• cgicc-3.2.15
• ddrescue-1.18.1
• electric-9.05
• freedink-108.2
• freeipmi-1.4.4
• gcc-4.7.4
• gettext-0.19.1
• global-6.3
• gnupg-2.0.24
• grep-2.20
• libmicrohttpsd-0.9.37
• libtasn1-4.0
• linux-libre-3.15
• mcron-1.0.8
• moe-1.6
• nano-2.3.4
• nettle-3.0
• parallel-20140622
• sipwitch-1.9.2
• sqltutor-0.7
• tramp-2.2.10
• ucommon-6.1.8
• unifont-7.0.01

To get announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list: https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu. Nearly all GNU software is available from https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/, or preferably one of its mirrors (https://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html). You can use the url http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ to be automatically redirected to a (hopefully) nearby and up-to-date mirror.

This month, we welcome Bernd Paysan as the new maintainer (though the long-time author and developer) of gforth and vmgen, and Ruben Rodriguez (long-time developer of Trisquel) as the new maintainer of IceCat. Thanks to all.

Also, please consider attending the GNU Hackers' Meeting https://www.gnu.org/ghm/ in Munich this year, August 15-17; attendance is free of charge, but pre-registration is essential.

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. To submit new packages to the GNU operating system, see https://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.

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

In my free time, I write and code for The Crimson, Harvard's student newspaper, and I like reading historical fiction and the news. I also enjoy spending time at the Computer Clubhouse in the Boston Museum of Science, at which I help teach programming.

As I loaded up on quantitative courses this past year, I began to understand just how much I'm surrounded, every day, by free software: LaTeX, GCC, Bash, MySQL, Git—the list goes on and on.

One thing that I've noticed is that, at least at Harvard, nobody tells you that these tools are free (as in, the "speech" kind). It's an implicit conclusion, at least within the Computer Science department, that conceptual and theoretical teaching is sufficient, but only because students have, on their own, unrestricted access to a vast network of tools and resources upon which they can build their skills and expertise. The message is this: "If you get stuck, look at the documentation."

Nobody ever stops and acknowledges, though, that the free source code and documentation so prominent within the academic setting—and so many other fields—weren't always free, and that securing free software is still a battle fought by many. What would be the state of a systems course if GDB and GCC were nonfree?

That's why I applied to be an intern at the FSF this summer (in addition to RMS' puns).

I'm excited to learn about the technical and legal concepts that I expect to be prevalent within my education. I'm excited to debate and learn from people whose principles may be different from my own, and to assist in advocating for claims that I believe to have important implications for not only me, but for a lot of people for whom technology plays a major role. This summer, I'll be working with the Campaigns team to refine some of the infrastructure for Defective by Design and LibreJS, among others, and to look into analytics for FSF fundraising and campaigns.

Feel free to shoot me an email at apatel@fsf.org, or find me on IRC under ahp.

More information about the FSF's internship program is at https://www.fsf.org/volunteer/internships.

The goal of our Email Self-Defense guide is to show everyone that email encryption is a necessary, easy, and accessible way to fight mass surveillance with free software. We know that if we want to reach people around the globe, it's going to take more than one language. That's why today, we're proud to announce translations into German, Brazilian Portuguese, French, Russian, Turkish, and Japanese, as well as an ongoing effort to make the guide and infographic available in as many languages as possible.

Mass surveillance is a global issue, with many governments and corporations colluding across borders to track us throughout our digital lives. Inter-country communication is particularly subject to government surveillance, as many states' privacy laws are much less protective of outsiders. These scary truths are part of the reason this translation project is important.

We'd like to highlight that, while the FSF coordinated the translation process and maintains the Web site, all of the translation was done by volunteers. We're grateful to this international community of active free software supporters.

While coordinating the translations, we've made improvements to the guide itself, incorporating feedback left by users on our LibrePlanet community wiki and from encryption experts. With the help of a volunteer, we even created Edward, a friendly email bot that helps Email Self-Defense users test their new encryption systems. Edward is free software under the GNU Affero Public License, and you can download his source code.

We want to keep improving Email Self-Defense so that it can have the biggest impact possible. We're particularly interested in adding instructions for encryption on mobile devices, as well as an FAQ to help troubleshoot common problems. Can you donate to help us do this important work? If you don't have dollars, you're also welcome to donate in Bitcoin or Litecoin.

This launch is just the beginning of an initiative to get Email Self-Defense translated into as many languages as possible. Spanish, Malayam, Korean, Romanian and Greek translations are currently underway. If you'd like to create a version for a language that we haven't published yet or help maintain one of the existing translations, please send an email to campaigns@fsf.org.

Email Self-Defense is only one important piece of the solution to bulk surveillance. While we learn email encryption tools, we also need to push politically to reign in surveillance, build a safer Internet, and force governments and companies to reduce the amount of data they collect about us in the first place. We hope translated versions of Email Self-Defense can be the entry into this multifaceted movement for people all around the world.

If you'd like to receive some of our emails in Spanish or French, as well as English, you can update your language preferences.

Lisez en français
Read in Turkish
Read in Russian

Join the FSF and friends on Friday, June 27, from 2pm to 5pm EDT (18:00 to 21:00 UTC) to help improve the Free Software Directory by adding new entries and updating existing ones. We will be on IRC in the #fsf channel on freenode.

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

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!

Two weeks ago, we released Email Self-Defense, the FSF's beginner guide to fighting surveillance with free software email encryption. We had an outpouring of support from people who were happy to have a welcoming, accessible guide that also promoted free software and a reduction in the amount of data collected about people in general.

We're excited to announce that volunteers are currently working on translations of the guide and infographic into ten languages. Wow! In the meantime, we've also made some general improvements that will launch with the translations.

In the coming weeks, we'll be announcing translations here and on our primary mailing list, the Free Software Supporter. If you're subscribed you can update the language preferences in your user profile to receive some of the messages in Spanish or French.

We try to give our translators an opportunity to work in teams and review each others' work, but there are some brave volunteers currently translating alone. Send an email as soon as possible to campaigns@fsf.org if you are fluent in Brazilian Portuguese, Romanian, Japanese, Malayalam, or Turkish and would like to help them.