Donations to associations
This is the 12th edition, already, of the dispatch that Benoît Sibaud has devoted since 2011 on Linuxfr to donations to associations, with all the links that go well and useful and detailed explanations and arguments. The former president of April updates this very useful reminder every year. If you only have a few hours left, at the time I publish this blog post, for (possible) tax deductions for 2023, these deductions remain possible after midnight, it will simply be for the following year of course .
April leaves Twitter
The librist association announced it a few days ago: it will stop posting on X, the former Twitter, and will no longer consult its messages there: “We have frozen the account. At this time, messages are being kept for archiving.
You can follow us and interact with us on the Fédiverse, via our Mastodon account.
You can, for example, create an account on the Mastodon Piaille instance and subscribe to our account which is @[email protected]. The Piaille body was created by librists that we have known for a long time. It is managed in association, with a clear moderation policy and a fairly strong guarantee of sustainability over time. To find out more you can consult the blog.
To learn more about Mastodon, the Fédiverse, check out this fun presentation (2021). See also the Join Mastodon site. You can also listen to our programs “Free to you!” on these subjects: show on the Fédiverse and show on Mastodon.”
It should be noted that Frédéric Couchet, the general delegate of April, likewise, as well as Alain Michel, educational digital mediator at Réseau Canopé, who for his part is permanently closing his Twitter/X account. And also the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo, but here we are leaving the librist countries 😉
Discovering the Eclipse Foundation
“Discovering a little-known open source foundation,” invites Programmez.com, which emphasizes “that the Eclipse foundation is not focused on Java” and to “delve into the many projects that it supports and develops” cites his discussions with Mike Milinkovich, executive director, and Gaël Blondelle, Chief Membership Officer of the foundation.
“In my interview with Mike Milinkovich, we discussed 20 years of leading this organization and the evolution of open source. In its early days, the Eclipse Foundation was created by IBM, SAP, HP and Intel with the aim of competing with Microsoft and its Visual Studio. Today, the foundation has more than 420 projects and 350 members, and recently moved its headquarters to Brussels to become the largest open source foundation in Europe.”
Why journalists don’t talk about free software
It’s a half-hour lecture, mid-October, the video of which was posted online this month, and it is informative. Loris Guémart, journalist at Arrêt sur images (ASI), explains why “journalists make fun of free software”.
He notably interviewed Olivier Ertzscheid (whose Affordance blog everyone reads – or should do), Guillaume Champeau, founder of Numerama, Thibault Prévot, who writes for ASI and Le Monde, among others, Cassim Ketfi of FrAndroid, David Legrand , ex-NextINpact… Lots of things to glean, and towards the end this essential passage:
“What does Olivier Ertzscheid tell me and he is not the only one. In fact, two thirds of the journalists with whom I spoke told me the same thing: “There cannot be any speech on Free Freedom that is not an activist speech, a political speech. And the people who profess to journalist can be caught in this somewhat paradoxical form of injunction forcing them to move away from their factual position.” (…)
That’s it, we understand, the journalist is not really objective, the journalist is neutral, he is factual, he is honest, the journalist does not play politics! And it’s true that going to see librists, you quickly find yourself with a political discourse. We invite people who tell you: “You see, you have to use Firefox even if it may take a little longer than Google Chrome with Gmail, because, in fact, the day when there will no longer be Firefox, Google will be masters with Chromium. We will all have a Chromium base and then the day Google decides to really do… – I’m not going to use bad words because it’s filmed –, in fact we will no longer have any choice. It will be ruined, it will be over!”
If you want to go faster than the video, Libre à lire has made a transcription there, and on Linuxfr, Stéphane Bortzmeyer makes this remark: “First of all, of course the choice of free software is political. If I wasn’t interested in politics, I’d use Chrome and Gmail (but not Windows, so don’t mess around). Not in the sense of political politics (I don’t care who is going to be prime minister and whether a particular LR MP will be replaced by a Renaissance MP or the opposite). But in the sense of life in a common space (software forms a common space), where you have to organize and make decisions. Second thing: all the media are involved, there are those who say it, like Arrêt sur Images, and those who deny it.”
Read also
Digital sovereignty: Switzerland creates its instance on Mastodon – October 8, 2023 2023
The Eclipse Foundation migrates to Europe and settles in Brussels – May 12, 2020
April is 20 years old, and all its teeth to defend free software – February 12, 2017
Peace on earth to webs of goodwill: Wikipedia, Framasoft and other free causes to support – December 30, 2010