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= FSFE Newsletter - January 2012 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201201.nl.html ]
== Preventing 6000 mines against Free Software? ==
Competition authorities are investigating the sale of 6000 patents from
Nortel, a bankrupt telecommunications equipment manufacturer, to a
consortium of Apple, Microsoft and four other companies.
FSFE considers it a serious risk to competition in the mobile technology
space, and Free Software as a whole, if those companies acquire these
patents. Soon after the sale, we approached EU and US competition
authorities, and in September submitted a summary of our concerns[1].
1. http://fsfe.org/projects/swpat/nortel.en.html
== 80 billion EUR for RD: What will we get? ==
The European Commission has adopted a set of proposals for its next
framework program, called Horizon 2020. This program will provide 80
billion EUR for research and development projects from 2014 to 2020.
Prior to finalisation of the proposal, FSFE had provided input[2]to the
Commission in order to make the program accessible for Free Software
research and projects. FSFE will continue to engage with the European
institutions in order to support the development of Horizon 2020 in the
interest of Europe's citizens.
2. http://fsfe.org/projects/horizon2020/index.en.html
== Free Software makes German Parliament more secure ==
On the request of some members of parliament, the German Bundestag's IT-
department now supports GnuPG[3], so members of the parliament have the
option to set this up and receive encrypted and signed e-mails. The
president of the German City Council and Munich's main mayorUde wrote to
the EU-Commissioner Neelie Kroes[4]that she should support Open
Standards and Free Software.
Those are nice examples where politicians understand the advantages of
Free Software and also act upon this knowledge. We want more politicians
with this knowledge. One concrete activity is our"ask your candidates
campaign"[5], where we send out questions[6]to the political parties
before elections, and then evaluate the answers. This year we did so for
elections in Vienna/Austria, Switzerland, and 5 federal state elections
in Germany.
3. http://von-notz.de/2011/12/verschluesselung-mails-an-uns-ab-jetzt-auch-vers…
4. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=871
5. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/askyourcandidates/askyourcandidates.en.html
6. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/askyourcandidates/example-questions.xhtml
== Something completely different ==
- In the dispute between the companies AVM and Cybits the written
reasoning of the decision of the Regional Court of Berlin is now
available[7]. The court confirmed FSFE's view that users of GNU GPLed
software are allowed to modify and install it even if it is shipped as
a part of an embedded device's firmware.
- City officials in Helsinki, Finland, are overwhelmingly satisfied
after trying out the Free Software office suite[8]OpenOffice.org on
their laptops. 75% of 600 officials have been using OpenOffice.org
exclusively since February, as part of a pilot project where the city
installed the program on 22,500 workstations.
- In this month Fellowship interview[9]Chris talked with Paul Boddie,
who has been working with Python since 1995, and from 2006 to 2010 was
involved in organising the annual EuroPython conference, administering
various conference-related tools and developing the conference
website.
- An important decision of the Court of Justice of EU, AG's opinion in
awaited European interoperability ruling, two software patent cases
and much more is to be found in our legal news[10].
- We are preparing for Document Freedom Day 2012. The website was
updated[11], on the mailing list we are discussing new ideas[12], and
you are welcome to join.
- From the Fellowship planet aggregation[13]:
- So what might Digital Sustainability be? Read Georg Greve's
explanation about it[14].
- Want to see a quadrocopter and other pictures from the Chaos
Communication Camp? Take a look at Florian's blog article[15].
- What do nerds drink? Michael Stehmann answers this question in his
article about the "Chaosvillage" in Düsseldorf[16].
- Patrik from our Swedish team writes about awk filtering and
counting[17].
- Our translator Heiki Ojasild thinks about the question what to
translate and what not to translate?[18]
7. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20111201-02.en.html
8. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20111213-01.en.html
9. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=509
10. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20111220-01.en.html
11. http://documentfreedom.org
12. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/df-coordination
13. http://planet.fsfe.org
14. http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=462
15. https://fl0rian.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/summer-holidays/
16. http://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=375
17. http://blog.padowi.se/2011/12/05/awk-filtering-and-counting/
18. http://blogs.fsfe.org/repentinus/english/2011/12/09/to-translate-or-not-to-…
== Get active: Support us by becoming a Fellow of FSFE! ==
Not everybody understands Free Software, and not everybody likes that
FSFE works hard on promoting Free Software[19]to enlarge the freedom in
our society. If you understand that Free Software is important in order
to cope with the upcoming challenges for free society, please support us
financially by becoming a Fellow of FSFE[20].
Since December it is possible to donate your
contribution*yearly*or*monthly*by*credit card*,*direct debit*, and other
means. Every small donation helps us to continue to be an independent
and critical voice for Free Software advocacy for another year.
19. http://fsfe.org/donate/letter-2011.en.html
20. https://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
Thanks to all the Fellows and donors who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner- FSFE
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