Happy 25, GNU!

12

Bulletin Issue 12

June 2008

Contents

GNU is 25! 1

The WikipediaNaming Controversy

2

The Last Mile isAlways the Hardest

4

The Free SoftwareJobs Page

6

Volunteer Spotlight:Yavor Doganov

7

End SoftwarePatents

9

Free SoftwareSupporter

11

GNU is 25!

by Matt Lee

Campaigns Manager

After some difficult developmentalyears, this September marks the

25th birthday of GNU, and we’re go-ing to be celebrating in style. We spentmost of May working in close contactwith a well-known celebrity, shootingthe first of what we hope will be a se-

ries of short videos about GNU andfree software. The first video, whichwill be airing on gnu.org to coincidewith the anniversary, explains free soft-ware to a new generation of people,and encourages them to download andtry gNewSense. These videos, coupledwith a fresh new look for gnu.org andupcoming membership events in Port-land and San Francisco, promise tomake the 25th anniversary somethingreally special.

You can help too! We are lookingfor any relics of GNU and FSF historythat you may have lying around. Ifthey’re something you can email, feelfree to send them to campaigns@fsf.

org, and if they’re something a littlemore tangible, drop us a line and ifthey’re something of interest, we’d loveto see them.

The most important thing of courseis that GNU continues to grow, andcontinues to stand up for freedom ina potentially hostile world. Twenty-five years ago, the threats to our free-dom came from proprietary operat-ing systems. Thankfully these days,we have a few completely free dis-tributions of the GNU operating sys-tem, but we must not become compla-cent. Proprietary software in the formof popular programs like Flash andSkype are constantly seducing manyin our community to use proprietarysoftware, and we must stand up to it,

1

first by installing and using a distribu-tion of GNU that values freedom, suchas gNewSense, but also by encouragingothers to do so, even if it is at the costof some convenience.

Our past experience gives us everyreason to believe that we will succeed,but it’s going to take a lot of work.

Here’s to another twenty-five, GNU!

The Wikipedia Naming

Controversy

by Joshua Gay

Campaigns Manager

On the English version of Wikipediathere is an article that discusses

the naming controversy over whetherone should call the operating system“GNU/Linux” or “Linux.” In that ar-ticle, some contend that Linux is themore popular and common name forthe system. But when writing an ency-clopedia, neither popularity nor com-

monality are the paramount concerns.Calling the system “GNU/Linux” ismore factually accurate, as the GNUproject largely forms the base of all dis-tributions of the operating system. Forexample, GNU packages accounts for14.79% of the 16.5GB of source pack-ages used to build the Main repositoryof the gNewSense GNU/Linux distri-bution (deltad). They also constitute6.69% of the 27GBs of source packagesfrom which the Universe repository isbuilt. Linux weighs in at about 253MBand accounts for approximately 1.5%of the source code needed to build theMain repository. Furthermore, Linuxitself is generally built using GNU li-braries and GNU tools, and on manysystems depends on them being there.

However, it’s not just a matterof accuracy as it relates to lines ofcode. It’s about the motivation andgoals that got those lines written. Bymentioning GNU, you are foreground-ing the ethical commitment its hack-ers have to free software. The fore-grounding of these principles is exactlythe reason why some would prefer weelide GNU. While the code for the ker-nel Linux is distributed as free soft-ware under the GPL, the term “Linux”when applied to the whole operatingsystem is often used as a branding tac-tic by companies to reduce the visibil-ity of the ethical aspect of free soft-ware.

It should be understood we are nottalking about a single operating systembut rather a very large class of operat-ing systems, all of which have at theircore the Linux kernel and a suite oflibraries, programs, and utilities fromthe GNU operating system. All distri-butions of this operating system con-tain software from outside the GNUproject and the Linux kernel. Further-

2

Free Software Supporter

As many of you know we recentlyrolled out the Free Software Sup-

porter, the Free Software Foundation’smonthly news digest and action up-date. Over the past six months over6,000 people have subscribed to the list(info-fsf@gnu.org) and are receiv-ing the newsletter. You can subscribeand read back issues at www.fsf.org/free-software-supporter. Specialthanks go to Karl Berry for writing theGNU Spotlight each month.

Visit shop.fsf.org.

This bulletin was produced using

only free software: LaTeX, Emacs,

Inkscape, GIMP, Imagemagick and

Ghostview.

Copyright c© 2008Free Software Foundation51 Franklin Street, 5th FloorBoston, MA 02110-1301(617)542-5942info@fsf.org

Verbatim copying and distri-

bution of this entire bulletin

is permitted in any medium,

provided this notice is pre-

served.

How to Contribute

Associate Membership: Be-come a “card-carrying” associatemember of the FSF. Bene-fits include a copy of RichardStallman’s book, Free Software

Free Society or an FSF USBKey, plus a bootable membershipcard and e-mail forwarding. Tosign-up or get more information,visit member.fsf.org or write tomembership@fsf.org.

Online: Use your credit card orPayPal account to make a dona-tion at donate.fsf.org.

Phone: You can also make acredit card contribution by call-ing us at +1-617-542-5942.

United Way: As a 501(c)(3)tax-exempt organization, theFSF is eligible to receive UnitedWay funds. On the donor form,check the “Specific Requests”box and include the sentence,“Send my gift to the Free Soft-ware Foundation, 51 FranklinStreet, 5th Floor, Boston, MA02110”.

Buy GNU Gear: Order one ofour T-shirts or manuals at shop.fsf.org. You can even get acopy of Free Software Free Soci-

ety signed by Richard Stallman!

Volunteer: See fsf.org/

volunteer for ideas.

Contact donate@fsf.org for

more information on sup-

porting the FSF.

11

abstract algorithm onto a computer isa loophole and not a real means ofmaking an abstract concept physical—and was granted leave to present oralargument to the en banc hearing.

A joking title for this article couldhave read “Microsoft briefs court toEnd Software Patents (sort of).” Mi-crosoft’s brief to the court said, “. . . apatent should not be granted under103 if the inventor merely combinedwell known computer hardware withinventive but otherwise unpatentablesoftware.” The brief is written in aconfused manner, describing how onecould possibly eliminate certain typesof software patents, if found worthyof elimination, via Section 103 of thePatent Act. This confusion seems tomirror the business situation they findthemselves in, where they want to usesoftware patents to threaten free soft-ware developers but at the same timethey are one of the largest targets forsoftware patent litigation.

In reaction to the hearing, ESP di-rector Ben Klemens said, “We can berelatively optimistic about the oddsthat the courts will actually elimi-nate patents on intangibles like soft-ware. There will be twelve judgeshearing Bilski’s case, and only five ofthem are guilty of bringing us into thismess, and all twelve are aware that theSupreme Court will overturn a rulingthat doesn’t do enough.”

To date, ESP has been focused onbringing about a judicial review, be-cause we have believed that it is themost likely path to change. Whenwe first analyzed the strategic coursefor the project, Klemens predictedthat the courts were our only re-alistic hope for directly addressingwhat is patentable subject matter, andI’m happy to say that he was right

— though on a significantly shortertimetable than we had planned for.Now, in filing the ESP brief to thecourt and as we shift our strategic fo-cus to oppose other legislative actionthat might impose software patents,Klemens has decided to step downas director of the project. Klemenswrites:

I always thought of theoptions for reform of patentlaw along two threads:roughly, the legislative orjudicial. The approachesare very different, involvevery different campaignsand campaign activities,and require different skillsfor implementation. I pri-marily talk about the lawand economics of the mat-ter, but I really do thinkthat these patents are un-ethical, and want to seethem eliminated. Work-ing with the FSF has beenfun and I would of coursefeel great if I had a ma-jor hand in saving the dayin the end. But it’s im-portant to distinguish be-tween what I enjoy doingand what will work best fora campaign aimed at thepublic and legislature.

Klemens will continue to advise theFSF as we await the Court’s ruling andmove ahead with the campaign.

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more, the name of this system is notwritten in stone — for any given dis-tribution you can feel free to rename itand redistribute it under any name youchoose. For example, I can call it theJosh kernel, the Josh Project, and dis-tribute JoshOS. However, I don’t wantto name the system after myself — I’dwant people know that they are gettingGNU.

When the name is GNU, youshould hear, “This system exists be-cause of people who care about free-dom. Join us, value your freedom,and together we can preserve it.”1 Wewill often refer to Linux in conjunc-tion with GNU, because without it,the GNU operating system would beunable to run on thousands of dif-ferent hardware platforms. However,the Linux kernel project itself has notmade a full commitment to freedom.They have included proprietary soft-ware in their project, so distributionssuch as blag2 and gNewSense makesure that there exist versions modifiedto remove the proprietary blobs.

However, even if Linux were toship without blobs, GNU/Linux dis-tributions should still mention GNU.The fact is, there exist distributionsof GNU/Linux that even contain fullproprietary applications. The extentto which they can do this is severelytempered by the significance of theGNU name. The name is inseparablefrom the ethical motivations behindfree software development, so anyonetrying to sell you proprietary softwareis going to do their best to keep thatquiet.

Sun Microsystems, a company that

1This quote was taken from the essay

Linux, GNU, and Freedom, http://www.gnu.

org/philosophy/linux-gnu-freedom.html2www.blagblagblag.org

has made an increasing commitment tofree software over the years will regu-larly make statements such as, “Sun’sGNU/Linux Offerings,” or “Sun bringsa comprehensive systems approachto GNU/Linux-based operating sys-tems.” However, many of Sun’s part-ners that distribute “leading, brandedGNU/Linux operating systems,” sup-press the GNU when “branding” theirdistributions.

Those companies that suppress theGNU name from their distributionsare some of the worst offenders in notonly distributing proprietary software,but also openly developing, promoting,and encouraging its proliferation. Inmany ways, these companies are hi-jacking the free software movement fortheir own gain, and their suppressionof GNU is just one way of distractingpeople from the fact that they are un-willing to make an outright commit-ment to free software.

The marketing tactics of such com-panies often results in people adopt-ing the same language habits, unawareof all that is at play. Even worse,some who know better will actually usethe marketing language as a justifica-tion for suppressing GNU because itis “common.” I hope that the editorsof Wikipedia currently engaged in thisdebate will stick to Wikipedia’s princi-ples and refrain from engaging in suchmarketing tactics, and will refer toGNU when talking about the class ofoperating systems that are built withthe GNU system.

I’d like to encourage all of oursupporters and readers out there towork hard to combat such tactics bymentioning GNU when you see othersavoiding or suppressing it. Let themknow that every GNU project is guar-anteed to carry freedom to the user

3

— freedom to run it for any purpose,share it with neighbors, improve it foryour own purposes, and modify andredistribute your modifications for thebenefit of the whole community. As wereach the 25th anniversary of the GNUproject, I’d like to thank GNU andthe thousands of free software develop-ers and supporters, past and present.And I’d like to encourage everyone elseto show their support too, by givingcredit where credit is due and sayingGNU!

The Last Mile is Always

the Hardest

by John Sullivan

Operations Manager

Software licenses and patents aren’tthe only ways proprietary software

vendors can restrict the freedoms ofcomputer users. A key component ofour overall campaign for software free-dom is making sure that the hardwarewe buy is not an obstacle to the ex-ercise of our freedoms. We’ve made it

almost all the way to easily availablefully free systems, but it’s still goingto take some work to finish this lastmile.

When purchasing a computer, freesoftware supporters don’t want to buya proprietary operating system license,like Windows Vista or Mac OS X. Wecan always reject the license, removingthe proprietary operating system andinstalling a free one — but this is a nui-sance and puts money in the pockets ofpeople who work against our freedom.Sometimes a refund can (and should!)be obtained for the cost of the pro-prietary license — but this is anothernuisance and doesn’t communicate aclear signal to the vendor, who remainsunder the impression that they sold acopy of Windows or Mac OS X.

Because computers are expected tobe sold and used with proprietary op-erating systems in this way, free soft-ware users can end up with computersthat aren’t well-supported by the freesoftware they want to run. In particu-lar they can end up with network andvideo cards that require proprietarydrivers. This is a problem even withcompanies like Dell and Lenovo thatare now selling systems preinstalledwith GNU/Linux. Instead of choosinghardware that does not require propri-etary drivers, they have chosen to justprovide the proprietary drivers.

Fortunately, we’ve made progressin this area. Los Alamos Computers3

has been working in cooperation withthe FSF to offer systems that comepreinstalled with a free operating sys-tem like gNewSense4 and fully work-ing hardware. This is exciting by itself,but they are also donating a portion of

3http://laclinux.com/gnu4http://gnewsense.org

4

it has helped me a lot in my decision toentirely reject non-free software someyears ago.

Stream Ogg Vorbis on WBUR.org atwww.wbur.org/listen/feed/ogg.m3u.Read the blog post and letter to WBURat www.fsf.org/blogs/wbur-playogg

End Software Patents

by Peter Brown

Executive Director

On Thursday May 8, 2008, theUnited States Court of Appeals

for the Federal Circuit (CAFC), in anen banc hearing listened to oral ar-guments in In Re Bilski. The Bilskicase is where the legal battle over soft-ware patents in the U.S. is currentlybeing fought, and is particularly im-portant because the court has specifi-cally requested guidance on the scopeof patentable subject matter. This “enbanc” hearing is a very rare occur-rence; it means all twelve judges of thecourt participate in the hearing andwill consent or dissent with the major-ity ruling.

The case itself is about the valid-ity of a patent for a business methodfor managing risk costs of commodityselling. The patent is held by BernieBilski. Business method patents havethe same essential flaw that software

patents have—they are little morethan algorithms that have long beenheld not to be patentable subject mat-ter.

The en banc hearing was promptedby a series of rulings from the SupremeCourt that have overturned decisionsmade by the lower CAFC court, call-ing into question CAFC’s competence.The problem has always been that theCAFC was composed of patent lawyerswith a vested interest in expanding thescope of patent law. Now the questionis, can they fix the mess they’ve made?

The FSF-backed End SoftwarePatents (ESP) project filed an ami-cus curiae brief to the court.10 TheESP brief recommends re-establishingthe Supreme Court’s rule that in-formation should not be patentable,even when claimed in tandem witha physical afterthought. The briefexplains that it is widely recognizedin U.S. law that pure information isnot patentable. Further, the SupremeCourt has ruled three times that pureinformation does not necessarily be-come patentable when recited in com-bination with a physical object, such asinformation written to paper or loadedinto a computer’s memory. The briefnotes that the appeals court of theFederal Circuit ignored the SupremeCourt’s repeated rulings, and beganallowing patents on information plusany physical component: a formula, ifsaved to a computer’s hard drive; aprice list, if money is eventually moved;not a correlation, but the act of corre-lating.

Most interestingly, the financialservices industry lead by Bank OfAmerica briefed the court in line withour arguments—that just loading an

10http://endsoftpatents.org/bilski

9

ion, in the other camp. Translatingprograms is more or less a monotoneactivity, and people usually burn outafter 3-5 years. Translating documen-tation is substantially harder. Trans-lating the GNU philosophy is the hard-est thing ever for a translator, becauseit is a difficult activity that requiresa lot of thought, understanding andresponsibility. Awareness about theethical issues that the free softwaremovement set out to solve is still verylow, which leads to the lower numberof translators contributing to gnu.org

compared to, say, GNOME.Matt: Have you looked at HTML

5 at all?Yavor: No, I dislike anything re-

lated to HTML and read only whatis necessary to complete the tasks I’mdoing. Perhaps even less. I find itironic that W3C develops standard af-ter standard, each determined to solveentirely all problems. And we aredoomed to maintain all standards for-ever, since no one will use a browserthat cannot render a page in HTML2.0. The only thing I know aboutHTML 5 is that the committee re-jected Ogg Vorbis/Theora which (pro-vided it’s true) doesn’t make me feelexcited and filled with hope.

Matt: If someone wanted to get in-volved with translating gnu.org, whatis the work like? What kind of skillsdo they need?

Yavor: Well, the work is enormousgiven the fact of how many articles areavailable to translate. Even if we countonly the essays, and only the most im-portant essays, it is still a titanic effortfor a new language. But don’t despair,GNU was not built in one day! If theamount of work had scared away thecountless number of GNU maintainersand contributors, we wouldn’t have our

beloved free system today.A translator should read and un-

derstand English well and have goodknowledge about our philosophy andthe various issues raised and discussedin the articles. It is not a requirementto be a fluent speaker — in fact, manytranslators cannot speak English wellbut they understand it perfectly whenreading. That’s the important part.Of course, time is always necessary. Arelatively short essay might look likea job for an hour or two, but it oftenturns out to take days or weeks. Some-times it is necessary to do some re-search, or discuss problematic phrases,and this takes time.

Translation teams play an impor-tant role by establishing the most ap-propriate terminology for the specificlanguage and of course by present-ing the philosophy of the free soft-ware movement to readers who do notunderstand English (and very often,to those who understand English butwould not bother to read an essay inEnglish).

The most valuable “feature” atranslator could have is her dedica-tion, and her determination to keepgoing; her firm belief that translatingthese essays is a job that is useful forthe society. Everything else, like smalltechnical skills, the usual translator’s“sense”, etc., will get settled by itself,one way or another.

Matt: And finally, what’s your fa-vorite piece of free software?

Yavor: GNU Emacs, undoubtedly.Emacs is special in so many ways thatit is impossible to explain its nature tosomeone who has not seen/used it. Itis most definitely one of the Wondersof the World but unlike them it keepssurprising you every day. I use Emacsfor absolutely everything; I also believe

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those sales to the FSF to further sup-port free software. We will be workingwith more vendors to follow their ex-ample.

Wireless networking has in the pastbeen a real headache for people whowant to have a fully free system.There are a number of cards thatare supported under GNU/Linux andthey often have drivers released underthe GPL or another free software li-cense — but those drivers depend onchunks of proprietary binary code. Toavoid these binary blobs, users havethus far been limited to a handful ofchipsets, primarily those manufacturedby Ralink using the rt2500 driver.

We now have an additional op-tion in the ath5k5 driver, which is de-scended from Madwifi, OpenHAL, andOpenBSD’s ar5k. This driver supportsseveral Atheros wireless cards withoutrequiring any binary blobs, and is in-cluded in Linux as of version 2.6.25.The Software Freedom Law Center re-viewed the driver6 in September 2007and verified that it is free.

In the world of video drivers, 3Dacceleration has long been a sore spotfor anyone not using Intel hardware.But late last year ATI announced thatit would be releasing code and spec-ifications to assist the community indevelopment of fully capable free soft-ware drivers for all of its newer Radeonchipsets. Based on steps they have al-ready taken, it does appear that theyintend to follow through on this com-mitment. VIA very recently made asimilar announcement, but has yet totake action. Widespread free softwaredrivers supporting 3D acceleration willundoubtedly help free software games

5http://madwifi.org/wiki/About/ath5k6http://www.softwarefreedom.org/

resources/2007/ath5k-code-analysis.html

and graphics applications, which havebeen notable weak spots in the past.

Drivers aren’t the only remain-ing concern — other than the OneLaptop Per Child XO (which unfor-tunately has a proprietary wirelessdriver), there are still no laptops ordesktops readily available with a freeBIOS. With the help of a grant fromthe Mozilla Foundation, the FSF hascontinued working to help promoteand support projects like coreboot7,which provide a free software BIOSreplacement. Thanks to the work ofFSF sysadmin and coreboot contribu-tor Ward Vandewege, we now have freeBIOS desktops alongside the free BIOSservers running in the FSF office. Sili-con Mechanics has also started sellinga server pre-flashed with coreboot, andwe are hopeful that other vendors willfollow their lead. You can help thiscampaign by sending positive feedbackto companies making such moves, andby being critical of companies like Intelthat continue obstructing progress.8

There is a lot to keep up with,but the FSF hardware database9 hasbeen expanding as a resource to con-sult before purchasing a system oraccessories. You can find valuableinformation there about which exactchipsets and models are known to workwith fully free GNU/Linux systems.The information comes from the test-ing we do at the FSF and from peo-ple around the world who send ustheir working hardware configurations.We can always use more volunteersto help us process the information wereceive. If you have some time andwould like to help by maintaining a sec-

7http://coreboot.org8http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/

free-bios.html9http://fsf.org/resources/hw

5

tion of the database, please write to usat hardware@fsf.org. Getting com-monly available hardware to be fullycompatible with free software is a crit-ical component of the FSF’s mission,and it’s a great way you can make adifference. We’re almost there — wejust need to get that last mile.

DefectiveByDesign.org action alert!Tell libraries to kick DRM out.Sign the letter at defectivebyde-sign.org/LetterToLibraries

The Free Software Jobs

Page

by Deborah Nicholson

Directory Maintainer

As a free software supporter, wouldn’tyou like to get paid for contribut-

ing to our community? Maybe youalready do but you’re sick of all thatCalifornia sunshine or maybe you worksomewhere that “pays the bills” butwill never be able to buy your respect.That’s why we’ve put together thefree software jobs page — to help youfind your dream job, whether it’s rightaround the corner or halfway aroundthe world.

Our community is stronger whenfree software companies employ the

best and most motivated people.We’re putting employers in touch withdedicated job-seekers who are part ofour community, people who are dedi-cated to seeing free software succeed,people like you who want to get paidfor doing what they love.

The FSF is a 23-year-old nonprofitwith thousands of members and sup-porters like you who regularly frequentour web site to keep in touch with thefree software world. Our web sites getover 100,000 page views a day and ourjobs page is always on the first searchpage for software jobs. Plus, you cantrust us not to list just any jobs —we’re only posting free software jobs.

Our members and supporters havealready been spreading the word, byemailing their HR departments andfriends who work at free software com-panies. So list a job, find yourselfa job or share the news with some-one else who’s looking! Visit http:

//fsf.org/jobs.

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Volunteer Spotlight:

Yavor Doganov

with Matt Lee

Campaigns Manager

Yavor Doganov is the translationscoordinator for gnu.org and the

author of GNUnited Nations, a newproject which hopes to make manage-ment of translations significantly eas-ier. He lives in Bulgaria.

Questions were asked by Matt Lee,FSF campaigns manager.

Matt: Yavor, you’ve been workingon a new system for handling transla-tions on our website. What’s it called,and how does it work?

Yavor: Yes, it is called GNUnitedNations (or GNUN for short). Thename is, as you may guess, a pun ofUnited Nations (UN).

GNUN works much like GNUgettext works for programs or likethe GNOME Documentation Utilities(gnome-doc-utils) work for transla-tions of GNOME manuals. For years,translators had to duplicate the HTMLmarkup and examine changes as diffsbetween revisions of the original arti-cle(s). This is extremely tedious anderror prone, which is why the GNOMEProject has developed its own packageto handle translations of the manuals(whose source is DocBook).

The source of almost all gnu.org

articles is XHTML, so GNUN con-verts each article to a PO template,and each translation has its own POfile. The benefit is tremendous, be-cause if the original article changes,each of its article.LANG.PO files is up-dated automatically, and subsequentlyall of the HTML translations are re-built. The translator can easily iden-tify the changes using a PO editor and

updating many articles is possible withlittle effort.

The overall benefits for gnu.org

are also worth mentioning. Sincetranslations automatically follow themarkup of the original articles, itwould be possible to update them atonce when we move to a new standard.If a team becomes understaffed andundermaintained, its translations willnot rot but will get rebuilt automati-cally following the changes in the orig-inals. Of course, this means mixed na-tive/English language but we will turnthis slight annoyance to be our ally: wewill identify teams that need attentionand will try to attract new volunteers.

Matt: What are the biggest chal-lenges with the translation of gnu.org?

Yavor: I think GNUnited Nationswill solve most of the technical as-pects of the problem. We will enhancethe system to make it work for peo-ple who are not comfortable workingon the GNU/Linux console, and willimplement some sort of web-based au-tomatic statistics.

But this is only part of the job, theeaiser part. The biggest challenge ingnu.org translation is the lack of vol-unteers, or more precisely, the constantlack of devoted contributors. Thisshould not be surprising to anyone,though. In the Free World, people usu-ally work on what they like and theyswitch to something else once they loseinterest. The most appropriate exam-ple for a job that is always excitingand rewarding is being a programmer.Most programmers work on what theyenjoy, and they switch projects as timegoes by (well, sometimes). Program-ming is facing challenges every day,and finding (clever) ways to solve prob-lems.

Translators are, in my humble opin-

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