Discussion November 2012

discussion@lists.fsfe.org

10 participants
8 discussions

Goal for February 14th: More love reports than bug reports! #ilovefs
by Matthias Kirschner 24 Feb '14

24 Feb '14

(If you are reading FSFE's newsletters [1] (and you should when you have not yet given me feedback what I could improve ;) ), and you already use one of our banners [2], you can skip this post because I copied and pasted it. Else please continue.) Let us admit it, the Free Software community is often very critical. Wewrite bug reports, tell others how they can improve the software, ask them fornew features, and to not spare with criticism. Sometimes we forget to say "thank you, for all your work". As in the last years, we want to change this, at least for one day. So on Tuesday the 14th of February we will celebrate the "I love Free Software" - Day [3]. Get active, buy your favourite developer a drink or give them a hug (ask forpermission first), write an e-mail/letter [4] expressing your feelings, create nice pictures, donate to a Free Software initiative, use another of our suggestions [5] or be create yourself to show how you appreciate people, working hard to enlarge or defend our freedom. Beside that help us to promote the activity with our banners [6], by e-mail, (micro)blog or in your (distributed?) social networks. New this year is a whole day event in the Unperfekthaus in Essen (Germany) [7] and that all our Fellows automatically get an login(a)ilovefs.org e-mail alias. So let's make sure that on February 14th there are more love reports, than bug reports! All the best, Matthias 1. http://fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html 2. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/ilovefs/2012/banners.html 3. http://ilovefs.org 4. http://blogs.fsfe.org/thomaslocke/2012/01/18/why-i-love-free-and-open-sourc… 5. http://ilovefs.org 6. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/ilovefs/2012/banners.html 7. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/ilovefs/2012/unperfekthaus.html -- Matthias Kirschner - FSFE - Fellowship Coordinator, German Coordinator FSFE, Linienstr. 141, 10115 Berlin, t +49-30-27595290 +49-1577-1780003 Free Software is important to you? Join today! (fsfe.org/join) Weblog (blogs.fsfe.org/mk) - Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner)

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Software Freedom Day: Hunt for Skype alternatives
by Sam Tuke 07 Feb '13

07 Feb '13

Hello all, this Saturday Free Software activists will determine the easiest ways of chatting using Free Software audio and video programs. We'll be testing out a variety of applications, including Pidgin, Empathy, and Kopete. The core group of testers will be in Madlab Hackerspace in Manchester, but *anyone can participate* - join the #FSFE IRC channel on Freenode to find people to test chatting with, and see what still needs testing (email manchester(a)lists.fsfe.org if you need help getting access to IRC). The aim is to publish the results as a compatibility chart that will show at a glance the easiest way to chat. As many Free Software users still use Skype due to confusion surrounding Free Software alternatives, our research will hopefully be very useful to a variety of individuals and organisations. *Activity outline* - Testing takes place on 15.09.12 at 14.00-17.00 UK time (15.00-18.00 CEST) - Use a grid of Free Software chat programs for collecting our findings - Test as many chat clients as possible (eg. Pidgin, Psi) - For each combination of programs test whether voice chat and video works (people without webcams can still test voice chat) *Optional additional tests* - Try connecting to other people at madlab, and also try connecting to people in other countries - Test the Free Software clients with different operating systems if people bring them installed on laptops - Test different versions of chat clients (not just the latest release) *Requirements* - Bring your own laptop (some older laptops will be available to borrow) - Your laptop should have either a built in microphone, a separate microphone, or mic headset *Optional Requirements* - Built in, or stand-alone webcam Three separate Free Software and GNU/Linux groups will be meeting in MadLab on Saturday: Manchester FSFE Fellowship Group, Manchester Free Software, and ManLUG. Other activities will likely be available in addition to chat testing, so feel free to come along and see what you fancy. MadLab event page: http://madlab.org.uk/content/fsfe-manchester-free-software- and-manlug/ "See" you there (one way or another :) ), Sam. -- Sam Tuke Campaign Manager Free Software Foundation Europe IM : samtuke(a)jabber.fsfe.org Latest UK Free Software news: uk.fsfe.org Is freedom important to you? Join the fellowship.fsfe.org

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FSFE wiki card howto / subkeys
by Daniel Pocock 07 Jan '13

07 Jan '13

The how-to guides: http://wiki.fsfe.org/Card_howtos all steer people away from keeping the main key on a card. Yet some of the coloured notes here: http://www.gnupg.org/howtos/card-howto/en/ch05s02.html suggest that may not be best practice today. Can anyone comment on the state of play? My understanding is that various possibilities exist, potentially with multiple cards: card 1: - main RSA private key - used for signing other keys - kept in a safe at home card 2: - sub key - signed by main key - card that is kept in the wallet

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PDFreaders recommended by government - and what else we achived
by Léopold Baillard 27 Nov '12

27 Nov '12

Two weeks have been gone since we launched the PDF Readers fundraising. First, we want to thank everyone who made a donation. Currently, we received 907 EUR (more than 80% of the goal). Thanks to your donation, and you informing your friends about this work, we will reach the 1100 EUR until the 4th of December. What happened beside the fact that 554 administrations fixed the advertisement? Some politicians are already working to fix the advertisment for non-free software European wide and on the Member State level. For example, at the European level, Members of the European Parliament submitted parliamentary questions to the Commission[1] to find out where the Commission does this advertisement; why they do so; if they tested their websites with Free Software PDF readers; and how they plan to solve the problem for the Commission's own website and the websites of other public institutions in the Member States. On the national level, the German Green Party made a statement and submitted 18 questions to the German Federal Government about advertisement of proprietary PDFreader software on German Federal Government's websites (in German)[2]. In addition, the German Government is now recommends to use our text snippet "to open this PDF file, you need a PDF reader. You can download one of the following programs..." in their [3]new migration guide (in German) and highlights that there should be no advertisement for non-free software readers by public authorities. Besides that, since the fundraising started, the number of people supporting our 'Petition For The Removal Of Proprietary Software Advertising On Public Institution Websites' [4] has now reached 2579 signatures. Once again, thanks for supporting this campaign and for your funding. Finally, we would like to suggest everyone to turn off Javascript before you go to the donation page [5] . This way, you will avoid to run nonfree Javascript code. We apologise for this inconvenience, which is an issue related with this platform. Moreover, we have asked the platform managers to address this problem, and they agreed to work on this. Links: [1] https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/parliamentary-questions-eu.en.html [2] http://gruen-digital.de/2012/03/document-freedom-day-kleine-anfrage-zur-wer… [ 3] http://www.cio.bund.de/DE/Architekturen-und-Standards/Migrationsleitfaden-u… [4] http://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/petition.html [5] http://www.ulule.com/pdfreaders/] -- Léopold Baillard - FSFE intern in Berlin - E-mail : leobaillard(a)fsfe.org Mobile : + 49 (0) 151 21 40 55 46 GPG : 59C6 1CCA 2343 8DE4 D4FF D96A BC55 4A21 3B90 C658 Support FSFE! http://fsfe.org/support/?leobaillard

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Summary about Karsten's talk "All watched over by machines of loving grace"
by Matthias Kirschner 26 Nov '12

26 Nov '12

There is a good summary of Karsten's talk: lwn.net/Articles/523537/. I really recommend everyone reading it and please send feedback about it also here. Regards, Matthias -- Matthias Kirschner - FSFE - Fellowship Coordinator, German Coordinator FSFE, Linienstr. 141, 10115 Berlin, t +49-30-27595290 +49-1577-1780003 Weblog (blogs.fsfe.org/mk) - Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) Support FSFE! http://fsfe.org/support/?mk

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Science and Information Conference 2013 * 7-9 October 2013, London, UK *
by SETIT 21 Nov '12

21 Nov '12

Appologies if you received multiple copies. Please forward this message to any potential colleagues in the areas of interest Call for Papers Science and Information Conference 2013 7-9 October 2013, London, UK Science and Information Conference 2013 will be held in London, a vibrant and historical city which is home to multiple academic institutions and where visitors can enjoy a variety of activities and entertainment from London Eye to Oxford Street to the ever green London Bridge! The conference will be held over three days, with paper presentations from the international community of authors, including presentations from keynote speakers and state-of-the-art lectures. SAI Conference aims to be a premier venue for researchers and industry practitioners to share their new ideas, original research results and practical development experiences from Computer Science, Electronics and Communication related areas. Science and Information Conference 2013 is also technically co-sponsored by IEEE CIS UKRI chapter. More informations can be found at this link. Best regards International Liason's Chair of SIC 2013 Mohamed Salim BOUHLEL SETIT, Sfax University, TUNISIA GSM +216 20 20 00 05 ======================================================================================== This email is sent out to all those on the SETIT database. If you want to be removed from this database, please send an email to unsubscribe.setit(a)gmail.com with subject Unsubscribe ========================================================================================

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Good news from German Government about Secure Boot
by Matthias Kirschner 20 Nov '12

20 Nov '12

Hi there, good news from the German Government. See: FSFE welcomes German Government's White Paper on "Secure Boot" http://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20121120-01.en.html If you think that work is important and you have not yet done so, please become a supporter of FSFE: http://fsfe.org/support/?restrictedboot (it does not cost anything and takes 4 minutes) AND please ask three friends to also do so! Regards, Matthias -- Matthias Kirschner - FSFE - Fellowship Coordinator, German Coordinator FSFE, Linienstr. 141, 10115 Berlin, t +49-30-27595290 +49-1577-1780003 Weblog (blogs.fsfe.org/mk) - Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) Support FSFE! http://fsfe.org/support/?mk

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petition: official currency code for Bitcoin (BTC?)
by Daniel Pocock 17 Nov '12

17 Nov '12

Somebody has started a petition to get an ISO 4217 currency code for Bitcoin recognised by the ISO authorities: http://www.change.org/petitions/six-interbank-clearing-include-a-symbol-for… There is some background info in these forums (and contact details if you want to write a formal submission to the ISO as well as signing the petition): https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=123600.msg1327579#msg1327579 It would be interesting to know the FSF Europe position with respect to Bitcoin - can anyone comment? Has there been any initiative in any European country to have Bitcoin recognised or to confirm its legal status?

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Discussion November 2012