GNU and FSF News for August 2007

It was a slow month for GNU/FSF news but even during a slow month there's plenty to tell you about. The adoption of the GPLv3 continues, over 300 packages are now using it. The 2007 Trophées du Libre awards are coming up soon. The FSF Europe published a new issue of their newsletter, full of interesting free software news from Europe. There was a minor GCC release, and the last new GCC release under the GPLv2 license. RMS will be in Peru this month, giving talks at several schools and conferences. Read on for all the details.

Trophées du Libre 2007

Trophées du Libre is an international competition awarding recognition to innovate free software in six different categories: security, games/multimedia, education, scientific, public sector, and enterprise software. The first event in 2003 had 113 participants from 18 countries. This year's jury will select the winners on 29 November 2007 in Soissons. Find out if your project is eligible. If it is, why not submit it for consideration?

New FSF Europe Newsletter

The FSFE has posted a new monthly newsletter. This edition covers topics that include FSFE's General Assembly, The first Benelux fellowship meeting, the GPLv3 release, Free Software personal consultancy for businesses, Six questions to national standardisation bodies, info about Georg Greve in India, FTF useful tips translated to Asian languages, and the importance of Free Software in Austrian Schools.

GPL Version 3 Progress

Despite the controversy about the GPLv3 prior to the final version, there has been a fairly steady migration of free software to the new version of the license. Well over 300 free software packages have already converted or announced conversions. Bigger packages are beginning to make the shift now. See the recent Samba announcement and GCC announcement for example. One other that made big news, at least in the mainstream press, was SugarCRM's announcement. More are expected. One place you can track the progress is Palamida's GPLv3 Information site. Keep in mind this only represents a subset of the conversions to GPLv3 as it relies on voluntary reporting by the authors of each package.

GNU GCC News

Gcc 4.2.1 was released on July 18. This is a minor bug fix release and the last release under GPLv2. All future releases will be under the GNU GPL version 3.

GNOME News

The 8th annual GNOME Users and Developers European Conference (GUADEC) is over. Missed it? Check out a few of the GUADEC 2007 photos over at flickr.

FSF High Priority Free Software Projects

The Free Software Foundation maintains a list of what they believe are the highest priority projects at any given time. If you're looking for something fun to work on or just want to make the world a better place, this is a good place to start.

"There is a vital need to draw the free software community's attention to the ongoing development work on these particular projects. These projects are important because computer users are continually being seduced into using non-free software, because there is no adequate free replacement. Please support these projects."

• Free Software 3D video drivers (see also Free3D.org)
• Free BIOS
• Gnash Free software alternative to Macromedia's proprietary Flash plugin
• DotGNU Project - Free software alternative to Microsoft's .NET
• Free Google Earth client. (the current Google Earth Client is non-free in order to impose Digital Restrictions Management). Contact the FSF for advice before starting.
• Xiph.org and free Internet protocols
• Reversible debugging for GDB.

Where's RMS This Month?

Richard Stallman will be in Peru this month. You can hear him at the UDEP Campus Piura on August 8, 9, and 10. On August 13 he will give a talk, titled "El Movimiento de Software Libre y el Sistema Operativo GNU/Linux", at JORESOL (Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre) in Chiciayo, Peru. On August 14, he will speak at CLEI 2007 (Conferencia Latinoamericana de Informatica) in Lima, Peru. And, on August 17 he'll speak at Ciudad Universitaria UNT, in Trujillo, Peru.

This monthly news summary about the Free Software Foundation and GNU project was distilled down from FSF press releases, blogs, email lists, and website news pages. The idea is to provide a concise summary of FSF/GNU news from the past month for those who don't have the time or interest to find and read all the original news sources within that community. I'm also looking for a volunteer to take over writing this news summary each month.