= Promising news from Belgium and Dortmund +++ IT Security +++ Job opportunity =
[ Lexojeni online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-202301.sq.html ]
In January’s Newsletter: Dortmund embraces Free Software, and Belgium is
working to ensure Router Freedom. A cryptographer analyzes IT security.
A digital health ecosystem licenses files with the REUSE tool. We are
looking for an office coordinator. We look forward to seeing you in
FOSDEM and I Love Free Software events.
=== Belgium Ready to Tick All Boxes for Router Freedom ===
Collaboration with supporters and volunteers brings us closer to
victory. We addressed Router Freedom to privacy groups, consumer
organisations, regulators, and telecommunications industry
representatives. We want the upcoming legislation in Belgium to protect
the right of all internet users to choose and use a private modem and
router. We were not alone. 260 people from Belgium answered our survey
which we could use to show potential barriers to Router Freedom.
The Belgian telecommunications regulator drafted a framework that
ensures Router Freedom for all connections [1], including optical fiber
which was often excluded in other countries. Enforcement of the current
proposal will mark a win for digital rights in Belgium.
=== Dortmund Becomes Exemplary Municipality for Free Software ===
By embracing Free Software, Dortmund becomes an example for other
municipalities. The City of Dortmund, together with Berlin and Munich,
is initialising the "Open Source Big 3" and setting up a "Coordination
Office for Digital Sovereignty and Open Source". This Office in Dortmund
will cooperate with the Municipal Joint Office for Administrative
Management (KGSt) on Free Software governance. The involvement of KGSt
makes this development relevant for all other municipalities in Germany.
We will inform you about the developments in an online event on 11
January 2023, organised in cooperation with the Do-FOSS initiative and
the Offene Kommunen.NRW. Register to join us [2]!
=== Podcast Episode: What Makes a Program Secure? ===
Achieving optimal security is a challenge for the average user; we need
to decide what level of privacy we need and what we are comfortable
with. Cryptographer and privacy specialist Cryptie explains what makes a
program secure: it has to be audited, checked, and corrected. Free
Software allows more people to audit as more people are allowed to read
the code and discover vulnerabilities.
Ultimately Free Software creates a culture in which people are ready to
answer to criticism on systems and software. However there is also Free
Software that is not audited, so its security is not confirmed.
Conclusion: the best and most secure software is Free Software, but not
all Free Software is secure. Listen to our new podcast episode with
Cryptie [3].
=== Digital Health Ecosystem Licenses Files With REUSE Tool ===
The combination of two ideas, universal access to healthcare and Free
Software, gives us GNU Health. Created by GNU Solidario, a non-profit
dealing with technology and social medicine, GNU Health is a community-
driven Free Software project. While visiting schools in Latin America
twenty years ago, the founder, Dr. Luis Falcón, realised that technology
needs to support social changes.
To make the licensing clear, the project has recently adopted the REUSE
specification 3.0 in its components Hospital Management System (both
server and client) and Thalamus (the message server for the GH
Federation). Luis presented the project and the process of the REUSE
implementation in a video interview [4].
=== “Thank You for Your Support” Raffle ===
The FSFE needs your help to keep on working towards software freedom.
Support us until February 12! We want to thank you for your support
during these difficult times with a raffle [5]. If you donate, or
donated in the past year, more than €128 you might receive a signed copy
of ‘Ada & Zangemann - A Tale of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice
Cream' Feeling lucky?
=== Celebrate I Love Free Software Day with a Meetup ===
On Tuesday 14 February let’s join to say thank you together to the
awesome Free Software community; let’s express our love to the
contributors behind Free Software. Their work is irreplaceable and does
not go unnoticed.
We invite you to organise a thematic meetup [6] with friends,
colleagues, or FSFE local groups, and share your pictures with us. We
also invite you to share a warm thank you message to your favourite Free
Software project [7] in a video or an image.
=== Join our team and take care of our office ===
We are looking for an office coordinator [8] for an open-ended 25-35
hours per week position in our Berlin office.
=== Join us in one of our events ===
- 💻 *Online*: Do you want to organise a workshop on how to flash phones?
We are here to help with an online train-the-trainers workshop. Learn
about the Upcycling Android campaign, what to consider when organizing
a workshop, and how we can help in promoting and implementing a
workshop. F-Droid lead maintainer Hans-Christoph Steiner and microG
main developer Marvin Wißfeld will present these two cornerstone
projects. The workshop will take place in English on 19.01.2023 from
6-8pm (CET) online in a BBB room [9].
💻🇧🇪 *Online & Brussels*, Belgium: FSFE goes to FOSDEM 2023! On Saturday
4 February come to our Legal and Policy Devroom [10], and our talk on
TEDective [11]. On Sunday 5 February checkout our talks on REUSE [12]
and ‘Public Money? Public Code!' policy [13] and community stories [14].
If you are in Brussels, come over to our booth, anytime in the weekend.
🇩🇪 *Cologne*, Germany: Upcycling Android is coming up on 20 January. You
can extend the life of your phone by flashing it with a Free Software
operating system. We will bring sample phones so participants can tinker
around with Free Software operating systems and we will also help
participants to flash their own devices. Please register [15].
=== What we have done ===
- We had another fun Upcycling Android workshop in Berlin, this time in
a library makerspace. Several people came to Pablo Neruda library for
the event, and many dropped by out of curiosity. We flashed phones
and, getting into the holiday spirit, we had biscuits and coffee.
=== Groups ===
*Denmark*: Local group Aarhus is meeting on 12 January.
*Germany*: Local group Berlin had its online edu meeting and local group
Hamburg had its monthly meeting. Local group Bonn met on 9 January.
*Greece*: The FSFE country team Greece had its first meeting in
December, with many participants and a lively discussion about Mastodon
that lasted for hours. The meeting started with a long introduction
round to get to know each other. Then the group discussed Mastodon tips.
Nikos Roussos presented the Greek mastodon instance Libretooth. Fani
Partsafyllidou, FSFE Communications Project Manager, gave updates from
the FSFE. The group voted for ‘Translations and Documentation in Greek’
as the topic of the next meeting on 12 January.
*Netherlands*: The FSFE country team Netherlands met online just before
the holidays and discussed how to deal with proprietary educational
tools and whether a meeting should be arranged during FOSDEM. Also, they
talked about the public registry of AI systems in Amsterdam [16], the
innovation of Open Hardware in Delft, and communication problems with
Neutrinet VPN. Fani shared updates from the FSFE.
*Switzerland*: The Zurich group is meeting on 19 January [17] to plan an
I Love Free Software meetup and discuss the ongoing campaigns.
*Women*: The Women’s group’s next meeting will be held on 20 January.
== Contribute to our Newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, please send
them to us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking
forward to hearing from you! If you also want to support us and our
work, join our community and support us with a donation or a monthly
contribution [18]. Thanks to our community and all the volunteers,
supporters, and donors who make our work possible. And thanks to our
translators, who enable you to read this newsletter in your native
languages.
Happy New Year!
Your editor, Fani Partsafyllidou
Discuss this [19]
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1: https://fsfe.org/news/2022/news-20221215-01.sq.html
2: https://fsfe.org/news/2022/news-20221215-02.sq.html
3: https://fsfe.org/news/podcast/episode-18.sq.html
4: https://fsfe.org/news/2022/news-20221219-01.sq.html
5: https://fsfe.org/news/2022/news-20221221-01.sq.html
6: https://fsfe.org/news/2023/news-20230104-01.sq.html
7: https://fsfe.org/news/2023/news-20230104-01.sq.html
8: https://fsfe.org/news/2022/news-20221220-01.sq.html
9: https://conf.fsfe.org/b/upa
10: https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/track/legal_and_policy_issues/
11: https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/graph_tedective/
12: https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/sbom_reuse/
13: https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/publiccode_dpg_public_money/
14: https://fosdem.org/2023/schedule/event/public_money_public_code/
15: https://mobilize.berlin/events/e82582c1-149b-4fab-9995-655f5b81c16d
16: https://algoritmeregister.amsterdam.nl/en/ai-register/
17: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Events/Zurich/2023-01-19
18: https://my.fsfe.org/donate?referrer=newsletter
19: https://community.fsfe.org/t/972