= FSFE Newsletter July 2019 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201907.fi.html ]
In this month's newsletter, we pay special attention to our new
Testimonials page and the freshly prepared summary of the FSFE's annual
Legal Licensing Workshop that took place in Barcelona. Further down, you
can discover the upcoming events we are participating in and hosting, as
well as see some visual details about how and where we managed to
promote and extend the use of Free Software around Europe.
== The Testimonials ==
FSFE is a charity dedicated to empowering users to control technology.
Together with our community we form a movement across Europe to build
our digital societies on users' and software freedom. Although there
will never be enough space to shed light on all the creative minds and
motivated people who have helped us grow our movement and live out our
mission, we would still like to highlight at least some of our highly-
valued community members who have in one way or another shaped the
FSFE's profile and who continuously helped us become what we are today.
In the past month, the FSFE has worked on the Testimonials page. This
page is part of a series of interviews with FSFE supporters and friends
who wanted to share their excitement for being part of such a diverse
group of people and volunteers who shape the FSFE community across
Europe while achieving our mission [1]. One of the first entries is by
our French supporter and privacy expert, Cryptie, who has been using
Free Software for 15 years, and has been an active part of the FSFE
community for the last 6 years. You can find more such interviews,
videos and testimonials on our Testimonials page [2]. Enjoy getting to
know our community!
== The Legal and Licensing Workshop 2019 ==
A big aspect of Free Software use and deployment goes through the often
confusing webs of legislation. One of our big initiatives to improve
understanding of Free Software legal issues is the Legal Licensing
Workshop, a closed conference that we organise annually for the members
of the FSFE's Legal Network. Every year, many of lawyers from Europe and
all over the world attend this conference to exchange knowledge, present
best practices and discuss issues surrounding Free Software licensing.
With up to three days of talks in an informal and confidential
atmosphere, the Workshop advances the state of the art of knowledge on
topics ranging from licence compliance to patent management, from
project governance to corporate responsibility.
Participation to the Free Software Legal and Licensing Workshop provides
legal professionals not only the opportunity to share knowledge and
updates on the topics they are working on, but also a chance to meet and
get acquainted with each other. These two aspects, combined, foster
better licence compliance by spreading best practices. The conference
also provides a forum for different professionals to better understand
each other, thus reducing the overall friction in the sector.
The FSFE has prepared a short summary [3] of this year's Workshop. You
can also find information on past years editions, if you are curious.
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== Do not miss: upcoming events with the FSFE ==
As with every month, we are trying to spread the word and help
individuals and organisations understand what Free Software is and how
Free Software contributes to freedom, transparency, and self-
determination. If you are interested in seeing us in action and to join
our cause, keep in mind the following dates and locations in the coming
months:
- Between August 10 and 11, the FSFE Policy Manager Alexander Sander
will promote the "Public Money? Public Code!" initiative to the
FrOSCon audience in Bonn, Germany.
- Between August 21st and 25th the FSFE will host an assembly [5] at the
Chaos Communication Camp in Mildenberg, Germany. The assembly will be
part of about:freedom [6], a cluster with a focus on digital (human)
rights politics, freedom of information and Free Software advocacy. It
is a union of different and diverse organisations from all over the
world promoting Free Software and defending and extending digital
rights. There will be workshops on-site and information materials. If
you are coming to the camp, drop by and have a chat with us!
- Between August 24th and 25th, you will have another chance to see our
booth at the second Veganmania festival in Vienna, Austria.
== What have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
Since the last newsletter we have been very active in promoting the Free
Software cause, by helping individuals and organisations have a better
understanding of what Free Software is and encouraging them to develop
and implement it in their lives. We want to share with you the events we
have photos and videos for, below:
- The FSFE Policy Manager Alexander Sander gave a talk and attended a
panel discussion during the Church Days in Dortmund between June 19th
and 23rd about Free Software. You can see the full report [7] on the
event and the talks. Throughout those days Alex also hosted two
workshops for beginners on how to use and operate with the Open Street
Map and how to use and edit on Wikipedia.
- The FSFE Programme Manager Max Mehl explained how Free Software can be
the solution to many security problems at Pass the SALT on July 3rd,
in Lille, France. You can watch his entire presentation on our mirror
[8].
- Long-time FSFE volunteer Reinhard Müller gave a presentation at Tübix
[9] about the development of web applications he used successfully for
the development of the new online FSFE community portal [10] on July
6th, in Tübingen, Germany.
- On July 22nd, the Franken community of the FSFE and the Nuremberg
Hackerspace hosted a joint lecture [11] about the basics and common
misunderstandings of Free Software in Nuremberg, Germany.
== Editor's choice ==
In the month of July you can see some technical and other not so
technical findings by members of the FSFE's Planet community [12]:
- Albert Astals offers some new KDE application branches [13]
- Evaggelos Balaskas shared his notes on the idea to use nested-Kernel-
based Virtual Machine to run minikube inside a Virtual Machine, so
that minikube will create a Kernel-based Virtual Machine node, upon an
Ubuntu 18.04 LTS [14].
- Matija Šuklje (Hook) shares the results of the analysis he did on the
most commonly used licenses in OpenAPI [15]
== Get Active ==
Do you want to see our newsletter also available in your language, so
you can share the news with peers in your country? Don't be shy and join
our team of brave translators by emailing us at contact(a)fsfe.org [16].
== Contribute to our newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to
us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org [17]. We're looking
forward to hearing from you!
If you also want to support us and our work, join our community and
support us with a donation or a monthly contribution:
https://my.fsfe.org/support [18]
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [19], supporters [20] and
donors [21] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[22], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Your editor,
Galia Mancheva
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Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1: https://fsfe.org/about/mission
2: https://fsfe.org/about/people/testimonials.fi.html
3: https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/legal-conference.fi.html
4: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2019-07
5: https://signup.c3assemblies.de/assembly/db340abb-1f28-48e0-bbd6-59035e98cb42
6: https://signup.c3assemblies.de/assembly/c1831305-457e-4199-9070-38e2ac9234de
7: https://www.evangelisch.de/blogs/kirchentag-2019/156935/21-06-2019
8: https://download.fsfe.org/presentations/20190703-mm-SALT-ITSec.en.mp4
9: https://www.tuebix.org/
10: https://my.fsfe.org
11: https://wiki.fsfe.org/LocalGroups/Franken/DigitalFestival2019
12: https://planet.fsfe.org/
13: https://tsdgeos.blogspot.com/2019/07/kde-applications-1908-branches-created…
14: https://balaskas.gr/blog/2019/07/14/kubernetes-with-minikube-intro-notes/
15: https://matija.suklje.name/popular-licenses-in-openapi
16: https://fsfe.org/mailto:contact@fsfe.org
17: https://fsfe.org/mailto:newsletter@fsfe.org
18: https://my.fsfe.org/support
19: https://fsfe.org/contribute
20: https://my.fsfe.org/support
21: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
22: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators
23: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2019-07
= FSFE Newsletter June 2019 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201906.fi.html ]
This month's newsletter highlights the Google/Huawei case and the
greater picture it reveals to us. In the Get Active section we call for
your proactivity in promoting the use of Free Software. Additionally,
you can find out what happened at our Web-a-thon in Frankfurt am Main
and view some media of the actions we have taken for promoting and
increasing the awareness of Free Software to the wider audience, as well
as see what's planned for the near future, where you can take part in.
== The Google - Huawei Lessons ==
Last month, Google blacklisted and blocked Huawei from accessing all its
proprietary components of the Android mobile operating system. The
California based tech giant had to comply with the executive order
issued by the U.S. government to effectively ban all American companies
from trading with Huawei. While the Chinese telco will not have access
to Google's proprietary components, it will nevertheless be able to use
those parts of Android's operating system available under the open
source licence, which is free for anyone to use. This highlights the
importance that Free Software has for users, public bodies, and
businesses. The Free Software Foundation Europe presented three
essential lessons from this case:
1. Free Software enables control over technology: The more important
technology becomes in our daily lives, the more relevant Free
Software becomes for individual users.
2. The EU is overly reliant on foreign sources of technology: The
European Union and its member states should invest in Free Software
development and focus on supporting local Free Software organisations
and businesses. This can foster greater technological independence
for the EU economy.
3. Free Software gives companies technological independence.: A company
that uses proprietary software is dependent on such software's vendor
and the government that regulates it. The best strategy for a company
to avoid this is to use as much Free Software as possible in their
supply chains.
Read more details about these lessons in our press release [1].
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== Do not miss: upcoming events with the FSFE ==
As with every month, we are trying to spread the word and help
individuals and organisations understand what Free Software is and how
Free Software contributes to freedom, transparency, and self-
determination. If you are interested in seeing us in action and join our
cause, keep in mind the following dates and locations in the coming few
months:
- On July 3rd, FSFE Programme Manager Max Mehl will explain how Free
Software can be the solution to many security problems at Pass the
Salt [3] in Lille, France.
- On July 6th, FSFE supporter Reinhard Müller will give a presentation
at Tübix [4] about the development of web applications he used
successfully for the development of the new online FSFE community
portal [5] in Tübingen, Germany
- On July 8th, the FSFE community in Bonn will have a meeting [6]
discussing Free Software.
- On July 22nd, the Franken community of the FSFE and the Nuremberg
Hackerspace will be hosting a lecture [7] about the basics and common
misunderstandings of Free Software in Nuremberg, Germany
- Between August 21st and 25th the FSFE will host an assembly [8] at the
Chaos Communication Camp in Mildenberg, Germany. The assembly will be
part of about:freedom [9], a cluster with a focus on digital (human)
rights politics, freedom of information and Free Software advocacy. It
is a union of different and diverse organisations from all over the
world promoting Free Software and defending and extending digital
rights. There will be workshops on-site and information materials. If
you are coming to the camp, drop by and have a chat with us!
== What have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
Since the last newsletter we have been very active in promoting the Free
Software cause, by helping individuals and organisations have a better
understanding of what Free Software is and encouraging them to develop
and implement it in their lives. We want to share with you the events we
have photos and videos for, below:
- Between May 24th and 26th, the FSFE ran our web-a-thon 2019 [10].
There were 13 hackers (and more in the evenings) who met in Frankfurt
(Main) to work on the FSFE's website, and of course to also celebrate
our nice community and commemorate International Towel Day [11]. We
aimed high and tried to get rid of many unresolved issues, some rather
small, some highly important for editors, translators and of course
our visitors. In the milestone "Hackathon1905" [12], we collected the
issues to be worked on, and it turns out that we achieved more than we
anticipated. 47 tickets and pull requests have been closed
successfully. Thanks to everyone who participated, maintained the good
mood throughout and to the CCC FFM [13] for hosting us patiently
during the whole weekend!
- Lucas Lasota, the FSFE's legal intern, presented the legal trends in
Free Software at the Libre Graphics Meetings [14] in Saarbrücken,
Germany on May 29th. You can watch his presentation video. [15]
The Viennese FSFE supporters group participated with an FSFE info-booth
at the local street festival Veganmania between June 7th and 10th in
Vienna, Austria. See pictures of the event and read about the local
group's successful down-to-earth approach in a report by Franz Gratzer
[16].
The FSFE's president Matthias Kirschner gave a keynote about Free
Software in our society at this year's OW2 on June 13th in Paris. You
can watch the keynote video. [17]
Our Policy Manager Alexander Sander was invited as an expert on
E-Government in the Landtag Saarland, the parliament of the German
federal State Saarland on June 17th. In his talk he discussed the
advantages of free software in the area of e-government. You can find
his expert opinion and research here [18]:
The FSFE participated with a booth at the OpenExpo [19] in Madrid, Spain
on June 20th where we had the chance to meet and talk to many people
about Free Software.
- On June 25th, the FSFE's Policy and Project Managers Alexander Sander
and Galia Mancheva talked about the Public Money? Public Code!
campaign and the updated Copyright Directive at Libertybits [20] in
Sofia, Bulgaria
== Get Active ==
Do you remember that some years ago the German newspaper Die
Tageszeitung (TAZ) received the Document Freedom Day Award [21] for
delivering its electronic paper to its subscribers in a choice of open
formats, and without digital restrictions (DRM) [22]? This year, the TAZ
newspaper went a step further and even launched their taz.app on f-droid
[23] under a Free Software license. This is a great example for other
newspapers to follow. Contact your favourite newspaper and demand they
follow the TAZ's example of giving users freedom of choice and technical
control.
== Contribute to our newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to
us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking forward
to hearing from you!
If you also want to support us and our work, join our community and
support us with a donation or a monthly contribution:
https://my.fsfe.org/support [24]
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [25], supporters [26] and
donors [27] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[28], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Your editors,
The FSFE team
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Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1: https://fsfe.org/news/2019/news-20190520-01.en.html
2: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2019-06
3: https://2019.pass-the-salt.org/talks/102.html
4: https://www.tuebix.org/
5: https://my.fsfe.org/
6: https://wiki.fsfe.org/LocalGroups/Bonn
7: https://wiki.fsfe.org/LocalGroups/Franken/DigitalFestival2019
8: https://signup.c3assemblies.de/assembly/db340abb-1f28-48e0-bbd6-59035e98cb42
9: https://signup.c3assemblies.de/assembly/c1831305-457e-4199-9070-38e2ac9234de
10: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Events/2019/0525-fsfe-web-a-thon
11: https://mastodon.social/@3rik/102155847488969972
12: https://git.fsfe.org/FSFE/fsfe-website/milestone/10?state=closed
13: https://ccc-ffm.de/
14: https://opensaar.de/2019/04/libre-graphis-meeting-in-saarbruecken/
15: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnNkTWLohWo
16: https://blogs.fsfe.org/franz.gratzer/2019/06/16/linux-week-veganmania/
17: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHXDCHX1Zhg
18: https://download.fsfe.org/policy/190607_EGov_Saarland_Stellungnahme.pdf
19: https://openexpoeurope.com/
20: https://libertybits.org/eventalk_speaker_category/2019/
21: https://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130327-01.en.html
22: https://drm.info/
23: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/de.thecode.android.tazreader/
24: https://my.fsfe.org/support
25: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
26: https://my.fsfe.org/support
27: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
28: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
29: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2019-06
= FSFE Newsletter May 2019 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201905.fi.html ]
This newsletter edition gives special attention to the upcoming EU
Elections. We are telling the story of the Spanish Pica Pica Hacklab who
successfully used our "Public Money? Public Code!" campaign to influence
the Parliament of Asturias. Pica Pica's story takes us to the upcoming
EU Elections that will bring in new MEPs into the European Parliament
and so we provide advice and tips on how you can get active in promoting
Free Software to them. As always, you will also read about the events
the FSFE is going to be part of this month, as well as a retrospective
of what has happened in the past month.
== EU Elections 2019 and Free Software ==
"The Parliament of Asturias commits itself to the international Public
Money? Public Code! [1] campaign" - this is a quote from the first
demand in a recent proposal brought in by the Parliament of Asturias [2]
towards its government and it marks the happy end of continuous lobbying
efforts from Oviedo's local hackerspace "Pica Pica Hacklab" [3].
Pica Pica Hacklab team in front of the Parliament of Asturias after the
Parliament's decision to support Public Money? Public Code! This was
already the second attempt of Pica Pica to lobby the Parliament of
Asturias and demand the use of Free Software within public
administrations. However, in contrast to their first attempt in 2015,
this time Pica Pica had "Public Money? Public Code!" campaign materials
[4] at hand and used them extensively, together with their self-
developed social hacking skills, to convince the politicians.
Pica Pica's success story is highly motivating for local activists and
so we interviewed Iyán Méndez Veiga [5], member of Pica Pica, to
highlight key elements of their activities, the usage of our campaign
material and their lobbying. Read how Pica Pica successfully emphasised
different benefits of Free Software depending on the agenda of the
political party they were talking to respectively, how they turned
emails into face-to-face meetings and how they finally landed even more
meetings with officials from different parties by simply walking through
the Parliament's building.
Pica Pica's story is not only motivating but it also clearly shows how
local engagement by a small single group can influence even the highest
political levels. Still, it is one story out of many, happening
continuously in many parts of Europe. Be it a group of people or
individuals: every talk, explanation or sometimes even the mere handing
out of a well-formulated and informative leaflet [6] can make the
difference and convince a decision-maker to care about Free Software.
That brings us to this year's EU Elections of the European Parliament
taking place next week throughout Europe, from May 23rd to 26th. Let us
follow the recent example of Pica Pica and make sure that as many
candidates as possible are aware of Free Software and its benefits, and
convince them to join us in empowering users to control technology.
This is even more important now, as forecasts predict that half of the
Members in the current European Parliament will not be back in the next
term. That means that there will be new members appearing on the scene
that do not yet know about Free Software.
Help let them know about the benefits of technologies that respect users
freedom. Help us establish new contacts with advocates for Free Software
in the next European Parliament's term. Seek out the candidates in your
region and get in contact with them. Use our "Public Money?Public Code!"
campaign [7] as a source for arguments. Find more general hints and tips
[8] in our wiki.
And then get out there and vote for the candidate that convinced you
most concerning the topics and values that matter to you!
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The European Parliament during a plenary session in Strasbourg. (
Picture by Diliff [9], CC BY-SA 3.0 [10] ) Vote for freedom and join
our community: https://my.fsfe.org/support [11]
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== Do not miss: upcoming events with the FSFE ==
- From May 17th to 19th the Maker Fair Berlin will take place and the
local FSFE group Berlin will be present with an information booth.
- On May 18th the FSFE's Policy Manager Alexander Sander will be present
at the Albanian Open Source conference OSCAL [12] to promote the
FSFE's "Public Money? Public Code!" campaign to the local community.
- On May 21st Erik Albers, FSFE's Communication and Programme Manager,
will talk at the Magdeburger Developer Days [13] about the
sustainability of software and how to preserve software resources for
future generations.
- From May 24th to 26th the FSFE will host its own web-a-thon [14] in
Frankfurt (Main) to have a fruitful collective work on improving the
FSFE's homepage together. You can find all details on the
corresponding wiki-page.
- On May 29th, the FSFE's legal intern Lucas Lasota will present FOSS
legal trends at the Libre Graphics Meetings [15] in Saarbrücken,
Germany.
- On June 8th, the FSFE's Project Manager Galia Mancheva will present
the Public Money? Public Code! campaign to the Bulgarian tech
community at TuxCon [16] in Plovdiv, Bulgaria.
- On June 13th, the FSFE's President Matthias Kirschner will give a
keynote about Free Software in our society at OW2con [17] in Paris,
France.
- On June 25th, the FSFE's Policy and Project Managers Alexander Sander
and Galia Mancheva will talk about the Public Money?Public Code!
campaign and the updated Copyright Directive at Libertybits [18] in
Sofia, Bulgaria
== Save the Date: ==
This year we are running the FSFE community meeting on November 15th and
16th in cooperation with the SFSCon [19] in Bolzano, Italy. The FSFE
country team Italy will use this occasion to prepare and run a dedicated
FSFE track during the conference and the conference day will be followed
by a dedicated community day. The general Call for Participation of the
SFSCon is already up and running, while the one for the FSFE track in
particular will be published soon. If you are interested in the
publication of the call, follow our news [20] ( RSS feed
<https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss> )
== What have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- On 27 April, Max Mehl, the FSFE's Programme Manager, gave a keynote at
Grazer Linuxtage about Free Software and why security and openness are
not contradictory. If you are curious about what he said, you can
watch the keynote video [21].
- On April 27th, there was an FSFE's info-booth at the the local FLISoL
event in A Coruña, Spain and on 11 May, the FSFE was present with a
booth at T-Dose in Eindhoven, The Netherlands.
- Alexander Sander, the FSFE's Policy Manager talked about the
importance of supporting the Public Money? Public Code! campaign on
May 3rd at the LWW2019 in Vienna, where the FSFE also hosted an
infobooth.
- FSFE booth at Linuxwochen Wien Carmen Bianca Bakker writes about
elitists and laypeople [22] and uses this distinction for a comparison
between the development of the Game of Thrones script with her own
development and history from Spacemacs to Emacs to VSCodium and more.
- Syncthing is a Free Software sync-solution on F-Droid. Andrea Scarpino
explains the customizations he has done to use it for simple but
automated phone backup with Syncthing [23]
- Matija Šuklje sums up different way and methods [24] he used to
archive and organise his bookmarks in the last years.
== Get Active ==
As already brought up in the beginning of the Newsletter, the European
Parliament's Elections are ahead and forecasts predict that many new
members will be part of the next term. If you want Free Software to
catch on with these Parliamentary freshmen, then you can seek out the
candidates in your region and get in contact with them. We prepared a
short list of actions you can take and other tips [25] in our wiki.
== Contribute to our newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to
us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking forward
to hearing from you!
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [26], supporters [27] and
donors [28] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[29], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Your editors,
Erik Albers and Galia Mancheva
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Vote for freedom and join our community: https://my.fsfe.org/support
[30]
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Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1: http://publiccode.eu/
2: http://www.picahack.org/181115%20-%20PNL%20Software%20Libre%20-%20RE35416.P…
3: http://picapica.mindhackers.org/
4: https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword#pmpc
5: https://fsfe.org/news/2019/news-20190514-01.fi.html
6: https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.fi.html
7: https://publiccode.eu/
8: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/European_Elections_2019
9: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Parliament#/media/File:European_Parl…
10: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
11: https://my.fsfe.org/support
12: https://oscal.openlabs.cc/speakers/alexander-sander/
13: https://md-devdays.de/Act?id=1000138
14: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Events/2019/0525-fsfe-web-a-thon
15: https://opensaar.de/2019/04/libre-graphis-meeting-in-saarbruecken/
16: http://tuxcon.mobi/
17: https://ow2con19.sched.com/event/NzsE
18: https://libertybits.org/eventalk_speaker_category/2019/
19: https://www.sfscon.it/
20: https://fsfe.org/news/index.fi.html
21: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DOv_5ZPcFZ8
22: https://www.carmenbianca.eu/en/post/2019-05-08-of-elitists-and-laypeople/
23: https://scarpino.dev/posts/automated-phone-backup-with-syncthing.html
24: https://matija.suklje.name/how-i-put-order-in-my-bookmarks-and-found-a-bett…
25: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/European_Elections_2019
26: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
27: https://my.fsfe.org/support
28: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
29: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
30: https://my.fsfe.org/support
= FSFE Newsletter April 2019 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201904.fi.html ]
This month's newsletter highlights the presence of the FSFE's
campaign"Public Money? Public Code!" in German media and its growing
popularity across Europe. You can find a short reminder of the news
around the newly voted Copyright Directive, as well as a short summary
of what else has happened during the past month. In the Get Active
section this month we remind you of the new open call the Next
Generation Internet project we are part of has launched. Additionally
you can find out about new events we are attending and the Web-a-thon we
organise in Frankfurt am Main.
== "Public Money? Public Code!" in German media ==
Our campaign Public Money? Public Code! [1] has really taken off, as
German media WDR [2] and t3n [3] picked it up earlier this month. The
FSFE's initiative received prominent support in the media from various
Bundestag members, as well as digital politics activists and publicists
embracing the free licenses for software receiving money from public
sector.
Additionally, t3n, who also supports the campaign, published an
interview [4] with the FSFE's Public Policy Manager, Alexander Sander on
the way public sector, like the city of Barcelona, deploys Free Software
in its administration and city solutions: "The city manages to "react to
the digital transformation with appropriate digital solutions". "The
government's agenda today is 70 percent determined by the proposals made
through Decidim." says the Public Policy Manager. He believes that
administrations could save money in the long term by using free-open
source software: different communities might share programs and
knowledge, new software would not have to be bought at high cost or
completely redeveloped." Alexander Sander also mentioned Barcelona was
the first major European city to support this action.
Please, feel welcome to also express your support by spreading the word
and sharing our brochure [5]
== Copyright Directive was adopted ==
The European Parliament adopted the controversial Copyright Directive by
348 votes in favour, 274 votes against and 36 abstentions. Heated
discussions about the introduction of upload filters ended up in
protests of hundreds of thousands of people in the streets all across
Europe. You can read our press release [6] on the topic.
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== Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- Pablo González, the FSFE's Madrid Coordinator, was present with an
info booth between March 26th and 28th at the Taller de Periodismo de
Datos [8] in Medialab Prado in Madrid, Spain. He met with local
journalists, hackers and data researchers interested in the FSFE's
initiatives and goals, and topics like Open Standards and privacy.
- We also published our #ilovefs report [9] where you can see only few
of the pictures and graphics used during the day, as unfortunately, we
couldn't include all the wonderful photos we saw. And you can also
have insights on some numbers in statistics.
- On 3 April, the FSFE's Policy Manager Alexander Sander was at the Open
Platform for Open Data? [10] in Vienna, Austria. There, he talked
about the challenges and contradictions of the models public
administrations face when deploying software, as well as provided ways
forward on how to shape the open data debate in a way that
systematically promotes the public interest.
- Alexander Sander also made few other presentations on that topic at
the Netzpolitischer Abend [11] on 4 April in Vienna and on April 5th
at the Grand Garage [12] in Linz, Austria. A full video of his talk in
Vienna is also available [13].
- Marcus Moeller, the FSFE Switzerland Coordinator, gave a presentation
promoting the sustainable use of electronic equipment for educational
purposes and thus also promoting Free Software, on 6 April at the Open
Education Day [14] in Berne, Switzerland. His presentation was given
in front of teachers, people engaged with school informatics, as well
as people interested in introducing and promoting Free Libre Open
Source Software, Open Content or Open Hardware at their school.
- On 6 April the FSFE was present with an information and merchandise
booth at another event - the 18th "Linux-Infotag Augsburg" [15]. The
event took place in the premises of the IT faculty of the Augsburg
University of Applied Sciences.
- On April 8th, The FSFE's Policy Analyst Alexander Sander and Programme
Manager Erik Albers gave a presentation at Escola del Treball de
Barcelona about our "Public Money?Public Code!" Campaign. The meetup,
lead by Monica Bernardi from Dimmos, discussed public policies around
Free Software, public money and how to leverage Free Software to push
public administrations into the next level. You can also watch the
full video [16] from the event.
- This month we had local FSFE supporter meetings in Hamburg, Bonn, Kiel
and Zurich, Switzerland.
== Do not miss: upcoming events with the FSFE ==
- On 26 and 27 April, Max Mehl, the FSFE's Programme Manager, will give
a keynote about Free Software as a solution to many pressing IT
security problems at the Grazer Linuxtage [17]. He will look at the
pros and cons and use concrete examples to illustrate why security and
openness are not contradictory. If you are close by, pay a visit to
his talk at the Technical University Graz.
- On 11 May, the FSFE will be present with a booth at T-Dose [18] in
Eindhoven, The Netherlands. Visit the booth for interesting dicussions
and chats about Free Software.
- On 21 May, Erik Albers, the FSFE's Communication Manager, will talk at
the Magdeburger Developer Days [19] about how we can help ours and
future generations to safe resources with the help of software.
- Between 24 and 26 May, the FSFE will host a web-a-thon in Frankfurt
(Main) with the intend to have a fruitful collective work on improving
the FSFE's homepage. The web-a-thon will happen at the local Chaos
Computer Club [20]. Be there, or be square.
== Get Active ==
Next Generation Internet Initiative [21]: The third call of NGI Zero
Discovery and NGI Zero PET opened up on April 1st 2019, with a deadline
for submissions of June 1st 2019 12:00 CET.
NGI Zero Discovery [22] is seeking for project proposals between 5.000
and 50.000 euros - with the potential to scale them up if there is
proven potential. Search should not be a gatekeeper, a black box or a
privacy nightmare. If the internet is the equivalent of a global brain,
we need creativity and diversity in the pathways across that brain to
unlock its true potential. Search and discovery are basic human needs
for humans of all ages, and we would like to put powerful new technology
in the hands of future generations as building blocks for a fair and
democratic society and an open economy that benefits all.
NGI Zero PET [23] is seeking project proposals between 5.000 and 50.000
euros - with the potential to scale them up if there is proven
potential. Reliability, confidentiality, integrity and security should
be the 'new normal' of the internet, something ordinary users should not
have to worry about. Trust is one of the key drivers for the Next
Generation Internet, and an adequate level of privacy is a non-
negotiable requirement for that. The desire is to assist independent
researchers and developers to create powerful new technology, and to
help them put it in the hands of future generations as building blocks
for a fair and democratic society and an open economy that benefits all.
If your proposal ends up amongst the winners list, you will receive
licensing advices and consultation from the FSFE team.
== Contribute to our newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to
us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We are looking
forward to hearing from you. Also make sure to see your event in our
next newsletter. Please use our new tool [24] to announce it!
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [25], supporters [26] and
donors [27] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[28], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Your editor,
Galia Mancheva
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Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1: https://publiccode.eu/
2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7M_AYj0gc_A
3: https://t3n.de/news/sascha-lobo-breites-buendnis-code-1148918/
4: https://t3n.de/news/barcelona-touristen-hochburg-1139070/
5: https://fsfe.org/campaigns/publiccode/brochure
6: https://fsfe.org/news/2019/news-20190326-01.fi.html
7: https://my.fsfe.org/support
8: https://www.medialab-prado.es/programas/taller-de-periodismo-de-datos-2019-…
9: https://fsfe.org/news/2019/news-20190329-01.fi.html
10: https://privacylab.at/event/alexander-sander-open-platforms-for-open-data/
11: https://netzpolitischerabend.wordpress.com/2019/03/28/programm-des-35-netzp…
12: https://grandgarage.eu/de/events/
13: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqTKkFHCnz0
14: https://openeducationday.ch/
15: https://www.luga.de/Aktionen/LIT-2019/
16: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXwq_bhjSwQ
17: https://pretalx.linuxtage.at/glt19/talk/K9YDDN/
18: http://t-dose.org/
19: https://md-devdays.de/Act?id=1000138
20: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Events/2019/0525-fsfe-web-a-thon
21: https://www.ngi.eu/
22: https://nlnet.nl/discovery/
23: https://nlnet.nl/PET/
24: https://fsfe.org/events/events.fi.html
25: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.fi.html
26: https://my.fsfe.org/support
27: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.fi.html
28: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators.fi.html
29: https://my.fsfe.org/support
= FSFE Newsletter March 2019 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201903.fi.html ]
This month's newsletter highlights the new project the FSFE recently
joined and the funding opportunities it offers, that you may want to
take advantage of. You can get the latest updates on the Copyright
Directive reform and the hottest news regarding Article 13, as well as a
short summary of what else has happened during the past month. In the
Editor's choice section this month you can find interesting news on
developments with the Radio Equipment Directive, and find out who else
have expressed their support for our "Public Money? Public Code!"
campaign and what they have to say about it.
== European Commission Next Generation Internet Initiative ==
The European Commission launched an initiative called "The Next
Generation Internet" and the FSFE is part of its NGI0 consortium [1].
The Initiative's purpose is to create technologies for a better internet
where the individual user's best interests are the top priority. In
other words, internet technologies that respect human rights and
important values like privacy, openness, transparency, cooperation, and
protection of data. To help achieve these objectives, the Initiative
runs two branch projects, led by the NLnet Foundation [2], in order to
award grants to applicant technologies that attest to those ideals. The
FSFE's role is to provide Free Software licensing recommendations and
consultation in these projects:
NGI0 PET [3] deals with technologies that enhance privacy and trust on
the Internet. It awards grants to applicants that can provide people
with new instruments to keep their data on the Internet confidential,
while still being able to act freely and independently online.
NGI0 Discovery [4], deals with technologies that enhance the ability to
search for information on the Internet. The project confers grants to
applicants that can help strengthen how we search for and discover
content on the internet in such a way that supports important social
values, such as freedom of expression, privacy, and transparency. The
best suited solutions would ensure that searching for information is
less centralised with as few intermediaries as possible.
All granted technologies will be based on and be made available as Free
and Open Source Software.
The NGI0 consortium acts as a sort of advisory body for successful
applicants and assists them with their technologies in specific areas,
such as security and accessibility. In this context, the FSFE
facilitates their software licensing, advising them on how to properly
apply best licensing practices, and making sure their technologies are
licensed and compliant.
Calls for applications for both projects are renewed every 2 months.
They are currently in the midst of their 2nd call, the deadline of which
is 1 April 2019. The first call, which ended in February, resulted in
over a hundred submissions from countries not only from Europe, but also
from Asia, Africa, and the Americas. If you are interested in getting
funding to develop your relevant technology, you can apply here [5].
== Copyright and Article 13 - What happened and what's next ==
Despite uncertainties and controversies along the way, the Copyright in
the Digital Single Market Directive seems to be reaching the end of the
road. There are many steps to finalise a legal text in the EU, but now
the EU Member States and the European Parliament have reached an
agreement on a consolidated text [6]. The next step is for the Directive
to be voted in the plenary session at the end of March/in early April.
As reported [7], the original proposal could have regulated the
platforms software developers use, cooling incentives to innovate and
making software more fragile in Europe. It was in response to this that
the OpenForum Europe and the FSFE started the SaveCodeshare.eu [8]
campaign. Together we wrote letters, petitions, and held meetings and
events in Brussels and in EU member states.
Article 13 now excludes “open source software development and sharing
platforms” from its scope (see article 2(5) in the provisional agreement
[9]. This one unintended consequence has at least been avoided. From a
wider perspective, no matter how the vote turns out, we were able to
raise awareness and understanding of what drives software development in
Europe today among many policymakers. We explained how the software
ecosystem operates, the pervasive use of Free and Open Source software
licenses, and the commercial nature of Free and Open Source Software.
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== Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- The four universal freedoms of Free Software offer fertile soil for
emancipating technologies without restrictions towards gender or any
other backgrounds. However, women have traditionally been and still
are under-represented in those bodies and communities shaping these
technologies. It is time to change that. On March 8, the International
Women's Day, we used the occasion to share the FSFE's ongoing efforts
to improve gender balance and ensure gender equality [11].
- As a way to help ensure that in the FSFE everyone can, at all times,
feel at ease to participate without fearing any form of attack,
reprisal or harassment, we adopted a Code of Conduct [12] and
installed a CARE team [13]. To further support the aims of the CARE
Team, we welcome Gabriel Ku Wei Bin [14] as a new member.
- On February 23rd Alexander Sander [15], FSFE's policy analyst, spoke
about our Public Money - Public Code [16] campaign at the "Winter
Kongress Digitale Gesellschaft" in Zurich, Switzerland ( watch the
video [17] ). At the same event, Marcus Moeller, the FSFE's
Coordinator for Switzerland, and Michel Ketterle presented the next
version of Freedomvote [18]. Freedomvote is a campaign [19] and a Free
Software [20] that enables local groups to run political and electoral
campaigns by themselves. FSFE local groups have already been using it
to run campaigns in the Netherlands in 2017 [21] and in Switzerland in
2015 [22]
- Katharina Nocun, Internet activist and FSFE Freelancer, together with
Basanta E. P. Thapa from Fraunhofer Fokus presented the ongoing Public
Money - Public Code [23] campaign and our new expert policy brochure
[24], and used this occasion to talk about ways public procurement can
be modernised. The presentation took place on March 5th at c-base in
Berlin, hosted by the Netzpolitischen Abend [25] - (Watch the video)
[26]
- From March 16th to 17th, FSFE's booth and staff could be spotted at
the Chemnitzer Linuxtage [27] in Chemnitz, Germany. Erik Albers [28],
FSFE's Programme Manager, gave a workshop about F-Droid [29], G-Droid,
and the most useful Free Software apps to help people use more Free
Software on their mobile phones.
- Another place you could inform yourself about the FSFE and have a chat
with our supporters was at the the Dutch Linux Usergroup NLLGG [30] on
March 16th, in Utrecht, the Netherlands.
- FSFE supporter André Klöpfel was interviewed [31] (DE) by
Deutschlandfunk Marktplatz about how to install a Linux Distro for
beginners.
- This month we had local FSFE supporter meetings in Madrid, Hamburg,
Frankfurt (Main), Berlin and Bonn.
== Editor's choice ==
- Protect freedom on radio devices: raise your voice today! [32] - Alert
on an upcoming threat from a new EU regulation. In this entry Max
explains in greater detail how a single article in the EU Radio
Equipment Directive [33] has the capacity to make installing a custom
piece of software on most radio devices (like WiFi routers,
smartphones and embedded devices) impossible. Read his blog to find
out how you can contribute to the better development of events.
- Public Money? Public Code! campaign in EDRi's Newsletter EDRigram
[34]: "Publicly funded software has to result in public code." Read
their opinion on our initiative.
== Do not miss: upcoming events with the FSFE ==
- Pablo González, FSFE's local Coordinator Madrid, will be present with
an info-booth from March 26th to 28th at the Taller de Periodismo de
Datos [35] in Medialab Prado in Madrid, Spain. Pass by to get to know
local Madrid supporters and the FSFE.
== Get Active ==
We have a cool tool [36] for announcing events and promoting them on our
website and social channels. If you would like us to include your event
in our next newsletter and website, feel welcome to try out the event
submission tool [37]
== Contribute to our newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to
us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We are looking
forward to hearing from you!
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [38], supporters [39] and
donors [40] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[41], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Your editor, Galia Mancheva
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Join our community of freedom fighters: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2019-03
[42]
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Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1: https://www.ngi.eu/about/ngi-zero/
2: https://nlnet.nl
3: https://nlnet.nl/PET/
4: https://nlnet.nl/discovery/
5: https://nlnet.nl/propose/
6: https://juliareda.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Copyright_Final_compromise.…
7: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20171130-01.fi.html
8: https://savecodeshare.eu/
9: https://juliareda.eu/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Copyright_Final_compromise.…
10: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2019-03
11: https://fsfe.org/news/2019/news-20190308-01.fi.html
12: https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct
13: https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct#CARE
14: https://fsfe.org/about/ku/ku.fi.html
15: https://fsfe.org/about/sander/sander.fi.html
16: https://publiccode.eu/
17: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHI3rR9UmqA&pbjreload=10
18: https://www.digitale-gesellschaft.ch/kongress/2019/talks/freedomvote_-_eine…
19: https://freedomvote.ch/
20: https://github.com/freedomvote/freedomvote
21: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170302-01.fi.html
22: https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150916-01.fi.html
23: https://publiccode.eu/
24: https://fsfe.org/news/2019/news-20190124-01.fi.html
25: https://digitalegesellschaft.de/portfolio-items/netzpolitischer-abend/
26: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya-NY1d2e9c&pbjreload=10
27: https://chemnitzer.linux-tage.de/2019/en
28: https://fsfe.org/about/albers/albers.fi.html
29: https://chemnitzer.linux-tage.de/2019/en/programm/beitrag/269
30: https://nllgg.nl/bijeenkomst/20190316
31: https://srv.deutschlandradio.de/dlf-audiothek-audio-teilen.3265.de.html?mdm…
32: https://blog.mehl.mx/2019/protect-freedom-on-radio-devices-raise-your-voice…
33: https://fsfe.org/activities/radiodirective/
34: https://edri.org/fsfe-publicly-funded-software-has-to-result-in-public-code/
35: https://www.medialab-prado.es/programas/taller-de-periodismo-de-datos-2019-…
36: https://fsfe.org/community/tools/eventregistration.fi.html
37: https://fsfe.org/community/tools/eventregistration.fi.html
38: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
39: http://fsfe.org/join
40: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
41: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
42: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2019-03
= FSFE Newsletter February 2019 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201902.fi.html ]
This month's Newsletter is introducing our new expert policy brochure
"Public Money? Public Code" and reflecting the importance of source code
availability for trust and security in critical IT-infrastructure. As
always the Newsletter gives an overview about the talks given and the
booths set-up by our community as well as a short summary of what we
have done - this month including FOSDEM, 35C3, FOSS4SMEs and the Next
Generation Internet. As a "get active" item, this month we encourage you
to participate in our IloveFS-campaign.
== FSFE publishes expert brochure about “Public Money? Public Code!" ==
Convincing decision-makers why more public code would benefit us all
should be easy. There are so many good arguments for putting publicly
funded code under a Free Software licence: Tax savings, transparency,
and innovation – just to name a few. But, in practice, we experience
that there are still a lot of basics that need to be explained. Starting
with: What is Free Software? Why should governments develop Free
Software? What are Free Software business models? To answer these
questions and give practical guidelines to decision-makers, we have
published a policy brochure that presents the most important facts and
arguments about publicly funded code.
This publication [1] answers decision-makers' most common questions and
refutes widespread misunderstandings about Free Software. In several
articles and contributions from experts, the brochure presents
successful Free Software use-cases and inspiring legislation that show
that change is already taking place. Overall, the brochure provides
practical guidance for moving the modernisation of public infrastructure
forward and hints at how procurement guidelines can be updated to
include the strong points of Free Software. Downloads and prints are
available under a Creative Commons license [2]
Among the contributions included in the brochure, that feature experts
from various fields, is an interview with Francesca Bria, Chief
Technology and Digital Innovation Officer for the City of Barcelona, who
drives the modernisation of Barcelona's public infrastructure. She says:
"The Barcelona City Council supports the FSFE's campaign 'Public Money,
Public Code', because we need alliances to make Free Software the
default setting in the public sector. The digital public infrastructure
that we use should be a public good, owned and controlled by the
citizens."
== About publishing source code to establish trust in critical infrastructure ==
In many countries, the Chinese company Huawei is facing distrust after
allegations of potential state espionage. The company is one of the
largest manufacturers of 5G equipment, the upcoming generation of
cellular mobile communications. To ensure that the products and the
underlying infrastructure are safe, network providers and politicians
proposed an inspection of the equipment's source code. The FSFE welcomes
[3] this move to recognize the importance of source code availability ,
but is afraid that the proposed solution falls too short. Allowing
inspection of the secret code by selected authorities and telephone
companies might help in this specific case, but will not solve the
general problem. Instead, to establish trust in critical infrastructure
like 5G, it is a crucial precondition that all software code powering
those devices is published under a Free and Open Source Software
licence. On this basis, everyone can inspect the code, not only for
backdoors, but for all security risks. Only these freedoms allow for
independent and continuous security audits which will lead citizens, the
economy, and the public sector to trust their communication and data
exchange. Furthermore, in order to verify code integrity – so that the
provided source code corresponds to the executable code running on the
equipment – it is either necessary that there are reproducible builds in
case of binary distribution, or that providers are brought into the
position to compile and deploy the code on their own.
"We should not only debate the Huawei case but extend the discussion to
all critical infrastructure." says Max Mehl, FSFE Programme Manager.
"Only with Free and Open Source Software can transparency and
accountability be guaranteed. This is a long-known crucial precondition
for security and trust. We expect state actors to immediately implement
this solution not only for the Huawei case but for all comparable IT
security issues."
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== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- On January 14 and 15, our project manager Gabriel Ku Wei Bin attended
a kickoff meeting in Amsterdam of the Next Generation Internet [5]
project, funded by the European Commission and administered by the
NLNet Foundation in the Netherlands. The FSFE joins the project to
provide guidance to applicant technologies involved in the project to
ensure that their final products are compliant with Free Software
licensing best practices.
- On January 16 and 17 the FSFE's project managers Galia Mancheva and
Max Mehl joined the FOSS4SMEs [6] meeting in Dublin and shot videos
for the online lessons the e-learning platform of the project is
launching later this year. Stay tuned for further updates on the
project’s website [7].
- Björn Schießle, FSFE coordinator for Germany, gave a talk [8] on using
strong copyleft to build a sustainable business at the Copyleft
Conference on February 4th in Brussels.
- On January 23 Alexander Sander, the FSFE's EU public policy programme
manager, joined a panel at Eurocieties Society Forum in Barcelona.
Sander talked about how cities and public administration can foster
Free Software and involve the local ecosystem in developing digital
services based on Free Software and open standards.
- Paul Boddie writes about "An Absence of Strategy?" [9] in which he
argues that "installing Free Software over it" is no longer enough in
the world of mobile devices. He claims that instead we need a strategy
and an organisation that brings together collective efforts and
practical action to identify ongoing projects and propose actual
solutions towards constructing sustainable, community-driven, and
user-protecting devices.
- Frank Karlitschek predicts [10] that 2019 will be a very good year for
privacy, open source and decentralized "cloud" [11] software. It could
be the year where Free Software, federated and self-hosted technology
hits the mainstream.
- Björn Schießle wrote [12] about Free Software being a "new cultural
technique", a collective achievement done in a socio-cultural context,
requiring social interaction and participation. And as such, it
requires special attention by policy makers and society.
- Marcus Moeller, Country Coordinator of the FSFE in Switzerland, set up
a Swiss association Faircomputer [13] for which he and his
contributors are collecting used Laptops. These devices are then
checked, repaired, cleaned and equipped with Free Software. The
refurbished machines are given away for free to interested people
around Germany, Austria and Switzerland, only charging a small amount
for the warranty to ensure they can be used without any hassle for
years.
- Between Christmas and New Year, the FSFE was organising a cluster
"about:freedom" together with like-minded organisations at the Chaos
Communication Congress, the biggest community driven hacker congress
in Germany. Inside the cluster, the FSFE was present [14] with an
assembly, a booth, and running its own track [15]. From the FSFE we
had Susanne speaking about her self-made "smartphone" [16] ( video
[17] ), Katharina Nocun about data collecting Amazon [18] ( video [19]
) and Erik Albers about the best of Fdroid [20] ( video [21] )
- In the beginning of February, the FSFE was present at FOSDEM, the
biggest community-driven Free Software event in Europe. We had formal
and informal meetings and social evenings, and were running an
information booth throughout the event.
- On January 19, FSFE joined the Dutch Linux user group NLLGG meeting in
Utrecht to set up a booth and have a chat about Free Software and
related topics.
- Local FSFE community meetings happened this month in Hamburg [22],
Bonn, Frankfurt (Main) [23], Madrid [24], Zurich [25] and Berlin [26].
If you would like to see your local FSFE meeting listed here, please
announce it with our improved event announcement tool [27].
- The European Commission expands its bug bounty programme [28] called
EU-FOSSA2. Software developers who find security vulnerabilities in
the selected Free Software will be awarded between EUR 3,000 and EUR
25,000 for critical bugs.
== Do not miss: upcoming events with the FSFE ==
- The FSFE will be present with a booth at Chemnitzer Linuxtage from
March 16 to 17 in Chemnitz, Germany, and is looking forward to having
a chat with you about Free Software or FSFE. Erik Albers, programme
manager for the FSFE will give a workshop [29] about how to make the
best of your Android(-fork) by using FDroid. If you like to get in
contact beforehand or join the booth team, have a look at the
discussion [30] in our Discourse installation.
== Get Active ==
On February 14, our community around the globe celebrates "I love Free
Software" Day [31]. We would like to encourage you to be part of our
online campaign by creating, sharing or simply enjoying love messages
all around the world dedicated to Free Software and the people behind
it. Enjoy the day, share and refuel your energy!
As in previous editions, we are looking forward to seeing you spreading
all kind of materials, be they texts, pictures, graphics, scripts or
whatever comes to your mind, to show your love to Free Software.
Throughout the day, we will share your contributions around the globe on
our media channels and collect them for a nice write-up about the love
you have for our communities. If you share something, remember to use
the hashtag *#ilovefs*, or if you happen to use the IloveFS visuals [32]
on your web platform, website or a blog, please, let us know, so we can
include it in our stream.
== Contribute to our newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to
us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking forward
to hearing from you!
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [33], supporters [34] and
donors [35] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[36], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Your editor,
Erik Albers
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Join our community of freedom fighters! [37]
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--
Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1: https://fsfe.org/news/2019/news-20190124-01.html
2: https://fsfe.org/campaigns/publiccode/brochure.html
3: https://fsfe.org/news/2019/news-20190205-01.html
4: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-02
5: https://nlnet.nl/PET/background/
6: https://fsfe.org/activities/foss4smes/foss4smes.html
7: https://www.foss4smes.eu/
8: https://2019.copyleftconf.org/schedule/presentation/12/
9: https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=2386
10: https://karlitschek.de/2019/01/2018-and-2019/
11: https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword#nocloud
12: https://www.schiessle.org/articles/2019/01/02/cultural-techniques/
13: https://faircomputer.ch
14: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2018/wiki/index.php/Assembly:Free_Software_F…
15: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2018/wiki/index.php/Assembly:Free_Software_F…
16: https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2018/Fahrplan/events/9681.html
17: https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9681-butterbrotdosen-smartphone
18: https://fahrplan.events.ccc.de/congress/2018/Fahrplan/events/9858.html
19: https://media.ccc.de/v/35c3-9858-archaologische_studien_im_datenmull
20: https://pretalx.35c3oio.freifunk.space/35c3oio/talk/UFZYAS/
21: https://media.freifunk.net/v/35c3oio-74-f-droid-pimp-your-android-fork-with…
22: https://wiki.fsfe.org/LocalGroups/Hamburg
23: https://wiki.fsfe.org/LocalGroups/RheinMain
24: https://wiki.fsfe.org/LocalGroups/Madrid
25: https://wiki.fsfe.org/LocalGroups/Zurich
26: https://wiki.fsfe.org/LocalGroups/Berlin
27: https://fsfe.org/community/tools/eventregistration
28: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/eur-3000-eur-25000
29: https://chemnitzer.linux-tage.de/2019/en/programm/beitrag/269
30: https://community.fsfe.org/t/chemnitzer-linuxtage-2019-standteam/216
31: https://fsfe.org/campaigns/ilovefs/
32: https://fsfe.org/campaigns/ilovefs/artwork/artwork.html
33: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
34: http://fsfe.org/join
35: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
36: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
37: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2019-02
= FSFE Newsletter December 2018 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201812.fi.html ]
== Recent developments and their impact on the well-being of Free Software and its communities ==
The second half of 2018 was full of interesting developments for the
Free Software community and its environment. In our December newsletter,
we would like to shed light on three major developments that have the
potential for long-lasting changes to the Free Software world and what
these changes mean for the FSFE's work in 2019 and beyond.
One of the most controversial policy topics in the European Union 2018
was, and still is, the harmonisation of copyright with a new copyright
directive. Regarding the well-being of software freedom, one of the most
important debates was around Article 13 which can seriously hamper
collaborative software development by imposing the use of mandatory
upload filters and monitoring of their users on code-hosting platforms.
As a result of this proposal, Free Software code-hosting platforms and
public code repositories can be arbitrarily removed online.
After a long and intense debate that we accompanied with your help and
our Save Code Share campaign [1], we obtained some limited exclusion for
Free Software in the text of the European Parliament's directive at the
beginning of September. With the adoption of amendment 143 and 150 of
the current copyright reform proposal in the European Parliament, we now
have at least an exclusion for “open source software developing
platforms (..) within the meaning of this Directive”. However, the
council proposed this exclusion to only be valid for “non-commercial
open source software developing platforms”. That's why since the
beginning of October, the European Parliament and the Council have been
in the Trialogue to debate the final text. To keep Free Software
development excluded from this harmful directive, the FSFE will closely
follow the process, raising our voices for Free Software. If you like to
support our role and work in this area, consider donating [2] or join us
as a supporter [3].
Other developments include an update to the Code of Conduct for the
Linux Kernel, as well as its main developer Linus Torvalds taking a
break and sending a public mail to apologize for his past behaviour.
Without reading too much into it, one thing that perhaps can be taken
from this is an ever growing importance for many members inside larger
Free Software communities towards a proper code of conduct. At the FSFE
we have our own Code of Conduct [4] "to offer a friendly and peaceful
environment for every participant at the FSFE's events, online and
offline" and we clearly state on our event pages that "All FSFE's events
are covered by our Code of Conduct that kindly asks all participants to
be excellent to each other." Meanwhile, hundreds of Free Software
communities have their own code of conduct or they have signed the
Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct [5]. This is a development that we
highly appreciate and we continue support the well-being of diverse Free
Software communities.
Also in recent months, we have seen that some global players who have
been grown by selling closed source products since the 20th century, now
invest billions of dollars to acquire those global players who have been
grown by selling services based on Free Software in the 21st century.
For example Microsoft obtained the largest host of source code in the
world by purchasing Github, and IBM procured the worlds largest Free-
Software-affiliated company by acquiring Red Hat. Although we can only
guess what effects these economic shifts will bring about in the long
run, we see a growing economic interest in Free Software from third
party players. While this is not necessarily a bad development, balance
should be called for at the same time. With growing investment capital,
it seems crucial to have non-profit organizations being heard as well,
who have the potential to safeguard a neutral but prospering environment
for Free Software - like the Free Software Foundation Europe. It is the
first statement of our mission [6] to ensure that the interests of the
individual users are protected by empowering users to control
technology. And by doing so, hopefully facilitating access to our road
into a free society.
If you like to support our role and work in ensuring users freedom,
consider donating [7] or join us as a supporter [8].
Become a supporter of the FSFE [9]
== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- During the weekend of 24. and 25. of November, we hosted the first
FSFE Hackathon [10]. A handful of hackers were gathering at the Onion
Space in Berlin to improve the FSFE's web presence - with one
participant even coming all the way from Linz, Austria. In
preparation. we used the FSFE's git-issue-tracker and created a
milestone [11] for the Hackathon 2018. Thanks to the assembled
expertise brought in by the participants, we were able to achieve
major improvements in the front-end and the back-end of the FSFE's web
presence. The most obvious front-end changes include, but are not
limited to, updating the info-frame on the right side of FSFE's front-
page [12], a re-work of our news-page [13], as well as our events-page
[14] and a new backend to submit FSFE related events [15].
Participants are eager to run another hackathon in spring 2019, so
stay tuned if you would like to join.
- Local FSFE community meetings happened this month in Helsinki, Rhein-
Main (Frankfurt) [16], Hamburg [17], Kiel [18], Bonn, and Linz [19].
If you would like to see your local FSFE meeting listed here, please
announce it with our improved event announcement tool [20].
- On some occasions where a lot of your friends, family members or
colleagues celebrate you - like weddings, birthdays or christmas -,
you might prefer they donate on a good cause instead of gifting you
personally. To make your own fundraising messages easier on these
occasions, you can find few suggestions [21] for inspiration in our
wiki.
== Do not miss: upcoming events with the FSFE ==
- 35C3: As in previous years, we are hosting a FSFE assembly during the
Chaos Communication Congress from December 27. to 30. in Leipzig. Our
assembly is meant to be a place for and by our members, friends and
supporters, and offers a common space to discuss, meet, hack and
organise. We also have a bunch of speakers selected from our Call for
Participation [22] who will provide insights on burning topics
regarding Free Software in various fields - from funding Free Software
to rejecting surveillance to helping lifesaving and many more. You can
see the full schedule, once the 35C3-Wiki is online. Pass by, talk to
us and hear our talks.
- FOSDEM 2019: The Free and Open Source Developers European Meeting, the
de facto largest Free Software developers conference in Europe, will
take place on February 2nd and 3rd at Campus Solbosch of the Free
University Brussels (ULB). As with every year, the FSFE will be
present at our large information booth with our entire collection of
information material, stickers, postcards, and the latest FSFE
fashion. Also, our core FSFE team will be at the booth and we are
looking forward to meeting you and discussing your plans (or our
common plans) to continue spreading software freedom in Europe in
2019.
== Get Active ==
Thanks to our first FSFE hackathon (see above) and also to previous
updates in recent weeks, our homepage has an ever more appealing and
intuitive user experience design. That means many changes to our English
web presence need to be reflected in other languages. If you would like
to help spread our message in your language, please help us to update
and translate the FSFE's new web pages! You can find information on how
you can contribute [23] on our translators page. Our translation team is
very helpful and welcoming. Do not hesitate to ask for any help or where
to start on our translators list [24].
== Contribute to our newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to
us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking forward
to hearing from you!
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [25], supporters [26] and
donors [27] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[28], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Please be aware that there will be no newsletter in January.
Your editor,
Erik Albers
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--
Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1: http://savecodeshare.eu/
2: https://fsfe.org/donate/
3: https://my.fsfe.org/support
4: https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct
5: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-conduct
6: https://fsfe.org/about/mission
7: https://fsfe.org/donate/
8: https://my.fsfe.org/support
9: https://my.fsfe.org/support
10: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Events/2018/1124-fsfe-hackathon
11: https://git.fsfe.org/FSFE/fsfe-website/issues?milestone=9
12: https://fsfe.org/index.en.html
13: https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.html
14: https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.html
15: https://fsfe.org/community/tools/eventregistration
16: https://wiki.fsfe.org/LocalGroups/RheinMain
17: https://wiki.fsfe.org/LocalGroups/Hamburg
18: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Events/2018/FSFEKielMeeting_2018-11-22#head-e12ab4055…
19: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Events/2018/Fellowship%20Meeting%20Linz%202018-12-20#…
20: https://fsfe.org/community/tools/eventregistration
21: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/Templates%20for%20Donations#preview
22: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20181024-01
23: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
24: https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/translators
25: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
26: http://fsfe.org/join
27: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
28: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
29: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-11
= FSFE Newsletter November 2018 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201811.fi.html ]
== Software Freedom in Europe ==
For 17 years, the FSFE has been empowering people to have control over
their technology, and we get better at it every year. To help you
understand how we work and what we do, we have just published "Software
freedom in Europe" [1], the yearly report about the FSFE and our
activities.
The report gives you a breakdown of important things the FSFE has
achieved during the last 12 months in one document. In the 2018 report,
you will read about several campaigns, our input on the European Union's
copyright reform, and about our successful outreach in demanding
publicly financed software be made publicly available under a Free
Software licence. You will also get insights about the multiple events
we (co-)organised, about our community and groups that helped us with
these achievements. Finally, we will display some numbers showing what
resources we counted on, and giving an outlook for the next year.
If you like our report, please share it on your favorite (social) media
channels and mailing lists, among your colleagues, friends and families.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Join our community of freedom fighters! [2]
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== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- A large part of the FSFE team was present at the SFScon in Bolzano,
Italy, with a booth. The FSFE's president Matthias Kirschner gave a
talk about how "Technology shapes democracy" [3] and our EU public
policy programme manager Alexander Sander hosted a policy workshop.
- Bits&Bäume is a conference to bring together actors of different
sustainability and digital right movements. The FSFE local group
Berlin was present with a booth and Erik Albers gave a talk about
software as a digital resource [4], Christian Nähle about Free
Software in municipalities [5] and Bernhard Reiter about paying for
freedom [6].
- In the third consecutive year, the FSFE coordinators Spain were
running a booth at OSHWDem, a fair about Free Software and free
hardware. On this occasion, the creation of a FSFE local group in
Northern Spain was announced, as well as a translation team for the
Galician language. If you are interested to join one of them, please
get in contact with Pep Diz [7].
- At this year's Linux Day Italy, the FSFE Local Group Sicilia hosted an
event [8] with Giuseppe Bonocore, member of FSFE local group Milano,
who gave an introduction about the FSFE and the state of the art of
Free Software for "Microservices, dev-ops and silverbullet". At the
same time, the FSFE local group Milano was also hosting an event in
Milano [9] about Free Software and open source culture, together with
local associations where Stefano Costa gave a talk about "Libera il
tuo router!" (Free your router).
- Paul Boddie writes about [10] how he learned to publish applications
through F-Droid and encourages everyone to do likewise: "The process
was smooth and people were friendly and happy to help".
- Björn Schießle writes about his set-up of Zim [11], and how that helps
him keep being organised.
- Diderik van Wingerden proposes an alternative entrepreneurial-based
innovation model [12] that he believes has the potential to be good
for people and the planet by design.
== Get Active ==
Towards the end of the year, many people are open to join or support a
cause they believe in or they believe to do good. If you liked our
annual report [13] and the work we are doing, please spread the word
about it. You can for example share our report on your favorite (social)
media channels and mailing lists, amongst your colleagues, friends and
families. If you are not a supporter of the Free Software Foundation
Europe yet, please consider doing so [14] and strengthening the European
Free Software movement. Help yourself by making the process of
understanding or explaining the importance of Free Software easier for
yourself with our promotion material [15]. Get our latest merchandise
[16] and improve your outfit for the winter season - or gift it to
someone you know during the winter celebrations.
== Contribute to our newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to
us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking forward
to hearing from you!
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [17], supporters [18] and
donors [19] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[20], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Your editor,
Erik Albers
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Join our community of freedom fighters! [21]
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--
Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20181105-01
2: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-11
3: https://www.sfscon.it/talks/be-aware-technology-shapes-democracy/
4: https://fahrplan.bits-und-baeume.org/events/138.html
5: https://fahrplan.bits-und-baeume.org/events/176.html
6: https://fahrplan.bits-und-baeume.org/events/163.html
7: https://fsfe.org/mailto:pd@fsfe.org
8: https://linuxday.thefreecircle.org/2018/en/
9: http://linuxdaymilano.org/2018/
10: http://www.boddie.org.uk/david/www-repo/Personal/Updates/2018/2018-11-11.ht…
11: https://www.schiessle.org/articles/2018/11/01/keep-yourself-organized/
12: http://think-innovation.com/blog/reinventing-startups/
13: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20181105-01
14: https://my.fsfe.org/support
15: https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword
16: https://fsfe.org/order/
17: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
18: http://fsfe.org/join
19: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
20: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
21: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-11
= FSFE Newsletter October 2018 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201810.fi.html ]
== Microsoft joins the Open Invention Network ==
Historically, Microsoft has used software patents to slow down Free
Software adoption in businesses and public administration, by claiming
patent infringement of important Free Software components and taking
billions of dollars from Free Software re-distributors. In recent years,
however, Microsoft approached themselves more and more with the Free
Software community. In October, this led to Microsoft's next big step to
join the LOT Network and the Open Invention Network (OIN), two
organisations that aim to solve problems created by software patents
towards the GNU/Linux systems.
LOT works to protect members against so called "non-practicing
entities", while the OIN wants to protect a defined set of Free Software
technologies from patent litigation, defined in their so-called "Linux
system definition" [1].
The FSFE welcomes Microsoft's steps, and encourages them to continue in
this direction [2]. The FSFE aligns with our sister organisation, the
Free Software Foundation (FSF) in their demand [3] that useful next
steps should make a clear, unambiguous statement that Microsoft has
ceased all patent infringement claims on the use of Linux in Android: to
expand the list of packages protected from patents inside the definition
of "Linux System", to include every Free Software component found in a
GNU/Linux system, and to use the past patent royalties, extorted from
Free Software, to fund the effective abolition of all patents covering
ideas in software.
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== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- From December 27th to 30th there will be the 35th Chaos Communication
Congress and the FSFE is happy to host an assembly again, acting as an
information booth and a meeting point for our friends and all friends
of Free Software. For sessions at the FSFE assembly, we are looking
for inspiring talks, hands-on workshops, community/developer/strategy
meetings or any other public, informative or collaborative activities
and have an open call for sessions running until November 18 [5].
- On the first weekend of October, the FSFE held it's annual assembly in
the Onion Space in Berlin. The general assembly are the members of the
FSFE, responsible for strategic planning and budgeting. Besides the
members, this year's general assembly welcomed our newest staffer
Alexander Sander to attend as guest. Soon after this newsletter
reaches you, a more detailed report, including the official minutes,
will be published on our homepage.
- We started onboarding two new staffers: Galia Mancheva [6] and Gabriel
Ku Wei Bin [7] have joined as project managers. We are excited to see
our team growing organically, and you will soon hear more from Galia's
and Gabriel's work in this newsletter.
- Prior to the elections in Hessen [8] and Bavaria [9], the FSFE
together with the "Free Knowledge Coalition", published another
"Digital-O-Mat" [10]. The Digital-O-Mat is one of our elections
campaigns and an online tool to help voters to inform themselves on
the parties positions about Free Software. Voters can use the Digital-
O-Mat to compare their own views about internet related policies with
the ones from the participating parties, and, this way, they are able
to find their best match. To also help understand the parties
positions in a broader context and raise public attention, the FSFE
analysed and evaluated their positions in a public statement [11].
- The FSFE's president Matthias Kirschner gave a talk at Kernel Recipes
[12] on the importance of Free Software and its role in protecting
democracy.
- The FSFE's country coordinator Germany Björn Schießle gave a talk at
the “Free Software Free Knowledge as a Profession” [13] series of
lectures organised and hosted by the dedicated working university
group at TU Dresden.
== Do not miss: upcoming events with the FSFE ==
>From November 15 to 17, part of the FSFE team will be present at the
SFScon [14] in Bolzano, Italy. The FSFE's president Matthias Kirschner
will give a talk and our EU public policy programme manager Alexander
Sander will host a policy workshop. Also, we will run a booth, where we
will present the findings of the REUSE [15] software study - carried out
by the University of Bolzano. If you are around, do pass by: we look
forward to meeting you.
== Get Active ==
To let as many people as possible know about software freedom and the
FSFE's mission, it is beneficial to explain our cause to them in their
mother tongue. Our team of translators [16] does an amazing job in
making sure that a majority of Europeans can read our pages in their
native language. Indeed, many parts of our homepage have been translated
in more than 20 European languages. This is a priceless contribution to
spreading software freedom and we are grateful to all contributors who
helped us in this.
However, every homepage needs an update from time to time and we will
refresh several parts of our homepage in the upcoming weeks - on top of
our general publications and news, like this newsletter. This means new
parts of our page that need translations. If you are a native speaker of
any language apart from English and you like translating, please join
our translator team [17] now, and help us to modernize our
infrastructure by getting our message out. Our translators team is very
helpful and looks forward to welcoming new members. You can get in
contact with the team via our mailing list [18] or with individual
coordinators [19] listed on the translators page.
== Open positions at FSFE ==
We currently have open positions for an internship as well as for a
"Bundesfreiwilligendienst" [20]. You an find more information about our
internships, previous interns and currently open positions on our
internships page [21].
== Contribute to our newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to
us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking forward
to hearing from you!
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [22], supporters [23] and
donors [24] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[25], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Your editor,
Erik Albers
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Join our community of freedom fighters! [26]
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--
Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1: https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/linux-system/
2: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20181023-02.html
3: https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-statement-on-microsoft-joining-the-open-invent…
4: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-10
5: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20181024-01
6: https://fsfe.org/about/mancheva/mancheva
7: https://fsfe.org/about/ku/ku
8: https://hessen.digital-o-mat.de/
9: https://bayern.digital-o-mat.de/
10: https://digital-o-mat.de/
11: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20181010-01.en.html
12: https://kernel-recipes.org/en/2018/talks/democracy-requires-free-software/
13: https://wiki.fsfw-dresden.de/doku.php/ringvorlesung/ws2018
14: https://www.sfscon.it/
15: https://reuse.software/
16: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/
17: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/
18: https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/translators
19: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/
20: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180913-01.en.html
21: https://fsfe.org/contribute/internship.html
22: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
23: http://fsfe.org/join
24: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
25: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
26: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-10
= FSFE Newsletter September 2018 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201809.fi.html ]
== Limited exclusion for Free Software in the Copyright Directive ==
On September 12, the European Parliament rejected the mandate to fast-
track the controversial legislation intended to reform online copyright.
After its previous rejection in July, they voted again on this package –
and this time it was adopted. However, with amendment 143 and 150 of the
current copyright reform proposal, we now have at least a limited
exclusion for “open source software developing platforms (..) within the
meaning of this Directive”. ( consolidated document [1] )
This exception is partially a result of our SaveCodeShare Campaign [2].
Nearly 13.000 individuals have already signed our open letter asking to
preserve the ability to share and build software online, and lots of
Free Software supporters raised their voice. Please continue to support
this campaign as the debate is not over yet.
In the next step, the European Parliament and the Council are starting
the Trialogue, moderated by the European Commission. This debate will
most likely continue until the beginning of next year. We will closely
follow this process and will continue to raise our voice for Free
Software. If you like to support our work, join us as a supporter [3].
== "Go open today, there's no excuse not to" ==
Within our Public Money? Public Code! campaign, we run a series of
interviews that highlight good examples and use-cases as best practices.
This time we conducted an interview with Timo Aarnio [4], GIS Expert at
the National Land Survey of Finland and product owner for Oskari
software. Oskari is an award-winning Free Software platform for
browsing, sharing and analysing geographic information from distributed
data sources. Read about its background, its development practices and a
network with over 38 organisations from both the public and private
sector.
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== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- The FSFE is now official partner with the German
"Bundesfreiwilligendienst", a successor of the former alternative
civilian service. A paid volunteer can now work full time in our
office and learn about Free Software and our community. We have an
open call [6] running for this position. Be our first "Bufdi" or
spread the message to people who might be interested.
- Until two years ago, the FSFE had successfully defended [7] the user's
right of free choice against compulsory routers introduced by Internet
service providers in Germany. Recent numbers seem to acknowledge the
importance of our activites, as they suggest (DE) [8] that the number
of users who exercise their right of free choice have doubled since
the law passed in 2016. Due to Tobias Platen's findings [9] however,
users now have a “freedom of choice” but they do not have full
“software freedom”, because many embedded devices still use
proprietary software.
- The FSFE is happy to welcome Alexander Sander [10] as our new EU
public policy programme manager.
- OMEMO is an XMPP extension protocol, which specifies end-to-end
encryption for XMPP clients and it is currently the de-facto standard
for XMPP encryption. In his blog [11], Vanitas Vitae discusses its
current problems and the foreseeable future of this protocol.
- Paul Boddie argues [12] how Free Software advocates could improve
understanding the significance of their message by augmenting the four
software freedoms with some freedoms or statements of their own.
- Isabel Drost-Fromm posts a detailed summary [13] of the keynote by
Lorena Jaume-Palasi given at FrOSCon about the intersection of ethics
and technology: "Blessed by the algorithm - the computer says no!".
- At the 25th anniversary of Debian, Bits from the Basement writes [14]
about Freedom, Aretha Franklin and Debian's birthday.
- Diderik van Wingerden estimates and calculates [15] how much Free
Software projects would profit if people would donate 25% of the price
of its equivalent proprietary alternative.
- Torsten Grote explains [16] reproducible build processes, and why they
matter for Briar.
- Max Mehl, FSFE Program Manager, and Albert Dengg, FSFE System
Administrator, participated in BalCCon with a talk about "Public
Money? Public Code!" and a "Free Your Android" workshop.
- FSFE had a booth at NLLGG Software Freedom Day 2018 [17] in Utrecht,
The Netherlands, and at FrOSCon [18] in St. Augustin, Germany,
== Open positions at FSFE ==
We currently have open positions for an internship as well as for a
"Bundesfreiwilligendienst". Read about internships, previous interns and
currently open positions on our internships page [19]
== Contribute to our newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to
us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org [20]. We're looking
forward to hearing from you!
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [21], supporters [22] and
donors [23] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[24], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Your editor,
Erik Albers
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--
Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P8-TA-2…
2: http://savecodeshare.eu/
3: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-09
4: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180917-01
5: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-09
6: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180913-01
7: https://fsfe.org/activities/routers/
8: https://www.golem.de/news/vodafone-zahl-der-nutzer-der-routerfreiheit-hat-s…
9: http://blogs.fsfe.org/tobias_platen/2018/08/01/two-years-of-terminal-device…
10: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180907-01.en.html
11: https://blogs.fsfe.org/vanitasvitae/2018/09/07/future-of-omemo/
12: https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=2307
13: http://blog.isabel-drost-fromm.de/posts/froscon-2018.html
14: http://www.gag.com/bdale/blog/posts/Mixed_Emotions_On_Debian_Anniversary.ht…
15: http://think-innovation.com/blog/should-you-donate-to-open-source-software/
16: https://blog.grobox.de/2018/building-briar-reproducible-and-why-it-matters/
17: https://nllgg.nl/bijeenkomst/20180915
18: https://www.froscon.de/
19: https://fsfe.org/contribute/internship.html
20: https://fsfe.org/mailto:newsletterATfsfeDOTorg
21: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
22: https://fsfe.org/join
23: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
24: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
25: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-09
