Libby Reinish
Campaigns Manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942 x30
libby.reinish@gmail.com

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Red Hat's Gluster open-source community has been all about its namesake, the GlusterFS, but now it's expanding to cover other open-source, software-defined storage technologies.

BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA — Tuesday, April 30th, 2013 — The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today awarded Respects Your Freedom (RYF) certification to the TPE-N150USB Wireless N USB Adapter, sold by ThinkPenguin. The RYF certification mark means that the product meets the FSF's standards in regard to users' freedom, control over the product, and privacy. The TPE-N150USB can be purchased from http://www.thinkpenguin.com/TPE-N150USB. Software certification focused primarily on the firmware for the Atheros AR9271 chip used on the adapter.

ThinkPenguin's founder and CEO, Christopher Waid, accepted the certification: "ThinkPenguin, Inc. was founded with the goal of making free software more easily adoptable by the masses. Today I'm proud to say we are one step closer in achieving that goal. Not only do we have a product catalog that works with free software, but there is a reputable certification process to help users distinguish the good from the bad."

Only a handful of 802.11 wireless devices have both free software drivers and free firmware, so the need for wireless networking cards has been a major obstacle preventing people from running a completely free GNU/Linux operating system. Additionally, because many machines now come with a blacklist in their boot firmware that severely limits what internal wireless cards users can install, external USB devices are sometimes the best or only option.

Furthermore, even when a given wireless device is supported by free software, few sellers of such devices publish that information. The FSF supports http://h-node.org, a database of hardware compatible with free software, as a resource where users can find and share information about compatibility to help their purchasing decisions. But RYF certification goes beyond that. It is reserved for companies who promise not only that their certified device is and will continue to be compatible with free software operating systems, but also to promote this fact to their potential customers.

The TPE-N150USB Wireless N USB adapter chipset, Atheros AR9271, was developed by Qualcomm Atheros (QCA).

FSF's executive director, John Sullivan, said, "The FSF is grateful to the QCA team for publishing the firmware for this device as free software. Much credit also goes to Christopher Waid of ThinkPenguin for his central role in making this collaboration successful. At QCA, we especially want to acknowledge Adrian Chadd for his development work on the firmware and driver, and Luis Rodriguez for his related legal and policy work. We hope others will follow the example set by these two companies working together."

Once QCA published the firmware, free software developers, including Jason Self, Rubén Rodríguez, and Alexandre Oliva, completed the work of packaging it as part of the Linux-libre kernel for Trisquel, Parabola GNU/Linux, and other FSF-endorsed distributions.

The TPE-N150USB is the second product to be awarded RYF certification. The first certification was awarded in October 2012 to the LulzBot AO-100/AO-101 3D printer sold by Colorado-based Aleph Objects, Inc.

To learn more about the Respects Your Freedom hardware certification, including details on the certification of the TPE-N150USB Wireless N USB adapter, as well as information on the driver and firmware for the device, visit http://www.fsf.org/ryf. Hardware sellers interested in applying for certification can consult http://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/criteria.

Subscribers to the FSF's Free Software Supporter newsletter will receive announcements about future Respects Your Freedom products.

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 ThinkPenguin, Inc

Started by Christopher Waid, founder and CEO, ThinkPenguin, Inc. is a consumer-driven company with a mission to bring free software to the masses. At the core of company is a catalog of computers and accessories with broad support for GNU/Linux. The company provides technical support for end-users and works with the community, distributions, and upstream projects to make GNU/Linux all that it can be.

Media Contacts

Joshua Gay
> Licensing & Compliance Manager
> Free Software Foundation
> +1 (617) 542 5942 x20 licensing@fsf.org<
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Media Inquires
> ThinkPenguin, Inc.
> +1 (888) 39 THINK (84465) x703
> media@thinkpenguin.com<
a>

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