On March 24th and 25th, 2018, the free software community will come together at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to learn, exchange ideas, catch up with friends, and plan the future of the movement. Will you join us?

It's the tenth anniversary of LibrePlanet, and now is a good time to register to attend. As always, Free Software Foundation (FSF) members and students attend gratis.

Hundreds of people from across the globe will converge on Cambridge, Massachusetts to explore this year's theme, "Freedom Embedded." We'll look at embedded systems in everything from our cars to our bodies, discuss how these systems affect our entire society, and talk about how to change the narrative, making free software the norm, instead of walled gardens, Digital Restrictions Management (DRM), and proprietary code.

In addition to the keynote speakers we announced last month, LibrePlanet 2018 will feature a panoply of presentations. Our lineup includes Jeremiah Foster, who will examine free software and vehicles; a panel of speakers including Karen Sandler, Mad Ball, Rachel Kalmar, and Dana Lewis, who will discuss freedom and devices used for health, medicine, and wellness; and Bob Call, who will talk about libreCMC, a distro for embedded devices.

LibrePlanet 2018 offers lots of opportunities for fun, too: in addition to the annual FSF open house the evening of Friday, March 23rd, and the LibrePlanet party on Saturday night, there will be a special piano concert featuring freely licensed arrangements. And the conference looks at gaming and art, too: Noah Swartz will walk us through the roguelikes game genre, and Bassam Kurdali will teach a workshop in free software photogrammetry! The full program will be published soon. In the meantime, check out the list of confirmed speakers.

LibrePlanet brings together software developers, activists, policy experts, and computer users to share accomplishments, learn new skills, and address challenges to software freedom. Newcomers are always welcome, and LibrePlanet 2018 will feature programming for all experience levels, including students.

LibrePlanet 2018 is produced by the Free Software Foundation in partnership with the Student Information Processing Board (SIPB) at MIT.

Pre-order a LibrePlanet 2018 T-shirt by February 28th

You can also pre-order a LibrePlanet 2018 commemorative T-shirt in the GNU Press shop. Order your shirt by February 28th, 7am EST/13:00 UTC to guarantee availability in your size. If you will be picking up the shirt at the conference, use the code LPSHIRT18 to waive shipping costs. If you want it shipped to you, do not use that code, and expect it to arrive in April.

LibrePlanet needs volunteers -- maybe you!

In ten years, LibrePlanet has grown in size and scope -- and its continued success is thanks to dozens of volunteers who help prepare for and run the conference. Volunteering is a great way to meet fellow community members and contribute to LibrePlanet, even if you can't attend in person! If you are interested in volunteering for LibrePlanet 2018, email resources@fsf.org. We thank all of our volunteers by offering them gratis conference admission and a LibrePlanet T-shirt.

Seeking raffle prizes!

We are still looking for prizes to raffle off at this year's LibrePlanet. If you or your company have a prize you would like to donate, please email campaigns@fsf.org. Examples of past LibrePlanet raffle prizes include a 3D printer running free software, a laptop with free BIOS and free GNU distro, and DRM-free eBook gift certificates.

Donating a prize is a great way to support LibrePlanet and the FSF while engaging the diverse audience who attends the conference. Raffle ticket sales support travel scholarships, student admission, and other LibrePlanet expenses (including coffee!). Donors receive acknowledgment on the Web, via social media, and at the conference at the raffle ticket booth and during the prize drawings.

Spread the word about LibrePlanet 2018: blog or microblog to let people know that you'll be there, using the hashtag #libreplanet.

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.

We are back with another classic week of adding new entries to the Directory. We'll also be discussing the work of various team projects, including the cryptocurrency donation tag and the import project.

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.

Recently I was lucky enough to get to travel to Sydney, Australia for Linux Conf Australia (LCA). Along with Free Software Foundation (FSF) executive director John Sullivan, I spent the better part of a week in Sydney, getting to know members of the global free software community I rarely get to see.

LCA is Australasia's grassroots free software conference, organized by Linux Australia. Even though GNU wasn't recognized in the name of the event (which we would love to see!), the spirit of software freedom was felt in sessions covering topics from F-droid to Australian Computing Academy's programs to teach free software languages to students.

In addition to enjoying the coffee, views, summer -- it's winter in Boston -- and food, we most of all enjoyed seeing hundreds of people enthusiastic about free software.

While at LCA I gave a talk entitled "A division of labor: Attempting to measure free software." This compared the results of several surveys of free software communities carried out from 2003-2017. I attempted to see what the data could tell us about who participated in building free software and what they do. A video is available online here.

John Sullivan presented his talk "Freedom embedded: Devices that respect users and communities," which some of you may remember from DebConf 2017. In this, he discusses the Respects Your Freedoms certification program, and devices that run on entirely free software. You can watch the video here.

There were a number of other great talks as well, including some by people you'll be able to see at LibrePlanet 2018.

During the conference, we hosted a lunchtime meetup for FSF members and friends. There was such enthusiasm that we had to move restaurants to accommodate everyone.

Going to LCA was completely worth the twenty-one hour flight from Boston. In addition to everything else, the voices heard at the conference were those of people who work on and advocate for free software every day. Listening to them, meeting them, seeing what they do, and the reminder that I am part of a community is what attending conferences is all about. It was simply inspiring.

Photo credits: Copyright © 2018 Chris Lamb, photo licensed under CC-BY-SA 4.0; copyright © 2018 Free Software Foundation, photo licensed under CC-BY 4.0.

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.

In 1870, the US Army created the National Weather Service, which is still with us to this day, providing essential monitoring and evaluation of meteorological conditions. Currently, the Directory has many entries related to weather. A good number of them have outdated information and could use a refresh, and there is newer software employing the last features of the new single point releases of the larger graphic toolkits. As always, working on the unapproved entries is important work that we can winnow down.

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.

• coreutils-8.29
• gdbm-1.14.1
• gnuhealth-client-3.2.5
• gnustep-gui-0.26.2
• gnutls-3.5.17
• gzip-1.9
• libcdio-2.0.0
• libsigsegv-2.12
• libtasn1-4.13
• linux-libre-4.14.15-gnu
• mpc-1.1.0
• mpfr-4.0.0
• nano-2.9.2
• parallel-20180122
• servletapi-3.0.1
• unifont-10.0.07
• vcdimager-2.0.1
• wget-1.19.4

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As always, please feel free to write to us at maintainers@gnu.org with any GNUish questions or suggestions for future installments.