= FSFE Newsletter - July 2017 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201707.pt.html ]
== The FSFE now provides Git hosting for its supporters ==
Sharing one's knowledge and enhancing collaboration are core principles
of the Free Software community. Therefore, the FSFE is happy to now
provide its supporters and registered volunteers a platform to create
and manage Git repositories with a comfortable web interface under
git.fsfe.org [1].
With git.fsfe.org, the FSFE allows its supporters to share and
collaborate on a platform that fully respects their freedoms [2]. And
while users are free to use this platform for their private purposes, we
encourage every activist and local group of the FSFE to host code they
are using for their FSFE activities, and to share minutes or other
documents of FSFE group meetings, as well as any other publicly
interesting information. This way, we would like to facilitate and
stimulate collaboration, feedback and creativity inside our pan-European
community.
Official teams and working groups of the association of the FSFE will
also strive to migrate as much code and relevant files as possible to
this new platform. For example, future website development, promotional
material, and helpful scripts for the organisation's day-to-day work.
For Git beginners we explain the service in detail in the FSFE wiki [3].
Advanced users are welcome to help extending guides for the most common
Git workflows.
Find us and use, study, share and improve at git.fsfe.org [4].
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https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-07 [5]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- Estonia has taken over the presidency of the Council of the European
Union and now has asked the public to comment on their proposal for
the "Tallinn Declaration" - a set of policy proposals for the European
digital government - to be signed by the EU ministers in October. The
FSFE has provided its comments [6] in the first round of public
consultation on the proposal, while participation in the second round
for comments is currently open for everyone. We encourage you to
participate [7] and reuse our arguments to foster Free Software and
Open Standards in the European public digital infrastructure. The
deadline for comments is 14 July.
- As part of our Free Your Android campaign, the FSFE explains and
promotes [8] the use of the Free Software app repository F-Droid.
Torsten Grote, member of the General Assembly of the FSFE and
initiator of our FYA-campaign, shares some insights about how F-Droid
is bringing apps to Cuba [9].
- Is it acceptable to use proprietary software (platforms) to promote
software freedom? The FSFE community, including the FSFE's Fellowship
representatives, has been discussing this question on our public
discussion list [10]. Feel free to join the discussion.
- In Zurich there was a kick-off meeting for a local Food Computer group
[11] including the FSFE Fellowship representative, Daniel Pocock, and
a travel sponsorship by the FSFE for Anisa Kuci to participate.
- The FSFE's program manager, Max Mehl, visited the FSFE local group
Rhein/Main in Frankfurt, Germany, and gave a talk about "Public Money,
Public Code".
- The FSFE team France was present with a booth at the Rencontres
Mondiales du Logiciel Libre (RMLL) - also known as Libre Software
Meeting (LSM) - in Saint-Etienne where our long-time supporter Cryptie
also gave a talk about "From theoretical crypto to practice: gloups,
something is missing" [12].
- The FSFE local group Berlin was present with a booth at the Maker
Faire to explain visitors why tinkering heavily depends on Free
Software.
- The FSFE local group Milano, Italy, together with Game Over Milano,
celebrated the International Day Against DRM [13] to inform about the
threats of DRM concerning HTML5, ebooks, music, games and much more.
- The FSFE local group Offenbach, Germany, was present with a booth at
the Bended Realities Festival to inform about the connection of Free
Education and Free Software.
- The FSFE local group Munich held a workshop about "What is Free
Software?" [14] with a special focus on people who have little or zero
knowledge about software.
== Not to be missed! Upcoming events with the FSFE ==
- SHA is the name of a non profit outdoor Hacker camp taking place on
August 4th to 8th, close to Amersfoort in the Netherlands. The FSFE
country team Netherlands and friends will be present with a dedicated
FSFE village [15]. If you happen to be around, pass by and join one of
the various sessions, talks, workshops, projects or help singing the
Free Software song [16].
== Help us to improve our newsletter ==
If you see some news you think that should be included, forward it to
us. If you'd like to share any thoughts, send them to us. As always, the
address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking forward to hearing from
you!
Thanks to all the volunteers [17], supporters [18] and donors [19] who
make our work possible.
Your editor,
Erik Albers
--
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://git.fsfe.org
2: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170616-01.pt.html
3: https://wiki.fsfe.org/TechDocs/Git
4: https://git.fsfe.org
5: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-07
6: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170710-01.pt.html
7: https://ideas4digitalgov.eu/
8: https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword#f-droid
9: https://blog.grobox.de/2017/how-f-droid-is-bringing-apps-to-cuba/
10: https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2017-June/011591.html
11: https://danielpocock.com/croissants-qatar-food-computer-zurich
12:
https://prog2017.rmll.info/programme/securite-entre-transparence-et-opacite…
13: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Events/2017/07-06-International-Day-Against-DRM
14:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiMUC/2017-06-02_Workshop:_Wie_fu…
15: https://wiki.sha2017.org/w/Village:Free_Software_Foundation_Europe
16: http://blog.3rik.cc/2017/06/join-us-now-at-sha2017/
17: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
18: http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
19: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
= FSFE Newsletter - June 2017 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201706.pt.html ]
== New European Interoperability Framework urges public administrations to use and contribute to Free Software ==
After a round of public consultation last year, the 'new' European
Interoperability Framework [1] (EIF) was finally published in March
2017. In alignment with our answers [2] to the public consultation, and
with the general responses [3] from citizens and businesses that
demanded more Free Software within public e-services, the revised EIF
includes a recommendation to public administrations across Europe to
ensure a level playing field for Free Software and demonstrate active
and fair consideration of using Free Software when offering e-services.
In addition, the new EIF urges public administrations to not only use
Free Software but "whenever possible contribute to the pertinent
developer communities". This is a significant improvement in comparison
to the previous EIF v.2, and explicit acknowledgement of Free Software
being essential for ensuring better interoperablity. The down side is
that similar to the communication on "ICT Standardisation Priorities for
the Digital Single Market" [4], the new EIF unfortunately does not
sufficiently address the obstacles that so-called "fair, reasonable, and
non-discriminatory" (FRAND) licensing terms create for Free Software. By
basing its licensing policy of Open Standards on FRAND, the EIF
unfortunately does not allow Free Software projects to participate in
offering their services to public administrations.
For more background on this topic read our article "Why is FRAND bad for
Free Software?" [5]
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Help us grow and make a difference in 2017
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== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- Jonas Öberg, the FSFE's executive director, explains an upcoming
project [7] by the FSFE to facilitate automation in the software
toolchain by helping to automatically identify the license in use.
- Daniel Pocock, our newly elected FSFE Fellowship Representative, is
organising a meetup to build a food computer in Zurich. In his blog,
Daniel explains [8] what it is about and the project's connection to
Free Software.
- Heiki Löhmus, Vice President of the FSFE, gave a workshop [9] about
using Free Software for STEM education at DORS/CLUC in Zagreb,
Croatia.
- Polina Malaja, the FSFE's Legal Coordinator and Policy Analyst,
participated in a panel discussion about "Towards an Internet of
People: A progressive new deal for technology" at Diem25 [10] in
Berlin.
- Matthias Kirschner, President of the FSFE, participated in a panel
discussion [11] about how data, code, and algorithms are influencing
our lives and the economy at the German Church Day in Magdeburg,
Germany. There is also a video recording available [12].
- Erik Albers, the FSFE's Community and Communication Coordinator, gave
the opening talk at the Open Tech Summit 2017 about "The Digital-o-Mat
or how to set Free Software as a topic for democratic elections". The
FSFE was also present with a booth.
- Maurice Verheesen, the FSFE's country coordinator Netherlands, gave a
keynote about public money, public code at the Open Source event in
Tilburg, the Netherlands.
- Franz Gratzer, one of the FSFE's volunteer designers, was giving a
workshop about GIMP basics [13] at the Linuxwochen Wien 2017. The FSFE
group Vienna was also present with a booth.
- The FSFE-Group Munich, Germany, was present with a booth at the Munich
street festival "Corso Leopold" to inform people about the FSFE and
our work for Free Software.
- Matthias Kirschner gave the keynote at the openSUSE conference [14]
2017 in Nürnberg, Germany, about Limux and what the Free Software
community can learn from it. There is also a video recording available
[15].
- Fellows from Madrid, Spain, have been at the OpenExpo with a booth to
inform people about FSFE and our work for Free Software.
- Polina Malaja gave a presentation about the current status of Radio
'Lockdown' Directive [16] during the Wireless Community Weekend [17]
in Berlin.
- Frank Karlitschek blogs about [18] our ethical responsibility towards
technology and software.
- Matthias Kirschner, Polina Malaja, and Daniel Pocock have been at the
Open Source Conference Albania (OSCAL) to talk about "Empowering
people to control technology", "EU level and software freedom" and
"Free Real-Time Communications with Free Software". The FSFE was also
represented with a booth.
- The FSFE group Vienna was present with a booth at the veganmania [19]
to inform people about FSFE and our work for Free Software.
== Help us to improve our newsletter ==
If you see some news you think that should be included, forward it to
us. If you'd like to share any thoughts, send them to us. As always, the
address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking forward to hearing from
you!
Thanks to all the volunteers [20], supporters [21] and donors [22] who
make our work possible.
Your editors,
Erik Albers and Polina Malaja
--
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://ec.europa.eu/isa2/eif_en
2: https://fsfe.org/activities/os/eif-v3
3: http://ec.europa.eu/isa2/sites/isa/files/eif-public-consultation-factual-su…
4: https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160428-02
5: https://fsfe.org/activities/os/why-frand-is-bad-for-free-software
6: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-06
7: http://blog.jonasoberg.net/automating-the-software-toolchain/
8: https://danielpocock.com/hacking-the-food-chain-in-switzerland
9: https://2017.dorscluc.org/talk/2/
10: https://diem25.org/diem25-returns-to-berlin-to-develop-its-political-roadma…
11: https://theonet.de/2017/05/29/freie-daten-freies-teilen-frei-sein/
12: https://k7r.eu/free-software-at-church-days/
13: https://cfp.linuxwochen.at/de/LWW17/public/events/547
14: https://k7r.eu/recording-for-limux-the-loss-of-a-lightouse/
15: https://media.ccc.de/v/1458-limux-the-loss-of-a-lighthouse
16: https://fsfe.org/activities/radiodirective
17: https://wiki.freifunk.net/Wireless_Community_Weekend_2017/Timetable
18: https://karlitschek.de/2017/06/is-doing-nothing-evil/
19: http://blogs.fsfe.org/franz.gratzer/2017/06/04/booth-at-linuxwochen-and-veg…
20: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
21: http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
22: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
= FSFE Newsletter - May 2017 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201705.pt.html ]
== Daniel Pocock is the new Fellowship representative ==
>From 10 to 24 April 2017 the FSFE ran the ninth annual vote for a
Fellowship representative [1] to represent the FSFE's community and
Fellowship in the FSFE's General Assembly [2]. The General Assembly
consists of members of the FSFE e.V. and is FSFE's legal body. It is
responsible for strategic planning, budgeting, agenda-setting,
exonerating, and the electing and recalling of the Executive Council and
the Financial Officer. And the winner of this year's election is ...
Daniel Pocock! [3]
Daniel Pocock [4] came first from seven candidates who ran for office,
with a self-description inside our wiki page for the Fellowship
Elections 2017 [5] and by participating in public hustings [6].
Unfortunately two different dates were announced for the hustings, but
the log-file is available online for everyone who missed it.
The FSFE would like to thank Nicolas Dietrich, former Fellowship
representative, for his contributions during the last two years and
welcomes Daniel Pocock as a new representative. Please find Daniel's
personal conclusions in his own blog [7].
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Help us grow and make a difference in 2017
https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-05 [8]
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== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- From 26 to 28 April, the FSFE's annual Free Software Legal and
Licensing workshop (LLW) [9] took place in Barcelona, Spain. This year
we gathered 120 legal experts from all over the world to share their
knowledge and experience with each other in a 3-day event that
encompassed more than 35 presentations on numerous legal issues, from
open data [10] to tooling, software patents and existing challenges
for Free Software licensing [11].
- Armijn Hemel and Shane Coughlan, members of the FSFE Legal Team,
published a guide [12] for startups, small businesses, and engineers
on "Practical GPL compliance" [13]. The guide is designed to demystify
GPL compliance and to facilitate the work of compliance engineers on a
practical level.
- North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's most populated state, is having
general elections on 14 May 2017. The FSFE joined a "coalition of Free
knowledge" which has developed for the first time a "Digital-o-Mat"
[14]. The "Digital-o-Mat" is a tool to help those voters who are
concerned about digital rights and freedoms, to decide about which
party to vote for during these elections. Eight questions guide users
to choose their own preferences on important topics about digital
society - for example questions about the use of Free Software, Open
Data or Open Educational Resources. After filling them out, users will
see which party matches best with their own preferences and they can
additionally browse detailed explanations on the party's positions
regarding each topic. The interface for North-Rhine Westphalia is in
German, the underlying Software [15] however is Free Software and free
to adopt for other purposes.
- On the FSFE's Planet [16], we had an interesting dialogue popping up
between our executive director Jonas Öberg who argues that sometimes
you can use proprietary software to further free and open source
software [17] although you should be aware about the risk of
backfiring. And Daniel Pocock, our new Fellowship representative,
answered with "the risk of proprietary software" [18] and that "no
deal might be better than a bad deal", meaning that if you cannot
achieve something with Free Software you should consider just doing
without it.
- Paul Hänsch, one of the FSFE's system administrators, organised the
very first physical wiki caretakers meeting [19]. The wiki caretakers
are a team of volunteers [20] who help to organise information inside
the wiki and make it easy for others to contribute.
- Monitoring shows [21] that in the last semester nine Italian Regions
have reduced advertisement of proprietary PDF readers on their
website, and that one Region has increased its support for Free
Software PDF readers [22].
- The FSFE's executive director Jonas Öberg, blogs about "a new
understanding of non-profit management" and uses this new
understanding to analyse the FSFE's characteristics [23] in the uses
of technocracy, hierarchy, innovation and direction-orientation. Jonas
closes his analytics with some thoughts about the way he would like to
see the FSFE evolving.
- The FSFE was present with booths at the Linke Medien Akademie [24] in
Berlin/Germany, at the 16th Augsburger Linux Info Tag in
Augsburg/Germany, FOSS North in Göteborg/Sweden and Linuxtage in
Graz/Austria.
== Help us improve our newsletter ==
If you see some news you think should be included, forward it to us. If
you'd like to share any thoughts, send them to us. The address is as
always newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking forward to hearing from you!
Thanks to all the volunteers [25], supporters [26] and donors [27] who
make our work possible.
Your editors, Erik Albers, Polina Malaja 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://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/Election/FellowshipElection_2017
2: http://wiki.fsfe.org/Teams/GA
3: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170425-01
4: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/Election/FellowshipElection_2017#Daniel_Po…
5: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/Election/FellowshipElection_2017
6: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/Election/FellowshipElection_2017#Hustings
7: https://danielpocock.com/fsfe-fellowship-representative-and-upcoming-events
8: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-05
9: https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/legal-conference.en.html
10: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/721540/7831c0949927d665/
11: https://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/721458/be70cd561648d22f/
12: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/linux-foundation-and-free-software-…
13: https://www.linuxfoundation.org/news-media/research/practical-gpl-compliance
14: https://www.digital-o-mat.de/
15: https://github.com/dsstio/digital-o-mat
16: http://planet.fsfe.org/
17: http://blog.jonasoberg.net/using-proprietary-software-for-freedom/
18: https://danielpocock.com/risks-of-using-proprietary-software
19: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Teams/WikiCaretakers/Hackathon2017
20: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Teams/WikiCaretakers
21: https://www.taringamberini.com/en/blog/fsfe/adoption-of-free-software-pdf-r…
22: https://pdfreaders.org/
23: http://blog.jonasoberg.net/towards-a-new-understanding-of-non-profit-manage…
24: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Events/2017/LiMA
25: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
26: http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
27: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
= FSFE Newsletter - April 2017 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201704.pt.html ]
== Free Software in the German OGP action plan ==
Last December, Germany joined the Open Government Partnership [1] and
now has until June 2017 to develop and decide on an action plan.
Increased transparency and continuous reporting, governmental
effectiveness and citizen-friendly administration are all part of the
goals of Open Government.
The FSFE has worked together with other organisations and the "working
group OGP" Germany to summarise the topic of Free Software in the Open
Government context and provide concrete action items, along with a short
but illuminating introduction into the topic and a vision for 2030. The
recommendations were submitted to the German government in March.
The proposal was the outcome of a workshop, held by the German
Government in February, with the contribution of numerous civil society
representatives, including the FSFE. By publishing our suggestions [2],
we hope to enable civil society actors worldwide to learn about the OGP
discussion in Germany and use these suggestions in other countries.
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== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- In the Dutch elections, Freedomvote.nl [4], initiated by the Dutch
FSFE group, compared party positions on digital freedom and not only
helped voters to make up their minds, but also gave a taste of what to
expect by the newly elected parties' digital policies.
- Last month, we welcomed as an associated organisation, Dyne.org - a
non-profit think/do tank [5] with more than 10 years of expertise in
developing Free Software tools and narratives for community
empowerment.
- On March 7, Matthias Kirschner put the spotlight on LiMux [6] at the
talk he gave at the 58. Netzpolitischer Abend [7] in Berlin, and on
March 28, he shared his views with the audience at the
ISCTE–University Institute of Lisbon in Portugal [8] concerning ways
to empower people to use technology. Matthias also participated in a
longer podcast in German about LiMux [9].
- On March 11-12, the FSFE returned to Chemnitzer Linux-Tage [10],
Germany's biggest Free Software conference, held in the University of
Chemnitz. We arranged an information booth and Max Mehl spoke about
the developments around the EU Radio "Lockdown" Directive [11].
- On March 20, Olga Gkotsopoulou, Polina Malaja and Lusy Vaseva
presented the FSFE's Position Paper for the endorsement of Free
Software and Open Standards in Horizon 2020 and all publicly-funded
research [12] and facilitated a discussion about the role of Free
Software in Open Science at the Open Science Barcamp in Berlin [13].
- The winners of the 2016 Free Software Awards were announced by the
Free Software Foundation [14] during the LibrePlanet 2017 conference.
The Award for Projects of Social Benefit was given to SecureDrop, an
anonymous whistleblowing platform, maintained by Freedom of the Press
Foundation, while the Award for the Advancement of Free Software went
to Alexandre Oliva, an advocate of Free Software and the GNU Project.
- The Vienna FSFE group held an information booth at Veganmania indoor
festival 2017. [15]
- Jonas Öberg wrote about the the need to work more with governments and
local municipalities [16] in order to encourage uptake of Free
Software friendly policies in procurement and development of IT
systems. The FSFE policy team has intensified its efforts in this
direction and asks for everyone's support. [17]
- If you're interested in discussions about Free Software on Android,
you can join FSFE's android mailing list [18], which Matthias
Kirschner highlighted in his introduction to installing Signal without
a Google account or Google Play [19].
- In February, we celebrated the "I Love Free Software day" for the 8th
consecutive year [20]. People all over the world used the occasion to
declare their love and affection not only towards their significant
other, but to the whole Free Software community. This year's
celebrations had everything: a FOSDEM photobooth in Brussels [21],
letters and flowers for the German Parliament [22], light projections
in the streets of Berlin [23] and Frankfurt [24], creative artworks
[25], a bright program of IloveFS events, funny memes [26], songs,
microblogging as well as longer blogposts from individuals,
politicians and supporting organisations.
- Are you currently a student? Is an internship a compulsory part of
your studies curriculum? Are you fluent in German and English and
interested in the politics around Free Software? Then, check our new
intern vacancy announcement [27], for a position in our office in
Berlin, from June till October 2017. And don't forget, that we're
still able to accept additional student interns for 2017. Apply now
[28] and don't miss the opportunity to become part of a great
international and diverse team, based in Berlin!
== Get active ==
Fellowship elections 2017: According to our constitution [29], two seats
in the General Assembly [30] are reserved for elected representatives of
our Fellows. They serve two-year terms and one seat is up for re-
election every year. The electoral process 2017 covers the period from
April 10 till April 24. Eight candidates are running for office in the
FSFE's General Assembly. You can find the list of candidates, along with
their manifestos and background as well as the election schedule and
voting procedure, in our dedicated Fellowship Election 2017 page [31].
All Fellows eligible to vote will automatically receive an email with
all necessary information.
== Help us improve our newsletter ==
If you see some news you think should be included, forward it to us. If
you'd like to share any thoughts, send them to us. The address is as
always newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking forward to hearing from you!
Thanks to all volunteers [32], supporters [33] and donors [34] who make
our work possible.
your editors Jonas Öberg, Olga Gkotsopoulou, Lusy Vaseva FSFE
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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.opengovpartnership.org/
2: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170328-01.en.html
3: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-04
4: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170302-01.en.html
5: https://fsfe.org/associates/associates.en.html
6: ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPd5N2Y5nuM
7: https://digitalegesellschaft.de/2017/03/58-npa/
8: https://ansol.org/FSFE-palestra
9: http://www.pietcast.com/folge-0026-limux/
10: https://chemnitzer.linux-tage.de/2017/en
11: https://fsfe.org/activities/radiodirective/index.html
12: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/oscibar2017_session17
13: https://www.open-science-conference.eu/barcamp/
14: http://www.fsf.org/news/securedrop-and-alexandre-oliva-are-2016-free-softwa…
15: https://blogs.fsfe.org/franz.gratzer/2017/03/10/booth-veganmania-indoor-201…
16: http://blog.jonasoberg.net/policy-whys-that
17: https://fsfe.org/fellowship/ams/join.php?ams=join
18: https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/android
19: https://k7r.eu/testing-signal-without-google-account/
20: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170315-01.en.html
21: https://fsfe.org/campaigns/ilovefs/whylovefs/gallery.en.html
22: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/graphics/ilovefs-roses.jpg
23: http://bit.ly/2ltZM4H
24: https://www.flickr.com/photos/blixxter/32872437596/
25: http://www.elektrollart.de/?p=4503
26: https://blog.3rik.cc/2017/02/free-software-ergo-sum/
27: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170321-01.de.html
28: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170116-01.html
29: https:///www.fsfe.org/about/legal/constitution.html#id-fellowship-seats
30: https:///www.fsfe.org/about/team#general-assembly
31: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/Election/FellowshipElection_2017
32: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.en.html
33: http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join/nltr17
34: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html
35: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-04
= FSFE Newsletter - March 2017 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201703.pt.html ]
== The Chronicles of LiMux ==
In February, the news about LiMux shook the world. LiMux, a project run
by the city of Munich and completed in 2013, constitutes one of the
finest examples of vendor-neutral administration based on Free Software;
during its execution phase, 15,000 personal computers and laptops used
by public administrations were migrated to Free Software.
In a surprise move, a coalition of parties filed a motion with minimal
lead time before the city council, asking for the abolishment of the
project and the return into proprietary solutions.
The response by the community was immediate and formidable. FSFE's
Deputy Coordinator for Germany, Björn Schießle, describes what followed
[1]. An ad-hoc coalition was formed by the FSFE, the Document
Foundation, KDE and OSBA, collecting questions around the motion and its
related processes. Members of the city council were contacted prior to
the public hearing and FSFE supporters in Germany and Austria were
invited to engage, contacting politicians on the issue. Media coverage
in multiple languages [2] was additionally created.
During the public hearing, participating parties quoted some of our
questions, and admitted they had never before received so much input
from the public. The result of the hearing was a modified motion passed
on February 15, calling the administration to propose a strategy for the
unification of the city's client-side IT architecture by the end of
2020, building on a yet-to-be-developed proprietary client and
guaranteeing maximal compatibility with the existing solutions.
The FSFE does not claim LiMux has solved all the problems. However, we
do claim these problems are mostly of organisational nature, and as such
must be disconnected from the technical side. Public infrastructure must
remain independent of single software vendors, and invest into common
assets, which are provided by Free Software.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Help us grow and make a difference in 2017 https://fsfe.org/join [3]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- For #IloveFS, André translated [4] the Free Software song.
- After last year's successful pre-FOSDEM meeting, the FSFE and
OpenForum Europe continued the tradition of bringing together active
Free Software stakeholders during a prior to FOSDEM public policy
related event. This year's meeting [5] offered the opportunity to
individual citizens and decision-makers to exchange their views on the
basis of practical first-hand information concerning Free Software in
public policy.
- For 16 years, FSFE has been present at FOSDEM with a booth, numerous
volunteers and staff. Reinhard Müller, FOSDEM booth coordinator,
describes in his report [6] the great atmosphere among the booth
volunteers and how an outstanding amount of merchandise and
promotional material was distributed during the 2 days of the event.
- In 2016, Europe welcomed three new umbrella organizations [7] for Free
Software (and hardware) projects: Public Software CIC, The Commons
Conservancy, and the Center for the Cultivation of Technology.
Standing by the needs of the community, the brand-new organisations
provide a legal entity for projects to join, with regards to
donations, accounting, grants, legal compliance, or even sophisticated
governance. These administrative services allow projects to focus on
technical and community matters.
== Get active ==
We're still able to accept additional student interns for 2017. If
you're currently studying and are required to do an internship as part
of your studies, or if you've not yet graduated and want to do a
voluntary internship, you should apply now [8].
== Help us to improve our newsletter ==
If you see some news you think should be included, forward it to us. If
you'd like to share any thoughts, send them to us. The address is as
always newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking forward to hearing from you!
Thanks to all volunteers [9], supporters [10] and donors [11] who make
our work possible.
your editors Olga Gkotsopoulou and Jonas Öberg FSFE
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Help us grow and make a difference in 2017 https://fsfe.org/join [12]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
--
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/2017/news-20170301-01
2: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/LiMux
3: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-03
4: https://blogs.fsfe.org/ao/2017/02/14/ilovefs-2017-vrije-software-lied/
5: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170214-02
6: https://blogs.fsfe.org/reinhard/2017/02/fosdem-2017/
7: https://lwn.net/Articles/713073/
8: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170116-01
9: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.en.html
10: http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join/nltr17
11: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html
12: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-03
= FSFE Newsletter - February 2017 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201702.pt.html ]
== Why Open Science matters and the FSFE's position on Horizon 2020 ==
"Open Science" is an emerging movement that asks to transfer the four
freedoms that we practice in Free Software into science. Although it is
still emerging, Open Science receives more and more strategic importance
for decision-makers. In the eyes of financial ministers of the European
Union, Open Science produces and uses a lot of Open Data, which in turn
has the potential for big economic benefits. The "European Cloud
Initiative", for example, is part of the European Commission's strategy
for Open Science, intended for building a "competitive data and
knowledge economy in Europe" [1]. It aims at strengthening Europe's
position in data-driven innovation and is thus considered to become an
important part of the European Digital Single Market. Or, as the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development puts it:
"Encouraging the sharing and re-use of research data could generate more
value for public money" [2].
With this in mind, the FSFE targets Free Software to be part of this
emerging field of European Open Science from the beginning. As all
research, data processing and archiving nowadays heavily depends on
software, it is a chance to jump on the bandwagon and define Free
Software as a precondition of Open Science. As one course of action, we
wrote a position paper for the interim evaluation of Horizon 2020 [3],
the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80
billion of funding available.
The FSFE's position paper explains how Free Software and Open Standards
are fundamental to Open Science [4] and we therefore ask for all
publicly-funded research in Europe to mandatorily use and develop Free
Software and Open Standards. With the "European Cloud Initiative" in
mind, we explicitly ask that "Data and software repositories and Data
Management Plans (DMPs) must employ Free Software in order to ensure
unfettered access to their contents and long term preservation" [5].
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Help us now to grow bigger and make a difference in 2017
https://fsfe.org/join [6]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- To underpin the demands of the position paper we wrote for the interim
evaluation of Horizon 2020 (see above), we filed a Freedom of
Information request to the European Commission’s Directorate-General
for Research and Innovation [7] to ask about the use, development and
release of (Free) software under Horizon2020. We will keep you updated
about any response.
- We published our annual report [8] with insights about our policy
work, campaigns and events in 2016 as well as a preview for 2017.
- In August 2016, the FSFE joined the Advisory Board of The Document
Foundation [9]. Now, The Document Foundation opens up the LibreOffice
Certification for Migrations and Trainings [10] to members of not-for-
profit organisations on their Advisory Board, including the FSFE.
- We published a report of the first ever FSFE summit [11] that happened
in September 2016. The report includes reflections, impressions,
pictures and the full schedule with links to the abstract, slides and
video recordings of each talk, if available. If you missed the summit,
this report is your chance to catch up on it.
- The FSFE's assembly during the 33rd edition of the Chaos Communication
Congress (33C3) [12] was a big success thanks to our highly motivated
team behind the booth and the high quality of 21 sessions in three
days that have been realized by our session hosts. Read Erik's report
and see the pictures for more insights [13].
- Like every year, FSFE staff and many team members will be at FOSDEM
and we have a big booth in the K building [14]. If you come to FOSDEM
take the chance to meet the FSFE or individual members.
- "Barcelona Free Software" [15] is a local group in Barcelona and an
open space for coders and users who love Free Software. Following a
team decision at the end of 2016, Barcelona Free Software now is an
associated organisation of the FSFE [16].
- Would you like to work with us in the FSFE or you know somehow who
would like to? In 2017, we are looking for new student interns [17] to
join our team and who like to get to know a world full of Free
Software.
== Get active ==
February 14 is "I love Free Software day", the day to say thank you to
all the people behind Free Software. Use this day to show your love for
your favorite Free Software and check out our campaign page in advance
to get some ideas and inspiration: http://www.ilovefs.org [18]
== Good Free Software News ==
The Paris Declaration on Open Government [19], introduced during the OGP
Paris Summit last December, aims at establishing cooperation between
countries and civil societies throughout 2017. The Declaration is
composed of 21 collective action items with the accomplishment of open
public procurement and formation of effective Free Software policies
listed among them [20].
== 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? Please share this and any other feedback
by writing to newsletter(a)fsfe.org
Thanks to all the volunteers [21], Fellows [22] and corporate donors
[23] who enable our work,
your editors Erik Albers, Olga Gkotsopoulou and Fernando Sanjurjo, FSFE
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Help us now to grow bigger and make a difference in 2017
https://fsfe.org/join [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://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/open-science
2: https://www.oecd.org/sti/oecd-science-technology-and-innovation-outlook-251…
3: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170105-01
4: https://fsfe.org/activities/policy/eu/Horizon2020-Position-Paper
5: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170105-01
6: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-02
7: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170110-01
8: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170109-01.en.html
9: https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160817-01
10: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2016/12/27/the-document-foundation…
11: https://fsfe.org/community/events/2016/summit/backsight
12: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2016/wiki/Assembly:Free_Software_Foundation_…
13: http://blog.3rik.cc/2017/01/worked-for-us-thank-you-33c3/
14: https://fosdem.org/2017/practical/transportation/
15: http://bcnfs.org/
16: https://fsfe.org/associates/associates
17: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170116-01
18: http://www.ilovefs.org
19: https://en.ogpsummit.org/paris-declaration/
20: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/opengov/news/paris-declaration-promot…
21: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.en.html
22: http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join/nltr16
23: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html
24: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-02
= FSFE Newsletter - February 2017 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201702.pt.html ]
== Why Open Science matters and the FSFE's position on Horizon 2020 ==
"Open Science" is an emerging movement that asks to transfer the four
freedoms that we practice in Free Software into science. Although it is
still emerging, Open Science receives more and more strategic importance
for decision-makers. In the eyes of financial ministers of the European
Union, Open Science produces and uses a lot of Open Data, which in turn
has the potential for big economic benefits. The "European Cloud
Initiative", for example, is part of the European Commission's strategy
for Open Science, intended for building a "competitive data and
knowledge economy in Europe" [1]. It aims at strengthening Europe's
position in data-driven innovation and is thus considered to become an
important part of the European Digital Single Market. Or, as the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development puts it:
"Encouraging the sharing and re-use of research data could generate more
value for public money" [2].
With this in mind, the FSFE targets Free Software to be part of this
emerging field of European Open Science from the beginning. As all
research, data processing and archiving nowadays heavily depends on
software, it is a chance to jump on the bandwagon and define Free
Software as a precondition of Open Science. As one course of action, we
wrote a position paper for the interim evaluation of Horizon 2020 [3],
the biggest EU Research and Innovation programme ever with nearly €80
billion of funding available.
The FSFE's position paper explains how Free Software and Open Standards
are fundamental to Open Science [4] and we therefore ask for all
publicly-funded research in Europe to mandatorily use and develop Free
Software and Open Standards. With the "European Cloud Initiative" in
mind, we explicitly ask that "Data and software repositories and Data
Management Plans (DMPs) must employ Free Software in order to ensure
unfettered access to their contents and long term preservation" [5].
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Help us now to grow bigger and make a difference in 2017
https://fsfe.org/join [6]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- To underpin the demands of the position paper we wrote for the interim
evaluation of Horizon 2020 (see above), we filed a Freedom of
Information request to the European Commission’s Directorate-General
for Research and Innovation [7] to ask about the use, development and
release of (Free) software under Horizon2020. We will keep you updated
about any response.
- We published our annual report [8] with insights about our policy
work, campaigns and events in 2016 as well as a preview for 2017.
- In August 2016, the FSFE joined the Advisory Board of The Document
Foundation [9]. Now, The Document Foundation opens up the LibreOffice
Certification for Migrations and Trainings [10] to members of not-for-
profit organisations on their Advisory Board, including the FSFE.
- We published a report of the first ever FSFE summit [11] that happened
in September 2016. The report includes reflections, impressions,
pictures and the full schedule with links to the abstract, slides and
video recordings of each talk, if available. If you missed the summit,
this report is your chance to catch up on it.
- The FSFE's assembly during the 33rd edition of the Chaos Communication
Congress (33C3) [12] was a big success thanks to our highly motivated
team behind the booth and the high quality of 21 sessions in three
days that have been realized by our session hosts. Read Erik's report
and see the pictures for more insights [13].
- Like every year, FSFE staff and many team members will be at FOSDEM
and we have a big booth in the K building [14]. If you come to FOSDEM
take the chance to meet the FSFE or individual members.
- "Barcelona Free Software" [15] is a local group in Barcelona and an
open space for coders and users who love Free Software. Following a
team decision at the end of 2016, Barcelona Free Software now is an
associated organisation of the FSFE [16].
- Would you like to work with us in the FSFE or you know somehow who
would like to? In 2017, we are looking for new student interns [17] to
join our team and who like to get to know a world full of Free
Software.
== Get active ==
February 14 is "I love Free Software day", the day to say thank you to
all the people behind Free Software. Use this day to show your love for
your favorite Free Software and check out our campaign page in advance
to get some ideas and inspiration: http://www.ilovefs.org [18]
== Good Free Software News ==
The Paris Declaration on Open Government [19], introduced during the OGP
Paris Summit last December, aims at establishing cooperation between
countries and civil societies throughout 2017. The Declaration is
composed of 21 collective action items with the accomplishment of open
public procurement and formation of effective Free Software policies
listed among them [20].
== 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? Please share this and any other feedback
by writing to newsletter(a)fsfe.org
Thanks to all the volunteers [21], Fellows [22] and corporate donors
[23] who enable our work,
your editors Erik Albers, Olga Gkotsopoulou and Fernando Sanjurjo, FSFE
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Help us now to grow bigger and make a difference in 2017
https://fsfe.org/join [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://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/open-science
2: https://www.oecd.org/sti/oecd-science-technology-and-innovation-outlook-251…
3: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170105-01
4: https://fsfe.org/activities/policy/eu/Horizon2020-Position-Paper
5: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170105-01
6: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-02
7: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170110-01
8: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170109-01.en.html
9: https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160817-01
10: https://blog.documentfoundation.org/blog/2016/12/27/the-document-foundation…
11: https://fsfe.org/community/events/2016/summit/backsight
12: https://events.ccc.de/congress/2016/wiki/Assembly:Free_Software_Foundation_…
13: http://blog.3rik.cc/2017/01/worked-for-us-thank-you-33c3/
14: https://fosdem.org/2017/practical/transportation/
15: http://bcnfs.org/
16: https://fsfe.org/associates/associates
17: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170116-01
18: http://www.ilovefs.org
19: https://en.ogpsummit.org/paris-declaration/
20: https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/opengov/news/paris-declaration-promot…
21: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.en.html
22: http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join/nltr16
23: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html
24: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-02
= FSFE Annual Report 2016 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170109-01.pt.html ]
It has been a busy year for the FSFE. Upholding the principles of Free
Software and protecting citizens' from being exploited are ongoing
challenges we tackled from a variety of angles. We (and by "we", we mean
the staff and volunteers at the FSFE) pored over hundreds of pages of
policies and legislations, looking for loopholes through which Free
Software could be attacked.
We travelled to events all over Europe, often carrying with us dozens of
heavy boxes of merchandising, to explain what Free Software is all about
as speakers and attendees. We have organised our own events too
including our first international summit.
And we have dreamt up and executed campaigns to spread awareness of the
threats to Free Software and users' freedoms. This has entailed
mobilising dozens of staff members and volunteers, contacting the media,
and designing and ordering T-shirts, squishy stress balls/hearts, and
balloons, lots of balloons.
What follows are just a few of the highlights from 2016.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Help us to grow bigger and make a difference in 2017:
https://fsfe.org/join [1]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
== Policies and Legislation ==
We have been carefully monitoring policies and legislation in Europe and
intervened when citizens' rights were in peril. We have formulated
several proposals to EU institutions and EU member states containing
concrete steps to solve the issues with the EU Radio Directive [2].
This Directive threatens software freedom with its ambiguous phrasing
that all but forbids users from installing unapproved software (read
"Free operating systems") on radio-enabled devices. These devices
include all modern laptops, wireless routers and every single smartphone
in existence. Over 40 European organisations and enterprises support our
concerns and demands.Max Mehl and Polina Malaja will be doing follow-up
on this with along with our volunteers and other organisations to make
sure you can still install Free Software on those devices.
Another threat to Free Software is the EC's stance on the Digital Single
Market strategy. We have patiently explained several times why FRAND
licensing [3], the licensing favoured by the Commission in its "ICT
Standardisation Priorities for the Digital Single Market", is
incompatible with Free Software and why a more liberal model should be
used. This is still an ongoing battle.
Staying with the EC, we tried to help out on the "Free and Open Source
Security Audit" (FOSSA) [4] project, commissioned jointly by the
European Parliament. The project should have helped evaluate the
suitability of the Free Software used in public administrations. A
professional audit of Free Software tools and frameworks would seem a
good thing at first glance, an excellent way to test run software and
improve it when bugs and vulnerabilities pop up. At the very least it
would help protect citizens' data stored on public servers.
However, after reading the results, it was not clear the time and money
invested into the study had been well-spent. The conclusions were
sometimes vague and some parts directly wrong. Despite our best efforts,
the company employed to do the survey did not seem to know much about
Free Software at all.
That said, the EC and MEPs in charge of the project, were always open to
our comments and able to push for improvements, although they were bound
to a contract with consultants who were not too knowledgeable about Free
Software matters. Viewed as a pilot, it helped everybody see where the
pitfalls were. With a bigger budget and the lessons learnt, the EU is
planning to follow our advice and improve the project in future
iterations.
We even put the law to the test, and our colleague Max Mehl, the FSFE
coordinator for Germany, sent out "alternative" routers to testers [5]
so they could try them with their Internet provider. We published the
results on our Wiki [6] to help others who are thinking of changing
their devices.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Join the FSFE to support our policy work in 2017: https://fsfe.org/join
[7]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
== Campaigns ==
But not all our campaigns have been so serious. We have also carried out
a campaigns to raise awareness about Free Software amongst the general
public, and here "light-hearted" is literally the keyword. We launched
our 6th "I love FS" campaign [8] on Valentine's day. During this
campaign, we encouraged all our friends to make a display of love
towards Free Software by telling the world, online with posts to social
media, or offline, with public demonstrations of FS love.
Online, we got tweets and blog posts from users, volunteers and
sympathizers explaining what they loved most about their favourite Free
Software project. Offline, we had at least one cake baked by the
WikiMedia Foundation, gifs of people squeezing our #ilovefs stress
heart, and pictures of people from all over Europe waving our "<3 Free
Software" balloons.
In a similar vein, we wanted to help the general media, local
newspapers, radios and TV stations, to know more about Free Software. To
this end we started our "Meet a Free Software Hero" campaign. Part of
our larger 15th Anniversary celebration campaign [9], we encouraged
volunteers and media outlets to get in touch with each other so that the
"heroes" could explain what software freedom was all about, and bust a
few myths at the same time.
Thanks to the campaign, we managed to increase our profile with the
media and it has now become much more usual for journalists to get in
touch with us to comment on stories. This gives us more visibility and
influence to affect changes in favour of Free Software.
== Events ==
Another way of reaching a wider audience was through events. Apart from
participating in Free Software-specific conferences like FOSDEM,
LinuxCon and different Linuxtage (we took the FSFE booth to all of
these), we also participated in the Wear Fair and more [10]. This event
is Austria's largest textile fair for sustainable clothing and
lifestyle, and covers from organic food, to DIY electronic repairs. The
themes of sustainability, individual personal freedom and alternative
economic models helped our Foundation fit right in and we sold plenty of
T-shirts, bags and baby vests. We also collected contact information of
people interested in our cause.
But we are prouder of the two big events we organised ourselves. In
April we held our annual Legal and Licensing Workshop [11]. This
Workshop is set up by and for members of the FSFE's Legal Network. Legal
experts from all sectors of the industry got together to discuss
licenses, compliance and what constitutes derivative work for three days
in balmy Barcelona.
Speakers included Harald Welte of gpl-violations.org fame; Miriam
Ballhausen from JBB; and Eben Moglen, chairman of the Software Freedom
Law Center.
Our Legal Coordinator Polina Malaja together with our trainee Olga
Gkotsopoulou are already busy planning next years conference which we
expect to be at least as successful as 2016's.
Similarly exciting was our first ever FSFE Summit held in Berlin [12] in
September, in which, Erik Albers, our community builder, commandeered a
veritable army of volunteers and interns to make sure that everything
run smoothly.
Part celebration of FSFE's 15th anniversary, and everything we have
achieved over the years; part event to talk about the non-technical
aspects of Free Software [13], we covered the topics of Free Software in
business, the public sector and as a force for social advancement in
more than 50 talks. We also had our 15th birthday party.
Speakers included, among many others, the two prior presidents and the
one current president of the FSFE, that is, Georg Greve, Karsten
Gerloff, and Matthias Kirschner; Sonia Montegiove and Italo Vignoli, the
architects behind the migration to LibreOffice of the Italian Armed
Forces; and Roberto di Cosmo, co-founder along with Stefano "Zach"
Zacchiroli of SoftwareHeritage.org.
Julia Reda, MEP for the Pirate Party, closed the event [14] with a
keynote on copyright reform and made the case for Free Software on
machines critical in modern democracies. She explained, for example, why
using inauditable proprietary software on voting machines was
unacceptable.
== Strengthening the Free Software Network ==
Which brings us to the subject of how we used events to make the network
of Free Software organisations stronger. The Software Heritage mentioned
above, for example, collects programs, applications and snippets of code
distributed under free license from several sources. It aims to preserve
an encyclopedia of free code for posterity. It was clear from the start
that the FSFE and SH had a lot in common, so we supported the initiative
early on, helping them get coverage in the media and offering them a
platform to spread the word about what they do.
We also strengthened our ties with the Document Foundation by joining
its Advisory Board [15]. At the same time, The Document Foundation
became an associated organisation of the FSFE. This means that we will
be offering advice, support and suggestions on one of the most
successful Free Software projects out there: LibreOffice and all its
ecosystem. With the Document Foundation as an associated organisation,
we created official channels for the exchange of ideas, coordinate
efforts, motivate each other, and find opportunities to work together on
specific projects.
Another thing we did was to hand over the running of the FSFE's Document
Freedom Day to Document Freedom Foundation [16]. The DFD already
organises the Software Freedom Day (SFD) campaign, the Education Freedom
Day, and the Hardware Freedom Day. It seemed logical that they also
organise the Document Freedom Day. Like that they widened the range of
events of related events they offer, and it allows us to concentrate on
core Free Software topics.
== Coming up in 2017 ==
But there is still a lot of work to do and 2017 is shaping up to be an
interesting year. Although we have managed to get the ban on compulsory
routers into law, we expect that ISPs will fight back, so we will have
to be on guard for that. The threat of FRAND licensing and software
patents is never far off and we will have to continue advising lawmakers
on why these are dangerous for Free Software and the European software
industry in general. Katharina Nucon, policy coordinator of the German
Pirate Party, will be helping us with this campaign.
Most of our efforts, however, will most likely be spent pushing for
getting more public institutions to publish their software under a free
license. We want public money to pay for public code, and only public
code. Software used by public institutions is acquired, deployed and/or
developed with taxpayers' money. Making it available under a Free
license to all citizens is just the right thing to do. Furthermore, we
hope we will raise awareness amongst politicians of the importance of
using Free Software when they see its advantages.
There are several important national and regional elections scheduled
throughout Europe in 2017. Politicians are supposedly more receptive
during campaigns, so we will do our best to make candidates and parties
commit to Free Software and openness in their administrations.
We need governments to commit to improving policies that favour Free
Software across the board. It is not admissible any more that the
administration pilfer taxpayers money on proprietary software.
We need policies that help the European IT sector become much more
competitive and sustainable. There is no better way to achieve this than
incentivising the use and development of Free Software and Open
Standards.
Finally we need better policies to help promote Free Software amongst
the general public. Every European citizen must be allowed to regain
control over the technology they use once and for all.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Join the FSFE to support our work in 2017: https://fsfe.org/join [17]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
== TL;DR ==
This has been a long report, but if you need a summary, here goes:
Free Software improves everybody's life and the world. It is clear that
everybody have been handed the short end of the IT stick for too long.
SMEs need a level playing ground to prosper and create employment.
Private citizens and business owners must be allowed to own and control
the devices they pay for. Governments must be at the service of the
people, as must the software they pay for with people's taxes. Free
Software, Free Hardware and Open Standards solve all of the above.
All of these things should be self-evident, but apparently are not. That
is why we at the FSFE do what we do. Throughout this report we have
mentioned some of the people that work to turn these things into
reality. However, and it may sound cliché, but it doesn't make it less
true, without the continued support from you, the volunteer, the fellow,
the occasional donor, and the moral supporter, none of our staff would
be able to do anything. We rely heavily on you, your activities and your
donations to stay independent and fight for your rights when they are
threatened, regardless as to where the threat comes from.
Please help us make next year's report is as long as this one, and do
consider joining the FSFE. [18]
Best Regards,
Jonas Oberg (Executive Director) and Matthias Kirschner (President)
1: https://fsfe.org/join/an116
2: https://fsfe.org/activities/radiodirective/
3: https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160428-02.en.html
4: http://k7r.eu/fossa-now-we-need-feedback-by-the-real-experts/
5: https://blog.mehl.mx/2016/erste-testgeraete-fuer-routerfreiheit-versendet/
6: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/CompulsoryRouters/Implementation/Germany
7: https://fsfe.org/join/an216
8: https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160222-01.en.html
9: https://fsfe.org/campaigns/15years/15years
10: https://blog.widerstroem.com/#res:ner-page=4om/weblog/10/wear-fair-2016
11: https://fsfe.org/activities/ftf/legal-conference.en.html
12: https://fsfe.org/community/events/2016/summit/backsight.en.html
13: https://fsfe.org/community/events/2016/summit/frontpage
14: https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160907-01.en.html
15: https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160817-01.en.html
16: https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160126-01.en.html
17: https://fsfe.org/join/an316
18: https://fsfe.org/join/an316
== About the Free Software Foundation Europe ==
Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers users to
control technology. Software is deeply involved in all aspects of our
lives; and it is important that this technology empowers rather than
restricts us. Free Software gives everybody the rights to use,
understand, adapt and share software. These rights help support other
fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech, press and privacy.
The FSFE helps individuals and organisations to understand how Free
Software contributes to freedom, transparency, and self-determination.
It enhances users' rights by abolishing barriers to Free Software
adoption, encourage people to use and develop Free Software, and
provide resources to enable everyone to further promote Free Software
in Europe.
http://fsfe.org
= 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]
--
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/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
