Once a year around this time, we pause to contemplate everything we are thankful for.

Here at the Free Software Foundation, we are grateful to the people who have devoted their lives to advancing free software. We're thankful for the developers working hard to bring new free software tools into the world. We're thankful for the legal eagles working to defend the GNU General Public License. We're thankful for the organizers committed to introducing free software to new audiences. That's why, each year, we give out the Award for the Advancement of Free Software to an individual who has made a great contribution to the progress and advancement of free software.

It's not just those working to advance free software who deserve our gratitude. It's also the many projects that employ free software in the service of humanity. That's why we also give out an Award for Projects of Social Benefit , which is awarded to a project or team that has used free software or free software ideas in a project that benefits society in another field, from health care to education and everything in between. You can learn more about the criteria for each award by checking out our submission guidelines.

If you're as thankful as we are for the people and projects that take free software and its ideas to new heights, take a few minutes to nominate one of them for the 15th annual Free Software Awards. The nomination window closes today, so drop whatever you're doing and write up a few sentences (40 lines or less) about the work done and why you think it is so important. Don't forget to include a link or two so we can learn more about your nominee. Put the name of the person or project in the subject of the email and send it off to award-nominations@gnu.org.

See? That wasn't so hard.

It's time to give a big fundraising bump to the next big thing in media sharing.

Today is the last day to donate to GNU MediaGoblin, a project that will change the way media is stored and shared online. MediaGoblin puts media sharing in the hands of the people, making sharing, storing, and talking about media a better experience for the people (and cats) of the Internet. Today is the final day of a major fundraising campaign that will take MediaGoblin over the finish line and onto the Internets so we can all avail ourselves of its awesomeness. Show this worthy endeavor some love by making MediaGoblin's last day of fundraising the best yet.

Need to know more? GNU MediaGoblin is free software and part of the GNU project. It's decentralized to keep your media safe from server failures. GNU MediaGoblin is gorgeous. And have you seen Gavroche, its mascot? Total SQUEE.

So, I know I said this already, but seriously. The folks behind this amazing project need your support to build their great ideas into MediaGoblin. Let's make it happen.

I would like to take a few moments to introduce Buffalo, the access point and router which provides network connectivity to portable computers in the FSF's office.

More specifically, we are using Buffalo WZR-HP-G300NH, which features the free-software-supported Atheros AR9132 chipset with 32MB of flash memory and 64MB of RAM.

Previously, Buffalo ran OpenWRT, a GNU/Linux firmware distribution which is very popular with tinkerers seeking to gain a greater understanding and control of their own embedded devices. Despite representing an important advancement compared to proprietary stock firmware which usually comes preinstalled on devices like Buffalo, OpenWRT unfortunately still contains some binary blobs for which source code is not available.

Recently, a community of concerned programmers has emerged determined to remedy this situation. To advance the free software frontier in yet another area, they have built LibreWRT, a completely free GNU/Linux distribution for embedded devices, based on OpenWRT. Once the project evolved into a full–fledged distribution, the FSF was eager to give it a try.

Thus, encouraged by assurances in the documentation that Buffalo is virtually impossible to brick, I set out to flash the device with "Creative Craftsman," the current development version of LibreWRT. First, I needed to build the image. Thanks to clear documentation and use of familiar tools such as GNU make, the process of building the LibreWRT image for Buffalo turned out to be pretty straightforward.1 When in doubt about the next step to take, I sought help on the #librewrt IRC channel of Freenode, where I received useful advice from the developers of the project every time I asked.

After I finished the build process and identified which of the generated images is the appropriate one, I proceeded with flashing via TFTP without major difficulties following instructions on the OpenWRT wiki.2 Once logged in, I was presented with BusyBox, a popular lightweight free software Unix-like environment. Even for those without much expertise in router configuration, configuring LibreWRT is relatively painless. Again, the OpenWRT wiki has plentiful resources to guide the user through the entire process with many examples of the most commonly used setups.3

With the final stage concluded, I am happy to report that Buffalo has been chugging along without any hiccups providing wired as well as wireless network connectivity for all the portable computers in our office for over a week now. It used to be the FSF's only computing device containing binary blobs. Now, the FSF can proudly confirm that even all of the unused software present on its computing devices is free. To learn more about LibreWRT, and how you can use and support the project, head to their official wiki at http://librewrt.org.

¡Hay 13 nuevos lanzamientos de GNU!

• binutils-2.23
• bison-2.6.4
• coreutils-8.20
• freeipmi-1.2.2
• gnuhealth-1.6.4
• gnutls-3.1.3
• libcdio-0.90
• libextractor-1.0.1
• parallel-20121022
• patch-2.7.1
• units-2.01
• xnee-3.14
• zile-2.4.9

Para obtener los anuncios de los lanzamientos GNU mas recientes, suscribete a la lista de correos info-gnu: http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu. Casi todo el software GNU está disponible dehttp://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/ o preferentemente alguno de sus mirrors (http://www.gnu.org/prep/ftp.html). Tu puedes usar la URL http://ftpmirror.gnu.org/ y seras automaticamente redireccionado a mirror actualizado más cercano.

Algunos paquetes GNU, como también el sistema operativo GNU en su conjunto están buscando tener gente que se encargados de ellos y otros tipos de ayuda. Por favor ve ahttp://www.gnu.org/server/takeaction.html#unmaint si te interesa ayudar. Los lineamientos generales de cómo ayudar a GNU estan en http://www.gnu.org/help/help.html. Para enviar nuevos paquetes al sistema operativo dale una mirada a http://www.gnu.org/help/evaluation.html.

Como siempre, sientete libre de escribirme, karl@gnu.org, con cualquier pregunta relacionada con GNU o sugerencia para instancias futuras.

There were 13 new GNU releases this month!

Releases as of October 29, 2012:

• binutils-2.23
• bison-2.6.4
• coreutils-8.20
• freeipmi-1.2.2
• gnuhealth-1.6.4
• gnutls-3.1.3
• libcdio-0.90
• libextractor-1.0.1
• parallel-20121022
• patch-2.7.1
• units-2.01
• xnee-3.14
• zile-2.4.9

To get announcements of most new GNU releases, subscribe to the info-gnu mailing list: http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-gnu. Nearly all GNU software is available from http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/, or preferably one of its mirrors (http://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.

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