"Come join the Free Software Foundation leadership and staff for a day of presentations and conversations! The Annual FSF Associate Membership Meeting will be on Saturday, March 15, 2008 from 9:15 AM - 5:50 PM in Cambridge, MA at MIT in Building 6-120. ..."

"...Keynote speeches from FSF board members Mako Hill and Henri Poole and the director of the FSF-backed End Software Patents campaign Ben Klemens will each address the 2008 theme, "Tackling the Big Issues." They will look at the projects that will demand the Free Software Foundation's attention in 2008: from software patents to freedom for web services, from advancing free software adoption to the changing relations with the entertainment industry brought about by this year's Hollywood writers strike..."

Mako: "Dear free software supporter, Now is the time to join and give to Free Software Foundation. 2008 is going to be extraordinarily important year for free software. Eben Moglen likes to quote Gandhi's "first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" progression when describing the free software movement. As I pointed out when I joined the FSF board, we're beginning to see powerful interests fighting free software. It's going to increase in the next few years. Things will probably get a lot uglier for free software before they get better. We can win but things are far from settled. The FSF is the front-line organization in this fight and we need a robust and proactive foundation, and an active and involved membership, if we're going to win.

"The Free Software Foundation (FSF) announced the recipients of its Award for Projects of Social Benefit and its Award for the Advancement of Free Software. Groklaw received the social benefit award, and Harald Welte received the advancement award. FSF president Richard Stallman handed out the awards at the conclusion of the FSF's annual associate members meeting in Cambridge, MA..."

As you may already know, at this year's aKademy the term came up for our past KDE e.V. president, Eva. She served for years on the board and in my opinion did a great job as president. Filling her void was the matter of quite a bit of discussion and I personally thought hard about whether or not to take on the position for days prior to going to Glasgow.

March 26 is Document Freedom Day (DFD). On March 26th, events and activities across the world will be held to promote adoption of free document formats such as the Open Document Format (ODF).

"Welcome to the all new Fee Software Supporter! — the Free Software Foundation's monthly news digest and action update. Each month we will highlight some of the important work being done by the FSF, and give an update on recent happenings in the GNU project and the campaign for software freedom. Encourage your friends to subscribe and help us build an audience by adding our subscriber widget to your website..."

"The Software Freedom International Board will be aiming for United Nations recognition of Software Freedom Day as a day of international importance for 2008.

"I'm a bit of a rebel," Benjamin Mako Hill says, "with rather too many causes." Best known for his many roles in Debian, Hill is also a member of the Ubuntu Community Council, an advisor to One Laptop Per Child, a director of Software Freedom International, and the originator of several free software projects -- to say nothing of an active voice for the Free Culture Movement, and the occasional or