Planet GNU

Mailutils version 3.3 is available for download. See the NEWS file, for information about changes in this version.

Help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. Every Friday we meet on IRC in the #fsf channel on irc.freenode.org.

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. When a user comes to the Directory, they know that everything in it is free software, has only free dependencies, and runs on a free OS. With almost 16,000 entries, it is a massive repository of information about free software.

While the Directory has been and continues to be a great resource to the world for many years now, it has the potential to be a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help! And since it's a MediaWiki instance, it's easy for anyone to edit and contribute to the Directory.

Back in 1930, radio plays were all the rage. And on October 20th of that year, NBC radio began airing The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. So freestyling off of Holmes, the theme of the Directory meeting this week is search software. We are painting the category with a broad brush. Search software for the desktop that indexes your files is fair game, and the door is open to Web site indexing and other pattern recognition software. The goal this week is to find as many new programs as possible that fit this bill. Come this Friday: the game is afoot!

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! There are also weekly Directory Meeting pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

We recently updated our list of various licenses and comments about them to include the Eclipse Public License version 2.0 (EPL).

In terms of GPL compatibility, the Eclipse Public License version 2.0 is essentially equivalent to version 1.0. The only change is that it explicitly offers the option of designating the GNU GPL version 2 or later as a "secondary license" for a certain piece of code.

If an initial contributor releases a specific piece of code and designates GNU GPL version 2 or later as a secondary license, that provides explicit compatibility with those GPL versions for that code. (Doing so is roughly equivalent, for users, to releasing that piece of code under a dual license, EPL | GPL.) However, the EPL2 without this designation remains incompatible with the GPL.

To keep up-to-date on newly-added licenses, as well as current topics and activities in free software, please sign up for our monthly newsletter, the Free Software Supporter.

You can also help support the Compliance Lab's work in reviewing licenses and more by donating to the Free Software Foundation or becoming an associate member.

The LibrePlanet call for sessions closes November 2nd--only two weeks away--and we want to hear from you!

Speaking at a conference, and even submitting a proposal, can be intimidating or hard. Luckily, some great, experienced speakers are volunteering their time by holding CFS Office Hours.

Whether you want to propose a talk and want feedback on your idea, proposal wording, talk title, or just advice on how to deal with nerves, there are three office hours slots scheduled over the next few weeks.

Join #libreplanet on Freenode IRC on any of the following dates:

• Thursday, October 19th from 17:00 - 18:00 (EDT) - with Vicky Brasseur and Deb Nicholson
• Thursday, October 26th from 17:00 - 18:00 (EDT) - with Vicky Brasseur
• Thursday, November 2nd from 18:00 - 19:00 (EDT) - with Deb Nicholson

If you do not have an IRC client, you can log onto Freenode IRC here, and connect to the channel #libreplanet.

In addition to submitting to the CFS, you can register for LibrePlanet and apply for a travel scholarship to help you get there.

If you can't make an office hours meeting, feel free to email campaigns@fsf.org with questions.

The LibrePlanet call for sessions closes November 2nd--only two weeks away--and we want to hear from you!

Speaking at a conference, and even submitting a proposal, can be intimidating or hard. Luckily, some great, experienced speakers are volunteering their time by holding CFS Office Hours.

Whether you want to propose a talk and want feedback on your idea, proposal wording, talk title, or just advice on how to deal with nerves, there are three office hours slots scheduled over the next few weeks.

Join #libreplanet on Freenode IRC on any of the following dates:

• Thursday, October 19th from 17:00 - 18:00 (EDT) - with Vicky Brasseur and Deb Nicholson
• Thursday, October 26th from 17:00 - 18:00 (EDT) - with Vicky Brasseur
• Thursday, November 2nd from 18:00 - 19:00 (EDT) - with Deb Nicholson

If you do not have an IRC client, you can log onto Freenode IRC here, and connect to the channel #libreplanet.

In addition to submitting to the CFS, you can register for LibrePlanet and apply for a travel scholarship to help you get there.

If you can't make an office hours meeting, feel free to email campaigns@fsf.org with questions.

Guix will be present on a few venues in the coming weeks:

1. On October 23rd, I (Ludovic Courtès) will be at GPCE, an academic conference co-located with SPLASH in Vancouver, Canada. I will present the paper Code Staging in GNU Guix, which discusses the motivation for and genesis of G-expressions, as well as recent improvements. It’s an honor to be presenting before an audience of experts in the field!
2. Christopher Baines will be at freenode #live in Bristol, UK, among well-known free software activists from a variety of organizations and projects. Christopher will give a talk on October 29th to give an overview of Guix and GuixSD.
3. On October 31st, Ricardo Wurmus, Jan Nieuwenhuizen, and possibly more Guix hackers will join a dozen free software projects at the third Reproducible Build Summit in Berlin, Germany. As in previous years, we expect it to be a good time to share tips & tricks as well as a longer-term vision with our fellow hackers!

If you’re around in Vancouver, Bristol, or Berlin, let’s get in touch! :-)

About GNU Guix

GNU Guix is a transactional package manager for the GNU system. The Guix System Distribution or GuixSD is an advanced distribution of the GNU system that relies on GNU Guix and respects the user's freedom.

In addition to standard package management features, Guix supports transactional upgrades and roll-backs, unprivileged package management, per-user profiles, and garbage collection. Guix uses low-level mechanisms from the Nix package manager, except that packages are defined as native Guile modules, using extensions to the Scheme language. GuixSD offers a declarative approach to operating system configuration management, and is highly customizable and hackable.

GuixSD can be used on an i686 or x86_64 machine. It is also possible to use Guix on top of an already installed GNU/Linux system, including on mips64el, armv7, and aarch64.

Richard Stallman hablará sobre las metas y la filosofía del movimiento del Software Libre, y el estado y la historia del sistema operativo GNU, el cual junto con el núcleo Linux, es actualmente utilizado por decenas de millones de personas en todo el mundo.

Esa charla de Richard Stallman, organizada por la Acción Directa Autogestiva, no será técnica y será abierta al público; todos están invitados a asistir.

Lugar: Karuzo, 11 Oriente 218, Centro Histórico, Puebla, México

Favor de rellenar este formulario, para que podamos contactarle acerca de eventos futuros en la región de Puebla.

Esa charla de Richard Stallman no será técnica y será abierta al público; todos están invitados a asistir.

El título y el lugar exacto serán determinados.

Lugar: Sala Eduardo Torrijos Ocádiz, Escuela Superio de Cómputo (ESCOM-IPN), Av. Juan de Dios Bátiz s/n esq. Av. Miguel Othón de Mendizabal, Colonia Lindavista, Demarcación Territorial: Gustavo A. Madero. C. P. 07738, Ciudad de México, México

Favor de rellenar este formulario, para que podamos contactarle acerca de eventos futuros en la región de la Ciudad de México.

El copyright fue desarrollado en los tiempos de la imprenta, y fue diseñado para adecuarse al sistema centralizado de copias impuesto por la imprenta en aquella época. Pero en la actualidad, el sistema de copyright se adapta mal a las redes informáticas, y solamente puede ser impuesto mediante severas medidas de fuerza.

Las corporaciones globales que se lucran con el copyright están presionando para imponer penalidades cada vez más injustas y para incrementar su poder en materia de copyright, restringiendo al mismo tiempo el acceso del público a la tecnología. Pero si lo que queremos realmente es honorar el único propósito legítimo del copyright –promover el progreso para beneficio del público– entonces tendremos que realizar cambios en la dirección contraria.

Esa charla de Richard Stallman no será técnica y será abierta al público; todos están invitados a asistir.

Lugar: Av. Universidad Politecnica No.1, San Pedro Xalcaltzinco, C.P., 90180, Tepeyanco, Tlaxcala, México

Favor de rellenar este formulario, para que podamos contactarle acerca de eventos futuros en la región de Tlaxcala.

Esa charla de Richard Stallman formará parte del Festival de Software Libre. No será técnica y será abierta al público; todos están invitados a asistir.

El título, el lugar exacto, y la hora de la charla serán determinados.

Lugar: Puerto Vallarta, México

Favor de rellenar este formulario, para que podamos contactarle acerca de eventos futuros en la región de Puerto Vallarta.

Richard Stallman hablará sobre las metas y la filosofía del movimiento del Software Libre, y el estado y la historia del sistema operativo GNU, el cual junto con el núcleo Linux, es actualmente utilizado por decenas de millones de personas en todo el mundo.

Esa charla de Richard Stallman formará parte del XXIX Congreso Internacional de Ingeniería, Ciencias y Arquitectura (2017-10-23–26) no será técnica y será abierta al público; todos están invitados a asistir.

Lugar: Av. Hidalgo, 1280 Felipe Ángeles, 35000 Gómez Palacio, Durango, México

Favor de rellenar este formulario, para que podamos contactarle acerca de eventos futuros en la región de Durango.

Participate in supporting the Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be on IRC in the #fsf channel on irc.freenode.org.

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

This spooky week we'll be focusing on updating older entries. If an entry isn't kept up to date, it can become a zombie, bringing the overall quality of the Directory down. So we'll be focusing on resurrecting these old entries this Friday. Bring a good luck charm and a friend and help make the Directory even better!

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! There are also weekly Directory Meeting pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

One of my favorite pastimes is imagining and planning to write new coding projects: researching technologies, checking out libraries I might use, making GUI mockups, downloading similar projects.

I was thinking the other day that it might be fun to create a desktop-based editor that had an HTTP server embedded.  The HTTP server would serve up only one document, which is the document being currently edited, and it would show a live representation of the screen as being show the person editing the document.

I was thinking it might be fun to re-implement the old HyperCard system.

I was thinking that it might be fun to make a real-time chat client/server, like the old talkd daemon did on consoles back in the day.  The client would show every character being typed, in real time, instead of line by line.

I was thinking it might be fun to make a collaboratively editable mosaic: a million tiles across by a million tiles wide, where each tile is 16 pixels square.  Anyone could make new tiles and could place them anywhere on the grid.

I was thinking that it might be fun to make a webpage whose primary purpose was to annoy the server operator.  The webpage would have buttons to make silly noises on the server machine, and the webcam on the server machine would capture pictures of the operator being annoyed and place them on the webpage.

I was thinking it would be fun to make a Twitter bot, that automatically searches for and retweets controversial statements, but, changing key words to make them more benign and playful.

I was thinking that it might be fun to make a Christian devotional app that keeps the list of the ~600 New Testament commandments and chooses one at random for someone to follow on any given day.  Also it could chime for Matins, Sext, Vespers, and Compline.

I was thinking it might be good to make an app for depressed and despairing people. Upon logging in, you could write about your struggle, and after submitting, you'd receive an anonymized note that someone else had written about their struggle.

A new ruling was issued on September 25th in the ongoing GNU General Public License (GPL) compliance case of Artifex v. Hancom. The case involves a piece of software licensed under the GPL version 3 or later, called Ghostscript. It is a project from Artifex for handling PostScript, PDFs, and printers (GNU Ghostscript is a separate version of the project, and is not involved or implicated in the case). As we wrote previously:

In its suit, Artifex claimed two counts based on Hancom's inclusion of Ghostscript: (1) a violation of copyright; and (2) a breach of contract based on the GPL. ... While a violation of a free license giving rise to a copyright violation is now old hat, whether violation of a license like the GPL could be treated as a breach of contract has been long a topic of discussion among licensing geeks.

In the previous ruling, the judge in the case had denied a motion to dismiss those claims, allowing the case to proceed. We've now reached the next step in the suit, involving a motion for summary judgment on the contract claim, which was also denied. In a motion to dismiss, the court assumes the truth of the allegations involved and rules on whether such allegations actually present a valid legal claim. In summary judgment, the court is asked to look at the undisputed facts and determine whether the outcome is so obvious that the matter need not go through a full trial. Such motions are routine, but making it past summary judgment does mean that the issue of recovery under contract theory is still alive in this case.

Hancom here made several arguments against the contract claim, but one is of particular interest. Hancom argued that if any contract claim is allowed, damages should only be considered prior to the date of their initial violation. They argued that since the violation terminated their license, the contract also ended at that point. The judge noted that:

the language of the GPL suggests that Defendant’s obligations persisted beyond termination of its rights to propagate software using Ghostscript ... because the source code or offer of the source code is required each time a “covered work” is conveyed, each time Defendant distributed a product using Ghostscript there was arguably an ensuing obligation to provide or offer to provide the source code.

The judge also found that there was insufficient evidence at this point to rule on this issue, so we can't read too much into it. But the judge's thoughts on how conditions of the GPL persist after a violation is an important clue on how this issue could develop as the case proceeds. Although the GPL does not need to be upheld as a contract in order to protect user freedom -- it has worked successfully as a copyright license for decades -- procedural rulings like this are just more evidence that claims about it not standing up in court or being easy to defeat are baseless fear-mongering.

With summary judgment denied, the case will move forward, and will be very interesting to watch. To keep up to date on this case and more:

• Subscribe to our Free Software Supporter mailing list to keep up to date on the latest in the free software licensing world.
• Follow our Licensing & Compliance blog via rss
• Donate or become an associate member to help support our licensing team.

Dear community

GNU Health 3.2.5 patchset has been released !

Priority: High

Table of Contents

• About GNU Health Patchsets
• Updating your system with the GNU Health control Center
• Summary of this patchset
• Installation notes
• List of issues related to this patchset

About GNU Health Patchsets

We provide "patchsets" to stable releases. Patchsets allow applying bug fixes and updates on production systems. Always try to keep your production system up-to-date with the latest patches.

Patches and Patchsets maximize uptime for production systems, and keep your system updated, without the need to do a whole installation.

For more information about GNU Health patches and patchsets you can visit https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Health/Patches_and_Patchsets

NOTE: Patchsets are applied on previously installed systems only. For new, fresh installations, download and install the whole tarball (ie, gnuhealth-3.2.5.tar.gz)

Updating your system with the GNU Health control Center

Starting GNU Health 3.x series, you can do automatic updates on the GNU Health and Tryton kernel and modules using the GNU Health control center program.

Please refer to the administration manual section ( https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Health/Control_Center )

The GNU Health control center works on standard installations (those done following the installation manual on wikibooks). Don't use it if you use an alternative method or if your distribution does not follow the GNU Health packaging guidelines.

Summary of this patchset

Version 3.2.5 fixes issues on reports (patient evaluation, appointment and QRCODES), mainly linked to lingering obsolete python2 unicode function that is no longer used in GNU Health 3.2 series, that uses Python 3

Refer to the List of issues related to this patchset for a comprehensive list of fixed bugs.

Installation Notes

You must apply previous patchsets before installing this patchset. If your patchset level is 3.2.4, then just follow the general instructions.
You can find the patchsets at GNU Health main download site at GNU.org (https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/health/)

Follow the general instructions at

• https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Health/Patches_and_Patchsets
• https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Health/Control_Center

• Restart the GNU Health Tryton server

List of issues and tasks related to this patchset

• bug #52179: Traceback due to obsolete unicode method in reports

For detailed information about each issue, you can visit https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=health
For detailed information about each task, you can visit https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?group=health

Participate in supporting the Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be on IRC in the #fsf channel on irc.freenode.org.

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

This week we're back to adding new packages to the Directory. We'll also be checking in on the import project, which will allow for the automated creation of entries from repositories based on their previously vetted licenses, and which could grow the Directory by a massive amount. The more the merrier! That goes for software packages, but also for friends joining us for the weekly meeting. Hope to see you all there.

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! There are also weekly Directory Meeting pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

(as of August 24, 2017):

• binutils-2.29
• datamash-1.2
• denemo-2.2.0
• freeipmi-1.5.7
• gcc-7.2.0
• glibc-2.26
• glpk-4.63
• gnuchess-6.2.5
• gnupg-2.1.23
• gnutls-3.6.0
• guile-cv-0.1.6
• libcdio-paranoia-10.2+0.94+2
• linux-libre-4.12.8-gnu
• parallel-20170822
• pspp-1.0.0

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.

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.

(as of September 25, 2017)

• coreutils-8.28
• emacs-25.3
• gdb-8.0.1
• gnuastro-0.4
• gnucash-2.6.18
• gnucobol-2.2
• gnuhealth-3.2.3
• gnupg-2.2.1
• help2man-1.47.5
• icecat-52.3.0-gnu1
• libffcall-2.0
• libgcrypt-1.8.1
• libidn2-2.0.4
• lightning-2.1.2
• linux-libre-4.13.3-gnu
• mpfr-3.1.6
• nano-2.8.7
• parallel-20170922
• pspp-1.0.1
• texinfo-6.5
• unifont-10.0.06
• xorriso-1.4.8

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.

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.

Dear community

GNU Health 3.2.4 patchset has been released !

Priority: High

Table of Contents

• About GNU Health Patchsets
• Updating your system with the GNU Health control Center
• Installation notes
• List of issues related to this patchset

About GNU Health Patchsets

We provide "patchsets" to stable releases. Patchsets allow applying bug fixes and updates on production systems. Always try to keep your production system up-to-date with the latest patches.

Patches and Patchsets maximize uptime for production systems, and keep your system updated, without the need to do a whole installation.

For more information about GNU Health patches and patchsets you can visit https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Health/Patches_and_Patchsets

NOTE: Patchsets are applied on previously installed systems only. For new, fresh installations, download and install the whole tarball (ie, gnuhealth-3.2.4.tar.gz)

Updating your system with the GNU Health control Center

Starting GNU Health 3.x series, you can do automatic updates on the GNU Health and Tryton kernel and modules using the GNU Health control center program.

Please refer to the administration manual section ( https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Health/Control_Center )

The GNU Health control center works on standard installations (those done following the installation manual on wikibooks). Don't use it if you use an alternative method or if your distribution does not follow the GNU Health packaging guidelines.

Summary of this patchset

Version 3.2.4 provides an important fix on the services model, that prevented to generate the related invoice, due to changes on the data model of Tryton 4.2 from previous versions.
Other minor bug fixes related to the prescription report have been also fixed.

Refer to the List of issues related to this patchset for a comprehensive list of fixed bugs.

Installation Notes

You must apply previous patchsets before installing this patchset. If your patchset level is 3.2.3, then just follow the general instructions.
You can find the patchsets at GNU Health main download site at GNU.org (https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/health/)

Follow the general instructions at

• https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Health/Patches_and_Patchsets
• https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/GNU_Health/Control_Center

• Restart the GNU Health Tryton server

List of issues and tasks related to this patchset

• bug #52160: Issues related to invoice type and domain when creating the service invoice
• bug #52167: Selection field translations in prescription report are not translatable
• bug #52168: Rename Prothesis model name from Amputation

For detailed information about each issue, you can visit https://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?group=health
For detailed information about each task, you can visit https://savannah.gnu.org/task/?group=health

At last, the GHM 2017 video recordings are now online, along with presentation slides and abstracts.

Enjoy: http://audio-video.gnu.org/video/ghm2017/

Before the memory of the recent GHM fades out and we get back to working on our own projects I wish to thank one last time the organizers John Darrington and Alex Sassmannshausen, Christopher Dimech for shooting and editing on the videos, and all the speakers and participants. Looking forward to seeing you again next year.

Please join Molly DeBlanc (FSF Campaigns Manager) and Donald Robertson, III (the FSF's Licensing & Compliance Manager), for a member gathering on Friday, October 6^th, in Seattle, Washington. We'll be providing appetizers (including vegan options), mingling, and talking about free software–related issues. All ages are welcome and the restaurant is wheelchair accessible.

Location: McMenamins Six Arms, 300 E. Pike Street, Seattle, WA 98122. On the corner of E. Pike and Melrose in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.

RSVP: Please help us estimate attendance by writing to licensing@fsf.org if you're able to attend, or if you have any questions.

This is an informal gathering for anyone who is interested in participating in the free software community or wants to learn more about the FSF; you don't have to be a current member to attend.

Molly and Don will both be speaking.

Admission to SeaGL is gratis, and you can register now or anonymously, at the door. The conference runs Friday through Saturday, October 6^th–7^th, so, even if you can't make it on Friday, come by on Saturday and say hello at our expo hall booth.

We hope to see you there!

I've moved Aris over to git. While git isn't my favorite VCS by far, it's more commonly used, and thus will be easier for other contributors to use.

The Free Software Movement campaigns for computer users' freedom to cooperate and control their own computing. The Free Software Movement developed the GNU operating system, typically used together with the kernel Linux, specifically to make these freedoms possible.

In addition to this speech, the speech organizer, Fundația Ceata, will also be organizing RMS's visits to Bucharest, for the Coliberator conference, and to Iași.

The talk is organized by Fundația Ceata and Facultatea de Automatică şi Calculatoare; it will be nontechnical and the public is encouraged to attend.

Location: Auditorium, Centrul de conferințe (Biblioteca Centrală - clădirea nouă), Universitatea Politehnica Timișoara, Bulevardul Vasile Pârvan nr. 2, Timișoara, România

Please fill out our contact form, so that we can contact you about future events in and around Timișoara.

In addition to this speech, the speech organizer, Fundația Ceata, will also be organizing RMS's visits to Bucharest, for the Coliberator conference, and to Timișoara.

The talk will be nontechnical and the public is encouraged to attend.

Location: To be determined

Please fill out our contact form, so that we can contact you about future events in and around Iași.

Help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. Every Friday we meet on IRC in the #fsf channel on irc.freenode.org.

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. When a user comes to the Directory, they know that everything in it is free software, has only free dependencies, and runs on a free OS. With almost 16,000 entries, it is a massive repository of information about free software.

While the Directory has been and continues to be a great resource to the world for many years now, it has the potential to be a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help! And since it's a MediaWiki instance, it's easy for anyone to edit and contribute to the Directory.

This week our focus is on bringing in new friends to the Directory meeting. The Directory is a volunteer-run project, so it can't succeed without volunteers! Towards that end, we want to take a moment to spend some time recruiting new faces to the weekly meeting. We usually keep announcements about our meetings limited to the mailing list and our Directory blog, but we're looking to really grow the team this week. We'll be spending some time reaching out to people during the meeting, but to have the biggest impact we want to spread the word leading up to Friday. So invite your friends, introduce your co-workers to the Directory, even bring along your pets! We want this week to have plenty of new volunteers eager to learn how they can help improve this massive resource for the free software community. It's the perfect time to join in if you've been waiting on the sidelines. Hope to see you all there.

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! There are also weekly Directory Meeting pages that everyone is welcome to contribute to before, during, and after each meeting.

Since the birth of GNU, a rich collaborative community of developers and activists has sprung up and is still going strong, fighting against proprietary software, software patents, Digital Restrictions Management, and other threats to our freedom and privacy.

We're a little too busy to party like we did for GNU's 25th birthday and 30th birthday, but we couldn't possibly let the birthday pass without cake.

Here's a few things you can do to celebrate with us:

• Revisit the “GNU-a-Day” list, which is full of suggestions for promoting software freedom. How about writing some free software and submitting it to the Free Software Directory? Or, if you're not a programmer, visit the Directory and download some free software you haven't tried yet!
• Watch and share our video from comedian Stephen Fry, celebrating 25 years of free software.
• Have you been waiting for the right moment to pledge your support to software freedom by becoming an FSF Associate Member? There's no better day than today!
• Or, whether you're a member or not: how about donating $34 to honor this special day?

Every week free software activists from around the world come together in #fsf on irc.freenode.org to help improve the Free Software Directory. This recaps the work we accomplished at the Friday, September 22nd, 2017 meeting.

This past week, our theme was automotive software, chosen to honor the first automobile offered for sale in the US. We've also noticed that car infotainment centers have been in the news recently, with many major manufacturers saying they are "open source." Unfortunately, these systems use free software in a way that denies the freedoms promised - we've heard that the software is licensed under the GPL, but the source code isn't made accessible. There are some genuine free software car infotainment system projects, but they are all just starting out. In the meantime, we reviewed the free software navigation systems and got them updated, and we worked on some other entries for other automotive systems. Hope to see you all there again at the next meeting!

If you would like to help update the directory, meet with us every Friday in #fsf on irc.freenode.org from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC).

For work, I have a project that requires a C++ program on Windows 10 that compiles without any library dependencies except the C++14 standard library and the Win32 API only when the C++ standard library lacks necessary functionality. Standard C++ has no fork/exec or spawn, so that is one area when I'm using the Win32 API.   It is a very strange API that is usually abstracted away using CoreFX .NET classes.  I'm rarely this close to Win32 metal.  But I'm beginning to understand why Cygwin's fork/exec are so odd.

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So I'm fat. I'm probably about the median weight by USA standards, but, I'm still overweight in a BMI sense.  Of course almost all USA men have a BMI above the recommended 25.1 or whatever.

But I once had an eating disorder.  When I was young, I basically starved myself.  As part of my recovery from that, I've had to change my thinking completely.  I stopped letting myself be concerned about what my weight was or what I was eating.  Whenever I find myself worrying to much about food or weight, I tell myself that I am not allowed to concern myself with that, and I don't let myself think about it.

But now I've decided to lose some weight.  To avoid going off the rails, I'm trying to find some non-subjective metrics about weight, so that I don't have to trust the evidence of my (anorexic, lying) eyes.

That lead me into some interesting research on what shape American men used to be, before the obesity epidemic.  And some of the best metrics for men, and what shape men used to be, is from the US Department of Defense.

DOD-HDBK-743A (1991) "Anthropometry of U.S. Military Personnel" and Technical Report 72-51-CE (1971) "The Body Size of Soldiers: U.S. Army Anthropometry: 1966" are a deep dive into the length, breadth, and circumference of every part of a man.  The difference between then and now is astounding.

In digging through the ASIO C++ library examples, I came across an actual use of std::bind. Its entry in cppreference seemed like buzzword salad, so I never previously had paid it any attention.

But in ASIO, they use std::bind to create functions from class methods and associated data.  The functions get passed to its async driver.  So if I liken the output of std::bind to a sort of closure that returns a procedure, it makes sense to me.