FSFE, Samba: A triumph for freedom of choice and competition
"Microsoft can consider itself above the law no longer," says Georg
Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE).
"Through tactics that successfully derailed antitrust processes in
other parts of the world, including the United States, Microsoft has
managed to postpone this day for almost a decade. But thanks to the
perseverance and excellent work of the European Commission, these
tactics have now failed in Europe," Greve continues.
Carlo Piana, FSFE's legal counsel: "FSFE and the Samba Team welcome
the decision of the court. This is a milestone for competition. It
puts an end to the notion that deliberate obfuscation of standards and
designed lock-in is an acceptable business model and forces Microsoft
back into competing on the grounds of software technology."
"The Samba Team would like to thank the European Commission for its
outstanding job over the past years. Millions of users around the
world will reap the rewards of their work," comments Jeremy Allison,
co-author of the Samba project. "This is a very important day for the
Samba Team: we hope to finally compete on a level playing field,
without being denied access to interoperability information. Samba
would then be able to offer consumers real choice, with the benefits
of software freedom."
Volker Lendecke of the Samba Team: "Now that the court has decided, we
will be watching closely what the exact licensing terms for the
interoperability information are. It will be very important to make
sure that the information is usable in Free Software, otherwise the
great success the Commission has achieved here is severely
harmed. Samba is one of the most important players in the workgroup
server market, the market in which the comission wanted to restore
competition."
"This is a very good day for Europe, but it is only a step along the
way. The recurrent theme for Microsoft's behaviour over the past years
is an apparent perception of interoperability as a threat to
overcome," summarises FSFE counsel Carlo Piana. "The most recent
example was provided by MS-OOXML, which Doug Mahugh of Microsoft
described as a commercially motivated response to the threat provided
by the ODF ISO standard and the interoperability and choice it offers.
Tactical, not technical considerations were the driving force behind
Microsoft's global efforts to manipulate national standardisation
bodies into blind acceptance of MS-OOXML."
FSFE president Greve concludes: "Today's decision has set a very
important precedent for the future. Secret manipulation of open
formats and protocols has clearly been marked as unacceptable
conduct. We now encourage the European Commission take up the recent
antitrust complaint brought forward by ECIS. In a joint effort with
the Samba Team and OpenOffice.org, the FSFE gladly offers its
expertise to the European Commission for that investigation."
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation
in the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these
issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving
people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are
central issues of the FSFE.
Contact:
Web page: http://fsfeurope.org
Email: press(a)fsfeurope.org
You can reach the FSFE switchboard from:
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73
Sweden: +46 31 7802160
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7
About Samba:
Samba is an Open Source/Free Software suite that has, since 1992,
provided file and print services to all manner of SMB/CIFS clients,
including the numerous versions of Microsoft Windows operating
systems. Samba is freely available under the GNU General Public
License.
Contact:
Web page: http://www.samba.org
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Hejsan alla
nedan följer en inbjudan till en presentation som ges i Göteborg. Om ni
kommer, anmäl er till irina(a)fsfeurope.org
Mvh Henrik Sandklef
Platform for free software learning material goes live
A milestone for education on free software and open standards is
reached. On September 5th 2007 the beta version of the SELF platform
(http://www.selfplatform.eu) goes live. One of the cities that it
happens is right here in Gothenburg, Sweden. The event is taking place
in the IT University in Lindholmen at 16.00 in Svea Building (room Torg
Blå). The speaker will be Henrik Sandklef, representative of The Free
Software Foundation Europe, one of the organisations behind the project.
He will give an overview of the idea and the positive impact of the SELF
Platform, following by a hands on workshop of how the system operates
and is implemented in schools and libraries. The event will conclude
with an open discussion and questions over "fika".
The official launch is taking place during a conference on Free Software
in Education in Amsterdam (http://selfproject.eu/en/launch), accompanied
by a number of satellite launch events worldwide as the one in Sweden.
The SELF Platform has been developed by a global team of non-profit
organisations, universities and volunteers engaged in the SELF Project,
an initiative for the collaborative sharing and creation of free
educational and training materials on Free Software and Open Standards.
Users, primarily learners and teachers, are enabled to assemble
selections of learning contents and create custom-made learning material
for lessons in their language. The Platform is launched in beta stage to
involve the growing community in optimising the tool.
Hundreds of documents on Free Software, such as OpenOffice.org, The
Gimp, or GNU/Linux, and documents on Open Standards have been screened
by a team of experts in regards to quality, free license and validity.
The result is a basic collection of high-quality learning materials that
have been, or will be atomised and entered into the SELF Platform.
Inspired by Wikipedia, the multilingual SELF Platform is not only a
self-sustaining source of knowledge and a tool to evaluate, adapt,
create and translate free learning materials on Free Software, but also
creates a much needed room for interaction between the Free Software and
the education communities in a broader sense.
The SELF project is carried by a consortium of seven NPOs and
universities in Europe, Asia and Latin America. The initial setup of the
platform has been financially supported by the European Union.
Datum: 2007-08-31
Tid: 14-16
Plats: irc.freenode.net / #fscons
Följande team presenterades:
web, Onsite staff, Graphics, Video,
Följande hände med teamen
Web: Jeremiah Foster
Onsite staff: Jeremiah Foster
Graphic: Jeremiah tar fram ett förslag på profil,
Anne skall kolla
Video:
Hjälper till med konferensprogrammet gör:
Peter Skogström
I övrigt planerar vi att all information som togs upp på mötet skall
finnas tillgänglig på konferensens hemsida under veckan som kommer.