The free software community understands that free software gives the user more freedom than proprietary software. Proprietary software confines its users, prohibits them from making changes that would allow everyone to benefit, etc. Free software advocates (myself included) have a habit of claiming that using free (libre) software means the same thing as having freedom.

Please join us in bringing some of the Software Freedom Day celebration and advocacy to the LibrePlanet wiki, to build a resource and meeting place that will last throughout the year. Saturday, September 18th is Software Freedom Day, a worldwide celebration of user freedom.

"Last week, the Free Software Foundation announced an important new initiative called End Software Patents whose goals are pretty evident from the project's name. So far, the initiative is backed by the FSF, the Public Patent Foundation, and the Software Freedom Law Center [...] ESP can reach out farther than the FSF alone and build a coalition that can destroy software patents for the good of much more than the free software community..."

"After that introduction, I am sure many of you want to know about Free Software. But unfortunately that's not what I am supposed to speak about. In fact, this topic, software patents, is not very closely related to the issue of Free Software. Software patents are a danger that affect all programmers and all computer users.

The FSF is launching a new advocacy campaign, and we'd love to have you involved. One of the most important tasks for us at FSF is to help foster the understanding that free software is crucial to a free society, and that citizens should switch to free software at home and in their own work, for freedom's sake.

Audiopodcast of Episode 0x27: Talking about Software Freedom -- Karen and Bradley discuss their views on software freedom advocacy.

«...Control has replaced Free Speech in Stallman’s the rhetoric. This is one of the most noticeable things I took away from today, that there has been a cultural shift from the way proponents of Free Software talk and communicate about the ideas and rationalities of Free Software principles.

Europe's software patents cartel is rearmed. Another look at the TomTom/FAT case, GE's new role in Europe, and growing opposition to software patents

The dangers of software patents for free software have always been a hot issue. But with the news that Red Hat and Novell are being sued for alleged patent infringement by IP Innovation, the matter has moved from theory into practice.