= Weak EU Digital Rights +++ Checkmate! +++ 5 reasons why =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-202212.en.html ]
In this issue we note the shift of the EU Digital Rights Declaration to
an unclear, ambiguous text. Free Software chess engine wins its legal
battle. Your contribution can help software freedom. YH4F registration.
The Greek team meets after a long time.
=== EU Declaration of Digital Rights falls short of its ambitions ===
Member states, the European Parliament and the Commission have reached a
consensus on the Declaration of Digital Rights and Principles [1]. The
Declaration aims to serve as a reference point for the digital
transformation of Europe. Instead, it descends into murky waters,
causing ambiguity. The wording is unclear and the declaration overlooks
existing good proposals.
The Declaration is said to be built upon previous initiatives such as
the Berlin and Tallinn [2] declarations. These frameworks already
referred to Free Software concerning digital sovereignty and
interoperability, required more use of Free Software, and strengthened
the requirement for its use. It is striking that concerning
interoperability, Free Software is not explicitly mentioned in the
Declaration of Digital Rights and Principles.
=== Copyleft-licensed chess engine wins legal case against proprietary counterpart ===
Copyleft protects Free Software from becoming proprietary. Free Software
chess engine Stockfish filed a lawsuit when ChessBase distributed parts
of Stockfish work under a proprietary license, violating GPL-3.0
obligations. Checkmate! Stockfish was victorious [3]. ChessBase must
comply fully with GPL-3, hire a Free Software Compliance Officer, and
list their Free Software elements online, before they can distribute the
Stockfish software or make it publicly available again.
=== 5 reasons why your contribution matters ===
Your support and contribution for the promotion of Free Software are
important [4] for securing our continuous work, ensuring our
independence, strengthening our democratic society, promoting and
implementing concrete steps towards software freedom, and making it
easier to use and develop Free Software.
=== YH4F registrations end in 2022 ===
Registration for Youth Hacking 4 Freedom ends on 31st December [5]. The
coding contest welcomes 14-18 year old Europeans who wants to hack a
Free Software project of their choice and win cash prizes. As some of
the winners from the last edition stated, participating was a lot of fun
and a great opportunity. Check our video with the winners presenting
their projects in Brussels [6]. Share this opportunity among your
friends and community! Moreover, you can send it to schools, teachers,
and young people in your region.
=== Past events ===
- On 2 December Alexander Sander, FSFE Senior Policy Consultant, spoke
at a workshop hosted by the European Commission [7]. The topic was
‘Open standards and industrial use for Open Source: Leveraging the
sustainability of Open Source projects and increasing competition and
interoperability between different steps in value-chains’.
- On 26 November Vincent Lequertier gave a talk 'For an inclusive and
ethical artificial intelligence' in the event Campus du Libre in Lyon,
France. Also, the FSFE had a booth at the event.
- On 21 November we flashed phones in Dessau and on 24 November in
Frankfurt, Germany. We flashed phone devices the FSFE provided, and
also others that people brought.
- On 17 November Lina Ceballos, REUSE's coordinator, gave a talk about
REUSE in the GNU Health Conference (GHCon). Right after, Lina gave the
GNUHealth project the well-deserved REUSE compliance award for its
Hospital Management System component. GNUHealth [8] is an outstanding
Free Software project that contributes to make a change in various
countries in the global South.
=== FSFE groups ===
Our groups welcome everyone who is interested in Free Software to join,
and abide to the Code of Conduct. Here is what they are up to.
*Germany*: A festive meeting marked the end of the year at the FSFE
local Berlin group. Nikolai from "cosum" joined as speaker. cosum (from
CO-llaborative con-SUM-ption) is a lending platform that allows people
to share things like tools, gardening equipment, or gazebos. With this,
the group wants to promote more social-ecological consumption models.
With cosum, a public lending store can be founded, but also private-to-
private lending between friends and lending in communities, e.g. in the
house or neighborhood, are possible. Borrowing saves resources, money,
and space. Hamburg has monthly meetings in-person.
*Greece*: After a long time without meetings, next Thursday 15 December
the FSFE Greece country team gathers in a first introductory meeting
[9]. The topics to be discussed include Mastodon and its current
developments, Greek instances, recommendations for content in the Greek
language, and usage tips. Nikos Roussos, developer at libreops, will
talk about Libretooth. Fani Partsafyllidou, FSFE Project Manager, will
share updates about Free Software in Europe. Just drop by!
*Netherlands*: During their last meeting the team discussed a Gitea
governance conflict [10]. The Fair Digital Education coalition, in which
the FSFE participates through the country team Netherlands, became an
Internet Society chapter [11]. The group also debated a worrying
phenomenon in the Netherlands, where citizens form WhatsApp groups with
policing purposes. There is a question if a standalone Belgium group can
be formed. The next meeting is on 21 December.
*Switzerland*: *Basel*: In their previous meeting, the FSFE local group
Basel discussed the dependency of schools upon proprietary software. The
experiences of the members were similar; schools have a simplistic
approach to software. The best way is to correct this is to demonstrate
the benefits of Free Software in a playful and visual way. The group
compared Tor, VPN, and Freifunk as privacy options. A member from the
Zurich group encouraged the Basel group to adopt a project based
strategy. *Zurich*: The FSFE local group Zurich has launched the FediGov
campaign and has created a leaflet for the campaign ‘Learn like a pro’.
*Women*: In the last online meeting Fani presented the Upcycling Android
open letter to the group. Then, the team talked about joining the
decentralized and independent alternative events of 37c3. In the
previous meeting the group discussed radio technology, an example of a
privacy-focused voice assistant [12], and colour printing.
=== Get active ===
We need your backing to gain the right to install any software on any
device. Sign our open letter and share it with your own message [13].
Explain to your network what this right means for you.
== Contribute to our Newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, please send
them to us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking
forward to hearing from you! If you also want to support us and our
work, join our community and support us with a donation or a monthly
contribution [14]. Thanks to our community and all the volunteers,
supporters, and donors who make our work possible. And thanks to our
translators, who enable you to read this newsletter in your native
languages.
Your editor, Fani Partsafyllidou
Discuss this [15]
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1: https://fsfe.org/news/2022/news-20221206-01.en.html
2: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170710-01.en.html
3: https://fsfe.org/news/2022/news-20221212-01.en.html
4: https://fsfe.org/news/2022/news-20221205-01.en.html
5: https://fsfe.org/activities/yh4f/index.en.html
6: https://fsfe.org/news/2022/news-20221118-01.en.html
7: https://swforum.eu/os-standards
8: https://gnuhealth.org/
9: https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.html#event-20221215-01
10: https://gitea-open-letter.coding.social/
11: https://isoc.nl/nieuws/new-isoc-nl-working-group-coalition-fair-digital-edu…
12: https://mycroft.ai/
13: https://fsfe.org/activities/upcyclingandroid/openletter.en.html
14: https://my.fsfe.org/donate?referrer=newsletter
15: https://community.fsfe.org/t/948