1. Gareth Bowker joins General Assembly of FSFE 2. Free Knowledge Foundation associates with FSFE 3. UN Consultations on Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 4. UN WIPO: Provisional Committee on a Development Agenda (PCDA) 5. FSFE's office moves to Düsseldorf 6. Second Fellowship meeting in Berlin 7. Microsoft antitrust case: 2 million EUR per day 8. FSFE at FOSDEM 9. FSFE organises SWPAT roundtable in Brussels 10. Fellowship: Get a 3 month LWN subscription and win a notebook!
1. Gareth Bowker joins General Assembly of FSFE
After Gareth Bowker has been working in the FSFE Team for a long time, the Free Software Foundation Europe is glad to announce that he has joined the general assembly. With this step, Gareth has committed himself to the work of FSFE in the long term and agreed to accept legal and political responsibility for FSFE's work.
His dedication strengthens FSFE's role within the United Kingdom and is warmly welcomed by everyone in the Team.
2. Free Knowledge Foundation associates with FSFE
The Free Knowledge Foundation, a Spanish non-profit organisation, has become the first FSFE associate organisation in Spain. Both FKF and FSFE are looking forward to a close cooperation and many fruitful projects. Together with FKF, the next step will be to build up the Spanish Team for FSFE.
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2006q1/000128.html
3. UN Consultations on Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
As one of the outcomes of the UN World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), UN secretary-general Kofi Annan asked to organise consultations on the establishment of an Internet Governance Forum. The reason for these consultations was to determine the scope and mandate of the IGF. Statements were rather diverse, and ranged from "domain name issues only" to "all aspects of the internet, including spam, cybercrime, privacy and online identities" in scope and "pure discussion forum" to "global public-policy setting body" in mandate. FSFE's president Georg Greve participated in the meeting to help maintain the interests of Free Software, the FSFE statement and more information are available in his blog:
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/(tag)/IGF
4. UN WIPO: Provisional Committee on a Development Agenda (PCDA)
Last year's series of Inter-Governmental Inter-Sessional Meetings (IIM) on a potential reform of the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) ended in a deadlock, largely due to a blockade by the United States. As a result, the last general assembly decided to hold two week-long PCDA meetings, the first of which took place last month in Geneva. FSFE was represented by its president Georg Greve and former intern and now Team member Karsten Gerloff, who worked hard to help push for reform in WIPO. The first FSFE statement is available online at
http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/wipo/statement-20060223.en.html
The second statement can be found in Georg Greve's blog, Karsten Gerloff also has some more information:
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/(tag)/WIPO http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/gerloff/blog/(tag)/WIPO
5. FSFE's office moves to Düsseldorf
After its initial founding in 2001, Free Software Foundation Europe has maintained a small distribution and administrative office in the Villa-Vogelsang in Essen. The office was kindly provided by Reinhard Wiesemann of the Villa-Vogelsang, FSFE's visionary patron, who also allowed Martin Gerwinski to spend part of his time paid by the Linuxhotel to also work on FSFE office tasks. The rest of the time was volunteered by Martin Gerwinski. Both Martin and Reinhard deserve and have our sincere thanks and appreciation for their important contribution.
As FSFE has been growing rapidly over the past year, the office work is now too much to be handled on this basis, which is why FSFE is glad to introduce Rainer Kersten. He has entered FSFE's paid staff to take care of the necessary administrative work and is working with FSFE's head of office Werner Koch to establish the new office in Düsseldorf.
6. Second Fellowship meeting in Berlin
For the second time, Fellows in Berlin met to discuss and coordinate their activities. FSFE is happy to see Fellows taking initiative, and is working with them to constantly improve the infrastructure that can be used freely by the Fellows. Currently, the possibility of creating ad hoc mailing lists is being worked on, and a Wiki is planned.
7. Microsoft antitrust case: 2 million EUR per day
Last month was also the moment when the European Commission finally decided to stop allowing Microsoft to ignore its antitrust obligations and faced them with the obligation of paying 2 million EUR for each day they remain in non-compliance with the ruling. Microsoft is still trying to play for more time, so FSFE has spoken up in support of the commission.
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2006q1/000129.html
8. FSFE at FOSDEM
As every year, Free Software Foundation Europe participated in one of Europe's classic: FOSDEM in Brussels. Georg Greve, Ciaran O'Riordan, Henrik Sandklef, Pablo Machón and Reinhard Müller presented various aspects of FSFE's work in a series of short talks. Volker Dormeyer, FSFE booth coordinator and long-term Team member, did an outstanding job in coordinating the booth. A team of 16 people from the FSFE and associates, especially the Free Knowledge Foundation and Wilhelmtux, gathered for this event and helped turn it into a great success.
9. FSFE organises SWPAT roundtable in Brussels
Originally masquerading themselves as 'computer implemented inventions', software patents are now lurking under the plans for a 'Community patent' for which the European Commission is seeking input. FSFE took this as an opportunity to organise a round table with Francisco Mingorance, BSA, Pieter Hintjens, FFII and Ciaran O'Riordan of the Free Software Foundation Europe. German journalist Stefan Krempl moderated the discussion to which journalists across Europe were invited.
10. Fellowship: Get a 3 month LWN subscription and win a notebook!
The Fellowship of FSFE is an essential part and building block of FSFE's work. It makes possible much of what you can see above, and helps make visible the number of people who care about these issues. FSFE greatly appreciates the help and support of all Fellows, and is glad to see this community for digital freedom grow.
For all that support, FSFE would like to give something that goes beyond our work and words. Thanks to Jonathan Corbet, there is a new "thank GNU" for all new or renewing Fellows: a gratis 3 month subscription to LWN, which every Fellow will receive by email upon confirmation of his/her renewal or subscription.
Also, all Fellows that are fully activated by 1 April 2006 have the opportunity to win one of two HP notebooks, kindly provided by HP.
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2006q1/000131.html
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