1. FSFE supporting European Commission in their case against Microsoft 2. Widely noticed interview in "Die Zeit" 3. Writing new licenses often counterproductive 4. RSS feeds for FSFE news and events available 5. FSFE supports the declaration of Caceres 6. Investigations on the impact of Free Software on companies
1. FSFE supporting European Commission in their case against Microsoft
In 2001 the European Union, through the DG Competition of the European Commission (lead by Prof. Monti), started investigating Microsoft's dominant position in the desktop operating systems market. The Free Software Foundation Europe was invited by the EC to represent the interests of the Free Software movement.
Together with the Samba team, which the FSFE involved in the case and with which it cooperated closely, we were able to provide much of the arguments that the European Commission based its decision upon.
Microsoft recently appealed against the antitrust decision and the DG Competition called upon FSFE in cooperation with the Samba team again to now join the efforts of the Commission to defend that decision.
FSFE, representing itself and the Samba team as well as the interests of the Free Software Community, has participated in the preliminary hearing held in Luxembourg on 27th of July.
Sun, which originally started the antitrust trial in Europe, declined to participate to the appeal, so the list of the supporters of the Commission are: Novell, RealNetworks, CCIA (Computer & Communication Industry Association), SIIA (Software and Information Industry Association) and FSFE.
In the course of the upcoming months, FSFE will read and comment on all the documentation submitted by Microsoft to sustain the idea that "disclosing documentation on interfaces and protocols is harmful" for their business and for consumers.
These will be busy months, so if you know anybody that values being able to use SAMBA and could support our efforts, please tell them to support our work with their donation. http://www.fsfeurope.org/help/donate.en.html
2. Widely noticed interview in "DIE ZEIT"
"DIE ZEIT", a well-respected German newspaper, has printed an interview with Georg Greve that has been cited in several other newspapers and news services. Georg Greve explains why software patents are job- and economy-killers: "Many companies are facing a low liquitidy and can spend their money only once: either on software patents, or on innovation."
3. Writing new licenses often counterproductive
There seems to be a trend that more and more projects create new licenses for Free Software instead of using the well established ones used by thousands of existing projects. The FSFE emphasises that the GNU GPL, the GNU LGPL and the BSD-style license are excellent for most - if not all - projects. Claims that the GPL is not fully applicable outside the U.S. have been proven wrong by a recent court decision in Germany.
4. RSS feeds for FSFE news and events available
Our web team has created automatic RSS feeds for news and upcoming events. Feeds are focus and language dependent. The URL for the news feed is:
http://www.<focus>.fsfeurope.org/news/news.<language>.rss
while you find the event feed at:
http://www.<focus>.fsfeurope.org/events/events.<language>.rss
For example, for German speaking news and the German focus, you would choose http://www.germany.fsfeurope.org/news/news.de.rss as the URL. For your convenience, the news and event pages contain links to the RSS feed URLs.
5. FSFE supports the "Declaration of Caceres"
During the Free Software Summer Event of the University of Extremadura in Caceres, Spain, Georg Greve gave a presentation on the Free Software Foundation Europe and participated in a panel discussion about software patents.
As closing highlight of the university course, the participants made the "Declaration of Caceres" against software patents drafted by Hispalinux, which was read out in Portuguese by Marcelo D'Elia Branco, German by Georg Greve, English by Maureen O'Sullivan and finally Spanish by the vice-rector of the University, Fernando Sanchez Figueroa.
The FSFE officially supports this declaration, which reads:
"Freedom, equality and fraternity, the old Europe's values applied to technology, have achieved the biggest innovative space ever imagined. Software Patents are the countermeasure that augments costs, bureaucracy and legal costs to stop European progress."
6. Investigations on the impact of Free Software on companies
The University Bocconi in Milan, Italy held a conference to discuss the impact Free Software has on Italian companies. Stefano Maffulli was invited to hold a speech in the name of the FSFE.
You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html