FSFE Newsletter - February 2012
Reclaim your smartphone!
Smartphones are small computers that we carry around all the time.
Unfortunately, most smartphones are not controlled by us, the users,
but by the manufacturers and the operators. Even Android phones are
being shipped with non-free software and proprietary add-ons that
usually do not work in the full interest of us. Software updates will
only keep to be available if the manufacturer still has a commercial
interest in your device. The applications available from the official
market are most of the time non-free. Nobody is allowed to study how
they work and what they really do on your phone. Sometimes they do
not work exactly as you want, but sometimes they might even contain
malicious features.
Running only Free Software on your device puts you in full control.
Even though you might not be able to directly exercise all of your
freedoms, you will benefit from a vibrant community that can do it
together.
FSFE [1]is collecting information about running an Android system as
free as possible. We try to coordinate the different efforts, but we
need your help with it. Join our mailing list, update the wiki and
thereby enable more people to use Free Software on their everyday
computers.
Lesson 1: Learn how to programme!
Our [2]education team has done [3]solid work in 2011, including our
[4]NL edu campaign. Free Software permits children to learn how
software works and thus to understand the concepts underlying a whole
category or type of software. They are then prepared to adapt to any
environment, which is a key skill nowadays. In addition, we believe
that the possibility to tinker does motivate children easily to learn
autonomously. Finally, Free Software allows them to understand
computers in a more depth.
Sam Tuke was [5]asked by the BBC to comment about suggestions that the
British Government may add basic programming skills to the national
curriculum, and whether this would have a political impact on society
in terms of how we interact with technology. The education team will
have a brief meeting at the upcoming FOSDEM, at the 4th and 5th of
February. You are welcome to join.
Already plans for 28th of March?
Open Standards make it easier for individuals, companies and the public
administration to switch to Free Software. The goal of the[6]Document
Freedom Day is to raise awareness for Open Standards so people have
more freedom. This year your editor is in charge of DFD and he will
bluntly promote it in this and upcoming newsletters. At the moment,
please save the date 28th of March, [7]send our country teams
nominations for the Document Freedom Award, help us to gather
information for our [8]Standards Quartet, find [9]street artists to
promote the idea of Open Standards, and [10]contact the DFD team if you
want to [11]become a supporting organisation.
Something completely different
* Time to vote: The [12]2012 Fellowship election is running until the
end of February. As Fellow you can decide between [13]Albert Dengg,
Gert Seidl, and Nikos Roussos. On 22nd February we plan to have a
chat meeting with the candidates.
* Slovak Copyright Act: [14]FSFE intern Martin Husovec [15]sent
letters to four members of Slovak Parliament that proposed a highly
awaited amendment, but later faced its dismissal due to preliminary
elections.
* Heiki Ojasild joined the Free Software Foundation Europe in 2011,
undertaking the task of translating fsfe.org into Estonian. He is
currently developing an XChat add-on, a website for free SVG and
JavaScript games, and asked [16]Estonian politicians questions
about Free Software. Read more in [17]this month's Fellowship
interview about copyright, Digital Restrictions Management,
kopimism, and activism.
* Richard Stallman's new article [18]"Measures Governments Can Use to
Promote Free Software" is out.
* Two new editions of the [19]legal news cover the US Supreme Court
decision on copyright extension, patent inflation, the[20]release
of the Mozilla Public License version 2.0 which is GNU
GPL-compatible, and more.
* During the January 18th protest against SOPA, we blacked out our
website joining other organisations to protect the Internet.
* Here a selection from the [21]Fellowship planet aggregation:
+ The new FSFE Fellowship blog theme — a name, a first
version. [22]Presenting: Pome 1.0.
+ Interested why Thomas Koch suggests you should [23]stop coding
for money?
+ You should demand Free Software in a business context became
it [24]makes sense and saves a lot of money, says Jelle
Hermsen.
+ [25]Fellow No1 tells us how much 57 persons in Rwanda can eat
while hacking on Free Software
+ What is the "web trap"? [26]Heiki Ojasild argued to treat
HTML, SVG and CSS as tools that should be as accessible to
everyone as software in general should be.
+ And a nice hardware hack: [27]Computer startup aid using a
LEGO train.
Get active: More love reports instead of bug reports!
Let us admit it, the Free Software community is often very critical. We
write bug reports, tell others how they can improve the software, ask
them for new features, and to not spare with criticism. Sometimes we
forget to say "thank you, for all your work". As in the last years, we
want to change this, at least for one day. So on Tuesday the 14th of
February we will celebrate the [28]"I love Free Software" - Day.
Get active, buy your favourite developer a drink or give them a hug
(ask for permission first), write an [29]e-mail/letter expressing your
feelings, create nice pictures, donate to a Free Software initiative,
use another [30]of our suggestions or be create yourself to show how
you appreciate people, working hard to enlarge or defend our freedom.
Beside that help us to promote the activity with [31]our banners, by
e-mail, (micro)blog or in your (distributed?) social networks.
New this year is a [32]whole day event in the Unperfekthaus in Essen
(Germany) and that all our Fellows automatically get an
login(a)ilovefs.org e-mail alias.
Thanks to all the [33]Fellows and [34]donors who enable our work,
[35]Matthias Kirschner - [36]FSFE
References
1. http://wiki.fsfe.org/Android
2. http://fsfe.org/projects/education/education.html
3. http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2012/01/edu-team-2011-summary/
4. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/nledu/nledu.html
5. http://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=255
6. http://documentfreedom.org/
7. http://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20120110-02.html
8. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=881
9. http://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20120130-01.html
10. http://documentfreedom.org/contact.html
11. http://documentfreedom.org/news/2012/news-20120127-01.html
12. http://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20120131-01.html
13. http://wiki.fsfe.org/FellowshipElection_2012
14. http://fsfe.org/contribute/internship.html
15. http://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20120110-01.html
16.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/repentinus/english/2012/01/10/estonian-political-land…
17. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=521
18. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/government-free-software.html
19. http://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20120126-01.html
20. http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/mpl-2.0-release
21. http://planet.fsfe.org/
22.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/marklindhout/2012/01/the-fsfe-blog-theme-%E2%80%94-a-…
23.
http://koch.ro/blog/index.php?/archives/154-Stop-coding-for-money.html
24.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/jelle/2012/01/09/demanding-free-software-in-a-busines…
25. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mario/?p=167
26. http://blogs.fsfe.org/repentinus/english/2012/01/04/the-web-trap/
27.
http://fl0rian.wordpress.com/2012/01/06/computer-startup-aid-using-a-lego-t…
28. http://ilovefs.org/
29.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/thomaslocke/2012/01/18/why-i-love-free-and-open-sourc…
30. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/ilovefs/2012/ilovefs.html
31. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/ilovefs/2012/banners.html
32. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/ilovefs/2012/unperfekthaus.html
33. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
34. http://fsfe.org/home/alessandro/Documents/donate/thankgnus.html
35. http://fsfe.org/about/kirschner
36. http://www.fsfe.org/
37. http://fsfe.org/index.html
38. http://fsfe.org/news/news.rss
39. http://fsfe.org/events/events.rss
40. http://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml
41. http://fsfe.org/contact/community.html
(Please support us to reach more people in their native language. Join
our translator team http://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/.)
= FSFE Newsletter - January 2012 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201201.fi.html ]
== Preventing 6000 mines against Free Software? ==
Competition authorities are investigating the sale of 6000 patents from
Nortel, a bankrupt telecommunications equipment manufacturer, to a
consortium of Apple, Microsoft and four other companies.
FSFE considers it a serious risk to competition in the mobile technology
space, and Free Software as a whole, if those companies acquire these
patents. Soon after the sale, we approached EU and US competition
authorities, and in September submitted a summary of our concerns[1].
1. http://fsfe.org/projects/swpat/nortel.en.html
== 80 billion EUR for RD: What will we get? ==
The European Commission has adopted a set of proposals for its next
framework program, called Horizon 2020. This program will provide 80
billion EUR for research and development projects from 2014 to 2020.
Prior to finalisation of the proposal, FSFE had provided input[2]to the
Commission in order to make the program accessible for Free Software
research and projects. FSFE will continue to engage with the European
institutions in order to support the development of Horizon 2020 in the
interest of Europe's citizens.
2. http://fsfe.org/projects/horizon2020/index.en.html
== Free Software makes German Parliament more secure ==
On the request of some members of parliament, the German Bundestag's IT-
department now supports GnuPG[3], so members of the parliament have the
option to set this up and receive encrypted and signed e-mails. The
president of the German City Council and Munich's main mayorUde wrote to
the EU-Commissioner Neelie Kroes[4]that she should support Open
Standards and Free Software.
Those are nice examples where politicians understand the advantages of
Free Software and also act upon this knowledge. We want more politicians
with this knowledge. One concrete activity is our"ask your candidates
campaign"[5], where we send out questions[6]to the political parties
before elections, and then evaluate the answers. This year we did so for
elections in Vienna/Austria, Switzerland, and 5 federal state elections
in Germany.
3. http://von-notz.de/2011/12/verschluesselung-mails-an-uns-ab-jetzt-auch-vers…
4. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=871
5. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/askyourcandidates/askyourcandidates.en.html
6. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/askyourcandidates/example-questions.xhtml
== Something completely different ==
- In the dispute between the companies AVM and Cybits the written
reasoning of the decision of the Regional Court of Berlin is now
available[7]. The court confirmed FSFE's view that users of GNU GPLed
software are allowed to modify and install it even if it is shipped as
a part of an embedded device's firmware.
- City officials in Helsinki, Finland, are overwhelmingly satisfied
after trying out the Free Software office suite[8]OpenOffice.org on
their laptops. 75% of 600 officials have been using OpenOffice.org
exclusively since February, as part of a pilot project where the city
installed the program on 22,500 workstations.
- In this month Fellowship interview[9]Chris talked with Paul Boddie,
who has been working with Python since 1995, and from 2006 to 2010 was
involved in organising the annual EuroPython conference, administering
various conference-related tools and developing the conference
website.
- An important decision of the Court of Justice of EU, AG's opinion in
awaited European interoperability ruling, two software patent cases
and much more is to be found in our legal news[10].
- We are preparing for Document Freedom Day 2012. The website was
updated[11], on the mailing list we are discussing new ideas[12], and
you are welcome to join.
- From the Fellowship planet aggregation[13]:
- So what might Digital Sustainability be? Read Georg Greve's
explanation about it[14].
- Want to see a quadrocopter and other pictures from the Chaos
Communication Camp? Take a look at Florian's blog article[15].
- What do nerds drink? Michael Stehmann answers this question in his
article about the "Chaosvillage" in Düsseldorf[16].
- Patrik from our Swedish team writes about awk filtering and
counting[17].
- Our translator Heiki Ojasild thinks about the question what to
translate and what not to translate?[18]
7. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20111201-02.en.html
8. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20111213-01.en.html
9. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=509
10. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20111220-01.en.html
11. http://documentfreedom.org
12. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/df-coordination
13. http://planet.fsfe.org
14. http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=462
15. https://fl0rian.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/summer-holidays/
16. http://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=375
17. http://blog.padowi.se/2011/12/05/awk-filtering-and-counting/
18. http://blogs.fsfe.org/repentinus/english/2011/12/09/to-translate-or-not-to-…
== Get active: Support us by becoming a Fellow of FSFE! ==
Not everybody understands Free Software, and not everybody likes that
FSFE works hard on promoting Free Software[19]to enlarge the freedom in
our society. If you understand that Free Software is important in order
to cope with the upcoming challenges for free society, please support us
financially by becoming a Fellow of FSFE[20].
Since December it is possible to donate your
contribution*yearly*or*monthly*by*credit card*,*direct debit*, and other
means. Every small donation helps us to continue to be an independent
and critical voice for Free Software advocacy for another year.
19. http://fsfe.org/donate/letter-2011.en.html
20. https://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
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>
= FSFE Newsletter - November 2011 =
[Read Online : http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201111.en.html ]
== WWW would have been better if it was patented ==
How long should copyright last? Should living beings or software be
patentable? The World Intellectual Property Organisation deals with this
sort of questions. Since 2004, we are involved in the WIPO to make sure
they do not harm Free Software. Our most important demand is that when
it comes to copyright and patents, the benefits should be weighed
against the costs.
The new Director General Francis Gurry's said that the World Wide Web
would have been better if it was patented. This shows us that the
current trend is in the opposite direction. Read more about this in
Karsten's article WIPO sliding back into the Dark Ages?[1], our WIPO
dossier[2], and support the Geneva Declaration[3].
1.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2011/10/24/wipo-sliding-back-into-the-dark-ag…
2. http://fsfe.org/projects/wipo/wipo.de.html
3. http://fsfe.org/projects/wipo/wiwo.de.html
== Daily business - step by step ==
Why do FSFE so frequently give interviews and talks, and travel to
promote FSFE issues? Our mission is to promote freedom in emerging
digital society. So as you can see on our events page[4]it is part of
our daily business to travel around, give talks, interviews, and
organise events. Paul Boddie improved our Fellowship event
calendar[5]which now integrates GriCal. This way you can subscribe to
the calendar. If you are already subscribed to the the event's RSS feed
<http://fsfe.org/events/events.de.rss>or the Ical feed[6]you can skip
the next paragraph.
4. http://fsfe.org/events/events.de.html
5. http://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=54
6. webcal://fsfe.org/events/events.en.ics
So for example in October Karsten and Matija gave talks at LinuxCon
Europe in Prague, Sam gave a speech at the DIY Feminist Festival in
Manchester[7], our UK team had a booth at FLOSS UK Unconference 2011 in
Manchester, your editor gave a talk about "10 misunderstandings about
Free Software (or are they lies?)" at the technical university in
Berlin, our Austrian coordinator Peter Bubestinger gave a talk "Free
Software and Open Formats: virtual immortality and independence for
digital archives" at the National Library in Vienna, and our French
coordinator Hugo Roy organised a talk on "A Free Digital Society" by
Richard Stallman[8].
7. http://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=215
8.
http://www.libertesnumeriques.net/evenements/stallman-19octobre2011?lang=en
On the interview front: Karsten gave a radio interview about our work at
WIPO[9], Hugo an interview to the French GNU Linux Magazine Essentiel,
your editor to the German newspaper TAZ about Secure boot[10].
9.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2011/10/24/wipo-sliding-back-into-the-dark-ag…
10. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=845
== Something completely different ==
- Rikard Fröberg works at The Society for Free Culture and
Software[11], and contributes this year to the FSCONS[12]organisation
and thereby supporting our Free Software in Politics track[13]. In the
October Fellowship Interview[14]he considers the importance of having
an active and engaged community of users.
- Free Software from a human rights angle. Instead of just saying good-
bye after the end of his internship, Diego wrote us a nice article as
a gift:"Free Software social networks for social change"[15].
- A selection of interesting blog entries from our planet
aggregation[16]:Denmark - Portugal 4:5. The regular qualification for
the EURO2012 in Free Software are over. Which country has good Free
Software and Open Standard practices? Guido Arnold looked at this[17].
(Even though they were not able to win against Belgium, your editor is
happy that Germany qualified. It is difficult to compete against teams
with such good players as FOSDEM[18].)
- New government in Denmark, read what new opportunities Fellow Carsten
Agger sees[19].
- Converting letters into e-mails? Working on our PDFreaders
campaign[20], Sam received letters from public administrations and had
to forward them to our mailing list. So he took this opportunity to
write about Easy OCR on GNU/Linux with gImageReader"[21].
- The first 100 customers matter! Writes Georg Greve in his article
about an Open climate for entrepreneurs in Europe[22]. Read more about
Research and Development programmes, Silicon Valley, and software
patents.
- UnRAR in freedom: Thanks to The Unarchiver initiative, we are now able
to extract recent rar files completely with Free Software[23].
- When is a bug report useful?[24]Read the article, and file about to
this month newsletter.
- KDE became 15 Years in October. Paul Adams wondered how that does
look like[25].
11. https://ffkp.se/
12. http://fscons.org/
13. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=840
14. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=446
15.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/diegojavier/2011/10/10/free-software-social-networks-…
16. http://planet.fsfe.org
17.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2011/10/euro2012-in-free-software-regular-quali…
18. http://www.fosdem.org
19.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/agger/2011/10/01/denmark-new-government-new-opportun…
20. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/pdfreaders.de.html
21. http://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=227
22. http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=455
23. http://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/2011/10/14/unrar-in-freedom/
24. http://blogs.fsfe.org/myriam/2011/10/when-is-a-bug-report-useful
25. http://blogs.fsfe.org/padams/?p=251
-
== Get Active: Document Freedom Day - Let's get ready to rumble ==
Coordination for next years Document Freedom Day[26]is starting. Your
editor is responsible for next years international coordination, and
shamelessly asks you to join the team, subscribe to our mailinglist[27],
give input about the last year, help with campaign planing, taking care
of coordination events in a certain country, taking care with the
communication with partners, help with the organisation of events for
next year, help with setting up the new website, writting texts,
translate them, help with designing t-shirts and other promotion
materials, or if you do not have time, make a donation[28]to support us
in this activity.
26. http://documentfreedom.org
27. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/df-coordination
28. http://fsfe.org/donate/donate.en.html
Thanks to all the Fellows[29]and donors[30]who enable our work,
29. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
30. donate/thankgnus.de.html
Matthias Kirschner- FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <http://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <http://fsfe.org/news/news.de.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <http://fsfe.org/events/events.de.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <http://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <http://fsfe.org/contact/community.de.html>
(Please support us to reach more people in their native language. Join
our translator team http://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/.)
= FSFE Newsletter - September 2011 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201109.fi.html ]
== New Intern surrounded by 800 geeks? ==
The first day in a new organisation always is quite intensive, many new
people, procedures, so much information. Our new intern Eszter Bako[1]it
was even more intense. She spent her first day with FSFE at the Desktop
Summit, surrounded by nearly 800 people talking about strange things
such as KDE, Gnome, Qt, GTK, Plasma, Git, QML, D-Bus, or about how to
build a toaster[2]. For beginners the Free Software community can give a
strange impression.
1. http://blogs.fsfe.org/eszter/
2. https://www.desktopsummit.org/program/sessions/complexity-everyday-technolo…
Good thing that she wasn't on her own. Our experienced intern Natalia
Evdokimova, who organised our booth at the event, safely guided her
through the day. Beside that there were many other FSFE activists: Our
president Karsten gave a talk about"Free desktops for Europe's public
sector"[3]and founding member Bernhard talked about"Daily Melee: paid
people within Free Software initiatives - How they tick, how to keep
them and the art of behaving if you are one"[4]. Like you can see on our
blog aggregation[5]there were a lot of other Fellows present, including
our former president Georg Greve.
3. https://www.desktopsummit.org/program/sessions/free-desktops-europes-public…
4. https://www.desktopsummit.org/program/sessions/daily-melee-paid-people-with…
5. http://planet.fsfe.org
Beside Eszter joining and Natalia leaving as intern, there are more
changes within our team: Nicolas Jean's[6]internship has now ended. He
was one of the most active people in the web team, and we are happy that
he will remain in our volunteers team as FSFE's webmaster. Diego Naranjo
Barroso[7]and Alessandro Polvani[8]started their internships. Diego
already contacted the Spanish Institutions[9]for our PDFreaders
campaign, and Alessandro will do the follow-up in Italy.
6. http://blogs.fsfe.org/nicoulas
7. http://blogs.fsfe.org/diegojavier/
8. http://blogs.fsfe.org/alessandro.polvani/
9. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/buglist.fi.html#ES
== Digits to remember: 22-10-11 and 11-11-11 ==
The Nordic Free Software Award is given to people, projects or
organisations in the Nordic countries that have made a prominent
contribution to the advancement of Free Software. Henrik Sandklef, our
vice-president, asks you[10]to submit nominations by email until October
22nd.
10. https://sandklef.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/nomination-period-open-for-nordic…
The award will be announced during the Free Society Conference and
Nordic Summit (FSCONS)[11]in Gothenburg, Sweden which will take place
from Friday November 11th through Sunday November 13th. The conference
is organised by FSFE's Swedish team, and your editor is responsible for
FSFE's"Free Software in Politics" track[12]there. We are looking forward
to see you there. (Fellows will get a discount of 10 EUR on the standard
rate).
11. http://fscons.org/
12. http://fscons.org/schedule/
== Something completely different ==
- The importance of promoting Free Software, spreading Free Software in
schools, and what role the computer sciences can play in relating the
messages of Free Software to other institutions and disciplines: Read
the latest Fellowship interview[13], in which our fellow Richard
Shipman shares his thoughts on these topics.
- On Saturday 13th August Free Software activists came to FSFE’s PDF
Readers Sprint in Manchester and found 59 previously unreported
adverts for proprietary PDF readers, all of them on UK Council
websites. Check out the report about the event done by Sam Tuke[14]and
Chris Woolfrey[15]from our UK team.
- Computer Aided Design (CAD) software is critically important to a
variety of industries and professions. It is also notorious for being
poorly catered for by Free Software applications. Sam wrote a brief
summary of the current situation.[16]
- Support Ogg Vorbis by helping our sister FSF to reach 5.000 signatures
for their petition[17], asking for This American Life in Ogg Vorbis.
Also concerning Ogg, FSFE's UK team had a booth at the
OggCamp2011[18].
- R-DIY Feminism Festival: FSFE will be represented at the DIY Feminism
Festival[19]in Manchester on September 3 and 4, holding events,
including talks on Free Software philosophy, Free Software and women,
and an Open Street Map workshop.
- Summer time was blogging time, so here some articles from the planet
aggregation[20]:With our new intern Diego J. Naranjo Barroso's help
Matija prepared the Free Software and law related links covering links
about the the patents war, Google acquiring Motorola Mobility, and
other stories in 1.8.-14.8.[21]and 15.8.-21.8.[22].
- Timo Jyrinki writes about Free Software on mobile phones[23]and the
MeeGo Summit Finland[24]including lots of pictures from the
event[25].
- Freedom Box: Read about the progress and technical details of the
Freedom Box[26], in Bdale Garbee's report from DebConf11 in Banja
Luka. If you are in the UK at the time, you can attend Sam's talk on
Freedom Boxes[27]in Manchester on 20 September 2011 at 19:00.
- Interested in processing images from the command line? Swedish Team
member Patrik Willard writes about how to do that[28]for the FSCONS
preperations.
- Chris Woolfrey, who is doing the Fellowship interviews[29]started
blogging. His latest article is about the question, if all the data on
your work computer count as company data"[30].
13. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=378
14. http://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=191
15. http://blogs.fsfe.org/chriswoolfrey/2011/08/15/pdf-readers-campaign-hits-th…
16. http://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=169
17. http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/tal-ogg-petition
18. http://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=194
19. http://diyfeminism.com/events-andworkshops/
20. http://planet.fsfe.org
21. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/254
22. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/255
23. http://losca.blogspot.com/2011/08/meego-ce-and-freesmartphoneorg.html
24. http://losca.blogspot.com/2011/04/meego-summit-fi-starts-tomorrow.html
25. http://losca.blogspot.com/2011/04/meego-summit-fi-days-1-2.html
26. http://www.gag.com/bdale/blog/posts/FreedomBox_in_Banja_Luka.html
27. http://fsfe.org/news/news.fi.html
28. http://blog.padowi.se/2011/08/28/2011w34/
29. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/
30. http://blogs.fsfe.org/chriswoolfrey/2011/08/18/should-all-the-data-on-your-…
== Get Active: Software Freedom Day ==
September 17th is Software Freedom Day[31](SFD), a worldwide celebration
of Free Software. Its goal is educational, teaching people why Free
Software is the best choice when it comes to using Software. Organised
and coordinated by the Software Freedom International, SFD invites
everyone to participate and take action on a local level. Our Fellowship
group[32]in Vienna for example invits you to a Software Freedom Party.
The evening will be opened by a talk about legal aspects in Free
Software, held by FSFE's new legal coordinator Matija Šuklje. The
groups in Bonn[33], Hamburg[34], and Manchester[35]also have plans.
31. http://softwarefreedomday.org/
32. http://wiki.fsfe.org/CategoryFellowshipGroup
33. http://wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Bonn
34. http://wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Hamburg
35. http://wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Manchester
Contact existing groups to participate in events, or organise your own
SFD activity!
Regards,
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>
(Please support us to reach more people in their native language. Join
our translator team http://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/.)
= FSFE Newsletter - August 2011 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201108.fi.html ]
== Inside stories by a critical thinker ==
"If people do not understand why their computing is related to their
freedom, it’s because nobody explained them properly" (Bernhard
Reiter)
Bernhard Reiter is one of FSFE's founders and architect of the original
German team. He participated in setting up three important Free Software
organisations: FreeGIS.org, FFII, and FossGIS. Besides that, he is
founder and Executive Director of Intevation GmbH, a company with
exclusively Free Software products and services since 1999.
Interesting stories about setting up FSFE, challenges for Free Software,
and more are covered in this month's Fellowship interview[1].
1. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=341
== Become a Critical Thinker: Get Rid of "Intellectual Property" ==
A lot of people talk about "intellectual property". When using this
term, they usually mix different things like copyright, patents,
trademarks, also right to a name, utility patents, business models, or
even geographical indications. If you want to think critically and
clearly about challenges in the digital age, you should separate those
different issues.
If you really need a term to cover all that, you should use one which is
not that much biased. There are some suggestions in the articles
mentioned below, like the term "Limited Intellectual Monopolies".
But in 90% cases there is actually only one monopoly concerned.
Discussions will be much more productive if everybody knows what you are
talking about. So, if someone says "we need more protection of
"intellectual property", ask them what that means, perhaps it means they
want to have software patents. If someone says "we need to limit the
scope of "intellectual property", you should ask if they want to
restrain copyright, patents or even abolish trademarks.
You can read more about this in Richard Stallman's article"Did You Say
'Intellectual Property'? It's a Seductive Mirage"[2], Georg
Greve's"Fighting intellectual poverty (Who owns and controls the
information societies?)"[3], and your editor's interview with Dradio
Wissen[4](in German).
2. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html
3. http://fsfe.org/projects/wsis/issues.fi.html
4. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=810
== Support FSFE in critical thinking ==
For FSFE it is important that all of you support us. This way our work
does not depend on single donors, and we can continue to think and
communicate critical to promote software freedom.
It is now possible to donate us monthly and yearly[5]by*credit card*and
in Germany also by*direct debit*. Beside that, in the Netherlands
donations to FSFE can now be deducted from income tax (before it was
only possible in Germany and Switzerland). If we get more than 20 new
donors, your editor promises that he will not write the word "critical"
in the next newsletter.
5. http://fsfe.org/donate/donate.fi.html
== Something completely different ==
- Richard Stallman wrote an article"Resist the Temptations of the
Cloud!"[6]( German version[7]) in the German Magazine "Spiegel".
- PDFreaders.org[8]. It is boring to follow up bugs, but it does not
take a lot of time and has a good effect. In Italy volunteers again
managed to close 13 bugs last month. Your editor gave two talks in
Brazil about the PDFreaders campaign[9]to motivate people to fix bugs
in Latin America, and our UK coordinator Sam Tuke is organising a
PDFreaders bug hunt in Manchester. If you live around, join other Free
Software advocates on Saturday, August 13, between 15.00-17.30 at
MadLab hackerspace[10]to find and remove UK Government adverts for
non-Free PDF Readers. Cake and Pizza provided!
- New German Free Software Business Association: Lisog (124 members) and
LIVE Linux-Verband (103 members) now merged into the Open Source
Business Alliance (OSBA)[11](German).
- FSFE will take part at the Desktop Summit, a joint conference
organised by the GNOME and KDE communities in Berlin, Germany, 6 - 12
August 2011 at the Humboldt University. Our president Karsten Gerloff
will give a talk on"Free desktops for Europe's public sector"[12]and
Bernhard Reiter will talk about"Daily Melee: paid people within Free
Software initiatives - How they tick, how to keep them and the art of
behaving if you are one"[13]. (All events are available on our event
page[14]and in the Fellowship calendar[15].
- From the planet aggregation[16]:
- CERN launched its Open Hardware License 1.1 and Open Hardware
Repository. IBM promised to give its Lotus Symphony source code to the
Apache Foundation, and W3C wants to invalidate Apple's Widget software
patents. Read the legal news from 27.6.-3.7.[17] 4.7.-10.7.[18], and
11.7.-18.7.[19].
- Brian Gough has announced the GNU Hackers meeting[20]which will take
place on 25. August – 28. August in Paris. There are about 45 GNU
maintainers and contributors registered so far and speakers include
Jim Meyering, Stefano Zacchiroli, and Jim Blandy.
- Why are students developing Free Software for the public sector? Read
in Guido Arnold's weblog[21]how students get involved in Free
Software.
6. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,775218,00.html
7. http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,774766,00.html
8. http://pdfreaders.org
9. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/pdfreaders.fi.html
10.
http://madlab.org.uk/content/stamp-out-the-ads-free-software-pdf-reader-spr…
11. http://www.linux-verband.de/news/detail/opensource/pressemitteilung/
12.
https://www.desktopsummit.org/program/sessions/free-desktops-europes-public…
13.
https://www.desktopsummit.org/program/sessions/daily-melee-paid-people-with…
14. http://fsfe.org/events/events.fi.html
15. http://wiki.fsfe.org/FellowshipEvents
16. http://planet.fsfe.org
17. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/250
18. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/251
19. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/252
20.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/bjg/2011/07/gnu-hackers-meeting-in-paris-25-28-august…
21.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2011/07/students-developing-free-software-for-t…
== Get active: Read and distribute "crime story" ==
"When patents attack"[22]is a good story from investigative journalists
on software patents, which reads like a crime story. Your editor
recommends you to read it so you have good arguments in future. If you
like it, distribute the article among your colleagues and friends.
22. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/22/138576167/when-patents-attack
Regards,
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>
(Please support us to reach more people in their native language. Join
our translator team http://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/.)
= FSFE Newsletter - July 2011 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201107.fi.html ]
== Attack on Free Software and the GNU GPL ==
Imagine that you've just bought a computer with pre-installed Free
Software. After some time you decide to install additional software made
by someone else. The vendor that sold you your computer, however, does
not approve, and decides to sue the people who made the additional
software that you installed. Sounds like purchasing a computer from that
vendor was not such a great idea!
At the moment something very similar is happening in in Germany[1], in
an important GNU GPL violation case that the FSFE and gpl-
violations.org[2]are participating. Germany company AVM maintains in
court that others should not be allowed to modify the software that
comes pre-installed on their commercial computers and devices. It turns
out, though, that this pre-installed software includes the Linux kernel,
a piece of software distributed under the GNU GPL which guarantees
exactly this freedom to users.
1. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20110620-01.en.html
2. http://www.gpl-violations.org
Through their actions, AVM is attacking the very foundations of Free
Software: they want to take away freedom from others. It will directly
contravene the legal rights of the original software authors[3], who
decided that software freedom and cooperation is more important to them
than receiving license fees. If AVM is successful in court it will be a
disastrous move for the freedom of software on embedded devices, mobile
phones, network hardware and other Free Software based products.
3.
http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2011/06/24/#20110624-avm_cybits_gpl_fud
The judge did not make a decision during the June 21 court hearing, and
participants in the case may still file further written pleas. On
September 27 the court is set to either make a direct ruling on the case
or choose to begin hearing evidence. The FSFE and gpl-violations.org
have published a detailed report about the case[4], and will continue to
monitor the situation in defence of freedom for software users.
4. http://fsfe.org/projects/ftf/avm-gpl-violation.en.html
== FSFE Internal: An era ends - others start ==
Usually you don't hear about the people who work behind the scenes for
the FSFE. Most of us are volunteers, and press and publicity work is
handled by people like FSFE president Karsten Gerloff[5], or your humble
editor. But without those volunteers who donate their spare time to
promote software freedom the FSFE would not be what it is today. (Thank
you!)
5. http://fsfe.org/about/gerloff/gerloff.fi.html
At the FSFE's June 11 General Assembly, which took place in Ljubljana,
Slovenia, FSFE's members[6]elected Henrik Sandklef[7]to be the
organisation's Vice President. A computer scientist and GNU Hacker from
Gothenburg, Sweden, Henrik has been active with the FSFE since 2005. He
takes over from Fernanda Weiden, who held the volunteer position for the
past two years. The General Assembly also confirmed Karsten Gerloff as
FSFE's President and Reinhard Müller as Finanical Officer.
6. http://fsfe.org/about/members.fi.html
7. http://sandklef.com/hesa
While a new officer term cycle began, another era ended as Bernhard
Reiter, FSFE co-founder, completed ten years as German coordinator and
Deputy. He is the first FSFE representative to continuously hold
positions within the organisation for such a long time, and is the only
person to have participated in every FSFE annual General Assembly to
date. Bernhard will remain active within the FSFE but has handed the
official post of Deputy German Coordinator to Torsten Grote[8].
8. http://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/
== The European Commission’s locked-in syndrome ==
It's official: The European Commission will migrate to Microsoft Windows
7 without considering alternative solutions. In a reply to questions
asked by MEP Bart Staes (Greens/EFA), the European Commission confirmed
that it has awarded contracts for the 'upgrade' to Microsoft and
reseller Fujitsu-Siemens on behalf of 55 other European institutions and
the Commission itself. As Karsten explains in his blog article on the
issue[9], this move will drive the Comission into even greater
dependence on Microsoft.
9.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2011/06/06/the-european-commissions-locked-in…
== And now for something completely different ==
- Do you want your (future) children to work with Free Software in
school? Read the new Fellowship Interview with Guido Arnold[10]. Guido
is coordinating the FSFE's education team. He gives insights into the
team's latest efforts at increasing the use of Free Software in
education.
- One IP address for everything: FSFE celebrated World IPv6 Day[11].
Almost all of our servers are now reachable via IPv6.
- Have you ever seen three FSF presidents in one place? The famous
picture captures Richard Stallman (FSF US), Nagarjuna G (FSF India)
and Karsten Gerloff (FSFE)[12]together.
- From the planet aggregation[13]:
- Do you need Free Software law related links[14]? Matija Šuklje and
Natalia Evdokimova published a June 2001 edition of their Free
Software law resource list.
- How do you organise a cool Free Software event, like FSCONS[15], using
only command line tools? Read the blog articles from Patrik
Willard[16], FSFE's new Deputy coordinator of Sweden.
- Football is still a topic on our blog aggregation: Lena Simon writes
about football and football for men[17]and Guido writes about the EURO
2012 in Free Software[18], an alternative for those not interested in
traditional football.
- Greek Fellow Kostas Boukouvalas writes about Thessaloniki’s
GNU/Linux Lab[19]
- Michael Stehmann reports about the Düsseldorf Fellowship meeting[20],
including the Open Music Contest
10. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=321
11. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20110608-01.fi.html
12.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2011/06/30/free-software-summit-improvised/
13. http://planet.fsfe.org
14. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/249
15. http://fscons.org
16. http://blog.padowi.se/
17.
http://www.stud.uni-potsdam.de/~leena/2011/06/fusball-und-mannerfusball-gle…
18.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2011/06/euro-2012-in-free-software-qualificatio…
19. http://blogs.fsfe.org/boukouvalas/?p=360
20. http://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=260
== Get active: Become an FSFE booth volunteer in Strasbourg ==
The FSFE will participate in the RMLL, one of France's biggest Free
Software events, from July 9 to 14. In addition to having an information
booth, the FSFE will also deliver presentations on Free Software:
Karsten will talk about Centralised Internet Services and Problems of
Power (13.07., 15:20), France Coordinator Hugo Roy[21]will talk about
the battle fought by Free Software for HTML5 online videos, and several
other speakers have been invited to talk on topics concerning
decentralisation of the Internet.
21. http://fsfe.org/about/roy/roy.fi.html
Like every booth and event we participate with, please contact today to
volunteer if you are able. Help us to inform our audiences about Free
Software!
Best regards and see you next time,
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>
(Please support us to reach more people in their native language. Join
our translator team http://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/.)
= FSFE Newsletter - June 2011 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201106.fi.html ]
== The 899 Million question: Microsoft, European Commission, and Free
Software ==
What would you do with a monopolist, who uses his dominant position in
one area to create monopolies in other areas as well? The European
Commission has decided in 2004 that Microsoft has to provide competitors
with information how to connect a workgroup server with computers
running Microsoft Windows. Since the main competitor to Microsoft’s
workgroup server is the Free Software Samba project, the Commission made
it clear that Microsoft had to release interoperability information in a
way that is compatible with Free Software licenses like the GNU GPL. The
Commission's 2004 decision did not require Microsoft to publish
innovative information, it asked for simple information how Microsoft
computers talk to each other.
But Microsoft played for time, even when the Commission imposed a fine
of two million Euro for every day that Microsoft did not make the
required interoperability information and documentation available in a
way that the Samba team could make use of it. That gave Microsoft three
more years to gain profit from its monopoly position.
After losing an appeal in October 2007[1], Microsoft finally made the
required interoperability information available for a one-time fee of
EUR 10,000. This gives Free Software groups access to Microsoft’s
protocol specifications, but does not give them a license to the patents
that Microsoft holds in this area. Microsoft only offers patent licenses
under conditions that are fundamentally incompatible with the GNU GPL.
So the Samba team has a license to use Microsoft’s protocol
specifications, but not its patented technologies. At least those
patents are identified, and the Samba team can work around them with
considerable effort until we fix the problem of software patents as a
whole.
1. http://fsfe.org/projects/ms-vs-eu/timeline.fi.html
Microsoft appealed the fine. On the 24th of May another hearing took
place. Like in the rest of the process, FSFE was again present, together
with the Samba team, giving crucial input to ensure that Free Software
can compete on market. Karsten Gerloff wrote about the hearing in his
blog article"Samba case hearing: How Microsoft’s gamble backfired"[2],
and you can also read Groklaw interview with Karsten Gerloff and Carlo
Piana[3]. A ruling on the Microsoft’s appeal is expected in the second
half of the year.
2.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2011/05/27/samba-case-hearing-how-microsofts-…
3. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20110530202005299
== Antifeatures + DRM ==
How many times have you been forced to watch those copyright notices at
the beginning of a DVD, without the chance to fast-forward? Or would you
miss it, if no mobile phone would have a SIM lock?
On the 4th of May our American sister organisation organised the "Day
Against DRM". There were several articles, events, and radio shows about
this topic[4]. Your editor was interviewed by Dradio Wissen on the
subject of Antifeatures, which also includes digitial restriction
management (DRM).
4. http://www.defectivebydesign.org/highlights-2011-day-against-drm
An antifeature is a feature, which is implemented by the developer on
purpose, but which user does not want. So, it is not about bugs or
missing functionality, but about functions which the vendor added
intentionally to restrict the user.
Your editor's interview and corresponding article[5] explain some
examples, like how printer vendors prevent others from producing
printers' cartridges, the sim lock in mobile phones, the option to get
rid of additional software commercials on laptops, or the copyright
notices and the region code for DVDs.
5. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=797
With Free Software adding antifeatures simply isn't lucrative. Every
user has the freedom to change the software and to share those changes
with others. So when one person removes an antifeature, all other users
will benefit from this work. In Free Software new features are
implemented either if someone pays for them, or if someone is convinced
that this is an important feature and s/he has spent spare time on it.
Therewith Free Software is more honest and more transparent towards
users.
Benjamin Mako Hill wrote more about antifeatures[6] and also gave
several talks about it, e.g. at Linux Conf Australia 2010 (Ogg-
Theora)[7], or FrosCon (Ogg-Theora)[8].
6. http://www.fsf.org/bulletin/2007/fall/antifeatures/
7. http://projects.mako.cc/media/revealing_errors_lca2010.ogv
8.
http://ftp.stw-bonn.de/froscon/2010/hs12/theora/hs12_-_2010-08-22_12:45_-_e…
== Something completely different ==
- As British Telecom plan to roll out new music subscription service to
their 5.5 million broadband customers, our UK Team has asked BT to
make user freedom one of the product's key features.[9]
- The German Foreign Office is turning away from Free Software, and the
German Government is entangling itself in contradictions. The
assessment of our German team is,[10] that the reaction of the
Government to an inquiry by "Bündnis 90/Grüne" shows that the
government either does not understand important aspects of Free
Software or is deliberately offending Free Software in general as well
as Free Software companies in particular. We set up a public comment
plattform[11], and ask you to participate.
- The Free Software in Education update is out for March/April 2011[12].
Besides, there is an education survey in the UK.[13]
- The German team commented the replies to our question to the political
parties in Bremen.[14]
- From the planet aggregation[15]:
- This month's Fellowship interview with Florian Effenberger[16], is
out. He was the previous Marketing Project Lead for OpenOffice.org and
now founding member and part of the Steering Committee at The Document
Foundation.
- There are again new issues of Free Software and law related links for
30.4.-6.5.[17] 7.5.-22.5.[18], and 23.5.-29.5.[19].
- Fellow Jan-Christoph Borchardt wrote about Free(ing) web games.[20]
9. http://fsfe.org/projects/os/bt-open-letter.fi.html
10. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20110511-01.fi.html
11. http://etherpad.fsfe.org/1TyQlboVdF
12.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2011/04/free-software-in-education-marchapril-2…
13.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2011/05/free-software-in-education-survey-in-uk/
14. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20110520-01.fi.html
15. http://planet.fsfe.org
16. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=308
17. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/245
18. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/246
19. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/247
20. https://jancborchardt.wordpress.com/2011/05/19/freeing-web-games/
== Get active: Translate our Ask your Candidates page ==
In the coming month we will do more in our"Ask Your Candidates"[21]
activity. You can already help us by translating this page into your
native language. Like on all pages click on the source code link[22] at
the buttom of the page. Translate the page and then send it to
translators fsfeurope.org. If you are interested to help us more
regularly with translations, please take a look at our translator
page[23].
21. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/askyourcandidates/askyourcandidates.fi.html
22.
http://fsfe.org/source/campaigns/askyourcandidates/askyourcandidates.xhtml
23. http://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators.fi.html
Regards,
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>