= FSFE Newsletter - November 2017 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201711.fi.html ]
== The FSFE presents modernised Fiduciary Licensing Agreement 2.0 ==
The FSFE's Fiduciary License Agreement (FLA) was initially introduced in
2002, to address the challenge of managing rights and content within a
Free Software project over long periods of time. The FLA is a well-
balanced contributor agreement, which gives the trustee, responsible for
managing the rights within a Free Software project, power and
responsibility to make sure the contributed software always remains free
and open. This way the project, together with all the respective
contributors, is protected against any possible misuse of power by a new
copyright holder.
However, the last review of the initial FLA was back in 2007 and we are
happy to present an improved and modernised version - FLA-2.0 [1]. The
biggest improvements are that the FLA-2.0 now also covers patents and
enables more practical licensing options directed towards third parties
– including referencing an external licensing policy. In addition, the
new wording is much improved both in its compatibility with more
jurisdictions as well as being easier for everybody to understand and
apply.
For FLA-2.0, the FSFE joined forces with ContributorAgreements.org and
integrated the FLA-2.0 into its Copyright Licensing Agreement (CLA)
chooser/generator, in order to make the use of the FLA easier both for
projects and for developers. As a side-effect, all CLA on
ContributorAgreements.org have been updated as well, following some of
the improvements from the FLA.
== General Assembly 2017: new members, new roles and new directions ==
The members of the Free Software Foundation Europe held their General
Assembly on October 15 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The annual meeting is
held to discuss strategies for the upcoming year and to set the overall
direction of the organisation. Amongst other things, the General
Assembly prepared a route to some reforms of the organisational
structure and adopted an overall Code of Conduct for the FSFE. Patrick
Ohnewein was elected as the new Financial Officer, and six new members
joined the association. You can read more details in the official
minutes [2] and a summary about the accepted proposals in the
corresponding news-item [3].
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== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- The Free Software Foundation Europe released its next version of REUSE
practices [5] to make computers understand software copyrights and
licenses. The REUSE page now also comes with an explanatory video [6]
as well as a set of developer tools [7] and examples which show the
REUSE practices in action.
- The FSFE's Vice President Heiki Lõhmus explains the background about
decisions for future changes to FSFE membership [8] and the removal of
the Fellowship Representatives during the General Assembly 2017.
- As in previous editions of the Chaos Communication Camp, the FSFE will
set up an assembly during 34C3 for all friends of Free Software and is
running a call for participation [9] until November 19.
- At the beginning of October, 32 European Ministers signed the Tallinn
Declaration on eGovernment. The FSFE's policy analyst Polina Malaja
writes about [10] FSFE's input and the good process involved in this
declaration.
- The FSFE's Executive Director Jonas Öberg blogs about the steps he
took to make cURL REUSE compliant [11].
- André Ockers analyses the Dutch coalition agreement [12] on the matter
of software and misses any support of Free Software within.
- Tarin Gamberini evaluates [13] that in the last semester, eight
Italian Regions have reduced advertisement of proprietary PDF readers
on their website, and that one region has increased its support for
Free Software PDF readers.
- Hannes Hauswedell explains how to use FSFE's Gitea [14] and/or Github
to host comments in statically generated blogs [15] and in a privacy-
friendly way.
- The FSFE was present at the Open Source Summit 2017 in Prague, Czech
Republic. The FSFE's president Matthias Kirschner gave a talk about
"Limux: The Loss of a Lighthouse", and Polina Malaja about "DSM, EIF,
RED: Acronyms on the EU Level and Why They Matter for Software
Freedom".
- Jonas Öberg was at the Open Source Strategy Forum in New York to
present updates to FSFEs' REUSE practices.
- The FSFE's country coordinator Germany Björn Schiessle gave a talk
about how to avoid digital dependencies [16] at the Fellbacher
Weltwochen.
- The FSFE's country coordinator Italy, Natale Vinto, gave a talk about
Public Money? Public Code! at Linux Day Milano to celebrate Linux Day,
a national manifestation to discuss about Linux and free software.
== Do not miss it! Upcoming events with the FSFE ==
Always find the FSFE's future events listed on our events page [17].
== 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. We're looking forward
to hearing from you!
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [18], supporters [19] and
donors [20] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[21], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Your editor,
Erik Albers
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1: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20171013-01
2: https://fsfe.org/about/legal/minutes/minutes-2017-10-15.en.pdf
3: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20171107-01
4: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-11
5: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20171108-01
6: http://reuse.software/
7: https://reuse.software/dev/
8: http://blogs.fsfe.org/repentinus/english/2017/11/06/background-for-future-c…
9: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20171024-01
10: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20171109-01
11: http://blog.jonasoberg.net/a-reuse-compliant-curl/
12: https://blogs.fsfe.org/ao/2017/10/28/dutch-coalition-agreement-wheres-the-t…
13: https://www.taringamberini.com/en/blog/fsfe/adoption-of-free-software-pdf-r…
14: http://git.fsfe.org/
15: https://hannes.hauswedell.net/post/2017/10/21/blog-comments/
16: http://ichbinbaff.de/multibaff/ww17/events/digitale-abhaengigkeit-vermeiden…
17: https://fsfe.org/events/events
18: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
19: http://fsfe.org/join
20: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
21: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
22: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-11