= FSFE Newsletter September 2018 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201809.el.html ]
== Limited exclusion for Free Software in the Copyright Directive ==
On September 12, the European Parliament rejected the mandate to fast-
track the controversial legislation intended to reform online copyright.
After its previous rejection in July, they voted again on this package –
and this time it was adopted. However, with amendment 143 and 150 of the
current copyright reform proposal, we now have at least a limited
exclusion for “open source software developing platforms (..) within the
meaning of this Directive”. ( consolidated document [1] )
This exception is partially a result of our SaveCodeShare Campaign [2].
Nearly 13.000 individuals have already signed our open letter asking to
preserve the ability to share and build software online, and lots of
Free Software supporters raised their voice. Please continue to support
this campaign as the debate is not over yet.
In the next step, the European Parliament and the Council are starting
the Trialogue, moderated by the European Commission. This debate will
most likely continue until the beginning of next year. We will closely
follow this process and will continue to raise our voice for Free
Software. If you like to support our work, join us as a supporter [3].
== "Go open today, there's no excuse not to" ==
Within our Public Money? Public Code! campaign, we run a series of
interviews that highlight good examples and use-cases as best practices.
This time we conducted an interview with Timo Aarnio [4], GIS Expert at
the National Land Survey of Finland and product owner for Oskari
software. Oskari is an award-winning Free Software platform for
browsing, sharing and analysing geographic information from distributed
data sources. Read about its background, its development practices and a
network with over 38 organisations from both the public and private
sector.
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== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- The FSFE is now official partner with the German
"Bundesfreiwilligendienst", a successor of the former alternative
civilian service. A paid volunteer can now work full time in our
office and learn about Free Software and our community. We have an
open call [6] running for this position. Be our first "Bufdi" or
spread the message to people who might be interested.
- Until two years ago, the FSFE had successfully defended [7] the user's
right of free choice against compulsory routers introduced by Internet
service providers in Germany. Recent numbers seem to acknowledge the
importance of our activites, as they suggest (DE) [8] that the number
of users who exercise their right of free choice have doubled since
the law passed in 2016. Due to Tobias Platen's findings [9] however,
users now have a “freedom of choice” but they do not have full
“software freedom”, because many embedded devices still use
proprietary software.
- The FSFE is happy to welcome Alexander Sander [10] as our new EU
public policy programme manager.
- OMEMO is an XMPP extension protocol, which specifies end-to-end
encryption for XMPP clients and it is currently the de-facto standard
for XMPP encryption. In his blog [11], Vanitas Vitae discusses its
current problems and the foreseeable future of this protocol.
- Paul Boddie argues [12] how Free Software advocates could improve
understanding the significance of their message by augmenting the four
software freedoms with some freedoms or statements of their own.
- Isabel Drost-Fromm posts a detailed summary [13] of the keynote by
Lorena Jaume-Palasi given at FrOSCon about the intersection of ethics
and technology: "Blessed by the algorithm - the computer says no!".
- At the 25th anniversary of Debian, Bits from the Basement writes [14]
about Freedom, Aretha Franklin and Debian's birthday.
- Diderik van Wingerden estimates and calculates [15] how much Free
Software projects would profit if people would donate 25% of the price
of its equivalent proprietary alternative.
- Torsten Grote explains [16] reproducible build processes, and why they
matter for Briar.
- Max Mehl, FSFE Program Manager, and Albert Dengg, FSFE System
Administrator, participated in BalCCon with a talk about "Public
Money? Public Code!" and a "Free Your Android" workshop.
- FSFE had a booth at NLLGG Software Freedom Day 2018 [17] in Utrecht,
The Netherlands, and at FrOSCon [18] in St. Augustin, Germany,
== Open positions at FSFE ==
We currently have open positions for an internship as well as for a
"Bundesfreiwilligendienst". Read about internships, previous interns and
currently open positions on our internships page [19]
== Contribute to our newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to
us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org [20]. We're looking
forward to hearing from you!
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [21], supporters [22] and
donors [23] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[24], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Your editor,
Erik Albers
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1: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P8-TA-2…
2: http://savecodeshare.eu/
3: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-09
4: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180917-01
5: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-09
6: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180913-01
7: https://fsfe.org/activities/routers/
8: https://www.golem.de/news/vodafone-zahl-der-nutzer-der-routerfreiheit-hat-s…
9: http://blogs.fsfe.org/tobias_platen/2018/08/01/two-years-of-terminal-device…
10: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180907-01.en.html
11: https://blogs.fsfe.org/vanitasvitae/2018/09/07/future-of-omemo/
12: https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=2307
13: http://blog.isabel-drost-fromm.de/posts/froscon-2018.html
14: http://www.gag.com/bdale/blog/posts/Mixed_Emotions_On_Debian_Anniversary.ht…
15: http://think-innovation.com/blog/should-you-donate-to-open-source-software/
16: https://blog.grobox.de/2018/building-briar-reproducible-and-why-it-matters/
17: https://nllgg.nl/bijeenkomst/20180915
18: https://www.froscon.de/
19: https://fsfe.org/contribute/internship.html
20: https://fsfe.org/mailto:newsletterATfsfeDOTorg
21: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
22: https://fsfe.org/join
23: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
24: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
25: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-09