The free software community encompasses the globe, and we strive to make the LibrePlanet conference reflect that. That's why we livestream the proceedings of the conference, and encourage you to participate remotely by both watching and participating in the discussion via IRC.

If you are planning to attend LibrePlanet in Cambridge, MA, we encourage you to register in advance through Tuesday morning at 10:00 EDT (14:00 UTC) -- advance registration helps us plan a better event. Walk ups are also welcome. Students and FSF members receive gratis admission.

The LibrePlanet program offers something for everyone in the free software movement, from newcomers concerned about preserving their digital privacy to longtime free software developers.

Keynote speakers will include Gabriella Coleman, author of Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking; Seth David Schoen, Staff Technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Deb Nicholson, Community Outreach Director for the Open Invention Network; and Free Software Foundation Founder Richard Stallman.

The full conference program is now available.

Can't make it to Cambridge? Bookmark LibrePlanet's livestream now, and tune in Saturday, March 24th and Sunday, March 25th -- and if you can't watch this weekend, videos of most talks will be posted at https://media.libreplanet.org in the days following the conference.

Each year, we livestream and record LibrePlanet proceedings in order to make the event accessible to all. This requires significant staff time and equipment purchases: please make a $25 donation at https://donate.fsf.org to support this effort.

Another way to participate if you can't make it to Cambridge is to join the conversation around the conference on the libreplanet-discuss mailing list. Subscribe now and start a conversation.

Finally, we'd like to express our excitement about working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Student Information Processing Board, our organizing partner for LibrePlanet 2018.

We hope to see you at LibrePlanet 2018 this weekend, whether in Cambridge or on the Web!

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 over 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.

Last week we got a lot done working together to review and add some new entries, and it was so much fun we'll be back at it again this week, but at a slightly different time. The folks here in Boston just made the daylight savings switch, so make sure to double check the meeting start time against your local time. You don't want to a miss a minute of the meeting!

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 made some new additions to our resource Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU Licenses (FAQ). The FAQ is one of our most robust articles, covering common questions for using and understanding GNU licenses. We are always looking to improve our materials, so this week we've made some fresh updates.

The first is an update to our entry on using works under the GNU General Public License (GPL) on a Web site. This entry explains that people are free to use modified versions of GPL'ed works internally without releasing source code, and that using GPL'ed code to run your site is just a special case of that. The problem was that the entry went on to explain how things are different when it comes to the Affero GNU General Public License (AGPL). That transition in the old entry wasn't quite as elegant as we would have liked, and so people were often writing to us to ask for clarification. They were getting confused about whether the comments on the AGPL also applied to the GPL. So we've updated that entry, and moved the information on the AGPL to its own entry. The updated text and new entry were both created by long-time licensing team volunteer Yoni Rabkin.

We also added a new entry on containers. The entry just reaffirms that the analysis for whether two things form a single work is unchanged by the fact that containers are involved.

We always want to keep improving our licensing materials, to make it easier for users to understand their rights under free licenses. We hope these new additions will bring greater clarity, but if there is something you are still not sure about, you can always ask us directly at licensing@fsf.org. Your question could even be the inspiration for another new entry in the FAQ someday!

Resources like the FAQ are made possible by your support. If you'd like to help, here's what you can do:

• If you're a licensing geek or lawyer, consider becoming a licensing team volunteer.
• Support our efforts by becoming an FSF Associate Member or by making a donation.

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) is excited to share that we'll be participating in Outreachy, a paid internship program to help those who are underrepresented in tech start contributing to free software projects.

In past years, the FSF has helped GNU projects participate in Outreachy by providing financial sponsorship for interns. This is the first year that we'll be working with an intern to help them to explore even more ways people can contribute to the fight for user freedom.

Outreachy is important to us for a number of reasons:

• We've made growing the community a priority. The High Priority Projects list calls on the free software community to "encourage contribution by people underrepresented in the community." This is one of the ways we can help contribute to that goal.

• Representation matters to us. Better representation in free software is something personally important to the staff of the FSF -- nearly half of us (and the entire campaigns team) are women, our deputy director is Asian American, and we've all had the experience of finding our place in the free software community.

• Strong communities make strong movements. Most importantly, we know that a variety of experiences and viewpoints -- which comes from having a broad range of activists, contributors, enthusiasts, and users -- creates a strong, robust community that will have the power needed to help user freedom triumph in a world where the status quo is proprietary.

We have three possible projects for interns. We're looking to work with someone to update the Email Self-Defense Guide (ESD). There are a wide range of ways to get involved, including design, illustration, and writing. On the more technical side, there are projects on working on Trisquel GNU/Linux and the Free Software Directory, building MediaWiki skills, responsive theming, licensing and privacy, and documentation.

Interested in being an Outreachy participant with the FSF? Please read our community page!

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 over 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.

Last week we were working on updating entries with cryptocurrency donation information, and we'll have to come back to that theme again soon. But this week we're back to a classic: adding new entries to the Directory. A new project leader has taken on the Directory import project, and we hope to discuss that work and get it rolling, but we also want to keep adding all the free software we love that isn't on the Directory already.

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.