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Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/appeal
Dear
[hidden email],
As 2018 comes to a close, the
Free
Software Foundation
(FSF) is
preparing to explore new
frontiers in software freedom
-- with your
help. This has been a year of
significant challenges for the
free
software movement, but also
incredible opportunities.
One-time gifts
we received this year totaling
$1.8 million will enable us to
fund and
initiate more projects than
ever, but we need the
consistent support
of ongoing and new Associate
Members to see these efforts
through, and
to take our movement to the
next level.
We appreciate
everything you've done for
software freedom. Will you
take the next step and
propel free software to new
frontiers by joining
for as little as $10 per
month ($5 per month for
students), or making
a donation? We want to
celebrate 400 new Associate
Members during our annual
fundraiser. You can also
join on a yearly basis for
$120. By signing up for a
yearly membership before the
end of the year, you can
receive a set of enamel
pins, including the FSF logo
and one of our favorite
gnus!
This year, the world saw even
more evidence that the
technology people
use intersects directly with
their freedom and privacy,
often for the
worse. We saw another
unsurprising revelation that
Facebook is a
massive
walled garden that profits
by its lax attitude toward
user
freedom and privacy.
There was continued overreach
of copyright
law, to the detriment of free
software developers and
users
alike, including when the European
Copyright Directive
passed,
threatening software freedom
by limiting the ability to
upload reused
code. The Federal
Communications Commission
(FCC) voted to gut
net
neutrality protections
in the United States. The Commons
Clause was created,
confusingly turning free
licenses into
nonfree ones. The Spectre and
Meltdown vulnerabilities were
exposed,
and brought
renewed attention to the
ongoing threat of the Intel
Management Engine.
But dark times offer great
opportunities, especially when
like-minded
people work together for a
common cause. The FSF was
lucky enough to
receive two large donations
from the Pineapple
Fund and
Handshake
this year. Unexpected funding
like this is a game
changer for the movement --
with it, we are able to expand
our work,
with plans to expand our staff
and provide
significant funding for
several key free software
projects. However, the support
of our
Associate Members and donors
in the community is still
indispensable. Associate
Members provide the most
long-term, stable
financial support for the FSF.
This giving sustains us
through
difficult times, and our
stalwart base shows major
donors that the FSF
has the confidence of
thousands of supporters
worldwide. Your trust in
us encourages others to lend a
hand, too.
That's why we're so grateful
to our supporters. The Associate
Member program launched
in 2002, and sixteen years
later, we're
closing in on 5,000 current
Associate Members -- more than
ever
before. This is evidence that
the free software community is
growing
and more active every day.
We have big plans for 2019.
If you can answer our call for
support,
you're helping us prepare for
the future. Current and future
projects
include:
-
Makers of Respects
Your Freedom (RYF)
certified products are
pushing free software to
new heights. We're going
to review a record
number of RYF applicants.
More companies are making
products that
respect user freedom, and
leave control in the hands
of the user,
than ever before. These
companies are at the
forefront of making
software freedom the
standard, and the RYF
certification program
helps.
-
Individuals like you are
helping to push the
boundaries of support
for user freedom. We will
organize opportunities for
free software
contributors and newcomers
to connect and work
together -- from our
fresh Associate
Member forum, to the
annual LibrePlanet
conference, writing
and publishing on free
software and free
software related issues,
and other days we come
together to
take action, like International
Day Against DRM.
-
The FSF fosters the next
generation of free
software contributors
and explorers through FSF
internship programs.
-
We send FSF speakers
around the world. In 2018,
FSF staff brought
the message and knowledge
of software freedom to
five continents,
speaking at events
everywhere from Bristol,
UK (Freenode Live) to
New York City (Hackers on
Planet Earth), and other
locations
including Hsinchu, Taiwan
(DebConf) and Sydney,
Australia (Linux
Conf AU). We plan to keep
this up in 2019, and help
spread our
message even farther.
-
We help free software
development, including GNU
projects, reach new
frontiers in software
freedom by providing
robust infrastructure. In
2018, we replaced
approximately 50 servers
with a new
stack, GNUHope, and have
about 50 left to migrate
in the upcoming
year.
-
We have been and will
continue supporting
development of especially
important free software,
like GNU LibreJS to tackle
the problem of
proprietary JavaScript,
and other items on our High
Priority
Projects list.
-
We carried out GPL
enforcement activities
in 2018, and are
looking ahead to doing
more in 2019. We also
educated others about
copyleft, restarting a
seminar series on
copyleft, updating
licensing
resources, and
answering around 750
questions
concerning free software
licensing.
If we work together, there's
no telling what we can achieve
in 2019.
Becoming
an Associate Member
costs $10/month ($5/month for
students). In appreciation, we
offer Associate Members many
benefits,
including a bootable USB
membership card loaded with
the FSF-endorsed
GNU/Linux distribution Trisquel,
a digital member button,
member.fsf.org email aliases
and Jabber instant messaging,
gratis
admission to the annual LibrePlanet
conference, a 20%
discount
on all purchases in the FSF
shop, a printed copy of the
biannual FSF
Bulletin, 5% off
hardware from ThinkPenguin,
access to the FSF
Associate Members forum, and
more! And remember, all new
and renewing
Annual Associate Members
between now and the end of the
year may opt
to receive a set of enamel
pins as a thank you for their
membership.
You can trust that your
donations will be used
efficiently: our
Charity Navigator rating is
four out of four stars, with a
score of
100% on accountability
and transparency, and
95.97% on financial
management. Our commitment to
using free software in our
operations
demonstrates that a nonprofit
can thrive without relying on
proprietary systems.
We're hoping you'll help
us to blast off into orbit,
as our
community grows and its
message of software freedom
spreads to more
people and more areas of
computing. Thank you for
supporting the Free
Software Foundation today.
Happy hacking!
John S., Andrew, Craig, Dana,
Donald, Ian, Jeanne, John H.,
Matt,
Molly, and Ruben
P.S. Your employer may match
your charitable contributions,
and the
FSF generally qualifies for
these matches. Our EIN is
042888848. US
federal employees can support
the FSF through the Combined
Federal
Campaign (CFC). Our CFC ID is
63210, and you can pledge
until January 11, 2019 for the
current campaign period.
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