= FSFE Newsletter – June 2015 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201506.el.html ]
== For whom the bell tolls? ==
On the first Wednesday of May, a coalition of digital liberties
organizations, including FSFE, and a multitude of individual activists
held the International Day Against DRM[1] 2015 to raise awareness about
digital restrictions management, a pervasive and deeply entrenched
mechanism designed to plunder the citizenry of the concept of ownership.
Along with numerous other defenders of consumer rights and digital
liberties we published a statement asking legislators to guarantee the
traditional right to tinker[2] with our property. This was necessitated
by both the prior steady erosion of the rights to repair and modify our
belongings and the renewed push by various manufacturing companies, like
John Deere[3], one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural
equipment, to deny their customers the right to modify their own
property in whatever way the customers wish, using bad laws like the US
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forbid consumers to circumvent
or remove certain defects from their purchases.
== FSFE is looking for a systems architect ==
Due to sustained growth we have experienced in the last few years, our
infrastructure has developed into a state where it is no longer able to
fulfil our needs. Therefore, we are looking for a systems architect[4]
to help us document our existing infrastructure dependencies, develop
this into a maintainable architecture, and help our system
administrators migrate our services to the new architecture.
If you have a good grasp of Free Software, creating technical
documentation, virtualization, MTAs, database servers, and web services
and you wish to help us ensure scalability and continued availability of
both Fellowship services and our internal tools, then you are welcome to
apply by contacting our Executive Director, Jonas Öberg[5]. This is your
chance to gain a deeper understanding of the technical challenges faced
by our volunteers and staff, and help us overcome these hurdles!
== Something completely different ==
- Guido Arnold, FSFE's edu-team coordinator, held a keynote at DORS/CLUC
in Zagreb about Free Software adoption in education throughout Europe
and wrote a short post about it[6].
- Our President Karsten Gerloff has written a blog post explaining why
Facebook's new option to encrypt e-mail notifications using the
OpenPGP standard is useless[7]. The bottom line is that on Facebook
you are the product and the new “feature” will neither guard your data
from overreaching law enforcement nor advertisers willing to pay.
- Our associate[8] Fundaţia Ceata[9] is organizing a conference called
Coliberator '15[10] from June 6th to 7th in Bucharest, Romania. The
conference has featured our president Karsten Gerloff and the founder
of the Free Software movement, Richard M. Stallman, as keynote
speakers during previous editions.
- From the planet aggregation:
- Our Fellow Kevin Keijzer writes about liberating a Thinkpad
T60p[11] for another Fellow, André, who reviews the
experience[12].
- Daniel Pocock is showing people how to use Blender for video
editing[13].
- Max Mehl, a former intern, is writing about his current
volunteering experience in Africa[14]. Max offers a rather
strange, but eye-opening perspective on the way Tanzanians
perceive technology.
== Get active: call on legislators to oppose TTIP, CETA ==
This newsletter started with DRM; it will also end with DRM:
unscrupulous actors are attempting to use secretly negotiated trade
agreements TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) and
CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) to make it extremely
difficult for future governments to get rid of current bans on
circumventing digital restrictions mechanisms. Instead, they would force
governments to impose ever-harsher penalties on anyone who dares to
tinker with their property.
We at FSFE would rather avoid that future. Hence, we are asking you to
contact your elected representatives both in the European parliament and
various legislative bodies throughout Europe and let them know that you
wish European laws to remain the province of European legislators. Ask
them to oppose secretly negotiated[15] treaties; ask them to demand
transparency and openness; and, most importantly, do it now and tell
your legislators about the things you like to do with your possessions.
It would also be nice if you could tell them what you would be unable to
do if those secretive trade agreements were ratified, but you cannot: we
do not know the current state of the negotiations. This is quite
annoying, but despair not: most of our elected representatives are also
in the dark, and they are unlikely to enjoy it. This offers us a unique
opportunity to tune them against the deals before they are finalized and
presented for ratification: let us get our representatives to oppose
these deals while they can make a decision based on democratic
principles and need not yet decide whether the economic perks outweigh
the proposed harm to a free society.
Thanks to all the volunteers[16], Fellows[17] and corporate donors[18]
who enable our work,
Heiki Lõhmus[19], FSFE[20]
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1. https://www.defectivebydesign.org/dayagainstdrm
2. https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150506-01.el.html
3. http://copyright.gov/1201/2015/comments-032715/class%2021/John_Deere_Class2…
4. https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150527-01.el.html
5. https://fsfe.org/about/oberg/index.el.html
6. http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2015/06/free-software-in-education-keynote-at-d…
7. http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2015/06/01/facebook-offers-to-send-you-encryp…
8. https://fsfe.org/associates/associates.el.html
9. https://ceata.org/
10. http://coliberator.ro/2015/
11. http://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2015/05/08/flashing-coreboot-on-a-…
12. https://blogs.fsfe.org/ao/2015/05/29/how-i-got-a-thinkpad-t60p-coreboot-gnu…
13. http://danielpocock.com/quick-start-blender-video-editing
14. http://blog.mehl.mx/2015/technology-and-free-software-in-tz/
15. https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2014/08/11/ttip-policy-laundering-a-few-…
16. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.el.html
17. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
18. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.el.html
19. https://fsfe.org/about/repentinus/index.el.html
20. https://fsfe.org/index.el.html