Discussion November 2000

discussion@lists.fsfe.org

39 participants
35 discussions

GNU GPL and European law
by Jan Schaumann 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

Hi all, first off - congrats on forming FSFEurope. I'm qutie interested to see what this evolves to. But I got a question: Just the other day I found out that in Germany, there is no such thing as a "Copyright" - the "Copyright" is an american thing. The closest thing in Germany would be the "Urheberrecht", IIRC. Now my question is, if there is no equivalent to the US-Copyright, does the GNU GPL hold in Europe? Of course, IANAL, so I'd be interested in some responses from people with a clue, who are able to explain things in laymens terms. -Jan P.S.: Of course I also offer my help on various tasks for the FSF. <cheap plug> See my webpage for stuff I did and can do ;-) </cheap plug> -- Jan Schaumann <http://www.netmeister.org> Whoa, you can't, like, own property, maaaaaaaaan... - Hippie Of course I can - I'm not a freaking hippie! - Bender

5 7

a possible local model.
by Jose Eugenio Marchesi 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

Hi there, In spain, we have a branch of the Free Software Foundation. The branch is actually unnoficial in the sense it have not legal status. Despite of this, we are working hard to offer the FSF services in a local-useful manner (in spanish, for example :). In fact, the branch work is to be a front-end to the FSF. Our relation with the Free Software Foundation is good and the communication is constant. You can see our web page: http://fsf.eui.upm.es (The FSF will put the domain name www.es.gnu.org and www.es.fsf.org for us) A FSF Europe would be a very good think, and perhaps in the future our branch will be able to switch to this. Perhaps a good local model would be to set up local FSF branchs, as in Spain, and then (in a bottom-up manner) make the legal infrastructure to make an european organization, that would group the branchs. I it is better than the reverse model (first make the global organization and then the branchs). Saludos, Jose Eugenio Marchesi (jemarch(a)fsf.eui.upm.es) Coordinador General FSF/GNU Madrid (Spain)

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Re: Problems in .hr (I admit it.. I don't know about others)
by Marko Turunen 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

>We ahve one hell of a strong local M$. They've infiltrated our shools in >such a way that our secretary of schooling has a _contract_ with M$ giving >it a monopoly over our schools. That hurts, especially when I come to >school and hjave to work either on mess dos 5.0 (ouch!) or WinNT >(ARRGH!) 4. That has a ph.D. in sucking. >Our goverment uses only M$ products (and we _do_ have high >corruption) inside. HrOpen, a local open systems group, though considered >very important, wasn't asked a single quiestion when a study about the >development of Software firms was being done, and, interestingly enough, >the CEO of Microsoft Hrvatska was in the comitee... OUCH! I think that is very much a situation around the europe. At least it is in Finland - more or less. That's why I think FSFE is quite important organization. Problem really is that most of the people doesn't know anything else than Microsoft systems. That is the situation mostly because lack of organizations promoting free (or any other alternative) software at the same time when corporations like Microsoft spends millions of dollars to promote their software. I think FSFE will have good changes to turn this situation around. That's why I see FSFE very welcome. -M.T. -- In the source code I trust, others pay cash.

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Scottish interest
by Lord [INSERT NAME HERE] 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

Hello, all. I'm a CS student from Stirling, Scotland. I'd probably be considered to be on the "radical" end of the spectrum of the copyright debate (information wants to be free, man!), so I guess I'm the sort of guy you're looking for. The main page says the FSFE is looking to add organisations in a number of countries, including the UK. It occured to me when I read this that to cover the UK properly there'll have to be seperate organisations in England/Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, because each of these has a seperate legal system. I was also wondering exactly what we'll be doing- will we engage in direct political lobbying, for example? -- Lord [INSERT NAME HERE]

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Re: Problems in .hr
by Tomka Gergely 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

Hi! We have same problems: M$ oriented gov, corruption. The only one way: digging small holes in the system, fill with Free Software, and waiting. The erosion slowly take down the M$ system, and then the GNU can grow up. You need sense of humour and patience. -Tomka Gergely Ákos-TGTG of GT-tomka(a)interlinks.hu-

1 0

Hungary here
by Tomka Gergely 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

Hi! I am a small programer-sysadmin-network-engineer from Hungary, and i wish to pay with my work for the works of GNU and FSF peoples. -Tomka Gergely Ákos-TGTG of GT-tomka(a)interlinks.hu-

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Problems in .hr (I admit it.. I don't know about others)
by Sinisa "Sigma14" "187.64.230.77" Milicic 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

We ahve one hell of a strong local M$. They've infiltrated our shools in such a way that our secretary of schooling has a _contract_ with M$ giving it a monopoly over our schools. That hurts, especially when I come to school and hjave to work either on mess dos 5.0 (ouch!) or WinNT (ARRGH!) 4. That has a ph.D. in sucking. Our goverment uses only M$ products (and we _do_ have high corruption) inside. HrOpen, a local open systems group, though considered very important, wasn't asked a single quiestion when a study about the development of Software firms was being done, and, interestingly enough, the CEO of Microsoft Hrvatska was in the comitee... OUCH! btw.. the school I mentioned is linked to the museum in which last week's summit was held, so I had a friday off :) Sinisa -- "Mors EULAe, libertas softwarei!"

1 0

.NL contribution
by Pim van Riezen 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

Good day, The announcement of FSFE coincided conveniently with the instigation on my part to get the Dutch industry involved with the ongoing patent lobby. I am the coordinator of the development efforts of Vuurwerk Internet, currently one of the largest hosting ISPs in the Benelux. Our company is dedicated to delivering any produced software under the GPL flag, because we believe that the industry, especially in Europe, cannot afford to let their business be sidetracked by the waste of resources that goes into proprietary software development. We believe in free software as an answer to a lot of the growth problems of the ICT industry on both a national and a European scale and feel it is our moral obligation to make that point both politically and in actions. Our currently distributed free software can be found on http://www.tarball.net/ for those interested. I perceive FSFE to be a solid platform for us and likeminded people to get organized and increase our political leverage and we would like to be closely involved in its organization. If necessary, we can provide the project with free bandwidth and webspace, of course, aswell as contribute in other ways. Regards, Pim van Riezen Head of Development Vuurwerk Internet -- I need an enemy.

1 0

Long live free software
by Simo Sorce 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

Hi, I'm an Italian developer of GPLed Free Software (gnozip, contributions to samba), I wish to know what level of contribution is possible to give back to fsfeurope, and what kind of organization fsfeurope will have! Will there be any board of directors (elected?) or similar, or a different kind of organization? Simo. -- simo.sorce(a)tiscalinet.it http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/9757

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Interest from Ireland
by John O Sullivan 27 Nov '00

27 Nov '00

Hi, I assume that its okay to post in English on this list. I'm a Free Software Consultant based in Ireland and also a Debian developer. I'd like to help you to get this organised. Is there anything I can do to help? thanks, johno

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Discussion November 2000