= FSFE Newsletter - September 2015 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201509.fi.html ]
== FSFE supports users' control over their online data ==
Nowadays we use online services for everything and increasingly provide
our data to them. However we also lose the control of our own data more
than ever. Together with other organisations FSFE supports the
publication of the User Data Manifesto 2.0[1] which promotes users'
basic rights to control their data while using online services.
According to the manifesto, users must control the access to their data,
they have to know if their data is stored by the online services, and
they have to be able to freely choose a platform without being forced to
vendor lock-in. The manifesto is a good starting point for the debate
about users' rights online, and FSFE looks forward to other
organisations joining the effort to stand for online services that
respect users' fundamental rights.
== Compulsory routers: Another one bites the dust ==
The router, although often a device covered with dust in some corner at
home, is an important part of your local network and phone. A lot of
users in Germany do not own this device, although it stands in their
home and they pay for its power. At least that is still the case. On
August 12th, the German Federal Ministry of the Economy (BMWi) passed a
reworked draft bill[2] that would free users from compulsory router
lock-in. The draft ensures that internet users in Germany can use
whatever routers they want to connect to the internet.
The bill now has to be adopted by the Federal Parliament (Bundestag) and
the Federal Assembly (Bundesrat). So far the comments concerned only a
small formal ambiguity, but we have to make sure this law passes without
any negative changes and that it is afterwards implemented. We have a
detailed update[3] which also describes how you can help us in Germany
at the moment! Besides that we summarised the issue[4] and we are
constantly updating our timeline[5] so in case this topic comes up in
your country, you can reuse our arguments.
== New German Coordinators and dissolving the German association ==
In his blog post your editor outlined[6] the process of streamlining the
FSFE by dissolving the last remaining country chapter, known as the FSFE
Chapter Germany e.V. This step was decided last year in November with
the goal to remove some bureaucratic burdens associated with maintaining
a legal entity. However as you can read in the article, dissolving an
organisation is not as easy as it may sound; but we hope to complete
this process in April of next year.
FSFE is happy to announce that Max Mehl and Björn Schießle became the
new coordinators of the German team last month, and from now on will
hopefully not spend many hours per year dealing with bureaucracy. Both
have been a part of FSFE for a long time now and have been helping us to
achieve our goal to empower people to control technology[7]. Just
recently, Björn wrote an article on the German blog Netzpolitik.org
about the User Data Manifesto[8] (see above in English), and Max just
published an update on compulsory routers as mentioned above, along with
an article on Netzpolitik.org about it[9].
== Something completely different ==
- Paul Boddie started with the Fellowship interviews again: he talked
with Neil McGovern[10] who is a Fellow of the FSFE from the United
Kingdom and the current Debian Project Leader.
- Hugo Roy, FSFE's deputy legal coordinator wrote an article[11] (in
French) about a copyright case between Skype and a French software
company which decompiled parts of Skype in order to, allegedly, build
a system interoperable with it. Interestingly enough, the court found
that company's disclosure of the source code was illegal, but that
using the code to build a new interoperable program was legal.
- FSFE has a new role in the Bacula project[12]. Over the coming months,
the FSFE will wind down its previous role as a fiduciary for Bacula,
effectively transferring its copyright to Kern. However, the FSFE will
continue to work with Kern and contributors to ensure that Bacula will
remain as Free Software, as per our original agreement.
- Next month FSFE will have a booth at the "Rotlintstraßenfest" in
Frankfurt on 19 September and a booth at the "Kieler Open Source and
Linuxtage" from 18-19 September.
- From the planet aggregation[13]:
- Nikos Roussos was guided by Open Street Map during his vacations
and afterwards he spent time to improve the Open Street Map[14]
with the data he gathered during his trip so everybody will
benefit from it again.
- Daniel Pocock published the second part[15] of his how-to about
"recording live events like a pro".
- Paul Boddie commented on the new Fairphone[16] and wrote about his
passion[17] for microcomputer systems from the 1980s and his
experience with PCB design.
- Mario Fux unveils the secret ingredient for the success of the
"Randa Meetings"[18] -- the KDE meetings in the Swiss Alps --
which took place for the sixth time this year.
- On a more technical side Peter Bubestinger, FSFE's Austrian
coordinator and technician at the National Video-Archive, wrote
about rescuing videotapes[19].
- Kevin Keitzer wrote about some SSH magic in "Connecting to a
server’s web interface over SSH"[20], and about how to track
airplanes and do other interesting things with "software-defined
radio on GNU/Linux"[21].
== Get active: translate and improve translations of our mission statement ==
"Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers users to
control technology. Software is deeply involved in all aspects of our
lives. It is important that this technology empowers rather than
restricts us. Free Software gives everybody the rights..." That is how
FSFE's recently updated mission statement starts[22]. We hope that it
will help us to get more people to understand what we are doing. We
already have translations into Albanian, Dutch, English, Finnish, Greek,
Italian, Portuguese, and Turkish.
Please help us to get more translations[23], and to check the exisiting
translations for easy readability for everybody.
Thanks to all the volunteers[24], Fellows[25] and corporate donors[26]
who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE[27]
--
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://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150829-01.html
2. http://www.bmwi.de/BMWi/Redaktion/PDF/Gesetz/gesetzentwurf-der-bundesregier…
3. https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150902-01.html
4. https://fsfe.org/activities/routers/routers.html
5. https://fsfe.org/activities/routers/timeline.html
6. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/dissolving-our-association/
7. http://fsfe.org/about/mission.html
8. https://netzpolitik.org/2015/user-data-manifesto-2-0/
9. https://netzpolitik.org/2015/der-lange-weg-des-routerzwangs-zur-endgeraetef…
10. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=683
11. http://www.lemondedudroit.fr/le-monde-du-droit-le-quotidien-des-juristes-da…
12. http://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150817-01.en.html
13. http://planet.fsfe.org
14. http://www.roussos.cc/2015/08/07/post-vacations-map-editing/
15. http://danielpocock.com/recording-live-events-like-a-pro-part-two-video
16. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=1000
17. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=1070
18. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mario/?p=336
19. http://blogs.fsfe.org/pb/?p=158
20. http://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2015/08/27/web-interface-over-ssh/
21. http://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2015/08/31/sdr-on-linux/
22. https://fsfe.org/about/mission.html
23. http://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators.html
24. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.fi.html
25. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
26. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.fi.html
27. https://fsfe.org/index.fi.html
= FSFE Newsletter - August 2015 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201508.fi.html ]
== Reply to EU consultation on copyright, patents, and trade secrets ==
Earlier this month, FSFE answered to the “Consultation on the respect of
intellectual property in public procurement procedures”, initiated by
the European Commission. According to Commission the initial purpose of
the consultation was to “gather evidence, opinions and feedback
regarding the respect of intellectual property rights and trade secrets
in public procurement procedures”, and assess whether there is a need
for a guide for public authorities in this regard.
In our answer, we restate several issues that need to be addressed in
the overall topic of the consultation. For example on software patents
we explained that it is impossible to procure software that is not
violating any patents, and that the rights of copyright holders should
not be devalued by third parties’ patents. In addition, FSFE argued that
every publicly funded software should be published and distributed as
Free Software by default, so that everyone can use the software for
their own purposes and provide better services for public authorities in
return.
Our current trainee Polina Malaja summarised our answers and wrote about
the consultation in her blogpost[1], and made our answers available in
FSFE's wiki[2].
== How to deal with firmware restrictions ==
FSFE's goal is to ensure that the owners of IT devices are always in
full and sole control of them. During the last years this fundamental
principle is being challenged by such developments as UEFI “Secure
Boot”[3], or the proprietary BIOS. This is low-level software that runs
when you turn on your computer. It initialises the hardware and may be
designed to restrict users to install software which is not “authorised”
by the manufacturer. This development was also a topic in your editor's
keynote[4] at this year's Akademy in A Coruña/Spain, that gives an
insight on how to resolve these manufactured restrictions.
One of the ways to counter those developments is alternative boot
firmware. There are several ways to have the built-in proprietary
firmware replaced with free analogues. Our fellow Kevin Keijzer explains
in detail how to "set up a beaglebone black to flash Coreboot"[5], and
how to "flash Libreboot on an Lenovo X200 with a Raspberry Pi"[6].
Another fellow André Ockers explains in his blogpost how he got a
Thinkpad T60p with Trisquel and Libreboot[7].
Beside working on free alternative boot firmware, we also have to look
further into the future. We have to think about how to extend the ideas
of Free Software to hardware. Richard Stallman wrote about this in his
article "Why we need free digital hardware designs"[8].
== Something completely different ==
- On July 24-26, FSFE held its European Coordinators Meeting 2015
(ECM15) in Essen. Amongst many topics our coordinators discussed
strategy, a proposal to restructure FSFE's community and
communication, as well as our press and campaign work. For more
information please read Erik Albers's blogpost[9].
- FSFE's education team updated their website[10]. Have a look at it,
give us feedback, or even better: join our education team to promote
the use of Free Software in schools and universities.
- Your editor, Matthias Kirschner, was interviewed before Akademy. The
interview is available on KDE's website[11]. It covers questions about
your editor's first GNU/Linux distribution, why he studied politics
and management, how he got involved in FSFE, how Free Software is
linked to the progress of society, as well as his involvement in wild
first aid seminars. (Victorhck translated the interview into
Spanish[12].)
- The European Commission published the legislation editor LEOS as Free
Software[13]. It can be used to draft and automatically process legal
texts. Currently the software supports legal texts issued by the EC,
yet can be extended to support other legislative processes.
- Two good developments in France: On one hand the French government has
published templates[14] to be used by procurement officers when
requesting free software-based ICT solutions. The templates include
Free Software procurement clauses that prompt developers to organise
contributing code. On the other hand, France wants its public
administration to prioritise ODF over Microsoft OOXML format (see an
article in the Register[15] ).
- On 3 October 2015 the FSF celebrates its 30th birthday in Boston. That
is a reason to celebrate. As their sister organisation, we invite you
to organise small birthday parties[16] around Europe, too. Let us know
if you plan something, so we promote the celebration.
- From the planet aggregation[17]:
- Riccardo Iaconelli wrote about WikiFM[18], a KDE project which
aims to bring free and open knowledge to the world, in the form of
textbooks and course notes. It is aimed at students, researchers
and continuous learners, with manuals and content ranging from
basic calculus to “Designing with QML” (already used by High
Energy Physics Software Foundation).
- Daniel Pocock explains howto[19] record live events with your
mobile phone and a lapel microphone.
- Guido Arnold reported on Galicia introducing over 50 000 students
to free software[20], and a school in Spain switching to using
Ubuntu/Linux[21] for its desktop PCs in class rooms and offices.
== Get active: Contribute to our static website generator ==
Since 2002 FSFE is using a static website generator for our web
presence. The first version was written by Jonas Öberg, who is now
FSFE's Executive Director. Last month we introduced an updated version
to the test instance of our website. In his blog post, FSFE's webmaster
Paul Hänsch summarises its new features, and limitations[22]. So if you
are interested to improve FSFE's web presence on a technical level, read
this and get in contact with our web team.
Thanks to all the volunteers[23], Fellows[24] and corporate donors[25]
who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE[26]
--
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://blogs.fsfe.org/polina/2015/07/24/fsfe-answers-to-the-consultation-on…
2. https://wiki.fsfe.org/Free_Software_in_public_procurement
3. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/generalpurposecomputing/secure-boot-analysis.fi.…
4. https://dot.kde.org/2015/07/25/akademy-talks-day-1
5. http://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2015/06/08/setting-up-a-beaglebone…
6. https://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2015/06/06/libreboot-x200-raspber…
7. https://blogs.fsfe.org/ao/2015/05/29/how-i-got-a-thinkpad-t60p-coreboot-gnu…
8. http://www.wired.com/2015/03/need-free-digital-hardware-designs/
9. https://blogs.fsfe.org/eal/2015/07/30/european-coordinators-meeting-2015/
10. http://fsfe.org/activities/education/education.html
11. https://dot.kde.org/2015/07/15/akademy-2015-keynote-matthias-kirschner
12. https://victorhckinthefreeworld.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/entrevista-a-matth…
13. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/144375
14. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/144729
15. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/22/french_government_computer_agency_r…
16. http://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-invites-the-free-software-community-to-its-30th…
17. http://planet.fsfe.org
18. http://blogs.fsfe.org/ruphy/2015/07/announcing-wikifm/
19. http://danielpocock.com/recording-live-events-like-a-pro-part-one-audio
20. http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2015/07/galicia-introducing-over-50-000-student…
21. http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2015/07/we-dont-use-free-software-we-want-somet…
22. http://blog.plutz.net/The_FSFE_org_buildscript.html
23. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.fi.html
24. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
25. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.fi.html
26. https://fsfe.org/index.fi.html
= FSFE Newsletter - July 2015 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201507.en.html ]
== FSFE pokes the European Commission on its transparency commitment ==
While looking into the Digital Single Market (DSM) package, our
president Karsten Gerloff noticed that the EU Commissioner Günther
Oettinger neglected to publish his recent meetings with lobbyists. So
Karsten reminded the Commission about their transparency commitment.
Meanwhile Oettinger's Head of Cabinet, Michael Hager, explained that a
long-term sickness leave in the cabinet has led to a delay in publishing
the meetings, and they updated the lists of meetings.
But it turned out Karsten was not the only one interested in Oettinger's
meetings[1]. A few days after Karsten's reminder the Spiegel and other
media published news stories about it. According to Spiegel Online’s
figures, 90% of the Commissioner’s meetings were with corporate
representatives, business organisations, consultancies and law firms.
Only 3% of his meetings were with NGOs. Of the top ten organisations
he’s meeting with, seven are telecoms companies, most of whom are
staunchly opposed to net neutrality.
Without the EU's transparency commitment, it would have been almost
impossible to research this. This shows how important such transparency
commitments are and it shows how important it is that organisations and
individuals actually monitor such publications. Furthermore we hope that
from now on Oettinger better balances his meetings, so he hears
different sides of an issue, and can make an informed decision.
== TiSA: intransparent treaty might prevent digital sovereignty ==
Nowadays countries start to demand the source code for software they
procure. If they sign the currently negotiated Trade in Services
Agreement (TiSA) they might be forbidden to continue doing so.
End of May, a draft of TiSA (Trade in Services Agreement) was leaked.
TiSA is yet another international agreement, like the Trans-Atlantic
Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), or the Comprehensive Economic
and Trade Agreement (CETA). It is apparently negotiated by 51 countries
including the EU. In the section “Transfer or Access to Source Code”[2]
the leaked version prevents countries to give priority to Free Software:
1. No Party may require the transfer of, or access to, source code of
software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition of
providing services related to such software in its territory.
2. For purposes of this Article, software subject to paragraph 1 is
limited to mass-market software, and does not include software used
for critical infrastructure.
We believe that a trade agreement should not force signatory countries
to give up control over their IT infrastructure for decades to come. On
the contrary, companies should provide the source code if the public
administrations demands it, as well as the corresponding rights to use
the software for any purpose, to share the software with others, as well
as to adopt the software for their own needs without anyone else's
permission.
== Something completely different ==
- Copyright directive: In an important step towards modernising the EU's
copyright laws, the Legal Affairs committee of the European Parliament
adopted a report on the Copyright Directive by MEP Julia Reda. FSFE,
which provided input to the MEPs[3] of the Legal Affairs committee
ahead of the vote, views the adopted report as largely positive[4].
The European Parliament is scheduled to hold a plenary vote on 9 July
2015 on the subject.
- Education: The German state of Saxony-Anhalt is forcing their pupils
to use a variety of Microsoft services by making it mandatory for
every public school. The plan was arranged by the Minister of Finance
without knowledge of neither the data protection officer, nor the
ministry of education. Erik Albers wrote about that[5] (in German) and
afterwards Fellows in Saxony filed a petition against this
procedure[6], which everybody – also outside Saxony-Anhalt – can sign
and promote.
- FSFE Internal: About two years ago, Karsten Gerloff decided that he
would eventually move on from his role as FSFE’s president. FSFE has
been preparing the leadership transition ever since. As he wrote in
his blog post[7] June was the last month for him actively handling
operations at FSFE. Karsten currently takes two months of parental
leave, and at FSFE’s General Assembly in September, FSFE's General
Assembly will elect his successor.
- Events: Our active volunteer Guido Arnold was giving a keynote “Free
Software in Education”[8] at the 22nd DORS/CLUC in Zagreb, and Franz
Gratzer reports from the FSFE's booth at Veganmania[9]. This vegan
festival in Vienna lasted for four days, with 70 organisations and
companies having booths there.
- From the planet aggregation[10]:
- In his series “Three steps towards more privacy on the Net”[11]
Jens Lechtenbörger explains how to setup Firefox with Tor/Orbot on
Android[12].
- Imagine you want to install GNU/Linux on ~10 old computers, and
all you have is a slow 10kb/s internet connection. Max Mehl faced
this problem and wrote “splitDL”, a small Bash script which splits
huge files into several smaller ones and downloads them[13].
- Timo Jyrinki takes a look at the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition
(2015) which is shipped with Ubuntu 14.04 LTS[14].
- Daniel Pocock documents how to use Blender for video editing[15]
with the included non-linear video editing system.
- And Erik Albers writes how he learned to love the NASA[16].
== Get active: Tell us about active groups in Europe ==
There are many groups in Europe who do advocacy and lobby work for
software freedom. Some have done this work for many years, some just
started doing it. Unfortunately often they do not know from each other's
existence, and therefore cannot benefit from a knowledge exchange.
We want to make sure the FSFE does not overlook other Free Software
activities in Europe, so we can learn from each other and improve our
way of empowering more users to control their technology. That is why
this month we ask you to tell us about the active groups working for
software freedom in Europe[17].
Thanks to all the volunteers[18], Fellows[19] and corporate donors[20]
who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE[21]
--
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://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2015/06/24/lots-of-attention-for-oettingers-t…
2. https://netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/TISA-Annex-on-Electronic-Commerce.pdf
3. https://fsfe.org/activities/policy/eu/20150605-Comments-On-Reda-Report.en.h…
4. https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150616-01.en.html
5. http://blogs.fsfe.org/eal/2015/06/03/sachsen-anhalt-verkauft-seine-schulen-…
6. https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/vorvertrag-partnerschaft-des-la…
7. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2015/06/18/farewell-for-now/
8. http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2015/06/free-software-in-education-keynote-at-d…
9. http://blogs.fsfe.org/franz.gratzer/2015/06/11/fsfe-fellowship-and-freie-it…
10. http://planet.fsfe.org
11. http://blogs.fsfe.org/jens.lechtenboerger/2015/06/09/three-steps-towards-mo…
12. http://blogs.fsfe.org/jens.lechtenboerger/2015/06/09/firefox-with-tororbot-…
13. http://blog.mehl.mx/2015/splitdl-downloading-huge-files-from-slow-and-unsta…
14. http://losca.blogspot.de/2015/06/quick-look-dell-xps-13-developer.html
15. http://danielpocock.com/quick-start-blender-video-editing
16. http://blogs.fsfe.org/eal/2015/05/21/how-i-learned-to-love-the-nasa/
17. https://public.pad.fsfe.org/p/GroupsForSoftwareFreedomInEurope
18. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.en.html
19. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
20. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html
21. https://fsfe.org/index.en.html
= FSFE Newsletter – June 2015 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201506.fi.html ]
== For whom the bell tolls? ==
On the first Wednesday of May, a coalition of digital liberties
organizations, including FSFE, and a multitude of individual activists
held the International Day Against DRM[1] 2015 to raise awareness about
digital restrictions management, a pervasive and deeply entrenched
mechanism designed to plunder the citizenry of the concept of ownership.
Along with numerous other defenders of consumer rights and digital
liberties we published a statement asking legislators to guarantee the
traditional right to tinker[2] with our property. This was necessitated
by both the prior steady erosion of the rights to repair and modify our
belongings and the renewed push by various manufacturing companies, like
John Deere[3], one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural
equipment, to deny their customers the right to modify their own
property in whatever way the customers wish, using bad laws like the US
Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which forbid consumers to circumvent
or remove certain defects from their purchases.
== FSFE is looking for a systems architect ==
Due to sustained growth we have experienced in the last few years, our
infrastructure has developed into a state where it is no longer able to
fulfil our needs. Therefore, we are looking for a systems architect[4]
to help us document our existing infrastructure dependencies, develop
this into a maintainable architecture, and help our system
administrators migrate our services to the new architecture.
If you have a good grasp of Free Software, creating technical
documentation, virtualization, MTAs, database servers, and web services
and you wish to help us ensure scalability and continued availability of
both Fellowship services and our internal tools, then you are welcome to
apply by contacting our Executive Director, Jonas Öberg[5]. This is your
chance to gain a deeper understanding of the technical challenges faced
by our volunteers and staff, and help us overcome these hurdles!
== Something completely different ==
- Guido Arnold, FSFE's edu-team coordinator, held a keynote at DORS/CLUC
in Zagreb about Free Software adoption in education throughout Europe
and wrote a short post about it[6].
- Our President Karsten Gerloff has written a blog post explaining why
Facebook's new option to encrypt e-mail notifications using the
OpenPGP standard is useless[7]. The bottom line is that on Facebook
you are the product and the new “feature” will neither guard your data
from overreaching law enforcement nor advertisers willing to pay.
- Our associate[8] Fundaţia Ceata[9] is organizing a conference called
Coliberator '15[10] from June 6th to 7th in Bucharest, Romania. The
conference has featured our president Karsten Gerloff and the founder
of the Free Software movement, Richard M. Stallman, as keynote
speakers during previous editions.
- From the planet aggregation:
- Our Fellow Kevin Keijzer writes about liberating a Thinkpad
T60p[11] for another Fellow, André, who reviews the
experience[12].
- Daniel Pocock is showing people how to use Blender for video
editing[13].
- Max Mehl, a former intern, is writing about his current
volunteering experience in Africa[14]. Max offers a rather
strange, but eye-opening perspective on the way Tanzanians
perceive technology.
== Get active: call on legislators to oppose TTIP, CETA ==
This newsletter started with DRM; it will also end with DRM:
unscrupulous actors are attempting to use secretly negotiated trade
agreements TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) and
CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) to make it extremely
difficult for future governments to get rid of current bans on
circumventing digital restrictions mechanisms. Instead, they would force
governments to impose ever-harsher penalties on anyone who dares to
tinker with their property.
We at FSFE would rather avoid that future. Hence, we are asking you to
contact your elected representatives both in the European parliament and
various legislative bodies throughout Europe and let them know that you
wish European laws to remain the province of European legislators. Ask
them to oppose secretly negotiated[15] treaties; ask them to demand
transparency and openness; and, most importantly, do it now and tell
your legislators about the things you like to do with your possessions.
It would also be nice if you could tell them what you would be unable to
do if those secretive trade agreements were ratified, but you cannot: we
do not know the current state of the negotiations. This is quite
annoying, but despair not: most of our elected representatives are also
in the dark, and they are unlikely to enjoy it. This offers us a unique
opportunity to tune them against the deals before they are finalized and
presented for ratification: let us get our representatives to oppose
these deals while they can make a decision based on democratic
principles and need not yet decide whether the economic perks outweigh
the proposed harm to a free society.
Thanks to all the volunteers[16], Fellows[17] and corporate donors[18]
who enable our work,
Heiki Lõhmus[19], FSFE[20]
--
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.defectivebydesign.org/dayagainstdrm
2. https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150506-01.fi.html
3. http://copyright.gov/1201/2015/comments-032715/class%2021/John_Deere_Class2…
4. https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150527-01.fi.html
5. https://fsfe.org/about/oberg/index.fi.html
6. http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2015/06/free-software-in-education-keynote-at-d…
7. http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2015/06/01/facebook-offers-to-send-you-encryp…
8. https://fsfe.org/associates/associates.fi.html
9. https://ceata.org/
10. http://coliberator.ro/2015/
11. http://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2015/05/08/flashing-coreboot-on-a-…
12. https://blogs.fsfe.org/ao/2015/05/29/how-i-got-a-thinkpad-t60p-coreboot-gnu…
13. http://danielpocock.com/quick-start-blender-video-editing
14. http://blog.mehl.mx/2015/technology-and-free-software-in-tz/
15. https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2014/08/11/ttip-policy-laundering-a-few-…
16. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.fi.html
17. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
18. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.fi.html
19. https://fsfe.org/about/repentinus/index.fi.html
20. https://fsfe.org/index.fi.html
= FSFE Newsletter - May 2015 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201505.fi.html ]
== A secret Free Software action plan by the European Commission ==
The European Commission has published a new version of its strategy for
the internal use of Free Software. The FSFE provided input to the
Commission during the update phase and while the strategy is broadly
similar to the previous version, there are some improvements[1].
Unlike previous versions, this time the strategy is accompanied by an
action plan aimed at putting it into practice. However, the action plan
is not public, so it is not possible to assess the Commission's progress
towards its own goals. We would welcome it, if the Commission would soon
publish its action plan.
== Interpretation of law restricting Free Software in Switzerland ==
FSFE's goal is that software which is developed with tax money has to be
released as Free Software. By doing so the public administration would
strengthen and stimulate a fair IT market.
In Switzerland, there is currently uncertainty regarding the development
and release of Free Software by public contractors. The trigger for this
was the development and release of the software “OpenJusticia” by the
Swiss Federal Supreme Court. The federal council now wants to examine
whether the publication of Free Software by the federal administration
can be allowed explicitly. The FSFE demands a clarification[2], so that
publicly-financed software can be legally and unambiguously released as
Free Software.
== Worldwide 63 events about Open Standards ==
This year again volunteers around the world, accompanied by
international organisations as well as politicians and public services
joined our demand for document freedom. The global Document Freedom Day
had 63 local events in 31 countries on 4 continents. Read our 2015
report[3] to learn about political activities, new cartoons and
illustrations, and have a look at pictures from the events including
tasty DFD cakes.
== Something completely different ==
- We published a statement on the changed relations between the FSFE and
Kern Sibbald[4]. If you are a developer who has contributed to Bacula,
we recommend that you look at what Fiduciary Licence Agreements or
copyright assignments you have agreed to, and make sure that you fully
understand how this termination affect you. If you are not sure, you
are welcome to email us and we will do our best to assist you. Please
take a look at our FAQ on this issue first[5].
- On 6 May 2015 the FSF is organising the International Day Against DRM.
You can still print out some DRM leaflets[6], distribute them during
the day, and talk with your friends and colleagues about the harm of
digital restriction measures. Previously the FSF highlighted the
problems with the new Apple products[7] concerning proprietary
software and Digital Restrictions Management technologies distributed
with its products and services.
- The German Greens want[8] the Government to increase the support for
Free Software. FSFE has helped them with a enquiry in parliament about
the move to non-free software in the German Foreign Office. You can
help us to evaluate the Governments answers[9] (in German).
- Guido Arnold gave a talk about FSFE's education team at the Chemnitzer
Linuxtage. The video “Advantages and barriers of Free Software in
education” is now online[10] (you can for example use youtube-dl to
download it).
- From the planet aggregation[11]:
- Paul Boddie wrote a detailed blog post why Open Hardware and Free
Software is not just for the geeks[12].
- Franz Gratzer published an open letter to everymothercounts.org
about their Apple advertisement[13].
- Mirko Böhm summarised his experiences about parsing Emacs OrgMode
files, the EU patent debate, and his vacation[14].
- Riccardo (ruphy) Iaconelli announced, that he is back
blogging[15], after he has done research at CERN and launched
WikiFM.
- And your editor explained how to share multiple links on
Android[16].
== Get active: Check the remaining advertisement for non-free software ==
We currently wrap-up the PDFreaders campaign, and we need your help to
measure our success.
Started in 2009 FSFE’s goal with the campaign was to get rid of
advertisement for proprietary PDF readers. We focused on the websites of
public administrations, and many people helped us gather contact details
for over 2000 public websites which advertised non-free software. Many
people helped us to contact the public administrations, governments were
made aware of it and published guidelines. Until now we know that 772 of
the 2110 bugs were fixed, which is a 36% success rate.
But for most countries we did not check the status for several months
now. That is why we need your help to make one final round. We are
looking for volunteers who can help us by checking websites in their
native language, following the step-by-step guide at the end of your
editor's blog post[17].
Thanks to all the volunteers[18], Fellows[19] and corporate donors[20]
who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE[21]
--
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/2015/news-20150401-01.fi.html
2. https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150306-01.fi.html
3. http://documentfreedom.org/news/2015/news-20150408-01.html
4. https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150414-01.fi.html
5. https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/faq-bacula.fi.html
6. https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.fi.html#drm-leaflet
7. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/watch-your-freedom-because-apples-not
8. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/german-greens-want-increase…
9. https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150401-02.fi.html
10. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyDi6pkc6l8
11. http://planet.fsfe.org
12. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=908
13. http://blogs.fsfe.org/franz.gratzer/2015/03/28/open-letter-to-everymotherco…
14. http://creative-destruction.me/2015/04/04/parsing-emacs-orgmode-files-eu-pa…
15. http://blogs.fsfe.org/ruphy/2015/04/back-on-the-web/
16. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/sharing-multiple-links-on-android/
17. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/final-pdfreaders-advertisement-squashing/
18. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.fi.html
19. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
20. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.fi.html
21. https://fsfe.org/index.fi.html
= FSFE Newsletter - April 2015 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201504.fi.html ]
== Jonas Öberg visiting Boston without a pink backpack ==
Our new Executive Director Jonas Öberg[1] gave a talk at Libreplanet,
and visited Boston to meet FSF board members and staff. In his blog
posts[2] he wrote about his meetings with Matthew Garret, Benjamin Mako
Hill, Bradley Kuhn, Henry Poole from FSF's board, FSF's staff as well as
FSF's Executive Director John Sullivan discussing how to improve
cooperation and the two main challenges he sees for FSFE:
- analysing Free Software from legal, technical, and social dimensions
and ensuring that any challenges to Free Software within those areas
are met,
- assuring that in a world of free and open everything, Free Software is
what ties everything together: you can not have open data, open
ecology, open government or open educational resources without Free
Software.
Furthermore he looks back to his first visit, at that time in his
capacity as GNU webmaster, in December 1999 with a pink backpack.
== FSFE supporting the Christoph Hellwig GNU GPL enforcement lawsuit ==
FSFE welcomes the action which Christoph Hellwig and the Software
Freedom Conservancy are taking[3] to bring VMware into compliance with
the GNU General Public License.
Free Software is a public resource, and it is governed by legal rules
and social norms. Anyone who draws on this resource without respecting
those rules and norms damages the community at large. The great majority
of such problems are successfully resolved through dialogue and
goodwill. It is only when dialogue fails that legal steps become
necessary in order to protect this resource which we all share.
While FSFE regrets that this lawsuit has arisen, we believe that
safeguarding Free Software against those who try to appropriate for
themselves what belongs to us all is of the utmost importance.
== Joint statement on the use of Open Standards in the European Commission ==
Open Standards are formats and protocols which everybody can use free of
charge and restriction and for which no specific software from a
particular vendor is required. It is important that every EU citizen and
company should have the right to communicate and interact with its
administration using Open Standards exclusively, and not be forced to
install and use software from any specific vendor.
At Document Freedom Day (DFD), the international day to celebrate and
raise awareness of Open Standards, April (the French Free Software
organisation), European Digital Rights (EDRi), Open Forum Europe (OFE),
the Open Source Business Alliance (OSBA), and FSFE published a joint
statement. Besides generally highlighting the topic, the statement
focuses on the improper use of standards in the context of applying for
EU programmes[4]. (A full report about the 60 DFD events in 31 countries
will be published at the beginning of April.)
== Something completely different ==
- Just how transparent does the European Parliament have to be? In its
own rules of procedure, the Parliament has set itself the high
standard of conducting its affairs in “utmost transparency”. Our
president Karsten Gerloff reports[5] from an interesting discussion
“Ensuring utmost transparency – Free Software and Open Standards under
the Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament”, and what that
means in practice.
- The German Ministry of Economics published a first draft law to ban
compulsory routers (German)[6]. Except missing enforcement measures
FSFE welcomes the draft. We update the timeline[7] and our overview
pages[8] so people outside German could reuse our experiences to fight
compulsory routers in other countries, too.
- At a panel discussion, organised by the European Patent Office, about
patents, standards, and Free Software your editor experienced an
unexpected but positive turn[9].
- The New Yorker notes the 30th anniversary of the GNU Manifesto and
published a longer article about Richard Stallman and the start of GNU
and copyleft[10].
- This year the Free Software Award[11] went to Sébastien Jodogne for
his work on Free software Medical imaging with his project Orthanc and
to Reglue, which gives GNU/Linux computers to underprivileged children
and their families in Austin, Texas.
- FSFE welcomes Nicolas Dietrich in its General Assembly. He was elected
by our sustaining members, and thereby holds one of the two Fellowship
GA seats[12].
- From the planet aggregation[13]:
- Peter Bubestinger explains how he saved the songs of a friend's
iPod with Free Software[14].
- In his new job, former FSFE intern Nicolas Jean published EvQueue,
a job scheduler and queuing engine, as Free Software[15].
- Paul Boddie wrote about the BBC Micro Bit[16], a computing device,
which the BBC plan to give to each child in the UK starting
secondary school.
- Franz Gratzer highlighted some English interviews held during
FOSDEM[17], and wrote about the booth presence of freie.it, which
was founded by some members of FSFE’s Viennese Fellowship group,
as a web platform to help people who are interested in using Free
Software but who do not want to administrate their own computers.
- Fellow Karl Beecher explained why his company Endocode supports
FSFE as silver donor[18], and
- Mirko Böhm, also part of Endocode, wrote about his activites[19],
including meeting with Jonas Öberg, FSFE’s new Executive Director.
- Nico Rikken wrote about his discussions with the Fairphone
producers[20]
- Mario Fux wondered if Konqi -- the KDE mascot -- is male or
female[21].
- And Daniel Pocock explains how you can become your own OpenID
provider[22].
== Get active: Spread the message with Free Software merchandise ==
During the last weeks, many people ordered our “There is no cloud, just
other people's computers” stickers[23]. Now Rich Folsom wrote a Chromium
Browser add-in[24], which converts “the cloud” to “other people's
computers”.
Since so many people like the slogan, we now also have the corresponding
“There is no cloud, just other people's computers”[25] bags in our
webshop. Furthermore we have a new Open Standard t-shirt with robots in
fitted light blue or a non-fitted khaki, the “I love Free Software”
t-shirt in light blue, or a fitted “Hacking for Freedom” t-shirt in
grey, as well as the metallic “GNU/Linux inside” stickers and a golden
GNU pin.
If you want to spread the Free Software message at work, conferences, or
when you are shopping, you can order the equipment on our merchandise
page[26].
Thanks to all the volunteers[27], Fellows[28] and corporate donors[29]
who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE[30]
--
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/2015/news-20150302-02.fi.html
2. http://blogs.fsfe.org/jonas/?p=14
3. http://sfconservancy.org/linux-compliance/vmware-lawsuit-faq.html
4. https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150325-01.fi.html
5. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2015/03/26/909/
6. http://www.bmwi.de/BMWi/Redaktion/PDF/P-R/referentenentwurf-gesetz-zur-ausw…
7. https://fsfe.org/activities/routers/timeline.fi.html
8. https://fsfe.org/activities/routers/routers.fi.html
9. https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/unexpected-turn-at-panel-discussion-on-software-p…
10. http://www.newyorker.com/business/currency/the-gnu-manifesto-turns-thirty
11. https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-award-winners
12. https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150316-01.fi.html
13. http://planet.fsfe.org
14. http://blogs.fsfe.org/pb/?p=147
15. http://blogs.fsfe.org/nicoulas/?p=175
16. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=878
17. http://blogs.fsfe.org/franz.gratzer/2015/03/01/fosdem-2015-some-interviews/
18. http://computerfloss.com/2015/03/endocode-proud-to-sponsor-free-software-fo…
19. http://creative-destruction.me/2015/03/11/fancy-dinners-cgroups-and-namespa…
20. http://nicorikken.eu/blog/fairphone-back-to-the-drawing-board/
21. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mario/?p=283
22. http://danielpocock.com/the-easiest-way-to-run-your-own-openid
23. https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.fi.html#promo-material
24. https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cloud-to-other-peoples-co/kkpbkgb…
25. https://fsfe.org/order/order.fi.html
26. https://fsfe.org/order/order.fi.html
27. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.fi.html
28. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
29. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.fi.html
30. https://fsfe.org/index.fi.html
= FSFE Newsletter - March 2015 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201503.fi.html ]
== FSFE's reply to EU consultation on patents and standard ==
We believe that proprietary standards and software patents are barriers
to Free Software adoption. To get rid of those barriers we have to help
the public administration to understand this, too. That is why last
month we responded to a consultation on the interaction of standards and
patents by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Internal
Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs.
In our response[1], we focused mainly on how software patents negatively
affect competition and innovation in the software market. We also
highlighted that so-called “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory”
(FRAND) licensing terms are in practice a grave discrimination against
Free Software. In many segments of the software market, these programs
are the most significant competition to non-free offerings. So the FSFE
recommends that standards organisations instead implement the successful
patent licensing policies of the W3C and other bodies, and make the
restriction-free licensing of standard-essential patents mandatory.
If you want to help us to promote Open Standards, please participate in
this year's Document Freedom Day (see this month's get active item at
the end of the newsletter).
== Free Software as integral part of Open Educational Resources ==
The more we see classic educational environments equipped with
computers, the more important becomes an education system that teaches
every student to be in control of their technology. For the FSFE, the
basis for this is Free Software.
Together with other partners in the “Bündnis Freie Bildung” (Free
Education Alliance) we published a position paper about the creation and
usage of Open Educational Resources (OER)[2]. The paper has a specific
focus on the creation and usage of OER inside the German educational
system. It should be mandatory to publish educational resources
including software that has been paid with public money under free
licences. Furthermore, the position paper demands that educational
institutions should consider the compatibility with Free Software
already during the development or extension of their IT infrastructures.
By this it envisions to have “all educational resources usable without
any legal or technical barriers”.
If you want to know more about what happened in the education field
connected with Free Software, read the January Education team report[3].
== What happened on the “I love Free Software” day? ==
On 14 February 2015 people all over the world showed Free Software
contributors their appreciation. It was the fifth year we asked people
to participate in the “I Love Free Software” day. This year's report
shows a variety of love declarations that happened this day[4],
including blog posts, pictures, comics, poems, and an #ilovefs Android
library.
We want to thank everybody who motivated Free Software contributors at
this year's “I love Free Software” day, and ask everybody to mark 14
February in their calendars to motivate the people who enable us to
control our technology.
== Something completely different ==
- Hannes Hauswedell from the German team wrote an update about the
situation with secure texting. The last months Hannes and others
wanted to improve the situation with Textsecure, which unfortunately
did not work out until now. So Hannes changed his mind and is now
recommending kontalk[5].
- Fellow Cory Doctorow wrote an article in the Guardian imagining how it
would look like “If dishwashers were iPhones”[6].
- Christian Kalkhoff reported from FSFE's Munich group meeting in
January[7]. To find upcoming local meetings close to you, please have
a look at our event page[8].
- The Fellowship election for one of the seats in FSFE's General
Assembly is running until 6 March 2015. All sustaining members should
have received the voting instructions to decide between Nicolas
Dietrich, Max Mehl, and Felix Stegerman[9]. So if you have not yet
voted, do it now!
- From the planet aggregation[10]:
- After there have been plenty of reports of Lenovo shipping
products with a form of adware known as Superfish, Paul Boddie
asks what Lenovo's reasoning was[11], and from whom they want
their money in future.
- Max Mehl has been asked by a friend why he is “investing so much
time in the FSFE instead of putting more energy in other
organisations with more focus on privacy issues.” In his blog
post[12], he answers that question.
- Mirko Böhm summarised his last weeks[13] including what he worked
on with his students, about amendments to Julia Reda's report,
software patents, and Qt programming.
- Daniel Pocock wrote about the 3rd birthday of Lumicall[14].
- Christian Kallhoff reports from his experience to fix a bug in
Free Software[15].
- Nico Rikken wrote about understanding software and why it is not
magic[16], and about the freedom Ubuntu phone offers[17].
== Get active: Be a part of Document Freedom Day 2015! ==
Every year since 2008, people who care about a free information society
celebrate Document Freedom Day[18] to raise awareness of Open Standards.
This year again people around the world come together on 25 March to
talk about access to communications, run local public activities, and
generally spread the word about Open Standards in a dozen different
ways.
We are offering promotion materials in many languages, and artwork you
can remix, share and improve to publicise your own event. If you are
running a local event, we may be able to offer funding of your local
activities or your local print runs - thanks to DFD's sponsors. To get
inspired, take a look at what other groups from Mexico to Japan did last
year[19].
Participate in DFD 2015![20]
Thanks to all the volunteers[21], Fellows[22] and corporate donors[23]
who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE[24]
--
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/2015/news-20150218-01.fi.html
2. https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150210-01.fi.html
3. http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2015/02/free-software-in-education-news-january/
4. https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150303-01.fi.html
5. http://blogs.fsfe.org/h2/2015/02/23/secure-texting-part-ii/
6. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/if-dishwashers-were-iphon…
7. https://blogs.fsfe.org/softmetz/?p=53
8. https://fsfe.org/events/events.fi.html
9. https://wiki.fsfe.org/FellowshipElection_2015
10. http://planet.fsfe.org
11. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=852
12. http://blog.mehl.mx/2015/in-the-end-freedom-is-what-matters/
13. http://creative-destruction.me/2015/02/26/student-papers-reda-report-amendm…
14. http://danielpocock.com/lumicall-third-birthday
15. https://blogs.fsfe.org/softmetz/?p=60
16. http://nicorikken.eu/blog/software-isnt-magic/
17. http://nicorikken.eu/blog/ubuntu-calling-for-freedom/
18. http://documentfreedom.org
19. http://documentfreedom.org/news/2014/news-20140424-01.html
20. http://documentfreedom.org/getinvolved.html
21. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.fi.html
22. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
23. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.fi.html
24. https://fsfe.org/index.fi.html
= FSFE Newsletter – January 2015 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201501.fi.html ]
== A revolution ==
The Earth has once again completed a full, customarily counted
revolution. Here at FSFE we have been busy throughout 2014, working hard
to ensure that users remain in control of their devices and that Free
Software may once compete on a level playing field for public tenders.
More information, including the extent of our limited success and our
future prospects, on both these issues and our other frontiers may be
found in our annual report for 2014[1], penned by our President Karsten
Gerloff[2].
In addition to providing a comprehensive overview of our activities in
2014, Karsten finishes the report with a sneak peek of the challenges we
are going to face and overcome in revolution 2015. For instance, we
intend to build on the success of the Free Software Pact[3] to spread
awareness about Free Software among both the elected representatives of
the European citizenry and the unelected bureaucrats of the executive
branch.
We also intend to invest more in our local volunteers and Fellowship
groups. We are hopeful that not only will we reach a wider audience and
have a greater impact with increased local participation, but this will
also be much more fun for everyone involved.
== Fellowship elections ==
FSFE has a bit less than 1500 Fellows[4] or sustaining members. In
addition to receiving certain benefits[5] useful for digital activists,
all of them have a say in the governance of the FSFE. This right is
exercised by electing[6] representatives to the General Assembly, the
highest decision-making body of FSFE. Your temporary editor will have
served his term as a Fellowship Representative by this spring, and hence
a new Representative will be elected by the orderly Fellows from
February 20th to March 6th 2015, 12pm.
Your outgoing Representative would like to take this opportunity to
invite all our Fellows to partake in the elections. The General Assembly
is responsible for making all strategic decisions for FSFE, and all
Fellows, whether true idealists or business-minded pragmatists, have the
same right to affect our future growth and direction, so please do so.
== EU: the good and the bad ==
On December 17, 2014, the European Parliament adopted the EU budget for
2015. We are very happy to report that thanks to the efforts of MEPs
Julia Reda (Pirates) and Max Andersson (Greens), the Parliament has
allocated up to a million euros to audit Free Software used by the
European Parliament and Commission. We hope that the institutions
concerned will closely work with upstream developers to best benefit the
public. We also welcome further allocations[7] that aim to allow equal
participation in the digital society.
Unfortunately, we must still call upon EU institutions to make use of
Open Standards and Free Software, as a recent study prepared for the
Greens/EFA has found[8] that the EU Parliament falls woefully short of
its democratic obligations to ensure transparency and openness. Among
other shortcomings the parliamentarians lack access to a standards-
compliant e-mail solution.
== Something completely different ==
- From the planet aggregation: Paul Boddie writes about the ‘ unplanned
obsolescence[9] ’ of early Fairphone devices, justifiedly arguing that
Fairphone's decision to overlook or deprioritize hardware support for
Free Software was unwise considering the abundance of information
available on the lack of hardware support for Free Software.
- Otto Kekäläinen writes[10] about password management while recognizing
that people are not storage media. Otto's piece is an excellent read
when taken with a pinch of salt.
- Nico Rikken contemplates the right to make bad choices in his piece ‘
Optional rights[11] ’.
2015 will bring a new etiquette to our Fellowship Planet. A proposed
draft will be presented to the Fellows for consultation at the earliest
convenience.
== Get active: spread free software ==
The gift giving season has just ended. No doubt you have a friend or
relative unfortunate enough to have been given a computer bundled with
non-free software as a gift. Help them install a free GNU/Linux
distribution or Replicant[12].
Thanks to all the volunteers[13], Fellows[14] and corporate donors[15]
who enable our work,
Heiki Ojasild[16]
Fellowship Representative, FSFE
--
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/2014/news-20141218-02.fi.html
2. https://fsfe.org/about/gerloff/index.fi.html
3. http://freesoftwarepact.eu/
4. https://fsfe.org/fellowship/index.fi.html
5. https://fsfe.org/fellowship/about/fellowship.fi.html#youget
6. https://fsfe.org/about/legal/constitution.fi.html#id-fellowship-seats
7. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20141219-01.fi.html
8. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20141212-01.fi.html
9. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=802
10. http://seravo.fi/2014/password-hygiene-every-mans-responsibility
11. http://nicorikken.eu/blog/optional-rights/
12. http://www.replicant.us/
13. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.fi.html
14. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
15. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.fi.html
16. https://fsfe.org/about/ojasild/index.fi.html
= FSFE Newsletter – December 2014 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201412.fi.html ]
== More demand from the EU institutions ==
The new European Commission is currently setting the direction of its
policy making for the coming five years. The FSFE is in frequent contact
with Commission staff, who currently see open doors for Free Software in
Brussels. We want to make sure to use this momentum to push for changes
on software procurement, standardisation, and device sovereignty. So our
president Karsten Gerloff participated in several meetings.
In November the European Parliament (EP) organised a conference to
inform members of the parliament about the IT services available to
them. It featured a panel discussion led by Adina Valean, the new EP
Vice President in charge of ICT, with a contribution from Giancarlo
Villela, the director of the EP’s IT department. After the panel
discussion, Karsten got the chance to contribute a few brief remarks
about the EU institution’s live streams, DebianParl, and vendor lock-
in[1].
In the beginning of December Karsten was again at the Parliament, this
time at a workshop on “Open Standards for ICT procurement”[2]. The real
value of those events, as so often, was in the people who are there. The
workshop provided an opportunity for the small community pushing Free
Software and Open Standards in procurement to meet and share updates. So
in the future we can push together with them for positive changes.
== There is no cloud just other people’s computers ==
Another event Karsten participated in was the presentation of the report
on “cloud” computing and interoperability by the Brussels-based lobby
organisation ECIS’s. Karsten documented the meeting in his blog post
“Some common-sense recommendations on cloudy computing”[3].
Just a few days later our new “there is no cloud just other people’s
computers”-stickers arrived in our office[4]. We received lots of
positive feedback about the stickers, and now added them to our promo
packs[5]. We are planning to have some more merchandise with this slogan
ready for our booth at FOSDEM from 31 January to 1 February 2015 in
Brussels.
== Progress with “email self-defence” leaflets ==
Beside the new stickers, you can now also order new leaflets, to promote
our sister organisation’s “email self-defence guide”. Originally we
produced this leaflet in German for the annual Berlin “freedom not fear”
demonstration in September. Afterwards volunteers all over Germany
ordered[6] and distributed them. For example, one cinema gave out a
leaflet for everybody who bought a ticket for the Snowden documentary
“Citizienfour”. Meanwhile we had to reorder the German version for a
third time and since the end of November we have been sending out the
English version to Free Software supporters throughout Europe.
In the next weeks our translators[7] and designers[8] will finalise a
Chinese, Dutch, French, Greek, Italian, and a Spanish version. For 2015
we want to enable local Free Software supporters to distribute this and
other leaflets at libraries, universities, schools, cinemas, companies,
restaurants and cafes, shops and in other places.
== FSFE’s translators: they are just awesome ==
This brings us to a badly needed thank you note. During the last 12
months we published the newsletter monthly. Two of the editions were
written by our volunteer Heiki ”Repentinus” Ojasild, so your editor
could enjoy his vacation. Our newsletter was available in 6 languages on
average (lowest 4 languages highest 9 languages). We had newsletters in
Albanian, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese,
Romanian, Serbian, and Spanish.
Your editor is proud to work in a team with such dedicated volunteers.
They translate the newsletter, the leaflets mentioned above, plus other
FSFE news. They enable more people around the world to read about Free
Software in their mother tongue, and are therefore a crucial part of the
FSFE. So your editor would like to deeply thank our growing translators
team[9] for this important work.
== Something completely different ==
- The year is almost over, and it is reporting season. Our president
published a sneak preview of things we achieved in 2014[10] covering
our work on: public procurement, the Free Software pact, compulsory
routers, improving information material, informing about “trusted
computing” and “Secure Boot”, organising Document Freedom Day,
answering legal questions, as well as our participation events such as
workshops, panel discussions, or organising booths.
- In the last newsletter we asked you to help the FixMyDocuments
campaign. With the support they received, they have now compiled a
list of over 15,000 editable documents from the European institutions
not available in the Open Document Format[11].
- WhatsApp adopted a secure end-to-end encryption method developed for
the Free Software app TextSecure. Torsten Grote takes a look at what
that means for Free Software[12].
- Local events: FSFE had a booth at T-Dose in the Netherlands[13]. Our
Dutch Fellows organised the booth together, Kevin Keijzer gave a talk
about “Discrimination of Free Software (users) in education”, Maurice
Verheesen spoke about “Digital Sovereignty For Europe”, and Felix
Stegerman talked about the opportunities and dangers of the “Internet
of Things”[14]. Beside that, our Berlin group organised a booth at the
FiFFkon[15] at the Technical University Berlin.
- Guido Arnold published a summary of what happened in education
throughout Europe during October[16].
- The French Fellow Alexandre Keledjian published F-Droid-Web, a simple
and lightweight web interface to F-Droid server[17]. It provides an
easy way to add a new software repository to your mobile using qr-
codes, and to browse the F-Droid catalogue by name, category, summary,
license type, and description.
- From the planet aggregation[18]:
- Mirko Böhm, FSFE Fellow and KDE community member, wrote about why
you should support FSFE’s work[19], which in his words is: to
protect, explain, and organise the freedoms to use, study, share,
and improve software.
- Daniel Pocock questions if Amnesty is giving spy victims a false
sense of security[20]. In his post he provides a letter template
to sent to Amnesty.
- “EOMA68” is an open electronic interface standard, designed to
support the development of small computing devices. Nico Rikken
wrote why EOMA68 will advance both Free Software and free
hardware[21].
- Mario Fux explains how you can contribute as a non-developer to
KDE[22].
- Beside that we had some technical HowTos on the planet, including:
Kevin Keijzer who reports from his experience trying to install
Ubuntu without proprietary software[23].
- Hannes Hauswedell who wrote about how to encrypt cron’s daily mail
on FreeBSD[24]. His HowTo pertains to FreeBSD in particular, but
he is “sure all you GNUsers out there will figure out the
necessary changes”.
- Mirko Böhm who describes how to configure a gaming mouse on
GNU/Linux in a way that you can work and play at the machine[25].
- And Max Mehl who is now running his own Git (a decentralised
version control system) instance which also includes a script to
delete all meta data from PDF files in a directory[26].
== Get active: Get a smartcard and support us ==
Next year, we will push harder than ever to weave software freedom into
the fabric of our society. To enable us to intensify our work with the
European Commission, to let more people know about Free Software, and to
continue our other work we still need €190,000 for 2015[27].
As an individual the best way to support the FSFE’s work financially is
to become a Fellow (a sustaining member of the FSFE)[28]. All Fellowship
contributions directly benefit our work towards a free society.
Fellows receive a state-of-the-art Fellowship smartcard which, together
with the free GnuPG encryption software and a card reader, can be used
to sign and encrypt e-mails, to securely log into a computer from a
potentially insecure machine using SSH, or to store the user’s hard disk
encryption keys. Since the encryption key is stored on the card itself,
it is almost impossible to steal.
Thanks to all the volunteers[29], Fellows[30] and corporate donors[31]
who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE
--
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://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/11/19/free-software-for-the-european-pa…
2. http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/12/04/workshop-on-open-standards-for-ict…
3. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/11/14/some-common-sense-recommendations…
4. https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/new-stickers-and-leaflets-no-cloud-and-e-mail-sel…
5. https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.html#promo-material
6. https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.fi.html#promo-material
7. https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators.fi.html
8. https://fsfe.org/contribute/designers/designers.fi.html
9. https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators.fi.html
10. http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/12/01/preview-what-fsfe-did-in-2014/
11. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/110097
12. http://blog.grobox.de/2014/whatsapp-end-to-end-encryption-federation/
13. https://blogs.fsfe.org/flx/2014/11/11/t-dose-2/
14. https://blogs.fsfe.org/flx/2014/11/09/my-t-dose-talk-the-internet-of-things…
15. https://blogs.fsfe.org/majestyx/2014/11/12/fiffkon-2014-leak/
16. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/11/free-software-in-education-news-octobe…
17. https://github.com/dervishe-/f-droid-web/wiki
18. http://planet.fsfe.org
19. http://creative-destruction.me/2014/12/04/fsfe-needs-your-support-for-2015/
20. http://danielpocock.com/amnesty-detekt-false-sense-of-security
21. http://nicorikken.eu/blog/why-eoma68-will-advance-both-free-software-and-fr…
22. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mario/?p=257
23. https://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2014/11/16/installing-ubuntu-with…
24. https://blogs.fsfe.org/h2/2014/11/04/encrypting-crons-daily-mail/
25. http://creative-destruction.me/2014/11/13/configure-your-gaming-mouse-on-li…
26. http://blog.mehl.mx/2014/sharing-is-caring-my-git-instance/
27. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20141203-01.fi.html
28. https://fsfe.org/join/join.fi.html
29. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.fi.html
30. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
31. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.fi.html