Discussion April 2007

discussion@lists.fsfe.org

21 participants
22 discussions

Re: FSFE ignoring OOXML?
by Sean DALY 24 Apr '07

24 Apr '07

Three additional links An article by Edward Macnaghten in Free Software Magazine http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/node/2110 Rob Weir of IBM follows this closely and updated his blog yesterday: http://www.robweir.com/blog/ David Wheeler last week: http://www.dwheeler.com/blog/2007/04/18/#gmu-sample-document Sean > Message du 24/04/07 10:53 > De : "Sean DALY" <sean.daly(a)wanadoo.fr> > A : discussion(a)fsfeurope.org > Copie à : > Objet : Re: FSFE ignoring OOXML? > > > Torsten is not saying whom he tried to contact... I don't know if FSFE is coordinating activity on this subject, however I have been contributing to the Groklaw coverage in particular this article for which I translated France's standards body AFNOR response: > > http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2007030308154032 > > see also: > http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070312083134403 > > > > Andrew Updegrove, a US-based lawyer, is following these developments, see: > http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=2007031221380… > > > > Bob Sutor of IBM comments frequently on this issue and provided a link to the countries' responses (PDF): > http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1528 > > > > The official Microsoft line can be found here: > http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/ > > > Sean > >

1 0

Re: FSFE ignoring OOXML?
by Sean DALY 24 Apr '07

24 Apr '07

Torsten is not saying whom he tried to contact... I don't know if FSFE is coordinating activity on this subject, however I have been contributing to the Groklaw coverage in particular this article for which I translated France's standards body AFNOR response: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2007030308154032 see also: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070312083134403 Andrew Updegrove, a US-based lawyer, is following these developments, see: http://www.consortiuminfo.org/standardsblog/article.php?story=2007031221380… Bob Sutor of IBM comments frequently on this issue and provided a link to the countries' responses (PDF): http://www.sutor.com/newsite/blog-open/?p=1528 The official Microsoft line can be found here: http://blogs.msdn.com/brian_jones/ Sean > Message du 24/04/07 10:26 > De : "MJ Ray" <mjr(a)phonecoop.coop> > A : discussion(a)fsfeurope.org > Copie à : > Objet : FSFE ignoring OOXML? > > There's just been a call for help on a debian mailing list. > In amongst it, it includes the phrase "I did not get a response > from the Free Software Foundation Europe." What's happened? > > > From bounce-debian-project=mjr=phonecoop.coop(a)lists.debian.org Tue Apr 24 06:41:23 2007 > > Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2007 07:41:08 +0200 > > From: "Torsten Werner" <twerner(a)debian.org> > > Reply-To: mail.twerner(a)googlemail.com > > To: debian-project(a)lists.debian.org > > Subject: ballot period for ECMA 376 / DIS 29500 (aka OOXML) > > List-Id: <debian-project.lists.debian.org> > > > > Hi, > > > > > > I want to remind you that the ballot period about Microsoft/ECMA > > office document format runs until the beginning of September and > > national ISO bodies have to vote about the fasttrack process. > > Microsoft is very active in this process, free software people are not > > as far as I know, e.g. I did not get a response from the Free Software > > Foundation Europe. The risk of a successful standardization of OOXML > > is the marginalization of ODF (ISO 26300) which would make migrations > > from non-free software to free software more difficult in the long > > run. > > > > If you are interested in preventing that scenario please take action > > *now*. Contact your national ISO bodies and tell them your interests. > > In Germany you can become a member of DIN's working group. I can > > explain the details if someone is interested. Maybe that is possible > > in other countries, too. > > > > A good starting point for more information is > > http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070123071154671 . > > > > > > Cheers, > > Torsten > > > > -- > > blog: http://twerner.blogspot.com/ > > homepage: http://www.twerner42.de/ > > > > > > -- > > To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-project-REQUEST(a)lists.debian.org > > with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmaster(a)lists.debian.org > > > > -- > MJ Ray - see/vidu http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html > Experienced webmaster-developers for hire http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ > Also: statistician, sysadmin, online shop builder, workers co-op. > Writing on koha, debian, sat TV, Kewstoke http://mjr.towers.org.uk/ > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > Discussion(a)fsfeurope.org > https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion > >

1 0

More on IPRED2 - the criminalisation directive
by Ciaran O'Riordan 18 Apr '07

18 Apr '07

FSFE will be sending an open letter to the MEPs tonight when translations are done: http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ipred2/letter-april-2007.en.html And I've put all the useful links I could think of into a blog entry: http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/act_now_on_n… The amendments that FSFE endorses are on this page (now also in PDF): http://action.ffii.org/ipred2/FFII_Analysis The open letter is not exhaustive, and there is plenty I would like to add, but it hits the key points: * Short and simple enough for the MEP to read * Short enough to be translated to many languages in a short timeframe * Show that we have read the Directive and that we understand it * Make it clear that we want amendments, and say which amendments we want * Finish it and send it to the MEPs as early as possible * Show that the current text is *not* supported by the free software commmunity (That last point is important because the person in charge of this Directive, Nicola Zingaretti, likes to tell people he is a free software supporter - so we have to tell MEPs that we do not support his version) The amendments we're endorsing are very good. I would rather endorse rejecting the Directive, but that proposal would fail in the European Parliament, and I would rather the amendments didn't use the word "piracy" so much, but there are two good reasons for doing this. One is that "copyright piracy" is much narrower than "copyright infringement", which is good, and the other is that the TRIPS agreement requires that signatories prevent "copyright piracy", so by addressing "copyright piracy" in this Directive, we prevent people from using "copyright piracy" as an excuse for a further Directive. The vote is next week and the MEPs are discussing it this week, so if you want to get active on this, please do so as soon as possible. The most useful thing to do is to contact your MEP and ask them to vote for the amendments that I linked above. -- Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3 http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ GPLv3 and other work supported by http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org

1 1

multilicensing and relicensing doubts
by lolo 17 Apr '07

17 Apr '07

Hi, I have some doubts about licensing which i didn't find them solved reading the gnu.org's site and i thought of asking them here because maybe replies can be added there later... (maybe i haven't find the proper urls and maybe i'm asking dumb/repetitive questions...ignore and sorry if so) Multilicensing: 1-Could i license something under 2 diferent copyleft compatible licenses? 1.1-Could i license something under 2 copyleft uncompatible licenses? 1.1.1-If so, Could i also add a third one to the same document? 1.1.2-Could i also license it with a fourth free, non-copyleft, gpl compatible one? Re-licensing: Project 'a' was GPL when it was 1.1, now is 2.2 and has changed into LGPL, ok? Project 'b' was GFDL and now hasn't got any license displayed, ok? Project 'c' was GFDL and they changed the license banner into another copyleft uncompatible one, ok? Thanks in advance,

4 3

FSFE Newsletter
by Free Software Foundation Europe 13 Apr '07

13 Apr '07

1. FTF introduces useful tips for compliance 2. Talk about GPLv3 in Brussels 3. STACS kickoff meeting in Paris 4. FSFE thanks Google for sponsoring 1 year of internship 5. Introducing FSFE's new interns 6. Announcing a new Italian Fellowship meeting 1. FTF introduces useful tips for compliance The Freedom Task Force (FTF) is proud to announce another little step towards making Free Software licensing information more accessible. In partnership with our volunteers we have introduced useful tips for GNU GPL compliance to help users and vendors make the most of Free Software and to provide a stepping stone to authoritative information resources on the Internet. Thanks to the hard work of our translators these guides are available in English, Portugese, and Dutch, with French and German versions coming soon. Useful tips for users: http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/useful-tips-for-users.html Useful tips for vendors: http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/useful-tips-for-vendors.html 2. Talk about GPLv3 in Brussels As part of FSFE's ongoing efforts to raise awareness and explain what is happening in the GPLv3 process, Ciaran O'Riordan organised a talk by Richard Stallman on GPLv3. A transcript of which is already online. The event was co-organised by Association Electronique Libre. http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/brussels-rms-transcript 3. STACS kickoff meeting in Paris STACS (Science, Technology and Civil Society) is an EU funded project that aims to bridge the gap between civil society and research. It will do this by preparing Civil Society Organisations through a series of training sessions. This will help them to build the capacity to approach scientific questions and research. Through a series of workshops STACS will also seek to attract researchers to cooperation with Civil Society Organisations by identifying research topics and helping people meet each other for potential future projects in EU's 7th Framework Program. Within this project, FSFE will organise a workshop and a training session about Free Software. FSFE is also involved in the creation of the public web page of the project, making sure it only consists of Free Software. http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/stacs/ 4. FSFE thanks Google for sponsoring 1 year of internship Started in 2004, internships at FSFE have given several young people the chance to learn all about Free Software and work as part of FSFE's Team. These interns typically come from backgrounds in management, social science, law and administration to help educate the next generation of managers and scientists about Free Software. As a result of the positive experience with previous interns and many requests from potential candidates, FSFE hopes to extend and evolve its internship programme. FSFE would like to thank Google for helping us realise this. http://www.fsfeurope.org/contribute/internship.en.html 5. Introducing FSFE's new interns Guillaume Yziquel is FSFE's new intern in Zürich, and will be working there up to the beginning of September. Guillaume was born in Grenoble, and obtained a master's degree in mathematics at the École Polytechnique, near Paris, in 2006. He has been an end-user of Free Software since 2001, when he met the VLC development team. He will focus on the promotion of open standards and assist the Freedom Task Force, while also taking care of day-to-day issues as Georg Greve's assistant. Christof Thim joined the FSFE as an intern at the Swedish team in Gothenburg. Christof received his diploma in business informatics at the Berlin School of Economics. After that, he decided to study sociology, politics and economics at the University of Potsdam. Christof got in touch with Free Software during his work at IBM in 2001. In Gothenburg, he will be primarily concerned with the Swedish part of the SELF Project and the preparation of proposals on the 7th Framework Programme of the EC. 6. Announcing a new Italian Fellowship meeting A Fellowship meeting is being organised in these days. It will happen in Cosenza on 13 May in a beatiful area in southern Italy. It will be an occasion for Fellows to meet and bring forward the ideas proposed during the first international meeting in Bolzano. Details of the event are being sorted out as this is written, mainly in Italian on http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/meetings/2007_cosenza and on fsfe.org forums. The Fellowship meeting will also be preceeded by two whole days of scientific conference about Free Software. Details are also in English on http://confsl.org. You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html

1 0

April 25th vote on the criminalisation directive (IPRED2)
by Ciaran O'Riordan 13 Apr '07

13 Apr '07

The European Parliament seems set to vote on April 25th on the directive to criminalise "aiding, abetting, or inciting" infringement of copyright, trademarks, and patents. (Called "IPRED2", but that's not a good name because it spreads the "IP" confusion.) I'm currently updating our page on this: http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ipred2/ There is broad support for removing patents, so that will probably happen and doesn't need to be our focus. We need to focus on removing the crimes of "aiding, abetting, and inciting" infringements, and limiting copyright and trademark infringement criminalisation to cases such as large-scale fraud and cases that case health or safety risks. Very roughly, the reasons why free software supporters should be interested in this are: * Developers of filesharing software, maybe including webservers, could be accused of the new crimes of "attempting, aiding, abetting, or inciting" copyright infringement - and investigations of these accusations would be paid for by the national governments because, as crimes, the police would have a duty to investigate * Software projects may be required to implement functionality to prevent the use of the software for copyright infringing purposes * Directory services and search engines could be accused of the new crimes listed above * Free software alternatives to DRM-restricted software could be accused of the above crimes. For example, if Adobe's PDF reader doesn't allow printing, but a free software PDF reader does, then the latter could be accused of being a copyright infringement tool (even though a user might only use it to print documents where the copyright has expired or where printing is allowed by the licence of the document they're viewing) And the two main things to do are to sign this petition: http://www.copycrime.eu/petition And contact our MEPs and tell them to support amendment such as these: http://action.ffii.org/ipred2/FFII_Analysis (Unfortunatley, the most up to date amendments are only in MS Word format) -- Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3 http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ GPLv3 and other work supported by http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org

1 0

Re: looking for fellows from Poland
by Paweł Madej 10 Apr '07

10 Apr '07

> I welcome your initiative very much and want to support you in any way I > can. If there's something I can help you with (even though I don't speak > a word Polish), please let me know! > > Thanks, > Reinhard Thank you for intent :) As far as I know there are no people from Poland involved in translators project, so my problem will be to proofread and make some corrections to my translations. I know english quite good but I got in some cases very big problems in translating a meaning of english sentence to polish. That's why I need someone who can read english and consult the translation to polish. At this time my plan is very chaotic in terms of making it reality. My goals are unclear, incomplete and most of them need some rethink, so I won't talk about that until I will know for my own what I want to do. But my first, most important and clean enough goal is to give citizens of Poland possibility to read information about FSFE activity and Free Software in general. If you know someone from Poland and is/was interested in participating with FSFE please let me know, so I can talk with him/her about cooperation and help. Greets Paweł Madej Poland

2 1

A Study on Free/Open Source Software Defect Management
by Anu Gupta DCSA 10 Apr '07

10 Apr '07

Dear FSF Contributors, I am really thankful to Free/Open Source Software development community for their overwhelming response to the survey on practices and problems of defect management in Free/Open Source Software projects. If you have not participated ealier, you may spend a few minutes now too. The Online Questionnaire is available at: http://anu.puchd.ac.in/phpESP/public/survey.php?name=FOSS_Defect_Survey I hope you have found all the questions interesting and thought-provoking. Your answers will be kept anonymous.The data thus collected will only be used for research purpose. The insights gained from the study can further help us to extract publicly accessible defect data and determine impact of defect management practices on software quality. The results of study will soon be communicated to you. Thank You With regards, Anu Gupta Senior Lecturer Department of Computer Science and Applications, Panjab University, Chandigarh. INDIA In case of any problem in accessing/using the above mentioned link please contact: E-mail: anugupta(a)pu.ac.in anugupta98(a)gmail.com

1 0

looking for fellows from Poland
by Paweł Madej 09 Apr '07

09 Apr '07

Hello, I'm looking for fellows from Poland which could help me in making fsfeurope.org site accessible all in polish language, as fast as it is possible. If you could translate some files / documents that's great, but if you don't feel good enough in translating or have no time to translate but you feel good in reading english texts and understanding them I also look for people who could check my translations and proofread them on translators(a)fsfeurope.org mailing list so they could become official. Any help is apprieciated, let's together make the site and Free Software available for Polish people. Greets Paweł Madej Poland

1 0

A Survey on Defect Management Practices in Free/Open Source Software
by Anu Gupta DCSA 04 Apr '07

04 Apr '07

Dear Free Software Contributors, I seek help from designers, developers, testers,defect fixers,project managers or playing any other key role in Free/Open Source software development or maintenence in carrying out a study on practices and problems of defect management in various Free/Open Source Software projects. The insights gained from the study can further help us to extract publicly accessible defect data and determine impact of defect management practices on software quality. If you are contributing to free software development then please spend a few minutes of your precious time to fill up the Questionnaire. The most of the questions follow multiple choice formats and are quite easy to answer. To have the Online Questionnaire, please visit: http://anu.puchd.ac.in/phpESP/public/survey.php?name=FOSS_Defect_Survey (You can also copy and paste this link into your browser, and hit the 'Return' key.) I hope you will find all the questions interesting and thought-provoking. Your answers will be kept anonymous.The data thus collected will only be used for research purpose.It would be nice if you may further refer this mail to others actively engaged with Free/Open Source Software development. If you have any query or suggestions then feel free to contact. Thank You With regards, Anu Gupta Senior Lecturer Department of Computer Science and Applications, Panjab University, Chandigarh. INDIA In case of any problem in accessing/using the above mentioned link please contact: E-mail: anugupta(a)pu.ac.in anugupta98(a)gmail.com

2 1

2024

2023

2022

2021

2020

2019

2018

2017

2016

2015

2014

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

2002

2001

2000

Discussion April 2007