I write to notify you of my candidacy for fellowship representative. I had
some messages blocked and delayed so there is a kind-of lengthy
meta-discussion before the announcement of candidacy. Feel Free to skip the
meta-discussion.
--- meta-discussion : VOTING ---
First to say how i feel about elections, and their use in the context of
Modern Free Software.
Although, many see this as an opportunity to encourage, endorse, and
ultimately grow the Free Software community. The full picture is not so
simple. I agree growth is good, but in what direction? Also, where winners
are created there are bound to be losers -- so any encouragement would come
at the expense of discouragement for others. Therefore i think it is
absolutely critical that fairness, and a desire to grow with out commercial
motivation shape the elections for FSFE representative.
Regarding the system of elected representatives. The first system of
representative governance comes from Rome, beginning in ~700BC. At the
time, it was NOT seen as an ideal solution to the challenges of governance.
Indeed, it was a compromise based on what was feasible for them at that
time.
Although many continue to see this system as an expedient, effetibe, and
supremely feasible default-option. Long-term Free Software community
members recognize that is not how Free Software has operated. Those will
understand it as little more than blindly groping for a handle on the Free
Software community by electing/erecting a familiar
scaffolding-hierarchy-thing. In the end, you will see it's a community of
individuals free from influence of community-managers and sheep-herders;
the disturbing trend of paid community managers influencing Open Source
projects on behalf of mega-corps.
In my personal opinion, the Free Software community has not been so much
about maintaining strict community management practices and governance
models based on large corporate structures, but more about promoting
Software. I would not otherwise tarnish a valiant effort in the name of
Free Software, but i think the FSFE can lead the way on this.
*** Important Meta-Point *** In the past, a system of elected
representatives was necessitated largely by technological limitations
regarding the speed of a horse drawn carriage. Why should we continue to be
harnessed to an obsolete system who's inertia is limiting the growth of
Free Software?
Ironically, today, the technological means exist for a Fellowship card
carrying individual to vote any time any where for any purpose;
specifically, card carrying fellows have the capability to use Strong
cryptography in a secure way built into their Fellowship card.
Additionally, the fact that there is only one "official" candidate on the
ballot!
If elected, i would not be afraid to make exception to a rule where the
intent of rule is preserved. In the case where only one person is on the
ballot, write-ins may be allowed in the interest of a meaningful "election."
Additionally, regarding the rule that "To be a candidate, you need to have
been an active Fellow for at least a year before the election (so April
4th, 2015). This helps to make sure that the people elected into the GA are
familiar with the organization and its work."
And, the selection of the Schulze Voting System "For the voting process we
will use the Schulze method, a popular voting system used by Debian,
Wikimedia and others. It is a well tested method and has proven to be
resistant to voting anomalies. "
Don't you think it anomalous to have an election with only one candidate?
Finally, It has come to my attention by means of blocked messages and
delayed communications that those running the election would prevent you
from voting for me (even as a write-in candidate) out of some misguided
sense that they are "helping to make sure the people elected into the GA..."
Although it is my opinion that the FSFE risks it's relevance by using their
technology as a door to exclude people from this election. However, weather
or not you are allowed to vote for me in this election is not my decision.
As i said, if elected i would not be afraid to make an obvious exception in
the interest of a meaningful election.
Ultimately, this election is not vital to the continued development of Free
Software, but your continued support and encouragement is. I am here to let
you know that the choice is yours!
If you feel strongly about my candidacy or anything i have written i ask
you to please make a vote with your personal
engorgement/discouragement/feedback/etc! Write to me! Your message could
mean i decide to make the GNUBurgers regardless of the outcome of this
election.
--- end-meta-discussion --
Joe Awni - http://joe.cryptobiz.directory
Candidacy
For more than a decade i use exclusively Free Software. Last year, i built
a website on 100% Free Software stack: http://cryptobiz.directory (FSF
approval pending). This year, i enjoyed traveling across Europe to computer
conferences (FOSDEM [where i saw RMS], 32C3) to promote Free Software in
innovative ways. Personally, i think the future of Free Software depends on
our ability to connect with young software developers. With that in mind, i
organized the GNUBurger.
GNUBurgers are made from a GPLv3 instruction set :
https://foodhackingbase.org/wiki/Recipe:Mildenburger and usually have the
GPLv3 logo toasted into the bun.
I'm hoping to earn your endorsement and vote to continue to representing
the Free Software community with my pledge that if elected i will make
freely available GNUBurgers to all software developers who wish. And, will
attend as many events as possible.
HI,
I know its late, but please consider me for the role of representative. I'm
in the habit of attending many computer events and promoting Free Software
in innovative ways. Your endorsement would mean alot to me, it would
motivate me to do more for Free Software!
>From the WIki https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/FellowshipElection_2016http://joe.cryptobiz.directory
Candidacy
For more than a decade i use exclusively Free Software. Last year, i built
a website on 100% Free Software stack: http://cryptobiz.directory (FSF
approval pending). This year, i enjoyed travelling across Europe to
computer conferences (FOSDEM [where i saw RMS], 32C3) to promote Free
Software in innovative ways. Personally, i think the future of Free
Software depends on our ability to connect with young software developers.
With that in mind, i organized the GNUBurger.
GNUBurgers are made from a GPLv3 instruction set :
https://foodhackingbase.org/wiki/Recipe:Mildenburger and usually have the
GPLv3 logo toasted into the bun.
I'm hoping to earn your endorsement and vote to continue to representing
the Free Software community with my pledge that if elected i will make
freely available GNUBurgers to all software developers who wish. And, will
attend as many events as possible.
Dear all,
The European Commission (EC) is currently asking for opinions to decide
on the fate of 750 million euro to be spent on the 'future of the
internet' in a public consultation[^1]. It is a great opportunity for
the building block of the internet, i.e. Free Software community, to
step up and propose ideas to the EC on how to update its vision for the
area, to identify key technological challenges and research priorities,
and to establish a research and innovation agenda for the coming years.
It would be great to include as many Free Software projects as possible
to the updated vision of the European Commission about what it should fo
for the future of the internet.
The aforementioned consultation is very brief (just a few questions with
the answer capacity of max 2 pages) and we have been told that any input
(even a few lines) can have a huge impact on the decision making.
The deadline is urgent: * 10 April*.
So everyone, if you have any ideas on how the future of the internet
should look like, please provide your answers before Sunday.
In case you'd need an inspiration for your contribution, Michiel
Leenaars from NLnet foundation wrote the article describing his vision
for future internet and the background of the consultation.[^2]
Please disseminate this information through your channels so it can
spread as much as possible! Any input, even as short as few lines, can
have an impact.
Kind regards,
Polina
[^1]: https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/runner/nextgen-internet
[^2]: https://nlnet.nl/people/leenaars/ec/
--
Polina Malaja - Free Software Foundation Europe
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, t +49-30-27595290
Receive monthly Free Software news (fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html)
Your donation enables our work (fsfe.org/donate)
Hello folks,
my name is Natale, I'm a free software supporter and I write you
because I saw also FSFE involved in the anti-DRM cause and I would
like you guys join us in Italy for an event we would like to organize
for this International Day Against DRM.
Latest year we did in Milan an 8-bit party to promote the event [1],
we would like to repeat it joining two important causes: digital
rights restriction with DRM products and human rights violation with
Spy-software, malicious and moreover mostly committed for bad purpose,
as we recently discovered [2]
That journey would be a "No-DRM No-Spy" event to inform people about
those threats, also with an 8-bit party, with Game Over Milano [3]
support, promoted also by folks from FSF. What do you think about it?
Could be good idea? In case, would you like to help us realizing and
promoting it? :)
Cheers,
Natale
[1] http://www.leoncavallo.org/home/index.php?option=com_icagenda&view=list&lay…
[2] https://wikileaks.org/hackingteam/emails/
[3] http://www.gameovermilano.org/
--
Natale Vinto
FSF Member #8163
gpg keyserver: pool.sks-keyservers.net recv-keys 55260343
Key fingerprint = 71F1 12C2 035D 7082 0C0A E677 8A85 5F78 5526 0343
I think the situation is far worse than ""just"" locked boot loader, the
very idea that the most diffuse architecture in the desktop and server
environments is closed and without any meaning competition is outrageous,
_it seems_ intel is not even willing to sell even the rights to use it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Denver#History
I deep believe in the current IT revolution AI, self driving cars, virtual
reality, current mobile platforms, medical innovation, etc, the idea that
these fields do not have the all the tools we could provide because one
company holds a (de facto) monopoly makes me furious.
What we are missing is innovation and collaboration in a broader sense than
open source, as far as i know Intel cannot provide a customized cpu in
dynamic and responsive way to help for example a research into artificial
vision, with arm this is doable, granted you have enough funds, and i
believe that arm business model, while being still closed, still encourage
competition and allow any new company to join in the cpu race, to bring
more innovation, even if is very far from being open source.
On a personal note I'm boycotting Intel (and x86) for 3 years, for their
less than ethical behaviours and choking market strategies, see the
antitrust ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_v._Intel ) in 2009 and the
recent partnerships.
I'm not saying Intel is breaking any law.
I've learned verilog and making a new ISA & cpu to get a better view of
what it takes to make a cpu.
ps: if you wanna laugh a bit, the day my altera FPGA was delivered was the
same day intel announced altera acquisition.
I'm currently using a chromebook 14" powered by arm (A-15 based with 4gb of
ram, FHD touch screen, 7h battery life, 0db) with gentoo and i'm able to
develop without any restrictions, i'm not sacrificing anything, the cpu is
able to fluidly decode a x265 FHD video using _software_ decoder with mpv.
Latest arm cpu compete with lower end of intel with a much better PPW, MIPS
are quickly catching up.
What can we do?
Even if every developer were to buy an x86 alternative desktop/laptop, it
wouldn't make a dent in x86 market, in my humble opinion we should provide
all the tools needed to actually use risc-v in production environments and
promoting it for embedded use (arduino replacement, low end devices such as
microwaves), and from there involving more companies to expand the cpu, for
most companies cpu is just a component, the cheaper the better, some work
with such high volumes that it could actually save a lot of money to use
risc-v, even if they have to invest human resources to adapt it and expand
it. I'm willing to spend several hours a week to help this cause.
I apologize for going a bit off topic.
Dear all,
Currently we are collecting positive policies and examples of "publicly
financed software published as Free Software" across different countries
in Europe and beyond.
Along with the US Source Code Policy (draft), it also includes such
examples as considering source code developed by or for public
administrations to be public information (draft law and recent case law
in France), or Polish new eGovernment strategy that recommends
publishing publicly financed software under a Free Software licence.
For more information, please see the wiki page[^1].
However, most of the information included there is based on the
information found in English, and therefore, I would like to ask your
help to update the page and include or point to positive policies and
examples of *publicly funded software released as Free Software* found
in your countries.
For example, I would be interested in knowing more information about
German tax software ELSTER and its status, or about Swiss OpenJustitia
and the current legal situation around it.
However, I would appreciate any help in updating the overview on the
page concerning any country in Europe or elsewhere.
Thanks a lot in advance!
Kind regards,
Polina
[^1]:
https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/EU%20Policies%20overview%3A%20Free%20Softwar…
--
Polina Malaja - Free Software Foundation Europe
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, t +49-30-27595290
Receive monthly Free Software news (fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html)
Your donation enables our work (fsfe.org/donate)
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA256
"The guide to open-sourcing projects followed by the tech team at Zaland
o"
https://github.com/zalando/zalando-howto-open-source
I'm not the original author and probably there is a lot to improve,
but maybe it helps someone to promote Free Software in their company :-)
Regarding "Open Source" vs "Free Software": I already filed an issue
https://github.com/zalando/zalando-howto-open-source/issues/2 ;-)
- - Henning
- --
https://srcco.de/hjacobs.asc
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v2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=Nl84
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> Nice, that echoes the recent french CADA decision that recognizes
software source code as a "publicly discloseable document", that just
was validated by an administrative court:
>
>
http://www.april.org/le-tribunal-administratif-valide-lavis-de-la-cada-les-…
(sorry no translation yet)
>
> On the 1st of April (no, that's not a joke), the tax administration will
release the source code of the tax calculation software they wrote, and
even organize a hackathon around it.
>
>
http://www.nextinpact.com/news/98981-le-fisc-ouvrira-code-source-son-calcul…
>
> François.
That's great!
This also echoes active work done in Sweden.
The parliamentary committees of the Swedish government is currently in
the process of finalising a statement of opinion regarding the use of
open standards and open source software in government agencies [1,2].
The analysis leading up to the statement of opinion was conducted in
2009 by the Swedish Government Official Reports (SOU) [3,4] agency.
Below follows a set of extracts from the conducted analysis.
"Myndigheterna ska i första hand välja öppna standarder och alltid
överväga öppen programvara." [5]
Which roughly translates to:
"Government agencies should if possible use open standards and always
consider using open source software." [5]
and
"Den offentliga förvaltningens e-tjänster bör i så stor utsträckning som
möjligt bygga på öppna standarder samt använda sig av programvara som
bygger på öppen källkod och lösningar som stegvis frigör förvaltningen
från beroendet av enskilda plattformar och lösningar." (SOU 2009:86,
page 163) [6].
Which roughly translates to:
"The government agencies IT-services should to the extent possible be
build using open standards and use open source software and solutions to
gradually liberate the agencies from reliance on individual platforms
and solutions." (SOU 2009:86, page 163) [6].
The report also highlights work from other EU-member countries, in
particular the Netherlands work on "Open Standards for ICT Procurement" [7].
Thank you for pushing this topic and working hard to find a solution fit
for collaboration and sharing of information and knowledge in this day
and age.
Kind regards
- Robin Eklind
[1]:
http://www.riksdagen.se/sv/Dokument-Lagar/Forslag/Motioner/mot-2015162056-p…
[2]: http://data.riksdagen.se/fil/BC38DEF7-C5D8-49FE-A294-81344FE0B691
[3]: http://www.sou.gov.se/
[4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statens_offentliga_utredningar
[5]:
http://www.edelegationen.se/Publikationer/Betankanden/Tredje-generationens-…
[6]:
http://www.edelegationen.se/Documents/Remisser,%20bet%C3%A4nkanden%20mm/SOU…
[7]:
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/open_standards_ict/topic/netherlands-…