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Good GNUs, we've
met our initial fundraiser
goal of 400 new members!
We have a new ambitious
stretch goal of $146,000
before the end of the
year. Read RMS's message
below about how you can
help.
Dear ...,
This year, I'm happy to
report, the Free Software
Foundation (FSF)
received two large donations,
each nominally a million
dollars. The
donation from the Pineapple
Fund arrived in the form
of Bitcoin
and had gone down to around
$860,000 by the time we could
convert it
all to dollars. Around half of
the donation from Handshake
is
earmarked for specific
software projects; some of
that will go to
improving Replicant, the free
Android fork, but that half
won't help
fund the FSF's general
operations.
We will need to add part of
these donations to our
reserves, which are
meant to enable us to keep
operating in the case of a
possible
downturn. That still leaves
enough to expand our staff by
two or
three positions. We will be
able to do some of the work
that always
needed doing but that we could
not undertake.
We have added a position to
the tech
team so that they can
upgrade
the support platforms for GNU
packages -- repositories, Web
pages,
translation, testing -- and
publish about how we run the
FSF without
nonfree software.
We intend also to add another
person to the Licensing
and Compliance
team, which certifies
distributions and products and
enforces the
GNU General Public License.
Because of the success of
Respects Your
Freedom, we have a long
backlog of products to
evaluate. Expanding the
team will increase our ability
to help people purchase
hardware that
runs entirely on free
software.
We will also fund development
of free _javascript_ code to
make certain
Web sites function in the free
world. Making sites depend on
sending
users nonfree
_javascript_ code has
become fashionable, so that
organizations and even
governments do it without even
thinking about
it. The option to communicate
with Web sites without running
nonfree
software is a crucial part of
freedom for users of the World
Wide Web.
We will also continue
improving the GNU LibreJS
extension, and making
GNU IceCat protect against
_javascript_ spyware techniques.
This year's surprise one-time
donations make it possible for
us to
hire additional staff and do
more work, but we can't coast
very long
on them alone; we will need to
continue paying the staff to
keep doing
the work. Most of our income,
these donations aside, comes
from
individual donors giving less
than $200 a year. To carry on
with this
work, we
need your support.
The increased operations, as
we are planning them now, will
still not
do all that needs to be done
to win freedom in computing.
You can
enable us to continue -- and
to undertake the other work
that we are
still not doing -- by joining
the Free Software Foundation
or
donating
now. Even better, do
both!
Read and share online: https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/a-message-from-richard-m-stallman
Happy hacking,
Richard M. Stallman
FSF President
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