= FSFE Newsletter - November 2016 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201611.pt.html ]
== Public consultation on our Fellowship ==
Since 2005, the FSFE has maintained two distinct brands: the FSFE and
our Fellowship. While this made sense initially, we've grown
increasingly uncomfortable with the way this created a separation
between the Fellows and the FSFE as two separate entities, despite the
fact that we're all working together! Accordingly, we've reduced our
activities promoting the "Fellowship" as something distinct from the
FSFE, and now talk more about "FSFE Groups" rather than "Fellowship
Groups", for our local groups.
We now need to come to a decision on how to develop these brands in the
future. Based on an initial discussion between our coordinators and in
our core team, we've developed a proposal which you will find below: it
essentially means that we would deprecate the Fellowship, and bring
everything under the umbrella of the FSFE. As an important part of our
community, your feedback is valuable to us. For this public
consultation, we would be happy to hear your thoughts on the matter by
the 30th of November 2016, after which we will provide a summary of the
feedback received on which we will base our decision.
Any changes that stem from this proposal, in its current form or in the
way we will shape it based on the feedback provided, will be put into
practice during 2017. You can provide your feedback to contact(a)fsfe.org.
Please note that in the proposal below we use a term "Supporter" as a
new alternative to "Fellow". We would very much like to hear your
thoughts on this too. Other options suggested include "Patron",
"Supporter", "Contributor", "Donor", and possibly other names you may
think of too. There is also the option to keep the name "Fellow" as a
term, and only deprecate "Fellowship".
=== PROPOSAL ===
The "Fellowship" and "Fellow" names are deprecated. Activities done in
local groups or which were otherwise named in conjunction with the brand
"Fellowship" shall be brought under the name of the "FSFE": an FSFE
event, an FSFE local group, and so on.
Our "Community" is anyone who identifies as being a part of the FSFE, be
that by supporting and encouraging our activities, contributing
financially, or participating in the work. We want everyone to be a part
of our community, regardless of their level of engagement.
Anyone who contributes financially with the intent of contributing
regularly is a "Supporter" of the FSFE. The Council may set a minimum
threshold for a regular contribution to account for transaction costs.
Financially, our Supporters provide the solid foundation on which the
FSFE stands: their regular financial contributions give stability to the
organisation. We call our one-time contributors "Donors".
We encourage everyone who wants to be part of our activities to join one
of our teams: either a topical team (as a translator, webmaster, or
similar) or a geographical team (the Berlin team, the Nordic team, and
so on). By joining one of our teams they become a "Team Member" of that
team (system-hackers team member, translation team member).
== EIF v.3 – citizens demand more Free Software, while businesses seek to promote true Open Standards ==
The European Commission (EC) has finally published the summary of the
contributions received for its public consultation on the revision of
the European Interoperability Framework[1] (EIF), a set of guidelines
for public administrations to deliver their e-government services. The
FSFE has previously submitted its comments and recommendations on the
proposed draft[2]. According to the results of the public consulation,
the majority of respondents amongst citizens asked for more Free
Software and Open Standards when revising the EIF, whilst respondents
amongst businesses and private organisations asked the EC to "promote
the use of (true) open standards and support of standards in new
technologies". We hope the EC will follow the wishes of EU citizens and
implement these recommendations in the revised EIF.
== From the community ==
André Ockers wrote about his participation in the first FSFE Summit and
15th anniversary celebration[3], as well as Guido Arnold, who also
blogged about his experience at the FSFE summit.[4]
-
Björn Schießle blogs about the History and Future of Cloud Federation[5]
where he explains the concept of server-to-server sharing in
Owncloud/Nextcloud and its development to a "federated cloud ID", which
looks similar to an email address. Like email, "federated cloud" refers
to a user on a specific server.
-
Are you interested in real-time communications? Daniel Pocock encourages
you to become a speaker and participate at FOSDEM 2017[6], one of the
world's biggest conferences addressing Free Software developers in
particular.
-
Iain R. Learmonth presents PATHspider 1.0.0 and highlights the changes
that have been incorporated to the latest version[7] of this framework
for performing and analysing existing network impairments.
-
David Boddie gives you a step-by-step explanation on how to build disk
images for the operating system Inferno[8].
-
== What else have we done? ==
The FSFE's current Vice-president Alessandro Rubini stepped down to
focus on his work with the Free Software community in Italy. Taking over
from Alessandro is Heiki Lõhmus, a student of aeronautical engineering
from Estonia[9]. Alessandro Rubini is a long time advocate of Free
Software: as the FSFE's Vice-president, he has contributed with
invaluable efforts to push for Free Software, not only in Italy but all
over Europe. Heiki Lõhmus has actively lobbied the Estonian government
to publish the software used for the Estonian elections as Free Software
and now receives the baton for Vice-president of FSFE to carry on
Alessandro’s excellent work.
-
The FSFE sent three recommendations for actions to foster the use and
implementation of Free Software[10] (in German) to the new government
that is currently being formed in the state of Berlin.
-
The local FSFE group in Rhein/Main was present at a street festival
(Rotlintstraßenfest) in Frankfurt[11] to promote the FSFE and explain
and inform the people about Free Software.
-
The system hackers have decided to decommission our (very) old pad
service[12]. They invite anyone who's interested in the FSFE offering a
pad service to get in touch to setup a new team which can create a new
pad service.
-
>From October 24 to 27, the FSFE's President Matthias Kirschner and the
FSFE's Policy analyst Polina Malaja participated in several community
events in Greece. They gave talks in the National Technical University
of Athens[13], in the Athens Hackerspace[14] (in Greek) and in the
National Hellenic Reseach Foundation[15] (in Greek).
-
On October 4-6, the FSFE participated with a booth in the LinuxCon +
ContainerCon Europe 2016[16], which took place in Berlin.
-
The "FreieSoftwareOG" represented the FSFE with a booth in Offenburg[17]
(in German).
-
== Take action! ==
Please read the proposal for the Fellowship brand above and send your
comments or thoughts to contact(a)fsfe.org.
== Good Free Software News ==
The public procurement authority of the French state renewed its two
contracts for free software support services provided for ministries and
other governmental agencies[18]. Both contracts were awarded to the
French free software services provider Linagora and were originally
initiated in 2012. More good news from France and the city of Nantes,
where the switch to LibreOffice last April has lowered the IT costs by
EUR 1.6 million[19] and will keep saving the public administration EUR
260 000 per year.
== The FSFE in the Press ==
- netzpolitik.org [DE] Berliner Koalitionsverhandlungen als Chance für
Freie Software[20].
- netzpolitik.org [DE] Urheberrecht: USA erlaubt Tüfteln an eigenen
Geräten[21].
- PCMAG [EL], The President of the FSFE in Athens[22].
- Business news [EL], GFOSS: Talks about Free Software[23].
- Greek Union of Computer Engineers [EL], Free Software Day with the
FSFE President Matthias Kirschner[24].
- epixeiro.gr [EL], Free Software, Open Access and Enterpreuneship
Day[25].
== Help us to improve our newsletter ==
Do you think we have missed some news, or you'd like specific news to
appear in the next newsletter? You have been reading about the FSFE in
the press and would like to share this with us? For this and any other
feedback, please share it by writing to newsletter(a)fsfeurope.org
Thanks to all the volunteers[26], Fellows[27] and corporate donors[28]
who enable our work,
your editors Erik Albers, Olga Gkotsopoulou, Jonas Öberg and Polina
Malaja, FSFE[29]
--
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Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1. http://blogs.fsfe.org/polina/2016/10/31/eif-v-3-citizens-demand-for-more-fr…
2. https://fsfe.org/activities/os/eif-v3.en.html
3. https://blogs.fsfe.org/ao/2016/10/18/my-participation-in-the-first-fsfe-sum…
4. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2016/10/my-fsfe-summitqtcon/
5. http://blog.schiessle.org/2016/07/04/history-and-future-of-cloud-federation/
6. https://danielpocock.com/fosdem-2017-rtc-cfp
7. https://iain.learmonth.me/post/2016/pathspider-stable/
8. http://www.boddie.org.uk/david/www-repo/Personal/Updates/2016/2016-10-16.ht…
9. https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20161031-01.en.html
10. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/askyourcandidates/201610-germany-berlin-handlung…
11. http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2016/10/fsfe-booth-at-street-festival-in-frankf…
12. https://wiki.fsfe.org/Teams/System-Hackers/Decommissioning-Pad
13. https://foss.ntua.gr/wiki/index.php/%CE%91%CF%81%CF%87%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AE_%C…
14. https://www.hackerspace.gr/#/updates/967244
15. https://opensource.ellak.gr/2016/10/27/apologismos-imeridas-elefthero-anikt…
16. http://events.linuxfoundation.org/events/linuxcon-europe
17. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fast_edi/?p=502
18. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/france-renews-its-two-free-…
19. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/nantes-open-source-cuts-rec…
20. https://netzpolitik.org/2016/berliner-koalitionsverhandlungen-als-chance-fu…
21. https://netzpolitik.org/2016/urheberrecht-usa-erlaubt-tuefteln-an-eigenen-g…
22. https://gr.pcmag.com/eleuthero-logismiko/23652/news/o-proedros-tou-free-sof…
23. http://www.businessnews.gr/article/53076/eellak-imerida-gia-eleythero-logis…
24. http://bit.ly/2ep13c1
25. http://bit.ly/2eoYmqW
26. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.en.html
27. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
28. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html
29. https://fsfe.org