FSFE-IE September 2009

fsfe-ie@lists.fsfe.org

4 participants
5 discussions

Current activities in aligned organisations
by Ben North 22 Oct '09

22 Oct '09

At the last meeting, I put myself down for the Action Item of finding out what current projects and campaigns were underway at organisations like FSFE, FFII, and FSF. The following is a summary of what I found on their websites. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ FSFE: 'How to get involved?' page: join fellowship, help maintain web site, help translate web site, staff tradeshow booths, do an internship with FSFE, make a financial donation. 'Events' page, current/future: Workshop in Egypt; Free Software exhibition in Germany; Free Society conference in Sweden. 'Projects' page: PDFreaders.org (promote use of Free programs for reading PDF files), Open Standards (promote interoperability and free access to the public record through use of open standards), European Commission Framework Programme (central EU mechanism for funding research projects; FSFE is supporting projects related to Free Software), 'Science, Technology and Civil Society' (provide assistance on Free Software aspects of promoting civil involvement in research), Freedom Task Force (help ensure compliance with Free Software licensing), Internet Governance Forum (FSFE follows the IGF to promote Free Software principles), DRM (campaign against DRM), IPRED2 (unclear what current status of this is), World Intellectual Property Organisation (FSFE is an Observer at WIPO, lobbying for freedom-friendly policy), software patents (this rumbles on). FFII: >From action.ffii.org: software patents (in particular EPLA, a proposed European Patent court system), IPRED2 (although other places have suggested this is stalled indefinitely, and Google News finds nothing for 'IPRED2'). FSF campaigns: Lobbying against Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement --- proposed treaty which Europe might be party to. Might have side-effects interfering with Free Software (e.g., software to play media files). 'Defective By Design': campaigning against DRM. OpenDocument: public documents should be in an open standard. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Of these, nothing leaps out as demanding immediate and urgent attention, but a few things are on the go: The threat of formalising swpats has not gone away, so I will try to find out (maybe Ciaran would know in fact) what the current status of this EPLA proposal is, and whether there's somewhere we can place our position on the record. Open Standards could be another one --- we could go through the websites of the government depts and find which ones are offering documents only in Microsoft Word format (etc), and which are in Open Standards. (We'd have to decide how to classify PDF; personally I would say that since there exist free-software readers, it's OK, but I know there are other opinions.) Then write to them all, saying 'well done' or 'please fix' as appropriate. Has some local relevance, is fairly well parallelisable, and would yield some interesting data as well. Might even be a press release in it once it's done. I think this idea has been raised in the past. The FSFE has a monthly newsletter. Maybe we should submit meeting reports, even if they're fairly short, formulaic, and content-free: 'Several Fellows met in Dublin at the IFSO meeting, to discuss matters of interest regarding Free Software in Ireland. Please see their web page if you're interested in joining them.' ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I'll report back again when I've had a chance to dig into the EPLA patent situation. Ben.

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Irish Free Software Organisation Monthly Meeting
by Paul O'Malley - gnu's not unix - 27 Sep '09

27 Sep '09

Hi, 8pm start, Longstone Pub, Townsend St, Dublin 2. We are usually on the top floor. Most information and action points are dealt with by 9:30pm. Last month we had a couple of action points with regard to promoting Free Software in Ireland, let's see how they went. If you can't find us try ringing: 087 620 5222 Regards, Paul

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happy software freedom day
by Paul O'Malley - gnu's not unix - 19 Sep '09

19 Sep '09

If you are in Dublin and at a loose end - http://www.ossbarcamp.com Cheers, P.

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IFSO Meetup tomorrow
by Glenn Strong 14 Sep '09

14 Sep '09

Hi Folks, Tomorrow is the usual date for an IFSO meeting. I plan to be there (the first time in a long time I can make it), and I hope we can discuss Software Freedom Day this Saturday, as well as Paul's ideas for improving general community contact. Longstone, Townsend St. Dublin 2.Time 20:00. We normally meet on the top floor. Hope to see you -- Glenn Strong

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FSFE Newsletter - August 2009
by Free Software Foundation Europe 14 Sep '09

14 Sep '09

Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) Newsletter - August 2009 August traditionally is a month with a lower level of activity due to holidays. Still, a lot of things happened under FSFE's and the Fellowship's roofs. Fellowship groups met in Zurich and Stuttgart, other Fellows and volunteers manned a booth at the FrOSCon, our website now benefits from an improved contact page, Karsten Gerloff commented on the ruling about software patent infringement against Microsoft, and Thomas Jensch took on the role of coordinator for our edu-team. Giacomo Poderi 1. Fellowship meeting in Zurich, Switzerland, 26 August 2. 4th FrOSCon in St. Augustin, Germany, 22-23 August 3. Software patent infringed: Microsoft barred from selling Word 4. New overview on our community contacts 5. Fellowship meeting and KDE 4.3 release party in Stuttgart, Germany, 01 August IN THE SPOTLIGHT 6. Thomas Jensch takes on coordination for FSFE's edu-team IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST 7. Karsten Gerloff at the ATTAC Germany summer academy UPCOMING EVENTS 8. Fellowship's booth at the Braderie de Lille, France, 05-06 September 1. Fellowship meeting in Zurich, Switzerland, 26 August On 26 August the Fellowship group of Zurich met for their traditional Free Software summer barbecue. About 13 Fellows and other interested people participated. Christian Holz, FSFE's Executive Director, also joined them meeting to discuss our potential participation in OpenExpo, the consolidation of the Swiss Fellowship group, and the philosophical differences between Free and proprietary Software. http://wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Zuerich 2. 4th FrOSCon in St. Augustin, Germany, 22-23 August We participated with a lively and highly populated booth at the 4th FrOSCon in St. Augustin, Germany. Ten of our Fellows and volunteers were present at the booth during the two days event to explain our work and our projects. As a result new people will join the Fellowship. Matthias Kirschner, Fellowship coordinator, and Michael Kesper, our team member, were also interviewed by a local radio station. Michael wrote a short post on his blog with a couple of pictures taken at FrOSCon. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mkesper/?p=44 http://wiki.fsfe.org/Froscon-2009 3. Software patent infringed: Microsoft barred from selling Word On Tuesday 11 August, Microsoft received an injunction for patent infringement concerning an XML-related patent held by Canadian XML specialist i4i. The injunction prevents Microsoft from selling the 2003 and 2007 versions of Word in the United States and requires the company to pay US$ 290 million in damages. Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's president, commented the news on his blog and focused on how damaging software patents can be even for the biggest corporation. http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/?p=251 4. New overview on our community contacts After some redesign work, our contact page is now available with a new section providing a better overview of our Community contacts. We hope that these improvements will make it easier for people get in touch with the right groups and to start becoming involved in our community of Free Software supporters. http://www.fsfe.org/contact/community.html 5. Fellowship meeting and KDE 4.3 release party in Stuttgart, Germany, 01 August The Fellowship group in Stuttgart gathered together with some KDE people to celebrate the release of KDE 4.3. The meeting started at 19:00 on 1 August and went on until midnight with about ten people discussing about the new improvements of KDE and Free Software in general. There was also space for a small tournament of Ksquares played on the touch screen of a tablet PC. http://wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Stuttgart http://blogs.fsfe.org/gladhorn/2009/08/08/taking-a-walk/ IN THE SPOTLIGHT 6. Thomas Jensch takes on coordination for FSFE's edu-team FSFE's Education project aims at furthering Free Software in all education related activities and institutions, such as kindergartens, schools and universities. In recent years the project had been inactive due to lack of a coordinator and workforce. Now, thanks to Thomas Jensch, our current intern in Zurich, we will be able to revive this important project. Thomas accepted the role of coordinator for the edu-team as a part of his internship and he is already working to reorganise the activities of the project. Thomas also agreed to continue coordinating the team after his intership ends in November. To receive information about the progresses and news of the edu-team, it is possible to register to the edu-eu(a)gnu.org mailing list, to get in contact with the team you can send an e-mail to edu-team <AT> fsfeurope <DOT> org http://www.fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20090831-01.html Relevant links: http://www.fsfe.org/projects/education/education.html http://wiki.fsfe.org/Education http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-eu/ IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST 7. Karsten Gerloff at the ATTAC Germany summer academy In August 2005, Karsten Gerloff, now FSFE's president, was invited to give a speech at ATTAC Germany's summer academy in Goettingen about the developments within the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and the A2K (Access To Knowledge) Treaty. At that time, Karsten had just finished his internship with FSFE. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2005q3/000115.html UPCOMING EVENTS 8. Fellowship's booth at the Braderie de Lille, France, 05-06 September The Fellowship will take part with a booth to the "Braderie de Lille" (Lille's flea market) in Lille, France. FSFE and, in particular, the Fellowship booth, will get a lot of visibility, since millions of people from different nations take a walk on Lille's streets during the event. The booth will be located on Place du Vieux Marché aux chevaux. If you would like more information about this event please send an e-mail to Benjamin Morant: morant <AT> fsfeurope <DOT> org You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html You can join the Fellowship or find how to support us on http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join http://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.html You can order our merchandise at http://fsfe.org/order/order.html Copyright 2009, Free Software Foundation Europe <pr(a)fsfeurope.org>. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

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FSFE-IE September 2009