Do any of you see something new - as in, some action actually
threatened, or signs of a "stepping up" - in Steve Ballmer's most
recent statements?
http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2200717/microsoft-sharpens-aims-patenthttp://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071008205138925
To me it seems that by pointing a finger directly a Red Hat the effect
of scaring business away from FOSS becomes more specific - and, in a
way, more pointed that previously. Now it's not so much "there are
some patents but we're not telling which" but rather "there are some
patents and we're not telling which, but people using those products
are going to have to pay up."
But is there any real harm done by it - except for the FUD? Or is the
main harm done by such statements perhaps to Microsoft itself?
best regards,
Carsten
--
http://www.modspil.dk
- fordi tiden kræver et MODSPIL!
1. Microsoft antitrust: A victory for Free Software and freedom of competition
2. WIPO: FSFE calls for interoperability and Open Standards
3. Freedom Task Force signs MoU with TIS Free Software Center, Southern Tyrol, Italy
4. Videos of FSFE president Georg Greve with Chilean Minister of Economy
5. FSFE supports protest against increased surveillance of digital communication
6. FSFE presents FSCONS and The Scandinavian Free Software Award
7. FSFE at OpenExpo, Switzerland
8. Get active
1. Microsoft antitrust: A victory for Free Software and freedom of competition
European Commission demands for Microsoft to cease obstruction of
interoperability with its products and to cease bundling practices
have been upheld in the European Court of First Instance.
These events originate in a complaint by Sun Microsystem about a lack
of interoperability information for Microsoft products in 1998. This
lead to the Commission's 2004 decision that Microsoft unfairly
distorted the market and Microsoft's subsequent appeal against this
ruling at the European Court. This appeal has now been rejected on
all counts and it was even noted that the Commission had been too
lenient with Microsoft on some issues.
More information can be found in FSFE's press release and a Groklaw
article explaining the fallacies of Microsoft's spin following the
decision:
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q3/000186.htmlhttp://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070923170905803
2. WIPO: FSFE calls for interoperability and Open Standards
The 2007 Assembly of the Member States was quite confrontational and
could not reach agreement despite going into overtime. This was
largely due to the turmoil surrounding WIPO's Director General Kamil
Idris and allegations of misconduct. There was also tension over the
fees WIPO receives and the need to increase effectiveness of
organisation. It quickly became clear that budgeting could endanger
the success of agreements like the Development Agenda.
In response, FSFE is calling for interoperable, vendor-independent and
Open Standards based procurement at WIPO, and for the WIPO committees
to study Free Software and Open Standards more closely:
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/wipo/statement-20070928
3. Freedom Task Force signs MoU with TIS Free Software Center, Southern Tyrol, Italy
FSFE's Freedom Task Force has signed a Memorandum of Understanding
with the TIS Free Software Center about increased cooperation in the
field of Free Software licensing and training. Both groups expect to
work closely together on developing common services.
4. Videos of FSFE president Georg Greve with Chilean Minister of Economy
The Chilean Ministry of Economy has put the recording of a meeting
between Chilean Minister of Economy Alejandro Ferreiro and FSFE
president Georg Greve on-line on YouTube. The talks are about economics
of Free Software and legislation to create a transition path towards
freedom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz6LO16JNPUhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae2MCdUTKME
5. FSFE supports protest against increased surveillance of digital communication
The German Chapter of the FSFE supported a protest under the slogan
"Liberty instead of Fear - Stop the Surveillance Mania!" on 22nd
September in Berlin. In total more than 15,000 people participated
in the demonstration.
The protest took a stand against the retention of telecommunication
data, an issue that is extremely topical on Autumn's political agenda
in Germany. Other issues of concern included the suggested covert
on-line-searching of computers.
By supporting the protest, FSFE emphasises the value of liberty in
digital communication. The large turnout shows that people consider
the continuing tightening of surveillance laws to be unacceptable.
This was the largest protest for civil liberties and privacy
protection in Germany since the census in 1987.
6. FSFE presents FSCONS and The Scandinavian Free Software Award
The Free Software Conference Scandinavia (FSCONS) is going to take
place in Gothenburg, Sweden on the 7th and 8th of December 2007. It
is the first event of its kind in the region and is inspired by the
growing momentum around Free Software. Top notch programmers, hackers,
lawyers, and government representatives will speak to stakeholders from
all areas of Free Software. Spreading the buzz for Free Software in the
region is the goal.
As part of FSCONS, FSFE is also presenting the first Scandinavian Free
Software Award. Presented to a person, project or organisation from
Scandinavia that has showed an outstanding contribution to the cause
and spirit to Free our minds, it is to become an annual event.
http://www.fscons.orghttp://www.fscons.org/award_idea
7. FSFE at OpenExpo, Switzerland
At this year's OpenExpo in Zurich, FSFE president Georg Greve opened
the event with a keynote speech entitled "Free Software is compatible
with your business." The audio recording and slides (all in German)
are available at:
http://www.openexpo.ch/openexpo-2007-zuerich#c188
8. Get active
Do you want to contribute to digital freedom? Get active by
joining our Fellowship, contributing as a translator, webmaster or
booth volunteer, or even come to one of our offices as an intern.
Find out more by visiting the link below:
http://fsfeurope.org/contribute
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
Here's something interesting if you are into Free Software and Statistics (and
OOXML of course :)
Allin Cottrell replicated a statistical analysis carried out by people at
effi.org (Electronic Frontier Finland), showing significant correlation between
the "perceived corruption index" of a country and their support to OOXML.
FYI, the original effi.org analysis (http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2007-09-05.en.html)
was done using GNU R ( http://www.r-project.org ), Allin's scripts are for gretl
(http://gretl.sf.net), both are Free Software.
Cri
----- Forwarded message from Allin Cottrell <cottrell(a)wfu.edu> -----
> Date: Tue, 2 Oct 2007 14:17:07 -0400 (EDT)
> From: Allin Cottrell <cottrell(a)wfu.edu>
> To: Gretl users <gretl-users(a)lists.wfu.edu>
> Subject: [Gretl-users] cute sample script?
>
> For anyone using current CVS gretl or the Windows snapshot: I've
> added a datafile and sample script pertaining to the possible role
> of corruption in last month's ISO vote on Microsoft's "Office Open
> XML". See http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2007-09-05.en.html
> The files are ooballot.gdt and ooballot.inp.
>
> At effi.org there are analyses using Fisher's Exact Test and the
> Rank Sum test (done with R). The gretl script replicates those,
> but also includes an ordered probit, which seems to provide
> stronger evidence for the claim: the greater the degree of
> "perceived corruption" in a country, the more likely was a
> favourable vote for MS.
>
> Allin.
> _______________________________________________
> Gretl-users mailing list
> Gretl-users(a)lists.wfu.edu
> http://lists.wfu.edu/mailman/listinfo/gretl-users
----- End forwarded message -----
Good evening,
Just a heads up: tomorrow there will be a vote in Portugal for a
proposal that sets up a possible migration to Free Software in the
Portuguese Parliament.
If approved, the parliament will have to:
* Make all published documents available in the internet and on the
internet abide an open standard.
* Install in all desktops Free Software, specifically, an office suite
and other tools.
* Prepare a Free Software training program for the users.
* Prepara a Free Software migration plan.
After this, there will be a second discussion and vote next year to
decide if there will be such a migration. The proposal ID is 227/X:
http://www3.parlamento.pt/PLC/Iniciativa.aspx?ID_Ini=33549
And you can find ANSOL's analysis in the PDF linked from our press release:
http://listas.ansol.org/pipermail/ansol-imprensa/2007-October/000061.html
Best regards,
João Miguel Neves
On 10/5/07, Christian Siefkes <christian(a)siefkes.net> wrote:
> Ist ja auch keine Dokumentation! RMS erlaubt bei seinen Essays nur die
> unveränderte Weitergabe, verstößt er damit auch gegen den Geist der Freien
> Software?
Ja, dass tut er meiner Meinung nach, weil eine Wiederverwendung von
Teilen des Textes in modifizierter Form nicht möglich ist. Bei freier
Software ist eine solche Beschränkung völlig unakzeptabel.
Viele Grüße,
Torsten
--
blog: http://twerner.blogspot.com/
homepage: http://www.twerner42.de/
> From: MJ Ray <mjr(a)phonecoop.coop>
> I already posted three squirrelmail-using web mail providers!
>
> There's http://www.ippimail.com/ (ad-supported) http://altern.org/
> (AKA 3615 INTERNET, supported by sales of extra services) and
> http://www.phonecoop.coop/ (paid accounts, I'm agent AG471). I'm
> pretty sure all three use well-known free software on the backend too.
>
> Hope this reaches you this time!
Hi!
I wonder why it matters if the backend is free software or not. It's a
service, and the free software backed can be tweaked any way the service
owner wants to. This also applies to the squirellmail frontend: the hoster
tweaks it. The end-user don't.
I'm also sure that there are large portions of Gmail that are open source.
Probably all the servers run Apache. Google is well known for using a lot of
Python: free software. They provide a service backed by free software.
The amount of the tweaking is the only different.
And probably the amount of support of free software.
Regards:
Gery Mate
Dear all,
the FSFE is participating in a project called STACS (Science, Technology
and Civil Society) where a part of our work is to organise an event
where civil society organisations (not necessarily those in the computer
field) can learn about Free Software.
This event has just been publicised on
http://fsfeurope.org/stacs/london
The event is organised by the FSFE together with M6-IT and will take
place in London on the 2nd of November 2007. If you know of
organisations or people that you think might be interested to attend,
please give them this information, but please note that we have a
deadline already on the 19th of october for applications for those that
want to attend.
--
Jonas Öberg
Free Software Foundation Europe ( Join the Fellowship )
Tel. +46-31-780 21 61 Mob. +46-733 423 962 ( http://fsfe.org )