Every week free software activists from around the world come together in #fsf on irc.freenode.org to help improve the Free Software Directory. This blog recaps the work we accomplished at the Friday, August 11th, 2017 meeting.

This week we improved tens of packages, with some chosen based on the theme of encryption software, and others chosen because they had simply been waiting long enough. It wasn't all work, though, and there were wide ranging topics of conversation. adfeno discussed a limitation of federation, specifically that in order work for it to work, you need many servers with consistent uptime. We also had some first time attendees to the Directory meeting, Elon_Satoshi and kembrek, who we hope to see back next week.

Elon_Satoshi told us about their efforts to free game software. They were able to convince the developer to switch to a license that required the sharing of source code, but they weren't able to get the developer to use a free software license. The Directory meetings are always a great place to come to share insights, strategies, and programs for advancing free software.

If you would like to help update the Directory, meet with us every Friday in #fsf on irc.freenode.org from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. EDT (16:00 to 19:00 UTC).

As an intern, you work closely with FSF staff members in your area of interest, such as campaigns and community organizing, systems and network administration, GNU Project support, or Web development.

We're seeking interns for two teams at the FSF:

• Tech team: Common tech team intern projects include writing free software, security auditing, interacting with one or more of our servers, and researching new technology that the FSF is interested in using. Past interns created HUBAngl, which we use for easy video streaming of our conferences, made progress in porting LibreJS to WebExtensions, pen-tested our network, and researched the Ceph distributed object storage system, which we are now rolling out as our latest infrastructure upgrade. However, we're also eager to hear what you would like to work on, because that can give us new ideas and open new doors. This position may work in our Boston office or remotely.

• Campaigns team: This round, we'd love to find an intern who is adept at design and/or illustration to redo key handouts and guides. These items will make a great addition to your portfolio, and will be a huge help in our efforts to publicize our campaigns. This position is in our Boston office.

You can read more about our requirements for interns here, and see past intern projects here.

How to apply

Send a letter of interest and resume with two references by email to hiring@fsf.org. Make sure that your materials are in free software friendly formats (PDF and plain text work well), and include "Internship" in your subject line. If you can, please include links to sites you've made (personal blogs are okay!), designs or code you've done, and relevant writing. Please include these as URLs, though email attachments in free formats are acceptable, too.

Please direct any questions about the program to hiring@fsf.org.

(as of July 25, 2017):

• acct-6.6.4
• auctex-11.91
• binutils-2.29
• cgicc-3.2.19
• freeipmi-1.5.6
• gama-1.19
• gcc-6.4.0
• gnucash-2.6.17
• gnuhealth-3.2.1
• gnutls-3.5.14
• grep-3.1
• guile-cv-0.1.5
• libgcrypt-1.8.0
• libidn2-2.0.3
• linux-libre-4.12.3-gnu
• moe-1.9
• nano-2.8.6
• parallel-20170722
• screen-4.6.1
• tramp-2.3.2
• unifont-10.0.05

For announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list: https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu.

To download: nearly all GNU software is available from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/, or preferably one of its mirrors from https://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html. You can use the URL https://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a (hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.

This month, we welcome Assaf Gordon as the new maintainer of GNU Time.

A number of GNU packages, as well as the GNU operating system as a whole, are looking for maintainers and other assistance: please see https://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint if you'd like to help. The general page on how to help GNU is at https://www.gnu.org/help/help.html.

If you have a working or partly working program that you'd like to offer to the GNU project as a GNU package, see https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.

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

Participate in supporting the Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be 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.

While the Directory has been and continues to be a great resource to the world for over a decade now, it has the potential to be a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help!

It was on August 11th, 1934 that Alcatraz, the government facility in the San Francisco Bay, first began accepting prisoners for incarceration. Alcatraz, or "The Rock," was established to house the most dangerous inmates due to the difficulty of escaping the island and the strong currents in the Bay. Perhaps chroots would be the most fitting match for today's activities given this historic marker, but instead let us focus on encryption software.

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.

Participate in supporting the Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be 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.

While the Directory has been and continues to be a great resource to the world for over a decade now, it has the potential of being a resource of even greater value. But it needs your help!

What is old is new again as we return to adding new packages to the Directory. We've really done some great work in smashing through the backlog of pages awaiting approval, so now it's time to finish that backlog and add even more new packages. We'll also be discussing more about the importation project, which has the potential to add thousands of packages from Debian in one fell swoop.

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.