= FSFE Newsletter – January 2014 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201401.fi.html]
== From Yuletide to Full-Blown Winter ==
Many hackers (including us, of course!) have been enjoying the various
festivities occurring around the winter solstice. But, alas!, the time
to dwell on Christmas presents and enjoy a family recess is no more –
the Yule has gone, the year has been made anew, and the fight for
freedom and liberty demands our attention once more. Hence, it is only
fitting to begin with a short review of what 2014 has got in store for
us during the next few months.
Those fond of celebrations should already have their eyes set on
February 14, the yearly occasion when our website turns pink and heart-
laden, and the perfect time to hug developers[1] and bring loved ones to
Free Software and the Fellowship[2].
Those favouring a more hands-on approach have to wait until late March
to educate their fellow citizens[3] about Open Standards[4]. However, it
is not necessary to despair: our various ongoing campaigns[5] are always
looking for new hacktivists. Getting in touch is easy[6] !
And while we are on the topic, there will be many opportunities to meet
our staff, volunteers, and Fellows throughout the year. For starters,
FSFE is going to be present with a booth at the Free Software conference
FOSDEM, which takes place on the first weekend of February at Brussels.
Everyone fancying a chat or running low on freedom gear[7] should stop
by. Those who cannot make it to FOSDEM this year should occasionally
check the events section on our website[8] for future opportunities to
meet us.
== Do It Yourself versus Digital Restrictions Management ==
While we are sure that many of our readers were either lucky or vocal
enough to only receive Christmas presents that respect their freedom,
there are probably some who find themselves in possession of items that
were neither made by the giver nor appear in our sister's Holiday Giving
Guide[9].
We have a few recommendations for handling such gifts: some of those can
be liberated (e.g., Android devices[10] ); developers working to create
free replacements to various proprietary systems would most likely
appreciate hardware donations (search the web for various efforts to
liberate various device categories); and you might be able to hack such
a gift to run Free Software.
Whatever you have decided to do with such items, we would love to hear
about your solutions. We have opened a mailing list thread[11] on the
topic and e-mails to discussion[12] fsfeurope.org[13] (please be advised
this is a public mailing list) are most welcome. In addition to
solutions to non-free gifts, we are also looking forward to reading
about freedom-respecting or DIY gifts you are truly enjoying.
== Something Completely Different ==
- This newsletter is regularly available in Romanian since December 2013
. Our associate Fundația Ceata[14] has taken it upon themselves to
provide timely translations for which we are extremely grateful.
- From the planet aggregation[15] :
- Our ex-Vice President Henrik Sandklef has been busy[16] adding LCD
support[17] to Searduino. The latter post (not on the planet) also
serves as a call for contributors.
- Isabel Drost-Fromm's ‘ On geeks growing up[18] ’ contemplates the
meaning of life, or to put it more plainly, family-friendliness of
various technology conferences. The positive role models Isabel
has identified deserve a few words of encouragement, and to Isabel
herself we say naught but Inductive Bias rocks!
- Guido Arnold, Deputy Coordinator of the Education team, has
collected and summarised November news stories about Free Software
in education[19].
- Daniel Pocock has written extensively about WebRTC (‘ Free calling
from browser to mobile with free software[20] ’, ‘ Get WebRTC
going faster[21] ’, ‘ xWiki: 10 years and a WebRTC success
story[22] ’).
- Paul Boddie has done the same about Kolab (‘ Adventures in Kolab
Packaging and pykolab[23] ’, ‘ Integrating setup-kolab with Debian
Packaging[24] ’).
- The last planet item to warrant an honourable mention in the
newsletter under this temporary editorship is Jens Lechtenbörger's
‘ OpenPGP and S/MIME or Trust and “Trust”[25] ’. Jens explains why
OpenPGP should be preferred over S/MIME for e-mail encryption.
Acquainting oneself with the explanation is highly recommended for
anyone making use of, or contemplating the use of, e-mail
encryption.
- Repentinus, one of our two Fellowship Representatives, is keeping his
neck warm this winter by wearing a green-black woollen scarf featuring
the Fellowship Plussy and letters "FSFE". Those among our readers who
can knit can make themselves a similar scarf by following the
instructions provided by his girlfriend[26] (please be advised this
link leads to a blog hosted on Blogspot; taking appropriate
precautions (like using a JavaScript blocker) is recommended). The
rest of our readers can either learn to knit or have someone knit this
scarf for them.
== Giving for Freedom ==
This newsletter started with a short overview of annual events waiting
us in the next few months. Such celebrations, while fun and educational,
require the combined efforts of volunteers and our staff to organise. In
addition to requiring staff time, activities hosted as part of the
celebrations require funds. Furthermore, in addition to the fun
celebrations, we require funds to keep our continuous campaigns running,
lobby for Free Software, advise developers on Free Software licensing,
and educate technology companies on Free Software and licence
compliance. Unfortunately, we have not yet secured our budget for 2014.
Our readers considering supporting our work can either make a one-time
donation[27] or join the Fellowship[28]. We thank all our existing
donors and Fellows!
Free New Year!
Heiki Ojasild[29] - FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe[30]
FSFE News[31]
Upcoming FSFE Events[32]
Fellowship Blog Aggregation[33]
Free Software Discussions[34]
1. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/ilovefs/ilovefs.fi.html
2. http://fsfe.org/fellowship/index.fi.html
3. http://documentfreedom.org/
4. http://fsfe.org/activities/os/os.fi.html
5. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/campaigns.fi.html
6. http://fsfe.org/contact/contact.fi.html
7. http://fsfe.org/order/order.fi.html
8. http://fsfe.org/index.fi.html#id-events
9. https://www.fsf.org/givingguide/
10. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/android/android.fi.html
11. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2014-January/009897.html
12. http://fsfe.org/mailto:discussion@fsfeurope.org
13. http://fsfe.org/mailto:discussion@fsfeurope.org
14. http://fsfe.org/associates/associates.fi.html#id-funda%C8%9Bia-ceata
15. http://planet.fsfe.org
16. http://sandklef.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/lcd-support-added-in-searduino/
17. http://searduino.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/partial-lcd-support-in-searduino-…
18. http://blog.isabel-drost.de/posts/on-geeks-growing-up.html
19. http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/12/free-software-in-education-news-novembe…
20. http://danielpocock.com/free-calling-from-browser-to-mobile
21. http://danielpocock.com/get-webrtc-going-faster
22. http://danielpocock.com/xwiki-ten-years-and-webrtc
23. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=606
24. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=623
25. http://blogs.fsfe.org/jens.lechtenboerger/2013/12/23/openpgp-and-smime/
26. http://tjadens.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/knitting-pattern-make-your-own-fsfe.h…
27. http://fsfe.org/donate/onetime-donation.fi.html
28. http://fsfe.org/fellowship/join.fi.html
29. http://fsfe.org/about/ojasild/ojasild.fi.html
30. http://fsfe.org/index.fi.html
31. http://fsfe.org/news/news.fi.rss
32. http://fsfe.org/events/events.fi.rss
33. http://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml
34. http://fsfe.org/contact/community.fi.html
= FSFE Newsletter - December 2013 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201312.fi.html ]
== Our cryptocards and straw fires ==
In 2005 we started giving crypto cards[1] to individuals who donated to
us and have become Fellow of FSFE. We believe it is important to remind
people about Free Software tools to encrypt our communications. Besides
since FSFE was founded in 2001, we have been explaining that those 40
digits on our business cards are about encryption and why this is
important. 8 years later, the topic encryption hit ithe media, and it is
now mentioned in every newspaper in Europe. This is good and bad at the
same time: We currently face the problem that media attention is very
high but it does not mean we have more resources to deal with it. We
would like to work more on these issues but we also cannot stop working
on other long term topics.
== Importance of long term work ==
If you take a look at our new timeline[2] you will see that we often had
to work on topics which are difficult to explain to a larger audience,
work intensive, and sometimes unpopular. Companies worked against Free
Software as they saw it as threat to them earning money but we helped
them to understand how they can make revenues with Free Software. We had
to spend 8 years of work with the European Commission and the European
Court of Justice to make sure Free Software companies are allowed to
compete with Microsoft's work group servers and since then we are
pushing this knowledge also on the national[3] and local levels. License
compliance was an unpopular topic for a long time but developers have to
make sure our software can be programmed and used without legal risks.
When we started working on Open Standards it was a niche topic, now it
is main stream. Companies opposed our position on software patents, now
a lot of businesses and politicians realised they are a dangerous
business risk. Today they use our arguments and ask us for input to get
rid of them.
== What we need to master the challenge ==
We believe in a society in which software is in the hands of all of us:
as individuals, companies and organisations, or governments, instead of
a few powerful entities. Nobody should be allowed to prevent you from
changing software, or asking someone else to change it for you, on your
mobile phone, router, car, or other belongings. The last months have
shown us that it is important for our society to have computers we can
trust. Computers we control. Programs that are transparent in what they
do with our data and which can be changed to fulfil our needs. The only
way to achieve this is with Free Software.
Such a challenge cannot be solved in a few months, it takes a long time.
It takes organisations which continue to work when there is no big media
attention. An organisation which fights for your freedom in the digital
age. FSFE has worked on those issues for over 12 years.
To face this challenge FSFE needs to work continuously towards this
goal, and for this we need you, to invest in your freedom! At the moment
it is a good time to intensify our work, as there are many people out
there who listen differently to the same messages we had before. We
would like to expand our activities, and therefore we need your
donation. Do what others did who value software freedom: Become a
supporting member by joining the Fellowship of FSFE!
== Something completely different ==
- FSFE published a press release about the Rockstar vs. Google case[4] :
Rockstar, a consortium of companies formed to collect certain patents
put on sale in the dissolution procedure of Nortel, has sued Google
and other companies over seven of those patents. FSFE already voiced
serious concerns and warned competition regulators against exactly
such a scenario in December 2011[5]. Again an example how software
patents are a dangerous business risk.
- We welcome our new core team member Maurice Verheesen from the
Netherlands[6]. He already took care of our booth at T-Dose which also
becomes a meeting point for Fellows from the Netherlands and the
Rhineland[7].
- Shall I buy a computer without an operating system and install
GNU/Linux distribution of my own choice, or buy a laptop with
GNU/Linux preinstalled which includes non-free software? Participate
in the discussion on our public English speaking list by reading this
message[8], continue with the mentioned blogs articles there, comment
on the list, and like Paul Boddie wrote: join other volunteers to
maintain the hardware vendors page[9].
- Thanks to Nermin Canik, FSFE had its first booth in Turkey[10], and
Michael Stehmann took care of an FSFE booth and two talks at
OpenRheinRuhr[11].
- FSFE participated at the Open Knowledge Festival[12]. At the "speed
geeking", in which Lucile Falgueyrac gave the same five minutes talk
seven times, she presented FSFE, Open Standards and Document Freedom
Day[13].
- The Parliament in Spain's Andalusia is unanimously urging the region's
government to switch to Free Software[14].
- Guido Arnold published the FSFE education update from October[15].
- Jérémie Zimmermann from our friends at La Quadrature Du Net argues in
"Snowden and the Future of our Communication Architecture"[16] that
the "Snowden revelations give us a vivid illustration that Richard
Stallman and others have been right for all these years." He writes
that we need decentralised services, Free Software, and end-to-end
encryption.
- The Guardian project wrote about how to set up your own app store with
F-Droid[17]. If you host your own F-Droid repository, then people can
use F-Droid to install your own apps signed by your own signing key.
- Renault apparently has the ability to remotely prevent the battery
from charging. Karsten Gerloff wrote about the Zoe electric car[18].
- He also summarised a report by the French website Mediapart. At the
European Parliament in Strasbourg, a technically skilled person
managed to intercept 14 Members of the European Parliament and their
staffers[19] using trivial tools.
- From the planet aggregation[20] :
- After discussion with a Danish Member of Parliament, Thomas Locke
wrote what he did to support TOR[21] and is now running a TOR exit
node.
- Torsten Grote summarised the presentation[22] about Dark Mail as
Next-Generation Email to Stop Spying.
- Fellowship representative Nikos Roussos wrote about how he started
with GNU/Linux[23].
- The Neo900 phone moved beyond the discussion phase and into the
fundraising phase. Paul Boddie gives some background[24].
- Besides he takes a look at the Free Software Desktop[25]. He
argues that "Free Software desktop developers have imperilled
their own mission with the result that they now have to make up
lost ground in the struggle to get people to use their software."
- In Paris another MutterWare meeting[26] took place. Nicolas Jean
wrote a short summary[27], about the email client meeting. Hugo
Roy documents how to do a carddav lookup in mutt[28] and Karsten
Gerloff how to do address lookup with mu[29]. If you regret not
living in Paris, Hugo and Nicolas suggest to start MutterWare
meetings in your city, too
- A court in Caen/France ruled that a French SME did not infringe
Skype's copyright by reverse-engineering the algorithm used by the
company[30] for its VoIP services, and attempting to use it
commercially.
- Daniel Pocock highlights the applications for the Outreach Program
for Women[31] and the option for Australian women to get $75,000
to make free software during maternity leave[32].
- Cryptography: Sergey Matveev wrote about a big cryptoparty in
Moscow[33], Lucile Falgueyrac helped at a cryptoparty for
journalists[34], and wrote about the problems accepting a security
signature in GNU/Linux[35].
- Anna spent a week with some 5-11 year old children for an
plasticine animating using Phatch, Linux Stop Motion and
Kdenlive[36].
- And your editor highlighted the part about Free Software[37] from
David Wheelers's article "Vulnerability bidding wars and
vulnerability economics".
== Get active: Why does Free Software matter to you? ==
This month Jacob Appelbaum, spokesperson for the TOR Project, and two
other TOR developers became supporting members of FSFE and Jacob
explained why he did so:
I believe that actions of support for the FSFE are important for
encouraging Free Software development and adoption in Europe as well
as the rest of the world. I'm an FSFE Fellow because financially
supporting the cause of Free Software brings positive improvements
to all societies throughout the world.
Quotes like this help others understanding the importance of our work.
On our english Fellowship page[38] some of our Fellows already explain
why Free Software and FSFE's work is important to them. We would also
like *you* to write us why Free Software and our work matters to
you[39]. In agreement with you, we would then like to publish some of
the submissions on our website. Else they just motivate FSFE's working
teams.
Thanks to all the volunteers[40], Fellows[41] and corporate donors[42]
who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <http://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <http://fsfe.org/news/news.fi.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <http://fsfe.org/events/events.fi.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <http://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <http://fsfe.org/contact/community.fi.html>
1. http://fsfe.org/fellowship/card.fi.html
2. http://fsfe.org/timeline/timeline.fi.html
3. http://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20120619-01.fi.html
4. http://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20131107-01.fi.html
5. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/swpat/nortel.en.html
6. https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2013/11/welcoming-maurice-to-the-core-team/
7. https://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=984
8. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2013-November/009871.html
9. https://wiki.fsfe.org/Hardware%20for%20Free%20Software
10. https://twitter.com/MsLipsum/status/404352087326072832
11. https://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=990
12. https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2013/11/22/open-knowledge-festival-meetu…
13. http://documentfreedom.org
14. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/parliament-spains-andalusia…
15. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/11/free-software-in-education-news-octobe…
16. https://www.laquadrature.net/en/snowden-and-the-future-of-our-communication…
17. https://guardianproject.info/2013/11/05/setting-up-your-own-app-store-with-…
18. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2013/10/31/renault-will-remotely-lock-down-e…
19. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2013/11/21/european-parliament-meps-staffers…
20. http://planet.fsfe.org
21. https://blogs.fsfe.org/thomaslocke/2013/11/20/a-little-more-privacy-with-to…
22. http://freedom-blog.net/2013/11/dark-mail-as-next-generation-email-to-stop-…
23. http://www.roussos.cc/2013/11/05/my-linux-history/
24. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=501
25. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=505
26. https://wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Paris/Mutterware
27. https://blogs.fsfe.org/nicoulas/?p=151
28. http://hroy.eu/tips/mutt-carddav-lookup/
29. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2013/11/07/address-lookup-in-mutt-with-mu/
30. https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2013/10/31/skype-reverse-engineering-cou…
31. http://danielpocock.com/debian-opw-applications-2013
32. http://danielpocock.com/making-free-software-during-paid-maternity-leave
33. https://blogs.fsfe.org/stargrave/archives/100
34. https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2013/11/19/cryptoparty-for-journalists/
35. https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2013/10/31/accepting-a-security-signatur…
36. https://blogs.fsfe.org/anna.morris/2013/11/05/free-software-animation-with-…
37. https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/vulnerability-economics-and-free-software/
38. http://fsfe.org/fellowship/index.en.html
39. http://fsfe.org/mailto:fellowship@fsfeurope.org
40. http://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.fi.html
41. http://fsfe.org/fellowship/join.fi.html
42. http://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.fi.html
= FSFE Newsletter - August 2013 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201308.html ]
== Proprietary companies ask European Commission to restrict business
models ==
Because Android is Free Software and gratis, the non-free software
competition cannot compete with it, therefore the market has less
alternatives, thus the consumer suffers from this lack of competition.
In a nutshell that is the argumentation of the so-called "Fair Search"
coalition. Essentially they are asking the European Commission to favour
a restrictive business model over a liberal one, which is exactly the
opposite of what competition regulators should do in order to achieve a
fair market.
Asking the European Commission to cripple Free Software in order to
allow proprietary vendors to sell their locked-down systems is absurd.
Therefore the FSFE has written a letter to the European Commission's
competition authorities to refute the claims[1], and make it clear that
Free Software is critical for a competitive IT market. In our letter we
ask the European Commission to dismiss the "FairSearch" coalition's
unfounded claims regarding predatory pricing, and not make them part of
whatever steps it decides to take. For further information: our legal
council Carlo Piana wrote a background article about this case[2].
== Election software: source code available but not Free Software ==
Estonia has used Internet voting for general elections since 2005. Local
activists have recently managed to convince Estonia's National Electoral
Committee (NEC) to release source code for some of the software under a
non-free licence, but this licence does not permit distribution of
derivative works or commercial use and therefore is non-free. Besides
"[i]mportant system components remain completely unknown to the general
public. One of those components is the client side voting application
that must be loaded and executed on the voter's computer," said Heiki
Ojasild, Fellowship representative in the FSFE's General Assembly in our
press release[3] accompanying our open letter to NEC regarding the
country's Internet voting system[4].
Similar in Norway: Paul Boddie reports about the Norwegian voting and
the illusion of "Open Source"[5], where the published software covers
only "testing, reviewing or evaluating the code", restricts commercial
purposes, and for a lot of things you need a "written approval" from the
vendors.
== NSA leaks motivates Free Software activists ==
For almost two decades the Free Software Foundations have been working
for a society where the power over technology is distributed. We work
for a world in which nobody can prevent others from learning how
computers work. A world in which programmers can work with each other
instead against each other. Nobody should be forced to use a certain
kind of software without being able to adjust it to her own needs
instead of adjusting herself to the software. Everybody should be able
to audit software, to understand what a program does exactly and what
happens to your data.
The Free Software movement wrote a lot of software which respects your
privacy, including encryption and anonymisation software. The FSFE
pushed for Open Standards to prevent monopolies by enabling different
software to work with each other. We promote decentralised systems, so
there is no single point in our infrastructure which has too much power
and which enables you to store the data in a trusted enviroment.
It seems the NSA leaks of the last weeks have strengthened the Free
Software community's will to continue fighting for our freedoms in a
digital society. More people are listening to Free Software programmers
and activists, more people demand Free Software solutions, more people
are using Free Software to protect their privacy, and more people
appreciate Free Software developer's work. E.g. Eva Galperin from EFF
said in her keynote at KDE's conference akademy[6]: "Help us Free
Software, you are our last and only hope". She asked Free Software
developers to build new products, and "save us"! And as you will see
below, the Free Software movement will continue to do so.
== Something completely different ==
- Privacy is a fundamental human right, and is central to maintaining
democratic societies. The FSFE joined more than 100 other
organisations in demanding that states respect human rights, and bring
their surveillance apparatus under democratic control.[7] More than
one year in the making, the demands are now more relevant than ever.
The FSFE also signed an Open Letter to stop surveillance[8], which
calls for twelve political steps including the development and
promotion of Free Software for digital self-defence.
- The FSFE commented on leaked documents[9] which show how Microsoft is
actively cooperating with the NSA.
- Together with the Open Rights Group we sent an open letter on
transparency to Martin Schulz, President of the European
Parliament[10]. Mr Schulz has recently been asked to produce a study
on transparency within the Parliament. In our letter we are offering
Mr Schulz our help in this effort and suggest several questions, e.g.
if the Parliament would be obliged to publish the source code of the
software it uses.
- News about Free Software in education are back: Guido Arnold
summarised what happened in the education sector[11] during April,
May, and June. He also summarised the relevant parts[12] of the UNESO
conference World Summit on an Information Society (WSIS+10).
- Ubuntu is aiming to raise $32 million in crowdfunding to produce
Ubuntu Edge, a mobile computer that can dual-boot between Android and
Ubuntu GNU/Linux. Our sister organisation[13] the FSF is asking the
crucial question: Will Ubuntu Edge commit to using only Free
Software?[14]. Paul Boddie, Fellow and maintainer of Fellowship
wiki[15], looked into the question if Ubuntu Edge is making things
even harder for open hardware?[16]
- Besides our sister organisation reports that the New Internationalist
adopted the DRM-free label[17] and over 50 others were added to the
DRM-free Guide.
- From the public administrations: Students and teachers at 160 high
schools in the Brussels Region have started to use Free Software[18]
like LibreOffice or Mozilla Thunderbird on PCs and tablets. Joinup
reports that France's ministry of Agriculture extensively uses Free
Software[19]: For instance in 2012 it spent 174,000 euro on support
for Free Software. Additionally news from France: Lucile wrote about
the Zombie Free Software provision[20] -- a Free Software law for
France's higher education -- and how to contact politicians.
- For those amongst you giving talks at conferences: LWN now offers a
handy calendar for call for papers[21].
- From the planet aggregation[22]:
- Former FSFE president Georg Greve wrote a tetralogy about the Post
PRISM society. He puts together what actually has been proven so
far[23], what that means for society[24], what the implications for
businesses around the world are[25], and takes a look at
governments[26]. He argues that any government should be able to
answer the following question: What is your policy on a sovereign
software supply and digital infrastructure? If that question cannot
be answered, he suggests it is time to get to work. And soon.
- FSFE's president Karsten Gerloff wrote about what you can do to
secure your communications[27], e.g. participating in politics,
- Werner Koch, author of GnuPG and FSFE GA member wrote about Gpg4win
and the feds[28], commenting on a CT article which mentions GnuPG
and claims that only a self compiled version is trustworthy.
- and Kevin Keijzer documented how he maintains his online
privacy[29].
- Anonymisation hobbyist Jens Lechtenboerger explains how he selects
Tor guard nodes under global surveillance[30], and also publishing
code how he analysed the situation.
- A proposal for a new encrypted mobile messaging app called Hemlis
received $125,000 in crowdfunding. It is good to see ambitious new
software projects get support from the community when they are Free
Software. Sam Tuke checks if this is really the case with
Hemlis[31].
- Viktor Horvath published the video from his talk at FOSDEM about
SlapOS[32] a decentralised Free Software plattform.
- Lucile wrote about several examples of interesting uses of
transparency policies[33], related to Free Software especially for
France.
- Should a person be bound by terms of use and contracts where that
person has been effectively coerced into accepting them? Other
questions about IT in universities are asked by Paul Boddie in
"Students: Beware of the Academic Cloud!"[34]
- News from Martin Gollowitzer's "Tracking for Freedom"[35] project:
he is now cycling with the pros.
- Mirko Böhm reports from his travel to Akademy and the Qt contributor
summit[36]. Together with Armijn Hemel he started a process to make
defensive publications a routine part of the Qt release process[37],
- and Free Software activities in Munich have intensified. Christof
Kalkhoff and the Munich group now bought a pavilion to be present at
more and more public events (German)[38].
== Get active: Help with Crypto parties! ==
Crypto parties are getting more popular. They also attract funding from
non-free software companies. One company offered money to crypto party
organisers if they also mention non-free software (German)[39]. Good
that a lot of FSFE's volunteers already support the organisers to help
people install encryption software, and educate participants about Free
Software.
In the Free Software community a lot of us understand how end-to-end
encryption works. At the moment a lot of people new to Free Software
want to use it themselves. If you have some time, either help some
friends, colleagues, or search for local crypto parties and show others
how to use GnuPG for e-mail encryption, OTR for encrypted chats, TOR to
anonymise your online behaviour or programs like Jitsi to have encrypted
audio and video communications.
Thanks to all the Fellows[40] and donors[41] who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <http://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <http://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <http://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <http://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <http://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1. http://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130729-01.en.html
2. http://piana.eu/android
3. http://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130730-01.en.html
4. http://fsfe.org/ee/i-voting/2013-07-26_Open_Letter_to_NEC.en.html
5. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=291
6. https://lwn.net/Articles/559124
7. https://necessaryandproportionate.org/
8. http://www.stopsurveillance.org/?page_id=20
9. http://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130712-01.en.html
10. http://fsfe.org/activities/os/transparency-letter.en.html
11. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/07/free-software-in-education-news-aprilm…
12. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/06/1347/
13. http://fsfe.org/about/fsfnetwork.en.html
14. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/will-ubuntu-edge-commit-to-using-only-f…
15. http://wiki.fsfe.org
16. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=366
17. https://www.defectivebydesign.org/new-internationalist-drm-free-label-guide…
18. http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/open-source-tablets-and-pcs-…
19. http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/extensive-open-source-use-fr…
20. https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2013/06/28/zombie-free-software-provisio…
21. https://lwn.net/Calendar/Monthly/cfp/2013-08/
22. http://planet.fsfe.org
23. https://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=553
24. https://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=568
25. https://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=573
26. https://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=586
27. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2013/07/01/some-things-you-can-do-to-secure-…
28. http://rem.eifzilla.de/archives/2013/07/16/gpg4win-and-the-feds
29. https://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2013/06/29/more-work-to-maintain-…
30. https://blogs.fsfe.org/jens.lechtenboerger/2013/07/19/how-i-select-tor-guar…
31. https://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=564
32. https://blogs.fsfe.org/viktor/archives/62
33. https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2013/07/19/clear-answers-demanded
34. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=197
35. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gollo/2013/07/06/tracking-for-freedom-cycling-with-t…
36. http://creative-destruction.me/2013/07/10/kde-akademy-and-qt-contributor-su…
37. http://creative-destruction.me/2013/07/16/qt-project-and-defensive-publicat…
38. http://www.softmetz.de/2013/07/16/bericht-vom-treffen-der-muenchner-fsfe-fe…
39. http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/hacker-lehnen-teletrustt-sponsor…
40. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
41. http://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html
*Varoitus:*Tätä sivua ei ole vielä käännetty. Alla näet sivun
alkuperäisen version. Lisätietoja käännösten tekemiseen
osallistumisesta ja muusta tältä sivulta[1].
http://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.fi.html?pk_campaign=enewsletter&pk_kw…
= FSFE Newsletter - June 2013 =
[Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201306.html ]
== German Bundestag trying to get rid of software patents ==
No Free Software programmer wants them but unfortunately they are still
granted: software patents. They monopolise ideas about software, so
programmers cannot use them. In April the German Parliament (the
'Bundestag') has introduced a joint motion [1] against software patents.
It urges the German government to take steps to limit the granting of
patents on computer programs. After the first hearing in Parliament,
your editor was invited as an external expert to the legal committee
meeting on May 13th.
Before the meeting FSFE was asked to submit a written statement [2]
which explained that: programming tools are easily available to everyone
and don't require much investment; programmers learn to code by reading
existing source code; the hard part of software development is the
concrete implementation; copyright is enough to protect implementations;
most products include hundreds of programs; that these same programs are
used in a huge number of products; that Free Software is used to develop
Free and non-free software; that Free Software is especially vulnerable
to malicious patenting activity as its source code is available;
challenging software patents costs a lot of time and money which many
programmers and software companies do not have; the incentive of patents
in software innovation is highly questionable and that programmers
either have to ignore software patents or stop programming. In his oral
statement at the hearing your editor explained programming methods [3]
to the politicians.
During the meeting the vast majority of the 9 invited experts were in
favour of the motion. Now there will be a second meeting of the
committee and then, on the 6th of June, Parliament will vote upon the
motion.
1. http://dip21.bundestag.de/dip21/btd/17/130/1713086.pdf
2.
http://www.bundestag.de/bundestag/ausschuesse17/a06/anhoerungen/archiv/47_P…
(PDF in German)
3. https://wiki.fsfe.org/mk/BundestagAnhoerung2013SoftwarepatenteNotizen
== Why do some companies dislike their customers? ==
May the 3rd was the International Day Against DRM [4]. To mark the
occasion Erik Albers wrote an article about Digital and physical
restrictions [5] on your own device (thanks to Framasoft, there is also
a French translation [6]). He highlighted how companies and resellers
take control over our software and hardware and in doing so, take away
our freedom.
Discussion on this topic continued at the Berlin Linuxtag. FSFE invited
speakers for the "Reclaim your device" track [7]. The track gave
examples of how we can take back control over our software and therefore
our devices. Beside that, the Linuxtag organisers chose FSFE's speaker
as keynote, so Benjamin Mako Hill gave a speech about anti-features [8]
-- deliberately crippled technology (see German press article
"antifeatures -- Free Software against paternalism" [9]). Mako argue
that the anti-features issue makes a good framework within which to
explain the practical advantage of Free Software, and from his
experience your editor fully agrees.
4. www.fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130503-01.html
5.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/eal/2013/05/03/digital-and-physical-restrictions-on-…
6.
http://www.framablog.org/index.php/post/2013/05/13/drm-controle-numerique-e…
7. www.fsfe.org/events/2013/linuxtag-2013.html
8. http://wiki.mako.cc/Antifeatures
9.
http://www.golem.de/news/antifeatures-freie-software-gegen-bevormundung-130…
== Illegal procurement favouring Microsoft stopped in court ==
FSFE's goal is that Free Software companies can compete with non-free
software companies on an equal basis. That's why we started an
initiative to advance fair public procurement in Finland [10], which has
already looked at 300+ procurement notices.
In related news, the administrative court of Almada, Portugal, recently
declared a 550,000 Euro contract between Microsoft and the municipality
of Almada to be illegal. (see our press release [11]). In this example,
the technical specifications of the competition launched by the
municipality prevented any company other than Microsoft and their
partners from being capable of fulfilling the contract criteria. This
ruling clarifies that a widely used procurement procedure is illegal:
because it names Microsoft products instead of their general functional
and technical requirements. FSFE welcomes the court's decision, and
calls on other European national courts to continue to systematically
annul similarly discriminatory contracts.
10. www.fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20120619-01.html
11. www.fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130429-01.html
== Something completely different ==
- As reported in the last edition [12] W3C wants to implement usage
controls on the web. The EFF have published a formal objection (which
we urge you to read and distribute) to the HTML working group draft
charter [13].
- There is also some discussion about how Google's new VP8 patent
license influences Free Software. On one hand, Simon Phipps from Open
Source Initiative (OSI) argued that each user wishing to benefit from
the agreement has to enter into a contract with Google [14] , and that
this is a problem for Free Software initiatives. On the other hand,
Software Freedom Law Center (SFLC) argues that the VP8 cross-license
draft is compatible with Free Software licensing [15].
- Current intern Lucile Falgueyrac organised FSFE's booth at Toulouse
Hacker Space Factory, in southern France [16]. She said: "I enjoyed
this event especially as most people there didn’t know anything about
FSFE, and quite a few didn’t know much about Free Software in general.
Talking to people who are not yet convinced is a great pleasure and in
this case, very productive".
- The French Free Software organisation April has reported that the
French Senate demands that the public service for digital education
prioritises Free Software and open formats [17]
- Other news from the Europeans public administration by Joinup include
Tariq Rashid from the IT Reform group at the UK Cabinet, who says that
Free Software solutions helps public administrations to regain their
power as consumers [18]. Spain's Extremadura are starting to switch
40,000 government PCs to Free Software, and over 36,000 students,
teachers and staffers are using a Free Software groupware in Switzerland
[19].
- Single-board computers are computers delivered as one circuit board
that are powerful enough to run a real operating system. Our sister
organisation the FSF has created a new resource page for single-board
computers [20].
- On May 14.-17., Matija Suklje and Karsten Gerloff participated in
Croatia's largest Free Software conference, Open Systems Days /
Croatian Linux Users Convention - DORS/CLUC. The conference was opened
by Croatia's President Ivo Josipović who said about the Free Software
community: "What you are doing is something good, creative and
innovative!" [21]
- It does not happen often that your opponents make a strong case for
you. So journalist Glyn Moody was very grateful that the Business
Software Alliance (BSA) has made a cogently case for free software in
its report [22].
12. www.fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201305.html
13. https://www.eff.org/pages/drm/w3c-formal-objection-html-wg
14.
https://www.infoworld.com/d/open-source-software/googles-open-video-proposa…
15.
https://www.softwarefreedom.org/blog/2013/may/29/vp8-cross-license-draft-fo…
16. https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2013/05/30/thsf-2013
17.
https://www.april.org/en/education-french-senate-demands-public-service-dig…
18.
http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/uk-government-open-source-dr…
19.
http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/spains-extremadura-starts-sw…
20. https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/single-board-computers
21.
http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/croatias-president-praises-c…
22.
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2013/05/bsa-study-demonstr…
== From the planet aggregation: ==
- Hugo Roy writes about Google discontinuing Google Talk and asks
weather Google can keep its promise from their terms of services and
give XMPP users a way out? [23]
- He also checked out who is tracking him online more: Google or
Facebook? [24]
- With Daniel Pocock we have a new active blogger on the planet. He
wrote about "The BBC and a confused concept of what is free and open"
[25], how the British Telecom attacks Free Software with patent demands
[26], is scouting Switzerland for Debian's annual conference [27], and
about the quickest way to try WebRTC and see it working [28]
- Besides, after FSFE press release about MSN messenger and Skype Daniel
Pocock writes how Debian can rescue Skype users [29].
- While Nikos described how to hack a Firefox OS developer phone [30],
Thomas Koch asked what others think about the FairPhone [31]. Replies
on the planet came from Paul Boddie [32] and Jens Leuchtenbörger [33].
- 58.1 km at 24.0 km/h for Freedom: Reducing weight and further Free
Software. Since Martin Gollowitzer likes to go cycling every now and
then (especially when the weather is fine), he would like to combine
this sport with fundraising [34]. See his first track record [35].
- After being mentioned in one of the last newsletter, the one-button
audiobook player by Michael Clemens is now featured in new book [36].
The co-author said "I particularly like the way it’s really improving
someone’s quality of life, by making it possible for your [Michael]
wife’s grandmother to listen to audiobooks."
- Fellowship representative Nikos Roussous wrote about his attendance of
the Libre Graphics Meeting (LGM), which is an annual gathering for the
discussion of Free Software used for design, illustration, typography,
lay-out, art, photography, publishing, cartography, animation and video
[37].
- Timo Jyrinki wrote about how to have a network from your laptop to an
Android device over USB [38], about the current state of Qt 5 in
Debian and Ubuntu, and world domination [39].
- Michael Stehmann from the German FSFE team participated in an event in
the Parliament from Nordrhein-Westfalen, you can read more about it in
his blog [40]. Beside this Michael also gave a seminar at the
Fachhochschule Düsseldorf about Free Software [41], and a presentation
at the PythonCamp 2013 in Cologne [42] about Free Software and its
licenses (all in German).
- First it should be done "like Facebook", afterwards all the features
should be removed. Read Michael Kesper's "Make it like Facebook…or
not?! Or: From Wordpress to Drupal" [43].
- Anna Morris from the DFD campaign team wrote about how to process
photos in a batch using ImageMagick and Converseen [44].
- FSFE's vice president wonders to gnome or not to gnome [45].
- Isabel Drost reported about many talks including the first keynote at
ApacheConNA [46].
- Björn Schießle writes about the new ownCloud encryption app, which is
now using AES encryption [47].
- Fellow Jens Leuchtenbörger translated the article "The Tangled Web We
Have Woven—Seeking to protect the fundamental privacy of network
interactions," by Eben Moglen into German [48].
23.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2013/05/google-talk-discontinued-will-google-ke…
24.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2013/05/whos-tracking-me-online-the-most-google-…
25.
http://danielpocock.com/the-bbc-and-a-confused-concept-of-what-is-free-and-…
26. http://danielpocock.com/british-telecom-attacks-free-software
27. href="http://debconf13.debconf.org
28. http://danielpocock.com/get-webrtc-going-fast
29. http://danielpocock.com/debian-to-rescue-skype-users
30. http://www.roussos.cc/2013/05/17/hacking-firefox-os-developer-phone
31.
http://koch.ro/blog/index.php?/archives/161-What-do-you-think-about-the-Fai…
32. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=168
33.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/jens.lechtenboerger/2013/05/17/fairphone-starting-a-…
34. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gollo/2013/05/04/the-project-tracking-for-freedom
35. href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gollo/2013/05/05/tracking-for-freedom-first-trip
36.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/clemens/2013/05/03/one-button-audiobook-player-featu…
37. href="http://www.roussos.cc/2013/04/29/libre-graphics-meeting-2013
38. http://losca.blogspot.de/2013/05/network-from-laptop-to-android-device.html
39. http://losca.blogspot.de/2013/05/qt-5-in-debian-and-ubuntu-patches.html
40. https://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=772
41. https://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=762
42. https://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=752
43. https://blogs.fsfe.org/mkesper/?p=164
44.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/anna.morris/2013/05/07/imagemagick-and-converseen-th…
45. https://sandklef.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/to-gnome-or-not-gnome
46. http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/470/apacheconna-first-keynote
47.
http://blog.schiessle.org/2013/05/28/introduction-to-the-new-owncloud-encry…
48.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/jens.lechtenboerger/2013/04/05/das-verworrene-web-da…
== Get active: Report warranty problems after rooting!==
After our widely spread analysis about the rooting of devices [49], the
German Association for Consumer Protection (Verbraucherzentrale
Bundesverband) is now working on this topic [50], too. They are looking
for people who had problems with warranty after rooting their devices.
So if you bought a product in Germany, rooted it and have problems with
warranty, report it [51] and forward it to our legal working group [52].
Of course we are still interested in your experiences in other
countries, so please continue to send them to the same address.
49. www.fsfe.org/freesoftware/legal/flashingdevices.html
50. (German)
https://blogs.fsfe.org/eal/2013/04/30/gesucht-nutzer-denen-die-gewahrleistu…
51.
http://www.surfer-haben-rechte.de/cps/rde/xchg/digitalrechte/hs.xsl/kontakt…
52. mailto:legal@fsfeurope.org
Thanks to all the Fellows and donors who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <http://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <http://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <http://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <http://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <http://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
*Varoitus:*Tätä sivua ei ole vielä käännetty. Alla näet sivun
alkuperäisen version. Lisätietoja käännösten tekemiseen
osallistumisesta ja muusta tältä sivulta[1].
1.
http://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.fi.html?pk_campaign=enewsletter&pk_kw…
= FSFE Newsletter - May 2013 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201305.fi.html ]
Note: As Matthias Kirschner is on vacation, this edition of the monthly
Newsletter is written by Erik Albers. Enjoy!
== Document Freedom Day 2013 ==
Every year on the last wednesday of March, Document Freedom Day
(DFD)[2]takes place: the global day to raise awareness of Open
Standards, organised by the FSFE. It has been amazing to see year by
year how the message of freedom and Open Standards has continued to
spread around the world. This year, there were 59 events in 30
countries, and many first time participants, including Niger, Indonesia
and the United States.
2. http://www.documentfreedom.org/
Highlights from Document Freedom Day include more than a hundred press
articles[3]and blogs, Libre Office's publication of a new migration
guide[4], support from Lawrence Lessig[5], and a storm of social media
coverage and opening up discussions.
3. http://www.documentfreedom.org/press.en.html
4.
http://documentfoundation.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/tdf-migrationwhitepap…
5. http://www.documentfreedom.org/news/2013/news-20130315-01.en.html
But let's not forget: all these events were organised by local groups.
Among them were many FSFE Fellowship groups[6], a wide variety of other
Free Software community organisations, and teams of friends who care
about Open Standards. So, this is a big thank you to everybody who made
this year's DFD so successful! It is awesome to see how Free Software
and Open Standards connect people around the world. Read the extended
report online[7].
6. http://wiki.fsfe.org/FellowshipGroup?pk_campaign=enewsletter&pk_kwd=201305
7. http://www.documentfreedom.org/news/2013/news-20130419-01.en.html
== Free Software LegalLicensing Workshop ==
In early April, we held our annual Free Software LegalLicensing Workshop
in Amsterdam. More than 70 Free Software legal experts from the Legal
Network[8]came together for two days in order to share their knowledge
and discuss cutting-edge questions in the field.
8.
https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/network.en.html?pk_campaign=enewsletter&pk_…
Topics discussed this year included recent court rulings, patent-related
developments, and transferring Free Software licensing ideas to
hardware. Stefano Zacchiroli, Debian's (now former) project leader,
delivered a keynote speech, describing the community perspective on
legal issues[9].
9. https://lwn.net/Articles/546411/
Several talks at the conference were covered by LWN, for example those
by Eben Moglen[10], Daniel German[11]and Anthonia Ghalamkarizadeh[12].
10. https://lwn.net/Articles/547379/
11. https://lwn.net/Articles/547400/
12. https://lwn.net/Articles/546678/
== FSFE welcomes Ceata as associate organisation ==
A new foundation from Romania and Moldova has joined FSFE's program of
associate organisations[13]. Ceata[14]has been promoting Free Software
and culture since 2008, and in February this year was officially
incorporated. The group, based in Bucharest with local chapters in Cluj
and Chișinău, organises conferences on Free Software, Free hardware,
and Free culture. Ceata also develops their own applications, translates
programs into Romanian, and participates in international campaigns.
Fundația Ceata and FSFE will now join forces[15]and work more
effectively on promoting software freedom in Romania and throughout
Europe.
13.
https://fsfe.org/associates/associates.en.html#id-funda%C8%9Bia-ceata?pk_ca…
14. http://ceata.org/
15.
https://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130424-01.en.html?pk_campaign=enewsletter…
== Something completely different ==
- The German Parliament (the 'Bundestag') has voted on a joint motion
against software patents[16]. The resolution urges the German
government to take steps to limit the granting of patents on computer
programs. The Parliament's resolution reminds the government that,
under the EU's Computer Programs Directive, software is covered by
copyright, not patents. It calls on the government to finally put the
directive's "copyright approach" into practice, and make German law
more concrete in this regard. It also points out that the restrictions
which patents impose are incompatible with the most widely used Free
Software licenses.
- The winner of the election for FSFE's Fellowship GA[17]is Heiki
"Repentinus" Ojasild[18]. The election period for this year's
Fellowship GA seat ended on March 15, and proved exciting to the end.
Thanks to all Fellows who participated in the process and made this a
valuable experience for the Fellowship and for FSFE.
- Please welcome the latest Fellowship group, from Bari, South
Italy[19]! The way the group was formed was unprecedented in FSFE
history: As a former GNU/Linux user group, 15 people joined FSFE
simultaneously to create a new Fellowship group. According to the
members, they took this step in order to be more active on a political
level in future.
- The chancellor of the "Freie Universität Berlin" has asked all staff
to use exclusively 'Apple iTunes U' for the publication of University
materials, such as recordings of lectures. To access University
resources therefore, students now have to use Apple iTunes, which
excludes users of Free Software operating systems, and includes a
variety of anti-consumer measures to lock them in to the service. FSFE
has written to the chancellor explaining why University resources
should be available without software barriers (German)[20].
- As part of the Ask Your Candidates campaign[21], FSFE has sent out
'voting benchmarks' ("Wahlprüfsteine") for all three elections in
Germany, that will be in autumn this year. The aim is to obtain public
statements on Free Software policies and committments from parties
which are hoping to be elected. Some responses have already been
received and will be published soon.
- FSFE participated in the Chemnitzer Linuxtage conference[22]this
month. The FSFE booth received lots of attention, and many people
approached the team to ask about campaigns. Free Your Android proved
to be a hot topic, generating many questions and ideas. Reinhard
Müller, FSFE's Financial Officer, gave a talk entitled "Free
yourself: how to save the world in five easy steps", and Erik Albers,
Fellowship Deputy Coordinator, gave a presentation on Free Your
Android. Erik was in Freeing frenzy this month, and delivered the same
talk at Cebit in Hannover[23], Germany. The conference organisers
filmed and hosted a video of the talk[24], but unfortunately only in
Adobe Flash.
- From the planet aggregation[25]:
- Hugo explains why the HTML5[26] video[27] tag has been a
failure[28]and still is. He argues that we need to weigh in to the
political process which is shaping HTML5, and to fight the surrounding
Fear Uncertainty and Doubt[29]to keep the Internet a place where
everyone is free to express themselves - without having to ask for
permission or signing a restricted-patent-license.
- Mia Julia Eley encourages women that are interested in technology and
engineering[30]to apply for GNOME's Outreach Program for Women[31].
"Plenty of women out there have skills that could benefit the Free
Software movement and the barrier to entry should be clearly
understood" she states.
- Torsten Grote reports about the latest changes in CyanogenMod's
[http://www.cyanogenmod.org/] privacy policy. Before, they were
collecting anonymised data for statistical purposes including the
option for everyone to opt-out. Suddenly, this opt-out feature was
removed and a tracking feature was added that sends the collected data
to Google Analytics, too. After some days, the first decision was
reversed, that means you have the option to opt-out again. But, still,
if you agree that your data will be sent to CM, it will also be sent
to Google Analytics. Read all details on Torsten's Blog[32].
- Paul Boddie reflects about "The Academic Challenge: Ideas, Patents,
Openness and Knowledge" and argues why Universities should insist on
freedom of knowledge instead of just defending openness of knowledge.
Read why there should be no commercialisation of academia and no
monopolization of ideas[33].
- Did you already set up your Fellowship card? If not, you might be
interested in a'How To' which was made by Jens Lechtenbörger[34]to
support the already existing Fellowship How[35]to.
- Beside this, Jens Lechtenbörger also explains why, for privacy
reasons, Ubuntu users should not update to Ubuntu 12.10 or 13.04[36],
but instead stick with version 12.04 LTS.
- Finally, some fun: Henrik Sandklef shows how to use your calendar for
artistic purposes[37], in this case to illustrate the Fellowship
Plussy
16.
https://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130422-01.en.html?pk_campaign=enewsletter…
17.
https://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130319-01.en.html?pk_campaign=enewsletter…
18.
https://www.wiki.fsfe.org/Fellows/repentinus?pk_campaign=enewsletter&pk_kwd…
19. https://www.wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Bari?pk_campaign=enewsletter&pk_kwd=201305
20.
https://netzpolitik.org/2013/kein-open-education-aber-itunes-u-e-learning-s…
21.
https://fsfe.org/campaigns/askyourcandidates/askyourcandidates?pk_campaign=…
22. http://chemnitzer.linux-tage.de/2013/
23. http://www.cebit.com
24. http://www.techcast.com/events/cebit13/di-1600/?q=di-1600
25. http://planet.fsfe.org?pk_campaign=enewsletter&pk_kwd=201305
26.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2013/04/a-small-lesson-about-patent-fud/?pk_camp…
27.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2013/04/a-small-lesson-about-patent-fud/?pk_camp…
28.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2013/04/a-small-lesson-about-patent-fud/?pk_camp…
29. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt
30.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/mia/2013/04/10/programming-oportunities-for-women/?p…
31. https://live.gnome.org/OutreachProgramForWomen
32.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/2013/04/03/cyanogenmod-removes-trackin…
33. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=134&pk_campaign=enewsletter&pk_kwd=201305
34.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/jens.lechtenboerger/2013/04/19/how-to-set-up-your-fe…
35.
https://wiki.fsfe.org/Card_howtos/Card_with_subkeys_using_backups?pk_campai…
36.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/jens.lechtenboerger/2013/04/19/ubuntu-search-still-br…
37. http://sandklef.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/fsfe-graphics-with-owncloud/
== Get active: oppose integration of DRM into HTML5 ==
FSFE, FSF and other prominent organisations defending digital freedom
have prepared a joint letter to the World Wide Web Consortium and its
member organisations urging them to reject the Encrypted Media
Extensions (EME) proposal[38]. This proposal aims at incorporating
support for Digital Restriction Management (DRM) into HTML5 and might
become a threat to Free Software users. P lease join us[39]in calling on
the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and its member organizations to
reject the Encrypted Media Extensions proposal (EME).
38.
https://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130423-02.en.html?pk_campaign=enewsletter…
39. http://www.defectivebydesign.org/no-drm-in-html5
Thanks to all the Fellows and donors who enable our work,
Erik
--
Free Software Foundation Europe - http://fsfe.org
FSFE News - http://fsfe.org/news/news
Upcoming FSFE Events - http://fsfe.org/events/events
Fellowship Blog Aggregation - http://planet.fsfe.org
Free Software Discussions - http://fsfe.org/contact/community
*Varoitus:*Tätä sivua ei ole vielä käännetty. Alla näet sivun
alkuperäisen version. Lisätietoja käännösten tekemiseen
osallistumisesta ja muusta tältä sivulta[1].
1. http://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.fi.html
= FSFE Newsletter - March 2013 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201303.fi.html ]
== Brussels flooded with Free Software activists ==
>From February 1st to February 3rd thousands of people went to Brussels
to participate in FOSDEM -- the Free and Open Source Software
Developers' European Meeting. At FOSDEM you have the opportunity to meet
developers and contributors from nearly all major Free Software
projects. FSFE is always there to talk with people about ongoing
developments and the needs and contributions in the Free Software
community. So it is a good place to exchange information, talk with very
interesting people, plan future activities, and meet all the people you
would usually just have e-mail contact with.
As in previous years, FSFE was present with a booth, answering questions
about current political topics and activities, distributing information
material and – what every hacker needs – cool t-shirts. Fellow Mirko
Böhm has written a summary about FOSDEM[2], including tips on
communication for Free Software groups and projects, if we should
embrace app stores and how to share a trademark. Isabel Drost has
documented FOSDEM in 9 blog posts[3]: from her arrival with spider
robots[4], about Trademarks and Free Software[5], or the panel
discussion about GNU APL[6].
2. http://creative-destruction.me/2013/02/02/fosdem13-community-legal-devrooms
3. http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/tag/fosdem
4. http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/460/fosdem-2013-01
5. http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/461/trademarks-and-oss
6. http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/463/afero-gpl-panel-discussi…
We were also present with several talks: For example our Finnish team
coordinator Otto Kekäläinen[7]gave a talk about "Fixing public
procurement", our vice-president Henrik Sandklef gave a talk about
Searduino[8], and Erik Albers presented our Free Your Android
campaign[9]( recording available (webm)[10].
7. https://fosdem.org/2013/schedule/speaker/otto_kekalainen/
8. http://sandklef.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/searduino-fosdem-new-gui-simulator…
9. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/android/android.fi.html
10. http://video.fosdem.org/2013/lightningtalks/Phone_liberation_parties.webm
As part of the FYA campaign, Several Fellows also participated in a
meeting at the European Parliament on Friday[11]. It was organised by
Alexander Alvaro, Vice-President of the European Parliament (EP),
together with the European Parliament Free Software User Group
(EPFSUG)[12]. He wanted his EP colleagues to learn how to regain control
of their data and how to install a free operating system and Free
Software on their Android devices.
11. http://epfsug.eu/content/free-your-android-fsfe
12. http://epfsug.eu/
Just three weeks later, we were shocked to hear that Mr Alvaro had a car
accident and is still in hospital with serious injuries. FSFE wishes him
a fast and full recovery.
== Why we love Free Software ==
A lot of people followed our call[13]to participate in the I love Free
Software activity. The result – which has been summarised in a
report[14]by FSFE's new interns Lucile Falgueyrac and Stepan Stehlicek
– was a lot of e-mails, blog posts, pictures and a comic strip. E.g.,
Fellow Mirko Böhm explains why he loves Free Software:
13. http://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130212-01.fi.html
14. http://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130221-01.fi.html
The benefits of Free Software go beyond the individual contributors and
the communities they form. The four freedoms laid out as the foundations
of Free Software are a fanfare to the ability to exercise one’s free
will, to freely collaborate by helping your neighbors, to achieve
independence from directions other people have thought up for us. The
effects can be seen all around us – when teaching material for schools
is developed collaboratively and freely shared, when government data is
opened up to improve the transparency of the political process, when the
technical foundations of the internet and the operating systems running
modern technology become a common good, and in many other places. People
start to expect similar freedoms they learned to get used to in software
when engaging in society. And more participation is always better.
== Something completely different ==
- Our DFD team published a video tutorial[15], which explains how to
watch Youtube videos using HTML5. Do not miss this month's "get-
active" item below, which is also about Document Freedom Day.
- We have received a report about a successful case of Windows tax
refund in Croatia[16]. One has to apply for the refund within 30 days
of a purchase of an ASUS product and fill out a form in order to
receive €42 refund for Microsoft Windows 8 OEM.
- LWN writes about trademarks and their limits[17], the idea behind
trademarks, about how effective this protection is, and gives examples
of bad behaviour; e.g., offering Free Software with unwanted toolbars
and adware.
- In FSFE we receive a lot of license questions, but we have not yet
evaluated how many we receive through country teams, our legal teams,
or over the phone. Our sister organisation FSF reports[18]that they
have responded to and resolved over 400 reports of suspected license
violations and over 600 general licensing and compliance questions.
- Your editor has written an article for the German news site Heise
titled"Politics and Free Software"[19]. The article covers his
experience from the parliament working group on interoperability,
standards, and Free Software.
- Guido Arnold has published the January update about Free Software in
education[20], covering news from the community and the government as
well as upcoming events.
- Mirko gave a talk at Embedded World 2013 about defensive
publications[21].
- Besides many other positive news from Joinup about Free Software in
the public administration: Member of the European Parliament Amelia
Andersdotter wants public administrations to consider software
freedom[22]as one of the reasons to select new ICT solutions, and the
city of Bolzano has automated testing of e-government services on Free
Software systems[23].
- Fellow Jelle Hermsen asked for blog aggregation for our Dutch Fellows,
and now it is up and running[24].
- From the planet aggregation[25]:
- Anna Morris, who created the DFD video mentioned above, wrote about
Guake: a command-line tool for "dyslexics and beginners"[26].
- You wonder why we published the DFD as ".webm"? Peter Bubestinger
wrote a summary article[27]about different video formats from a Free
Software perspective, explaining that digital video consists of video
codec, audio codec, and container format. He explains the different
codecs, and why some videos do not work out of the box on a Free
Software Distribution.
- Beside this, Peter also wrote about Tears of Steel, a movie made with
Free Software[28].
- From Steel to Stealth: What could the Americans and British do to put
the stealth back into stealth bomber? Daniel Pocock explains why the
US military might need the Free Software lumical[29].
- Mark Lindhout described how to use RSYNC to delete remote
folders[30]and after inspiration from the last Fellowship meeting in
Berlin he also wrote about why and how to play high-fidelity white
noise[31].
- Interested in a distributed solution for one-time-password
authentication on GNU/Linux operating systems? Daniel wrote about
dynalogin[32]which is providing this.
- Thomas Løcke describes how to use the Ada Web Server[33]and,
- Henri Bergius is thinking about the flow-based programming user
interface[34].
15. http://download.fsfe.org/campaigns/dfd/youtube-howto-english-854x480.webm
16. https://wiki.fsfe.org/WindowsTaxRefund/Croatia
17. http://lwn.net/Articles/536126
18. http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/fsf-licensing-team-what-we-did-in-2012-w…
19. http://www.heise.de/open/artikel/Die-Woche-Politik-und-Freie-Software-17942…
20. http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/02/free-software-in-education-news-january…
21. http://creative-destruction.me/2013/02/26/defensive-publications-at-embedde…
22. http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/mep-authorities-should-include-freedoms-whe…
23. http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/bolzano-automates-testing-e-government-serv…
24. http://planet.fsfe.org/nl/
25. http://planet.fsfe.org
26. http://blogs.fsfe.org/anna.morris/2013/02/18/guake-a-great-command-line-too…
27. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pb/?page_id=20
28. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pb/?p=41
29. http://danielpocock.com/us-military-may-need-lumicall
30. http://blogs.fsfe.org/marklindhout/2013/02/use-rsync-to-delete-remote-folde…
31. http://blogs.fsfe.org/marklindhout/2013/02/need-to-play-high-fidelity-white…
32. http://danielpocock.com/dynalogin-1.0.0-released
33. http://blogs.fsfe.org/thomaslocke/2013/02/10/using-the-ada-web-server-aws-p…
34. http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/inspiration-for-fbp-ui/
== Get active: Organise an event for Document Freedom Day 2013 ==
Help us to introduce more people to Open Standards – participate in
Document Freedom Day 2013[35]on March 27th! Local teams can now promote
their events[36]on DocumentFreedom.org, and have them marked on the
global campaign map[37].
35. http://documentfreedom.org
36. http://www.documentfreedom.org/registerevent.html
37. http://www.documentfreedom.org/events/events.html
In 2012 groups of volunteers ran 54 events in 23 different countries. If
you want to get some inspiration for your event, take a look at our
activity packages[38]or the DFD report from 2012[39]. Help us to make
this year's DFD the most successful yet!
38. http://www.documentfreedom.org/getinvolved.html
39. http://www.documentfreedom.org/news/2012/news-20120403-01.html
Thanks to all the Fellows and donors who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner- FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <http://fsfe.org>
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