= FSFE Newsletter December 2018 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201812.sv.html ]
== Recent developments and their impact on the well-being of Free Software and its communities ==
The second half of 2018 was full of interesting developments for the
Free Software community and its environment. In our December newsletter,
we would like to shed light on three major developments that have the
potential for long-lasting changes to the Free Software world and what
these changes mean for the FSFE's work in 2019 and beyond.
One of the most controversial policy topics in the European Union 2018
was, and still is, the harmonisation of copyright with a new copyright
directive. Regarding the well-being of software freedom, one of the most
important debates was around Article 13 which can seriously hamper
collaborative software development by imposing the use of mandatory
upload filters and monitoring of their users on code-hosting platforms.
As a result of this proposal, Free Software code-hosting platforms and
public code repositories can be arbitrarily removed online.
After a long and intense debate that we accompanied with your help and
our Save Code Share campaign [1], we obtained some limited exclusion for
Free Software in the text of the European Parliament's directive at the
beginning of September. With the adoption of amendment 143 and 150 of
the current copyright reform proposal in the European Parliament, we now
have at least an exclusion for “open source software developing
platforms (..) within the meaning of this Directive”. However, the
council proposed this exclusion to only be valid for “non-commercial
open source software developing platforms”. That's why since the
beginning of October, the European Parliament and the Council have been
in the Trialogue to debate the final text. To keep Free Software
development excluded from this harmful directive, the FSFE will closely
follow the process, raising our voices for Free Software. If you like to
support our role and work in this area, consider donating [2] or join us
as a supporter [3].
Other developments include an update to the Code of Conduct for the
Linux Kernel, as well as its main developer Linus Torvalds taking a
break and sending a public mail to apologize for his past behaviour.
Without reading too much into it, one thing that perhaps can be taken
from this is an ever growing importance for many members inside larger
Free Software communities towards a proper code of conduct. At the FSFE
we have our own Code of Conduct [4] "to offer a friendly and peaceful
environment for every participant at the FSFE's events, online and
offline" and we clearly state on our event pages that "All FSFE's events
are covered by our Code of Conduct that kindly asks all participants to
be excellent to each other." Meanwhile, hundreds of Free Software
communities have their own code of conduct or they have signed the
Contributor Covenant Code of Conduct [5]. This is a development that we
highly appreciate and we continue support the well-being of diverse Free
Software communities.
Also in recent months, we have seen that some global players who have
been grown by selling closed source products since the 20th century, now
invest billions of dollars to acquire those global players who have been
grown by selling services based on Free Software in the 21st century.
For example Microsoft obtained the largest host of source code in the
world by purchasing Github, and IBM procured the worlds largest Free-
Software-affiliated company by acquiring Red Hat. Although we can only
guess what effects these economic shifts will bring about in the long
run, we see a growing economic interest in Free Software from third
party players. While this is not necessarily a bad development, balance
should be called for at the same time. With growing investment capital,
it seems crucial to have non-profit organizations being heard as well,
who have the potential to safeguard a neutral but prospering environment
for Free Software - like the Free Software Foundation Europe. It is the
first statement of our mission [6] to ensure that the interests of the
individual users are protected by empowering users to control
technology. And by doing so, hopefully facilitating access to our road
into a free society.
If you like to support our role and work in ensuring users freedom,
consider donating [7] or join us as a supporter [8].
Become a supporter of the FSFE [9]
== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- During the weekend of 24. and 25. of November, we hosted the first
FSFE Hackathon [10]. A handful of hackers were gathering at the Onion
Space in Berlin to improve the FSFE's web presence - with one
participant even coming all the way from Linz, Austria. In
preparation. we used the FSFE's git-issue-tracker and created a
milestone [11] for the Hackathon 2018. Thanks to the assembled
expertise brought in by the participants, we were able to achieve
major improvements in the front-end and the back-end of the FSFE's web
presence. The most obvious front-end changes include, but are not
limited to, updating the info-frame on the right side of FSFE's front-
page [12], a re-work of our news-page [13], as well as our events-page
[14] and a new backend to submit FSFE related events [15].
Participants are eager to run another hackathon in spring 2019, so
stay tuned if you would like to join.
- Local FSFE community meetings happened this month in Helsinki, Rhein-
Main (Frankfurt) [16], Hamburg [17], Kiel [18], Bonn, and Linz [19].
If you would like to see your local FSFE meeting listed here, please
announce it with our improved event announcement tool [20].
- On some occasions where a lot of your friends, family members or
colleagues celebrate you - like weddings, birthdays or christmas -,
you might prefer they donate on a good cause instead of gifting you
personally. To make your own fundraising messages easier on these
occasions, you can find few suggestions [21] for inspiration in our
wiki.
== Do not miss: upcoming events with the FSFE ==
- 35C3: As in previous years, we are hosting a FSFE assembly during the
Chaos Communication Congress from December 27. to 30. in Leipzig. Our
assembly is meant to be a place for and by our members, friends and
supporters, and offers a common space to discuss, meet, hack and
organise. We also have a bunch of speakers selected from our Call for
Participation [22] who will provide insights on burning topics
regarding Free Software in various fields - from funding Free Software
to rejecting surveillance to helping lifesaving and many more. You can
see the full schedule, once the 35C3-Wiki is online. Pass by, talk to
us and hear our talks.
- FOSDEM 2019: The Free and Open Source Developers European Meeting, the
de facto largest Free Software developers conference in Europe, will
take place on February 2nd and 3rd at Campus Solbosch of the Free
University Brussels (ULB). As with every year, the FSFE will be
present at our large information booth with our entire collection of
information material, stickers, postcards, and the latest FSFE
fashion. Also, our core FSFE team will be at the booth and we are
looking forward to meeting you and discussing your plans (or our
common plans) to continue spreading software freedom in Europe in
2019.
== Get Active ==
Thanks to our first FSFE hackathon (see above) and also to previous
updates in recent weeks, our homepage has an ever more appealing and
intuitive user experience design. That means many changes to our English
web presence need to be reflected in other languages. If you would like
to help spread our message in your language, please help us to update
and translate the FSFE's new web pages! You can find information on how
you can contribute [23] on our translators page. Our translation team is
very helpful and welcoming. Do not hesitate to ask for any help or where
to start on our translators list [24].
== 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 [25], supporters [26] and
donors [27] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[28], who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.
Please be aware that there will be no newsletter in January.
Your editor,
Erik Albers
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1: http://savecodeshare.eu/
2: https://fsfe.org/donate/
3: https://my.fsfe.org/support
4: https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct
5: https://www.contributor-covenant.org/version/1/4/code-of-conduct
6: https://fsfe.org/about/mission
7: https://fsfe.org/donate/
8: https://my.fsfe.org/support
9: https://my.fsfe.org/support
10: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Events/2018/1124-fsfe-hackathon
11: https://git.fsfe.org/FSFE/fsfe-website/issues?milestone=9
12: https://fsfe.org/index.en.html
13: https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.html
14: https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.html
15: https://fsfe.org/community/tools/eventregistration
16: https://wiki.fsfe.org/LocalGroups/RheinMain
17: https://wiki.fsfe.org/LocalGroups/Hamburg
18: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Events/2018/FSFEKielMeeting_2018-11-22#head-e12ab4055…
19: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Events/2018/Fellowship%20Meeting%20Linz%202018-12-20#…
20: https://fsfe.org/community/tools/eventregistration
21: https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/Templates%20for%20Donations#preview
22: https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20181024-01
23: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
24: https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/translators
25: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
26: http://fsfe.org/join
27: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
28: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
29: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2018-11