Press-release of the Free Software Foundation Europe
For immediate release
"Jonas Oberg new Vice President of the FSF Europe"
On November 22nd, 2001, Jonas Oberg was appointed Vice President of
the Free Software Foundation Europe. Former Vice President, Loic
Dachary, has passed on his office because he needs to pursue other
activities within the Free Software community.
Having been involved in the FSF Europe since its founding, Loic has
been an important member of the core team and has been instrumental in
the process of establishing a foundation for a French local
chapter. He has also worked hard with the FSF Europe web pages and
contributes continously, among other things, as a system administrator
for several machines.
"My agenda on various Free Software related subjects, such as Savannah
(savannah.gnu.org) do not allow me to devote enough time to the Vice
President position in the Free Software Foundation Europe," says Loic
Dachary. "Instead of keeping the title without acting accordingly, I'm
passing the charge to Jonas."
Jonas has been involved in the Free Software community for numerous
years. He has previously worked as chief webmaster for the GNU
Project and has participated in several Free Software projects, such
as the GNU Enterprise project. The focus of his work now is the
development and furthering of Free Software all over Europe and in
particular the Scandinavian countries.
"The future of Free Software depends a lot on what we do today," says
Jonas Oberg, newly appointed Vice President of the FSF Europe. "I plan
to work to preserve the ability to use and develop Free Software in
all of its forms, for example by helping to extend the efforts already
underway against software patents and helping the media, government
and companies understand the underlying issues of Free Software."
About the FSF Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe is the European sister
organization of the Free Software Foundation created 1985 by Richard
M. Stallman in the United States of America.
Principal goals of the FSF Europe are coordination of Free Software
initiatives throughout Europe, providing a Free Software
competence-center for politicians and journalists and infrastructure
for Free Software projects, especially the GNU Project.
Further information about the FSF Europe can be found at
http://fsfeurope.org
Contact:
Europe
Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)gnu.org>
Tel: +49-40-23809080
Fax: +49-40-23809081
France
Frederic Couchet <fcouchet(a)april.org>
Tel: +33 6 60 68 89 31
Germany
Bernhard Reiter <bernhard(a)intevation.de>
Tel: +49-541 - 335 08 - 33
Italy
Alessandro Rubini <rubini(a)gnu.org>
Tel: +39-0382-529.554 (o .424)
Fax: +39-0382-529.424
Sweden
Jonas Öberg <jonas(a)gnu.org>
Tel: +46-21-144831
Further press contact information is available at
http://fsfeurope.org/press/
Announcement by the FSF Europe: "We speak about Free Software"
There are compelling reasons to think and speak about Free Software
and its philosophy. It is rather common knowledge this applies to
society as a whole, but it has not yet been widely understood
that it benefits companies, as well. Therefore the FSF Europe
launches this campaign on behalf and with support of several Free
Software companies.
[ permanent URL of this campaign:
http://fsfeurope.org/documents/whyfs.en.html ]
"We speak about Free Software"
Free Software is often referred to as "Open Source." This is a result
of an attempt by the Open Source Initiative (OSI) to create a
marketing campaign for Free Software.
The OSI set out to maintain the integrity of the movement and prevent
abuse by proprietary vendors by introducing "Open Source" as a
trademark for Free Software; but this initiative failed.
Examining the development of the Open Source Initative after three
years, it becomes apparent that the reasons to prefer the term Free
Software have become even more true. Speaking of Free Software or the
equivalent term in other languages offers many advantages, which we
explain below.
"Free Software" is easier to understand
Although some people say that using the term "free" creates ambiguity,
many languages have separate terms referring to freedom and price. In
these languages, the term "free" is not ambiguous. It may be in
others, including English, but in those misunderstandings can easily
be avoided by pointing out that free refers to freedom, not price.
The terminology "Open Source" refers to having access to the source
code. But access to the source code is only a precondition for two of
the four freedoms that define Free Software. Many people do not
understand that access to the source code alone is not enough. "Free
Software" avoids catering to this relatively common misunderstanding.
Free Software is harder to abuse
Unfortunately many companies have started calling their products "Open
Source" if at least some parts of the source code can be seen. Users
buy this software believing they are purchasing something "as good as
GNU/Linux" because it claims to follow the same principle.
We should not allow proprietary vendors to abuse peoples enthusiasm
like this. Since the "Open Source" trademarking initiative failed,
there is no way to prevent abuse of the term that becomes possible
because of the aforementioned misunderstanding.
Free Software is well-defined
Experience in science and philosophy has shown that a good and clear
definition is to be preferred.
The Free Software Definition of the Free Software Foundation with its
four freedoms is the clearest definition existing today.
Free Software provides additional value
Unlike Open Source, Free Software provides more than just a technical
model how to develop better software, it provides a
philosophy. Companies can learn and profit from the philosophy and
background of Free Software.
Free Software offers freedom
Free Software provides the freedoms to
- run the program, for any purpose.
- study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs.
- redistribute copies.
- improve the program, and release your improvements to the public,
so that the whole community benefits.
Because of these four freedoms, Free Software offers freedom to learn,
freedom to teach, freedom of competition, freedom of speech and
freedom of choice.
Freedom counts!
For all these reasons we made the conscious decision to avoid the term
Open Source and speak of Free Software or the equivalent term in other
languages.
We encourage you to make the same decision.
An initative of the
Free Software Foundation Europe
We speak about Free Software:
Alcôve - http://www.alcove.com
Intevation - http://intevation.net/
Lolix - http://fr.lolix.org/
Bytewise
Easter-Eggs - http://www.easter-eggs.com
Prosa srl - http://www.prosa.it/
Icube
Luminas Ltd
If your company also speaks about Free Software and would like to be
listed , please send mail to web(a)fsfeurope.org and let us know. Also
you can support the initiative by linking to
http://fsfeurope.org/documents/whyfs.en.html
The FSF Europe recommends: start avoiding SourceForge and use
alternative services instead!
Loïc Dachary: SourceForge drifting
[permanent URL of this document:
http://fsfeurope.org/news/article2001-10-20-01.en.html]
Over the past few months the SourceForge development facility, which
hosts a large number of Free Software projects, has changed its
policies. Features for exporting a project from SourceForge have been
removed. The implementation used to be exclusively Free Software but
is now based on non-free software. Finally, VA Linux[1] has become
rather underhand in their attempts to grasp exclusive control of
contributors' work.
SourceForge did a lot of good for the Free Software community, but
it's now time to break free.
* Locking users in a non-free software world
SourceForge brought to Free Software a unified and standard
development methodology based on modern tools. Before SourceForge,
such tools (bug tracking, cvs, web, support, forums, polls, news,
etc.) were available individually, but few developers used many of
them together, because they had to set up the combined facilities on
their own. SourceForge made the combination conveniently available for
both new and experienced developers.
Because of the convenience of SourceForge, many Free Software
developers have come to take this collection of features for granted,
and would be reluctant to go back to the old way of doing things.
Unfortunately, this means that when SourceForge itself takes a turn
for the worse, it tends to pull Free Software developers down with it.
The second important thing SourceForge did was to provide this
environment based exclusively on Free Software. By doing this,
SourceForge not only provided a powerful methodology for the Free
Software community, it also demonstrated what Free Software could do,
and promoted the use of Free Software. And since the special software
for SourceForge was itself free, anyone could set up a similar site.
The SourceForge software became permanently available to developers
everywhere. Developers in (say) India who can't afford the bandwidth
to use the SourceForge site could have the benefit of the same
features on their own server.
In August 2001, VA Linux reversed those policies and introduced
non-free software on the SourceForge server. In announcing this, Larry
Augustin (VA Linux CEO) claims that SourceForge.net users will "see
virtually no changes." That may be true if they narrow their vision
and consider only what job the site does and how to operate it. But
when we consider the implications, things are very different now.
Instead of a showcase for Free Software, SourceForge is now a demo
site for non-free software. There is a danger that the many thousands
of people registered on SourceForge will become increasingly hooked on
the SourceForge site and on features implemented by proprietary
software.
As a Free Software developer, you are still free to use the
SourceForge server, but you won't have the freedom to copy, modify,
study and distribute the software it runs; you won't be free to set up
a similar site yourself, or adapt it to your own needs. The last
published release of the SourceForge software is one year old.
The move to non-free software was the culmination of a series of steps
designed to lock users in. There never was a way to fully extract
projects from SourceForge, but efforts were made in this
direction--then this year they were removed. At present the only
things you can get are the CVS tree and tracker data
/export/sf_tracker_export.php. Few people are aware of the latter
because it is undocumented. The export page explains how to use
scripts that don't exist anymore; implementation of facilities to ease
project extraction was stopped. The developer community is
exclusively made of VA Linux employees and a few people who are asked
not to disclose the current code.
The mailing lists archives, a major service of SourceForge recently
became unmaintained. Will it be replaced by a non-free software based
solution ?
* Contributors' work appropriation
Here is what happened to me shortly before the announcement that
SourceForge would use and develop non-free software. Because I'm
listed as a contributor (in the sources and documentation) to the
SourceForge software, I received a request from VA Linux to assign
copyright to them. I was not surprised or unhappy with this; many
Free Software projects ask contributors to assign copyright of their
changes to the main author. Assigning copyright to a single holder is
a strategy for defending the GNU GPL more effectively, and I would
have been happy to cooperate in that regard.
But when I read the details of their copyright assignment, I saw major
problems. I was asked to assign copyright of my work that "is, or may
in the future be, utilized in the SourceForge collaborative software
development platform". The assignment was not limited to my
contribution to the SourceForge code, it potentially covered all my
past and future work if it was of some interest to SourceForge.
I was also expecting a promise that my work would be released under
the GNU GPL, but the assignment said nothing about Free Software. VA
Linux would be allowed to release the software I wrote under a
non-free software license and not let the community have it at all.
But I wasn't sure at the time if this was a real concern, because VA
Linux only produced and used Free Software. Two weeks later they
decided to introduce non-free software on SourceForge and that cast a
different light on the question.
VA Linux told me that they only sent the assignment to two people, in
the hope to refine it. We started a long discussion that lasted two
months. I assumed this discussion was to make the copyright
assignment more palatable to the Free Software community, so I worked
hard to give constructive feedback. Finally I was sent the version of
the copyright assignment produced by the legal department. I quote it
here in its entirety:
SourceForge Copyright Assignment
Thank you for your interest in contributing software code to
SourceForge.
In order for us to include the code in our product, we will
need you to provide us with the rights to the code.
By signing this agreement, you, the undersigned, hereby assign
to VA Linux all right, title and interest in and to the
software code described below, and all copyright, patent,
proprietary information, trade secret, and other intellectual
property rights therein. You also agree to take all actions and
sign all documents (such as copyright assignments or
registrations) reasonably requested by VA Linux to evidence and
record the above assignments.
This was even more of a power grab than the first draft. "You give us
total control; we promise nothing". At this point, I knew that the
attempts to clarify the copyright assignment were a waste of time; VA
Linux clearly wasn't collecting copyright assignments in order to
enforce the GNU GPL.
* Escape entrapment
It's time for people who value freedom to escape from SourceForge. It
has become a tar pit from which escape will become increasingly
difficult. Development hosting platforms based completely on Free
Software flourish all over the world. You can create your own, join
an existing one or help write the underlying software. Some months ago
I helped to launch Savannah for the GNU project because I felt the
need of a collaboratively run platform. With friends and
co-developpers we are now re-writing and packaging distributed
development hosting software. The idea is to be able to install and
operate a SourceForge-like site within hours. Savannah will run this
software at the end of this year. At first it may have less
functionality than SourceForge, but it has a bright future because it
is rooted in a cooperative effort of people sharing Free Software.
SourceForge is free as in free beer because it was designed this
way. It was a very expensive and ephemeral gift to the Free Software
community. We could resent VA Linux for such a poisoned gift. On the
contrary I think we should thank them. They brought us methodology,
and taught us that a development hosting facility must be built in a
distributed and collaborative way, not by a single company controlling
everything from top to bottom. Of course that means everyone needs to
spend a little time developing and maintaining these hosting
facilities. We've finished our beer, it's time to win our freedom.
Loïc Dachary
[1] VA Linux is the owner of the SourceForge domain name, provides and
owns the hardware, pays for the bandwidth, hire people maintaining
SourceForge. VA Linux is also the owner of most sites, the largest
concentration of Free Software related resources in the hands of a
single company.
Juridical Coup at the European Patent Office
EuroLinux demands European governments to replace
the current board of the European Patent Office
and to strengthen democratic control
EuroLinux Alliance
petition.EuroLinux.org
For immediate Release
Munich, Paris. 2001-11-05 - Without waiting for the expected vote by
the European Union of a directive on the patentatibility of software,
the European Patent Office just published a new examination directive
which extends the realm of the European patent practice to software,
business methods and mathematics [1,2].
This decision constitutes a violation of the European democracy and a
provocation against European governments which had publicly stated
last November 2000 that they wanted tighter political control over the
European Patent Office and decided to preserve the exception for
computer programmes. [3] This shameful and unacceptable decision also
constitutes a violation of Article 22 of of the European Patent
Convention which stipulates that only the Enlarged Board of Appeal may
take decisions on significant patent policy issues. However, the
European Patent Office has extended the realm of the European patent
practice through hidden decisions of technical boards in order not to
ask their opinion to European governments. The European Patent Office
has tried to circumvent the democratic control of European Governments
through adventurous administrative processes. The European Patent
Office ignores its ruling authorities. [4] The European Patent Office
scorns the 80% of software companies which are against software
patents. [5, 6]
EuroLinux demands that European governments act firmly.
All projects of directive on the patentability of software, based on
the opinion of European governments, and written by the General
Directorate for Internal Market, require the European Patent Office to
act in a controlable and sensible way. However, control and common
sense do not seem to be appropriate terms for the current behaviour of
the European Patent Office. Therefore, EuroLinux demands governments
to
* clearly state their oppositioons to the patentability of software
and intangible innovations,
* demonstrate to the public opinion their ability to control the
European Patent Office by replacing urgently the current board,
responsible of repeated violations of the European Patent
Convention and of the Diplomatic Conference.
EuroLinux urges all companies, all software users and all citizens who
whish to protect software innovation in Europe and free competition in
the information society to join the 90.000 individual supporters and
300 corporate supporters of our petition for a software patent free
Europe [7].
References
[1] EPO Press Release for the new examination rules for software -
http://swpat.ffii.org/cnino/epgl01A/indexen.html
[2] New EPO examination rules for software -
http://www.epo.co.at/legal/gui_lines/f/c_iv_2.htm
[3] EPO Press Release after the November 2001 conference 2001 -
http://www.european-patent-office.org/news/pressrel/2000_11_29_e.htm
[4] Stealing with a Righteous Effect, a tale explaining how the EPO
could patnet the unpatentable -
http://swpat.ffii.org/stidi/epc52/moses/indexen.html
[5] The Results of the European Commission Consultation Exercise -
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/indprop/softanalyse.pdf
[6] Acceptable protection of software intellectual property: a survey
of software developers and lawyers -
http://www.pro-innovation.org/rapport_brevet/economy/elsevier/acceptab
le.pdf
[7] EuroLinux Petition - http://petition.eurolinux.org
About EuroLinux - www.EuroLinux.org
The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an
open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations
united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture
based on Open Standards, Open Competition, Linux and Open Source
Software. Companies members or supporters of EuroLinux develop or sell
software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for operating
systems such as Linux, MacOS or Windows.
The EuroLinux Alliance launched on 2000-06-15 an electronic petition
to protect software innovation in Europe. The EuroLinux petition has
received so far massive support from more than 90.000 European
citizens, 2000 corporate managers and 300 companies.
The EuroLinux Alliance has co-organised in 1999, together with the
French Embassy in Japan, the first Europe-Japan conference on Linux
and Free Software. The EuroLinux Alliance is at the initiative of the
www.freepatents.org web site to promote and protect innovation and
competition in the European IT industry.
Press Contacts
France & Europe: Jean-Paul Smets jp(a)smets.com +33-6 62 05 76 14
Germany & Europe: Harmut Pilch phm(a)ffii.org +49-89 127 89 608
Denmark and Northern Europe: Anne Østergaard aoe(a)sslug.dk
Belgium: Nicolas Pettiaux nicolas.pettiaux(a)linuxbe.org
Permanent URL for this PR
http://petition.EuroLinux.org/pr/pr14.html
Legalese
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
All other trademarks and copyrights are owned by their respective
companies.
--
Petition contre les brevets logiciels http://petition.eurolinux.org/
Frederic Couchet Tel: 06 60 68 89 31 / 01 49 22 67 89
APRIL http://www.april.org/
Free Software Foundation Europe http://www.fsfeurope.org/