One of the major advantages of free software is that the community protects users from malicious software. Now Ubuntu GNU/Linux has become a counterexample. What should we do?
For the full original English version, see here.
Voici un texte de Richard Stallman. La version originale en anglais est ici.
Update: Une traduction en français est disponible sur Framablog.
LibreOffice 3.5.5 has been released:
Berlin, July 11th, 2012. The Document Foundation today announces the immediate availability of LibreOffice 3.5.5, the current version of the free office suite.
This release fixes a number of bugs and further improves the stability of the software, making it the best version available for corporate and enterprise adoption. Among the changes are improvements in Calc, Impress, in the handling of fonts as well as enhancements with regards to importing and exporting third-party formats. […]
Keep in mind if you are using Ubuntu or Trisquel you need to be using the LibreOffice PPA to upgrade to this version. Make sure you read the LibreOffice notes for Ubuntu if you choose to do this. Remember this is not covered by commercial support.
I took the liberty to categorize the detailed technical change logs, which are available here:
Legend:
If you’re one of the rare species still wanting Thunderbird in Ubuntu as described in Jorge Castro’s recent post, you can help. I am more worried about Jorge’s other comments, following his logic Ubuntu and free software are only less and less relevant by the day – not a trend I am observing.
Considering Canonical decided to include Thunderbird in Ubuntu 12.04 LTS – which will keep it around for 5 years, Thunderbird is not going away anytime soon. This essentially puts forward software that is considered irrelevant by its employees (dogfood anyone?) and demonstrates improvisation and miscommunication between Mozilla and Canonical. Many are still waiting for an official statement from Mozilla. I’d love to hear a more formal position than Jorge’s on the subject from Canonical too.
I appreciate the cloud, closed web-services and Google Apps may be all the rage (and the money) but for the rest of us, here are a few links to gather forces and continue. Remember this is not a user-centric or technical issue. The issue at hand are the business deals between Mozilla, Google, and Canonical. If anything, the recent Mozilla announcement will help Thunderbird get a better chance at surviving such forces.
I’d like to share a few projects and organizations that I’d love to see reaching their goals this time of the year.
I want to stress how important it is to understand that donating even U$25 or U$5 or whatever you can is important. It’s also an easy decision for many people (I am not saying it is the case for everyone), to donate and make a difference, instead of spending that same money having lunch at the restaurant or taking a cab. You can also ask your employer to chip in – just ask! Your employer could donate to these projects, become a corporate member of the associations I mention, or pay your membership as part of mutual benefits (non-profit tax receipt + happy employee) 🙂 Just ask. The worse that can happen is you get a « no, sorry ».
« OpenStreetMap‘s Operations Working Group, who have the important role of keeping core OSM services running smoothly, have planned to invest in a new server which will provide [them] with a database back-up. This improvement is at the very core of the OpenStreetMap infrastructure, giving services greater resilience. It means [they]’ll bounce back quicker and easier in the event of a hardware failure. In time the new server will also bring about some performance improvements. » – you can read more details about the fund drive and donate here. I am donating 50€ to this project.
The Debian Administrator’s Handbook was first written in French (and is a best-seller already) by two Debian developers who are translating it to English and possibly publishing it under a free license. The latter will only happen if the liberation fund reaches 25 K€. A physical book is a big helper when doing advocacy for free software. Imagine if instead of just showing the book to anyone interested, you could also show them how to search it electornically, cite it, use it, modify it, circulate it, share it at will ? I donated 100€ to this project.
Become a member of the Free Software Foundation and/or The Linux Foundation. I don’t always agree with everything that is said and done by the FSF, although I consider myself an active member and advocate – I certainly couldn’t do any of my advocacy work without all I’ve learned from the FSF and other fellow members. My membership at The Linux Foundation is a way to contribute to finance important projects (such as paying Linus Torvals’ salary). If you have a local free software advocacy group (such as FACIL or APELL in Quebec), consider joining as a full member or even making a donation – meeting space, flyers, CDs and food/drinks go a long way when networking locally. Becoming a member also increases the organization’s footprint, if nothing else. Numbers speak! This coming year I am sponsoring a student associate membership at the FSF.
Do you have any other ideas on where to donate cold, hard cash to further free, open technologies and software ? I’d love to hear them.
Update: I am helping putting together an accordingly « freedom geek » buying guide here, if anyone wants to peek or get inspiration for it.
Don’t miss it! À ne pas manquer!
This year I was able to bring two simultaneaous events together, in different locations.
Cette année j’ai pu programmer 2 événements différents, ça se passe demain, à deux endroits différents :).
Les détails à / All details at: http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/2011/Canada/Montreal
See you there! À demain!