= FSFE Newsletter October 2018 =
[ Lexojeni online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201810.sq.html ]
== Microsoft joins the Open Invention Network ==
Historically, Microsoft has used software patents to slow down Free
Software adoption in businesses and public administration, by claiming
patent infringement of important Free Software components and taking
billions of dollars from Free Software re-distributors. In recent years,
however, Microsoft approached themselves more and more with the Free
Software community. In October, this led to Microsoft's next big step to
join the LOT Network and the Open Invention Network (OIN), two
organisations that aim to solve problems created by software patents
towards the GNU/Linux systems.
LOT works to protect members against so called "non-practicing
entities", while the OIN wants to protect a defined set of Free Software
technologies from patent litigation, defined in their so-called "Linux
system definition" [1].
The FSFE welcomes Microsoft's steps, and encourages them to continue in
this direction [2]. The FSFE aligns with our sister organisation, the
Free Software Foundation (FSF) in their demand [3] that useful next
steps should make a clear, unambiguous statement that Microsoft has
ceased all patent infringement claims on the use of Linux in Android: to
expand the list of packages protected from patents inside the definition
of "Linux System", to include every Free Software component found in a
GNU/Linux system, and to use the past patent royalties, extorted from
Free Software, to fund the effective abolition of all patents covering
ideas in software.
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== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- From December 27th to 30th there will be the 35th Chaos Communication
Congress and the FSFE is happy to host an assembly again, acting as an
information booth and a meeting point for our friends and all friends
of Free Software. For sessions at the FSFE assembly, we are looking
for inspiring talks, hands-on workshops, community/developer/strategy
meetings or any other public, informative or collaborative activities
and have an open call for sessions running until November 18 [5].
- On the first weekend of October, the FSFE held it's annual assembly in
the Onion Space in Berlin. The general assembly are the members of the
FSFE, responsible for strategic planning and budgeting. Besides the
members, this year's general assembly welcomed our newest staffer
Alexander Sander to attend as guest. Soon after this newsletter
reaches you, a more detailed report, including the official minutes,
will be published on our homepage.
- We started onboarding two new staffers: Galia Mancheva [6] and Gabriel
Ku Wei Bin [7] have joined as project managers. We are excited to see
our team growing organically, and you will soon hear more from Galia's
and Gabriel's work in this newsletter.
- Prior to the elections in Hessen [8] and Bavaria [9], the FSFE
together with the "Free Knowledge Coalition", published another
"Digital-O-Mat" [10]. The Digital-O-Mat is one of our elections
campaigns and an online tool to help voters to inform themselves on
the parties positions about Free Software. Voters can use the Digital-
O-Mat to compare their own views about internet related policies with
the ones from the participating parties, and, this way, they are able
to find their best match. To also help understand the parties
positions in a broader context and raise public attention, the FSFE
analysed and evaluated their positions in a public statement [11].
- The FSFE's president Matthias Kirschner gave a talk at Kernel Recipes
[12] on the importance of Free Software and its role in protecting
democracy.
- The FSFE's country coordinator Germany Björn Schießle gave a talk at
the “Free Software Free Knowledge as a Profession” [13] series of
lectures organised and hosted by the dedicated working university
group at TU Dresden.
== Do not miss: upcoming events with the FSFE ==
>From November 15 to 17, part of the FSFE team will be present at the
SFScon [14] in Bolzano, Italy. The FSFE's president Matthias Kirschner
will give a talk and our EU public policy programme manager Alexander
Sander will host a policy workshop. Also, we will run a booth, where we
will present the findings of the REUSE [15] software study - carried out
by the University of Bolzano. If you are around, do pass by: we look
forward to meeting you.
== Get Active ==
To let as many people as possible know about software freedom and the
FSFE's mission, it is beneficial to explain our cause to them in their
mother tongue. Our team of translators [16] does an amazing job in
making sure that a majority of Europeans can read our pages in their
native language. Indeed, many parts of our homepage have been translated
in more than 20 European languages. This is a priceless contribution to
spreading software freedom and we are grateful to all contributors who
helped us in this.
However, every homepage needs an update from time to time and we will
refresh several parts of our homepage in the upcoming weeks - on top of
our general publications and news, like this newsletter. This means new
parts of our page that need translations. If you are a native speaker of
any language apart from English and you like translating, please join
our translator team [17] now, and help us to modernize our
infrastructure by getting our message out. Our translators team is very
helpful and looks forward to welcoming new members. You can get in
contact with the team via our mailing list [18] or with individual
coordinators [19] listed on the translators page.
== Open positions at FSFE ==
We currently have open positions for an internship as well as for a
"Bundesfreiwilligendienst" [20]. You an find more information about our
internships, previous interns and currently open positions on our
internships page [21].
== Contribute to our newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to
us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking forward
to hearing from you!
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [22], supporters [23] and
donors [24] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[25], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Your editor,
Erik Albers
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1: https://www.openinventionnetwork.com/joining-oin/linux-system/
2: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20181023-02.html
3: https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-statement-on-microsoft-joining-the-open-invent…
4: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-10
5: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20181024-01
6: https://fsfe.org/about/mancheva/mancheva
7: https://fsfe.org/about/ku/ku
8: https://hessen.digital-o-mat.de/
9: https://bayern.digital-o-mat.de/
10: https://digital-o-mat.de/
11: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20181010-01.en.html
12: https://kernel-recipes.org/en/2018/talks/democracy-requires-free-software/
13: https://wiki.fsfw-dresden.de/doku.php/ringvorlesung/ws2018
14: https://www.sfscon.it/
15: https://reuse.software/
16: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/
17: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/
18: https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/translators
19: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/
20: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180913-01.en.html
21: https://fsfe.org/contribute/internship.html
22: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
23: http://fsfe.org/join
24: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
25: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
26: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-10