EU browser case: FSFE says details of settlement will be crucial
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) congratulates the European
Commission on its firm stance in the antitrust investigation against
Microsoft, which has led the company to offer a settlement. For any
such settlement, getting the details right will be crucial for
competition and innovation in the web browser market.
"To ensure genuine consumer choice, the ballot screen must be made
available to Microsoft Windows users around the world, not just in
Europe", says Karsten Gerloff, President of FSFE. "The company is
upholding its dominance thanks to the network effects created by its
illegal practice of bundling Internet Explorer with Windows operating
systems in all markets where it sells its software. In a globally
interconnected market, remedies must be global."
As an interested third party in the case, FSFE maintains that any
settlement must put competing browsers on an equal footing with
Internet Explorer. They must be accessible just as easily as
Microsoft's own browser, and must provide users with at least the
same degree of integration into the operating system.
The procedure for selecting the browsers to be included in the ballot
screen is a key issue of the proposal. This procedure needs to be
based on a clearly defined algorithm, closely controlled by the
European Commission.
"Simply including browsers according to usage share would freeze the
market in its current state, rather than invigorate it. Instead,
market trends and cross-platform availability of each browser should
be the key parameters for this selection", says Adriaan de Groot,
FSFE's Legal Coordinator.
FSFE will continue to support the European Commission in its
effort to bring fair access, competition and innovation to the web
browser market. FSFE considers anti-competitive behaviour
unacceptable, whether it occurs through 'tying' products, or in
circumventing standards and fair access.
FSFE promotes freedom of choice and protects Open Standards. This
includes working against abuse of standards through proprietary
extensions that unlawfully segment the Internet. FSFE welcomes the
participation of any company in the browser market, including the
optimisation of their products to work well on target platforms.
But no company should be in a position to dictate what the Internet
will look like by leveraging platform dominance into erosion of
standards through control of server and client.
For FSFE's previous statement on this issue please see:
Web browser interoperability: FSFE welcomes EC's decision and offers support
http://mailman.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2009q1/000228.html
FSFE engages in the EU browser case
http://mailman.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2009q1/000231.html
For FSFE's letter to the European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes
please see:
http://fsfe.org/documents/20071219-opera-antitrust.pdf
Background
FSFE previously supported the European Commission's DG Competition
in its 2001 investigation against Microsoft's non-disclosure of
interoperability data. This was the first time the Free Software
community became involved in such a case, and helped lead to a final
decision in 2004 against Microsoft demanding that interoperability
information be made public.
The ruling was upheld by a 2007 ruling at the European Court of
First Instance, and eventually, Samba and the entire community
received access to the interoperability information upon conditions
compatible with the GNU General Public License, which is now being
implemented into better and more interoperable software that will
benefit the entire IT ecosystem.
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in
the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these
issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving
people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are
central issues of the FSFE.
Press contact:
Karsten Gerloff <gerloff(a)fsfeurope.org> +49 176 9690 4298
Adriaan de Groot <groot(a)fsfeurope.org>
Carlo Piana <carlo(a)piana.eu>
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) Newsletter - June 2009
June has definitely been a thrilling month. Besides our ongoing
activities with Fellowship meetings, participations to events such as
the LinuxTag in Berlin, most of our energy and attention were directed
at the General Assembly (GA) held in Miraflores de la Sierra.
This has been an important event for our organisation since, for the
first time, it included a representative of the Fellowship; it
presented our new Spanish team and gave the chance for community
building during the social event, but more importantly, it put in
place our new Executive Team!
Read on to get to know them!
Giacomo Poderi
1. FSFE participates at "LinuxTag 2009", Berlin, 24-27 June
2. Social event and presentation of Spanish team, Miraflores de la Sierra, Spain, 20 June
3. The account from the first Fellowship representative at the GA
4. Two year Executive Summary (2007-2009)
5. Fellowship meeting in Berlin, 11 June
6. It's time for the community to take charge of its brand
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
7. The new Executive Team appointed at FSFE's General Assembly 2009
IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST
8. Introducing the translators team
UPCOMING EVENTS
9. FSFE booth at RMLL Nantes, France, 07-11 July
10. Fellowship Meeting in Berlin, 09 July
1. FSFE participates at "LinuxTag 2009", Berlin, 24-27 June
We participated with a booth at the "LinuxTag", in Berlin, as in the
years before. The event took place at Berlin's Expo Center from 24-27
June, and attracted about 10,000 visitors interested in Free Software at
all kind of levels, 135 exhibitors and about 300 speakers. This year,
our booth was coordinated by Lena Simon and Matthias Kirschner with the
valuable help of 12 volunteers, who manned it over the four days event.
This year our booth included some novelties such as brand new
pdfreaders.org leaflets, an introductory comic strip to the Fellowship
and the alpha version of a booth game named "GNUstav the GNU". Read more
about it on Matthias' and Torsten's blog posts:
http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=284http://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/2009/07/01/linux-tag-2009/
2. Social event and presentation of Spanish team, Miraflores de la Sierra, Spain, 20 June
On Saturday 20 June, after a public presentation of our Spanish team,
all General Assembly (GA) members, Fellows and friends were invited to
the "compile your own"-Cocktail-Party. Roughly 30 people adapted the
four basic principles of Free Software to the art of cocktail
mixing. The raw materials were deployed at La Cristalera and the party
people were provided with the source code of various cocktails. This
social event was a valuable chance for community building and
strengthen of personal ties amongst colleagues and friends.
http://fsfe.org/news/2009/ga2009.html
3. The account from the first Fellowship representative at the GA
Torsten Grote is the first Fellow elected to represent the Fellowship
at FSFE's GA. In Miraflores de la Sierra, he had the chance to
participate in high level decision-making process within the
organisation. He has already reported with an e-mail to all Fellows, his
views on the experience. Torsten said, "I was surprised how much influence
I had on the decisions that were made". He continues "My concerns and
proposals were not treated differently from the ones of any other member.
This way I had considerable influence on all the decisions made and was
able to check if the executive team does and will do its job properly."
Torsten will keep his blog up to date to include more coverage on the GA.
Don't miss it!
http://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/
4. Two year Executive Summary (2007-2009)
In preparation of the General Assembly (GA) of this year, Georg Greve,
former FSFE's President, drafted the biennial executive summary on the
work of the organisation, which is now available on-line. The document
summarises the cornerstone activities in various areas such as the
Microsoft Antitrust Case, open standards, the United Nations and the
legal work of the Freedom Task Force. The Executive Summary is a good
resource to understand the current changes and further directions of
our organisation.
http://fsfe.org/documents/reports/es-2009.html
5. Fellowship meeting in Berlin, 11 June
The Fellowship group of Berlin met on 11 June in the Newthinking Store
at Tucholskystraße 48. At the meeting, Sabine Stengel from Cartogis
gave a talk about OpenStreetMap, which was followed by an inspiring
discussion. The preparation for the LinuxTag was another main topic of
the evening. Torsten answered Fellows' questions about his new role
as representative at the GA. About 25 Fellows and interested guests
participated in the two hours official meeting, and also joined for a
more informal social gathering at the pub.
http://wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Berlin
6. It's time for the community to take charge of its brand
As the terms "Free Software" and "Open Source" are becoming more and
more mainstream we are seeing many companies that want to 'jump on the
bandwagon', branding anything they produce as Free or Open Source
Software. However, it often happens that the mixed models they want to
sell are far from what we would call Free Software. Georg published a
concise post with the title "It's time for the community to take
charge of its brand", which focuses on current corporate practices of
mixing models and depriving the community of their meaning and
understanding of Free Software.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=347
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
7. The new Executive Team appointed at FSFE's General Assembly 2009
Our yearly GA meeting was held in Miraflores de la Sierra, Spain, on
19-21 June. It brought about a lot of changes. Torsten in the role of
first Fellowship's representative was there, our Spanish team, who
hosted and organised the meeting, was formally presented and, most
exciting, the new Executive Team was deliberated upon and formally set
it up.
Karsten Gerloff, Fernanda Weiden, Christian Holz, Adrian de Groot,
Matthias Kirschner and Reinhard Müller are the people who will lead
FSFE for the coming years. They are, respectively, our new President,
Vice-President, Executive Director, FTF coordinator, Fellowship
coordinator and Financial Officer. Georg Greve, who founded the
organisation together with others and chaired it during the past eight
years says about the new team: "There is no doubt in my mind that
these extraordinary people are a dream team to ensure both continuity
and change towards a better, larger, and more successful FSFE."
The new Executive Team is well aware of the capabilities of the
organisation and will work to strengthen it even further. Karsten,
FSFE's new President, says: "Georg Greve and his team have done
splendid work over the past eight years, building FSFE out of nothing
into an organisation that is highly respected and trusted as an expert
group on Free Software, and as a reliable partner in policy making and
negotiations." Fernanda, FSFE's Vice-President, continues: "The people
in this organisation have a deep understanding not only of technology
itself, but also of its social and political aspects. Together, we
can continue to develop cutting-edge thinking on how we as a society
handle knowledge, and how we can best make the most of technology."
More information about the new team and how to contact them can be
found here:
http://fsfe.org/about/members.en.html
Relevant links:
http://fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20090624-01.htmlhttp://fsfe.org/news/2009/ga2009.htmlhttp://fsfe.org/documents/reports/es-2009.htmlhttp://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=354
IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST
8. Introducing the translators team
The international reach of our organisation demands that our information
and documents are available in as many languages as possible. Five years
ago we decided to give space for a flexible, responsive, and well
coordinated translator team to grow. The decision has paid off extremely
well. As of today, most of the content on http://fsfe.org is available
in 27 languages. Thanks to our volunteers for their excellent job!
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2004q3/000065.html
UPCOMING EVENTS
9. FSFE booth at RMLL Nantes, France, 07-11 July
The 10th RMLL, "Rencontre Mondial de Logiciel Libre" (LSM, Libre
Software Meeting) is taking place at Nantes. Rainer Kersten will
organise a FSFE booth there. RMLL is the most important Free Software
event in France and some 5000 visitors are expected.
Whoever would like to come and help is highly welcome. To coordinate,
please contact:
dus < AT > office < DOT > fsfeurope < DOT > org
http://2009.rmll.info/
10. Fellowship Meeting in Berlin, 09 July
The local Berlin Fellowship group will meet on 9 July at 7.30 pm at
the Newthinking Store, in Tucholskystraße 48. This time there will be
a discussion with representatives from political party youth
organisations about Free Software. As always, guests are welcome to
join.
http://wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Berlin
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html
You can join the Fellowship or find how to support us on
http://fellowship.fsfe.org/joinhttp://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.html
You can order our merchandise at
http://fsfe.org/order/order.html
Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
Introducing FSFE's new president, vice president and executive team
During its General Assembly in Miraflores de la Sierra, Spain, the
members of FSFE elected new coordinators for several of the
organisation's activities, including strategy, legal and executive
coordination.
"The new team will continue FSFE's highly successful work with the
same long-term vision. We will work hard to justify the trust
which the Free Software community is putting into FSFE", says the
new president, Karsten Gerloff.
He continues: "Georg Greve and his team have done splendid work
over the past eight years, building FSFE out of nothing into an
organisation that is highly respected and trusted as an expert
group on Free Software, and as a reliable partner in policy making
and negotiations."
The newly elected Vice President Fernanda Weiden comments: "FSFE
has strong roots in the community. The people in this organisation
have a deep understanding not only of technology itself, but also
of its social and political aspects. Together, we can continue to
develop cutting-edge thinking on how we as a society handle
knowledge, and how we can best make the most of technology."
Christian Holz, appointed Executive Director, says: "Coming from a
business background and having worked with Free Software since the
early nineties, I am excited to become more involved in FSFE. The
team is highly motivated, and we have wonderful volunteers who
support our actions and cause."
Adriaan de Groot, FSFE's designated Freedom Task Force Coordinator:
"As Free Software has become mainstream, education and advice on its
legal aspects are getting more important every day. With the FTF, we
will continue to protect the interests of Free Software projects and
we stand ready to assist the community wherever our help may be
required."
Matthias Kirschner, newly hired to coordinate the Fellowship and the
German team, comments: "The Fellowship is key to building awareness
for Free Software in our society. It has become a magnet for smart,
dedicated people who care about Free Software, and an important
pillar for FSFE's financial stability. We will support FSFE's Fellows
and help them to make an impact wherever they are."
FSFE's founder and former president Georg Greve will remain in the
organisation as a volunteer. He expresses his full support for the new
team. "There is no doubt in my mind that these extraordinary people
are a dream team to ensure both continuity and change towards a
better, larger, and more successful FSFE. The past months of work to
prepare the ground with and for them have been a pleasure, and I look
forward to all the many achievements for software freedom this team is
going to bring about."
More information on the new team:
Karsten Gerloff http://fsfe.org/about/gerloff/
Fernanda Weiden http://fsfe.org/about/nanda/
Christian Holz http://fsfe.org/about/holz/
Adriaan de Groot http://fsfe.org/about/adridg/
Matthias Kirschner http://fsfe.org/about/kirschner/
A personal blog entry by Georg Greve:
http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=354
The new team is available for comments:
Karsten Gerloff +49 176 9690 4298
Fernanda Weiden +41 764 0218 66
Christian Holz +49 178 8359 482
Adriaan de Groot +31 6 2856 1142
Matthias Kirschner +49 176 2952 0450
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries
and involved in many global activities. Access to software
determines participation in a digital society. To secure equal
participation in the information age, as well as freedom of
competition, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues
and is dedicated to the furthering of Free Software, defined by
the freedoms to use, study, modify and copy. Founded in 2001,
creating awareness for these issues, securing Free Software
politically and legally, and giving people Freedom by supporting
development of Free Software are central issues of the FSFE.
http://fsfe.org
Press contact: gerloff at fsfeurope.org
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) Newsletter - May 2009
May has been an hot month for us. Not only because the first real sunbeams
start showing up all-over Europe, but mainly because during the whole month
we run our first-ever voting process to elect a Fellow representative to FSFE
General Assembly (GA). Moreover, we published our call for applications as
coordinator and staff positions in our legal department, and our Austrian
team concluded its challenging and satisfying tour across the whole Austria,
by participating to "Linuxwochen Eisenstadt".
Right now, while drafting this newsletter, Matthias Kirschner announced the
result of the election, therefore if you want to know who is the first Fellow
to sit at FSFE's General Assembly, just keep reading!
Giacomo Poderi
1. FSFE participates to eLiberatica 2009, 22-23 May
2. Open Standards update in PDFreaders.org
3. FSFE seeking legal department coordinator and staff positions
4. Bernhard Reiter lectures at University of Stuttgart
5. Looking for input on the backpack of your dreams
6. The Fellowship interviews: Timo Jyrinki
7. FSFE participates at "Linuxwochen Eisenstadt", Austria 8-9 May
8. FSFE welcomes the launch of iUnika Libre UMPC at Libremeeting 2009, 13 May
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
9. Closing the Fellowship vote for the GA seat and announcing the result!
IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST
10. Introducing the FSFE newsletter
UPCOMING EVENTS
11. Fellowship Meeting in Berlin, 11 June
12. Social event co-located with FSFE's GA, Miraflores de la Sierra, Spain, 20 June
13. FSFE participates at "LinuxTag 2009", Berlin, 24-27 June
1. FSFE participates to eLiberatica 2009, 22-23 May
Fellowship posters lined the wall at this year's edition of eLiberatica
in Bucharest where FSFE president Georg Greve analysed the shortcomings
of wide-spread innovation policies in providing a balanced environment
for innovation, competition and governmental procurement in his speech
"Free Software 2009: challenges and opportunities." Organised once more
by an energetic team of volunteers, eLiberatica continues to be a very
important conference in the region, and we intend to participate in
the next one, as we participated in all previous editions.
http://eliberatica.ro
2. Open Standards update in PDFreaders.orgPDFreaders.org was launched less than six months ago, as a Fellowship project
to promote Free Software PDF readers for all the major platforms. Thanks to
the hard work of our Fellows and the cooperation with José E. Marchesi,
GNU PDF team, PDFreaders.org now includes an Open Standard (OS) page.
This is an easy to read and complete instructive page which explains the
nuances of the format from a standards perspective and provide
the technical-legal background for why we are able to support it.
http://pdfreaders.org/os.en.html
3. FSFE seeking legal department coordinator and staff positions
Our organisation is slowly, but constantly growing. To manage the increasing
work load and managerial challenges, we recently started looking for an
Executive Director (ED) who would oversee the daily work of the organisation.
Similarly, our legal department, the Freedom Task Force (FTF), is becoming
a key actor in the European Free Software licensing area, as the success
of the "Second European Licensing and Legal Workshop for Free Software"
shows. Therefore, we also started accepting application for coordinator
and staff positions for the FTF.
http://fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20090515-01.html
4. Bernhard Reiter lectures at University of Stuttgart
On 7 May, Bernhard Reiter gave a talk at the University of Stuttgart about
"Professional Free Software in Economy and Politics" as part of the lecture
"Free/Libre and Open Source Software Engineering". A mixed public of 20
people, made by students, researchers, activists and interested persons
attended the lecture. Bernhard mostly focused on categories of Free Software
licenses, after having provided an overview of Free Software principles,
Open Standards and the problems of software patents.
5. Looking for input on the backpack of your dreams
As a new item to add to our merchandise stock, we are planning to produce
a backpack, which should satisfy the taste and needs of hacktivists.
We would like to encourage the Fellows, an other interested people to give
their input to the details. How should the backpack you always dreamed
of look like? What should it absolutely have? And what not? We are thinking
of high quality material, so it might also be useful to know what price can
be considered reasonable. Feel free to send your ideas to:
dus <AT> office <DOT> fsfeurope <DOT> org
6. The Fellowship interviews: Timo Jyrinki
This month, Stian Rødven Eide interviewed Timo Jyrinki for "The smallest
unit of freedom" series. Beside being a Fellow, Timo is also the team contact
for Ubuntu Finland, the friendly media face of Wikipedia Finland, and founder
of local advocacy project Vapaa Suomi (Libre Finland). In the interview,
Timo tells us about his interest in computer graphics, his involvement
as developer and translator in different projects and organizations. He
shared with Stian and with us his thoughts on user interfaces, the Free
Software situation in Finland and on how businesses should let the
community lead.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=58
7. FSFE participates at "Linuxwochen Eisenstadt", Austria 8-9 May
As conclusive stage of the Austrian events started in March, our Austrian
team manned a booth at "Linuxwochen Eisenstadt", in Eisenstadt, Austria.
Although the event was smaller than the previous ones, our volunteers at
the booth presented our current work and merchandise to the visitors in
a friendly atmosphere. The Austrian team will soon make available pictures,
reports and slides concerning the whole series of events.
8. FSFE welcomes the launch of iUnika Libre UMPC at Libremeeting 2009, 13 May
Georg and Pablo Machón, President and Vice-president of FSFE, participated
at "Libremeeting 2009" which took place on 13 May, in Miraflores de la Sierra,
Spain. Central theme of this year was "business and free software
industry", and it is during the event that iUnika Gyy Minipc was launched.
The Ultra Mobile Personal Computer (UMPC) weights 700 g, it is eco-friendly,
as it is made of bioplastic and is also capable of using solar power.
Thanks to the mediation of our Spanish team and our associate organisation,
the Free Knowledge Foundation (FKF), Iunika has committed to use only
100% Free Software for its product and, in accordance with the manufacturer,
will deliver with each unit our informative material and general Free
Software documentation.
http://www.meeting.libre.org/libremeeting-2009http://www.iunika.com/
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
9. Closing the Fellowship vote for the GA seat and announcing the result!
With the end of May it found conclusion a significant experience both for
us and for the Fellowship. The whole election process that brought us to
identify and to elect the first Fellow to seat at the General Assembly (GA)
reached an end. This experience required us to plan and implement a process
we were not familiar with and, at the same time, demanded the Fellows who
decided to candidate, to put themselves under scrutiny by other Fellows.
Torsten Grote, Jan-Hendrik Peters, Michel Roche and Björn Schießle were the
Fellows standing out from the the candidacy period in March.
During the whole month of May other Fellows had the chance to get to know
them through their blogs and the Fellowship portal, before making up their
minds and voting them.
Of particular interest in the whole process was the "Meet the candidates"
jabber meeting we run on 25 May. Starting from 20:30 and for the following
two hours Björn, Jan-Hendrik, Michel and Torsten answered to Fellows' questions.
The topic of the questions ranged from potential strategies for increasing
Fellowship's efficiency in spreading Free Software to the kind of commitment
the candidates would be able to provide when elected, from the Fellowship's
shortcomings and the strategies to improve it to the candidates' motivations
to run for the elections. The meeting was a success with nearly 30 Fellows
constantly present throughout the whole session and actively participating.
After the conclusion of the meeting, moderated by Matthias Kirschner,
some of the Fellows continued discussing informally on Free Software.
This kind of meeting will definitely become part of the official election
process for the Fellowship's seats and we will also set up similar
meetings more often. We hope you will participate!
It is now time to thank Björn, Jan-Hendrik and Michel for
their involvement in the process and to congratulate with Torsten Grote
for he is the first Fellow elected to represent the Fellowship at our
GA. Congratulation Torsten! See you in Miraflores de la Sierra!
http://fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20090601-01.html
Relevant links:
http://wiki.fsfe.org/election09http://fsfe.org/news/2008/news-20081210-01.htmlhttp://fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20090301-01.htmlhttp://fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20090411-01.html
IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST
10. Introducing the FSFE newsletter
May and June are usually the months for us to have our GA. It is during
the GA held five years ago, on 15 May 2004, that the core members decided
to improve the level of information we provided our public about our activities.
Thus it was decided to start publishing a monthly newsletter and this is
the first we ever published:
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2004q2/000061.html
UPCOMING EVENTS
11. Fellowship Meeting in Berlin, 11 June
The local Fellowship group will meet on 11 June in the NewThinkingStore at
Tucholskystraße 48. There will be discussions about Openstreetmap, "Linuxtag" and
our campaign regarding the "Bundestagswahl". Guests are welcome to join in!
http://wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Berlin
12. Social event co-located with FSFE's GA, Miraflores de la Sierra, Spain, 20 June
On Saturday 20 June in Miraflores de la Sierra, in Spain, we will organise
a social event co-located with our GA, which will take place in the same
place on 19-21 June. Check our news page for the details of the event as
they will be published shortly.
13. FSFE participates at "LinuxTag 2009", Berlin, 24-27 June
We will participate with a booth at "LinuxTag 2009" which takes place at
Berlin's Expo Center. The crew of our booth will explain visitors the
importance of Free Software for society and economy.
http://www.elinuxtag.org/2009/
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html
You can join the Fellowship or find how to support us on
http://fellowship.fsfe.org/joinhttp://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.html
You can order our merchandise at
http://fsfe.org/order/order.html
Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) Newsletter - April 2009
Do you know one thing that makes Free Software sustainable? You! Yes, it
is your support that allows us to operate across the whole Europe and at
different levels to promote and defend Free Software principles.
Amongst other things, your donations made possible the planning and
coordination of the Second European Licensing and Legal Workshop. They
allowed the Austrian team to participate in many public events across
the whole Austria and to continue having an intern in our Zurich office.
We finished the accounting work for the last year and we published our
financial figures. Take a look at them to see how we use your donations.
I want to conclude by introducing a couple of changes in the newsletter.
I hope they will improve your 'reading experience' of FSFE's ongoing
work. First, "In the spotlight" is a new section where I will treat in more
details a selected news. Second, since time passes by and the events
pile up, I will pick-up a noteworthy item from the past and mention it
under the "It happened in the past" section.
Giacomo Poderi
1. Second European Licensing and Legal Workshop for Free Software, 23-24 April
2. FSFE at WIPO's 3rd Session of the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property
3. FSFE amicus brief to European Patent Office on Software Patents
4. The Fellowship interviews: Myriam Schweingruber
5. FSFE welcomes Thomas Jensch, new intern for Zurich office
6. Fellowship vote for GA seats - the election is ongoing
7. Renewal of Fellowship services
8. PDFreaders.org enjoys continued success
9. FSFE invades Austria
IN THE SPOTLIGHT
10. FSFE - Income and Expense 2008
IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST
11. The first Fellowship Smartcards
UPCOMING EVENTS
12. FSFE at eLiberatica 2009, 22-23 May
1. Second European Licensing and Legal Workshop for Free Software, 23-24 April
The second European Licensing and Legal Workshop was a resounding
success. On 23 and 24 April, legal experts and interested parties in
Free Software licensing gathered in Amsterdam for a vibrant event
organised by our Freedom Task Force (FTF) and sponsored by Bender von
Haller Dragsted, Blackduck, Canonical, HP and Mozilla. Harald Welte,
from gplviolations.org, says from his blog: "I have to admit that it was
a big surprise to me that the constructive atmosphere and the quality of
the presentations, panels and hallway discussions has even improved beyond
the already exceptional level last year". Indeed, the conference was
considerably bigger than in 2008, and planning is already under way for
an enhanced and even larger event in 2010.
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2009q1/000233.html
2. FSFE at WIPO's 3rd Session of the Committee on Development and Intellectual Property
>From 27 April to 1 May, FSFE's President Georg Greve, participated to
the "Committee on Development and Intellectual Property: Third
Session" (CDIP/3) at World Intellectual Property Organization
(WIPO). In preparation to that meeting, Georg published "The case for
a World Innovation Policy Organisation", reflecting on the current
significance of the WIPO Development Agenda and how it should relate
to international issues such as the one of software patents. Issues
that Georg raised at CDIP/3 as three formal intervention on FSFE's behalf
throughout the week.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=321http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=327http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=333http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=340http://fsfe.org/projects/wipo/
3. FSFE amicus brief to European Patent Office on Software Patents
Along with many other organisations, FSFE submitted its comments to
the European Patent Office (EPO) on the patentability of software,
responding to a request of the Enlarged Board of Appeal. In the
submission, FSFE explains why software patents are harmful for
innovation, competition and economy, based also on the rationale of
the work done at WIPO's Standing Committee on the Law of Patents (SCP)
in March.
http://fsfe.org/projects/swpat/epo-response-042009.htmlhttp://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=302
4. The Fellowship interviews: Myriam Schweingruber
Myriam Schweingruber is the Fellow interviewed for "The smallest unit
of freedom" series. Myriam is a devoted Free Software advocate with a
flair for convincing people. Having worked as a translator, a school
teacher and a pharmacist, Myriam is quite experienced in the art of
communication, and gives a clear impression of trustworthiness. In the
interview she tells us about her experiences with Whilhelm Tux,
Amarok, KDE, FSFE and Free Software in general.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=46
5. FSFE welcomes Thomas Jensch, new intern for Zurich office
We are happy to welcome Thomas Jensch as our new intern in the Zurich
office. Thomas is a political science student at the University of
Leipzig in Germany. His job during the next 8 months will be to help
us in administrative work and to support the President in coordinating
his various activities. Once again, welcome on board Thomas!
Doing an internship at FSFE is an exciting and formative experience.
If you want to be our next intern, take a look at:
http://fsfe.org/contribute/internship.html
6. Fellowship vote for GA seats - the election is ongoing
The voting period for the first seat at our General Assembly (GA)
reserved to a Fellow is approaching. The four candidates: Torsten
Grote, Jan-Hendrik Peters, Michel Roche, and Björn Schiessle presented
themselves to the whole Fellowship. You can get to know them by
visiting their blogs and our wiki election page. The approaching and
important dates are: the entire month of May as the voting period and
the 1 June 2009, when we will announce the results. All our Fellows
already received an e-mail containing information and instructions on
the voting procedures.
http://wiki.fsfe.org/election09http://fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20090411-01.html
7. Renewal of Fellowship services
The work on the new Fellowship technological infrastructure is going
on. Last month, we completed the migration from the old Fellowship
portal to the new site http://fellowship.fsfe.org (for more
information about moving your data: http://wiki.fsfe.org/OldPortal)
and we activated the new home page, registration procedure and account
management pages. You can find an overview of the active Fellowship
services at http://wiki.fsfe.org/FellowshipServices and stay informed
about their status following the "Fellowship News" blog at:
http://fellowship.fsfe.org/news/http://fellowship.fsfe.org/news.rss
8. PDFreaders.org enjoys continued success
PDFreaders.org was launched less than six months ago, as a Fellowship
project to promote Free Software PDF readers for all the major
platforms. Since then, the website has become a formidable success,
gaining the attention of several vendors of proprietary PDF readers,
including Adobe, as well as much positive response from the community.
April saw yet another increase in traffic after an RSA security
conference, where Mikko Hypponen research officer at F-Secure referred
to PDFreaders.org in light of the recently disclosed vulnerabilities
present in Adobe Reader. Our volunteers managed to translate
PDFreaders.org into 15 languages and our Fellows are continuously
updating it. New readers have recently been added and a major update
concerning Open Standard is approaching!
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-10224449-83.htmlhttp://pdfreaders.org
9. FSFE invades Austria
Continuing the "Linuxwochen Österreich Tour" started in March, our
Austrian team spread Free Software principles to major Austrian events
for the whole April. The tour consists of six events, four of which in
April, for a total of nine days booth and six talks. Peter
Bubestinger, Deputy Coordinator Austria, held five of the speeches and
David Ayer, Austrian team member, held the one in Linz. The themes of
the talks ranged from Free Software in schools and education to future
scenarios on Free Software usage. These are the April stages of the
tour: "FLOSStag 2009", 15 April, Danube University Krems; "Linuxwochen
Wien", 16-18 April, Vienna; "Liwoli 2009", 23-25 April, University for
Art and Industrial Design Linz; "LinuxTage", 25 April, Graz.
SPOTLIGHT
10. FSFE - Income and Expense 2008
We recently published our financial figures for 2008. This has been an
intense year and as the previous ones it confirmed the growth of our
work's breadth. With 245,000 and 68,000 EUR respectively, donations
and the Fellowship programme confirmed to be vital to the sustainment
of our organisation. Once more, we would like to express our gratitude
to anyone who decided to donate or to become a Fellow. This allows us
to run our projects and to work for the diffusion and defence of Free
Software. With a total income of 383,221 EUR and an expense of 303,419
EUR, 2008 concluded with a very positive balance and this will allow
us to empower our organisation as we were planning to do since some
time now.
To manage and coordinate the ever growing base of employees and
volunteers working for us at local, national and international level
we decided to look for an Executive Director as a full-time
employee. A similar figure will also be hired to coordinate the
Fellowship programme and to overview our German area, where most of
the Fellows and our donors come from. The activities of our Freedom
Task Force (FTF) will also be strengthened and finally, we will
investigate the possibilities to extend our policy work on EU and UN
levels. We hope you will continue to follow and to support us!
http://fsfe.org/about/funds/2008.html
Relevant links
http://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.htmlhttp://fellowship.fsfe.org/http://fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20090414-01.html
IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST
11. The first Fellowship Smartcards
It was only April 2005 when we prepared and delivered the first batch
of 250 Fellowship Smartcards. Since then, many more people joined the
Fellowship and many more Smartcards have been delivered.
http://fellowship.fsfe.org/card.html
UPCOMING EVENTS
12. FSFE participates to eLiberatica 2009, 22-23 May
Georg will talk about the challenges of the traditional
standardisation system, the role of patenting and the mechanisms that
allow us to cope with legal issues at eLiberatica 2009. One of the
biggest events discussing Free Software in Eastern Europe.
http://www.eliberatica.ro/2009/index
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html
You can join the Fellowship and find how to support us on
http://fellowship.fsfe.org/joinhttp://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.html
Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
ESP LAUNCHES EN.SWPAT.ORG: A WIKI FOR ANTI-SOFTWARE PATENT CAMPAIGNS
Monday, May 4th, 2009 — End Software Patents today launched en.swpat.org, a
wiki to document the case against software patents. Over 100 articles have
already been started to give an idea of the scope and structure of the wiki.
ESP's executive director Ciaran O'Riordan explains: "So far, we have
articles about the case law, legislation, and patent office behavior in
various countries. We have articles about economic studies, about related
books, about the various ways to fight software patents, about each of the
arguments against software patents, and most importantly, the evidence for
each argument. There are so many topics, I've only had time to scratch the
surface of each, but visitors should get an idea of how all this information
is being categorized and organized. We've also built up a very long list of
sources of information that have yet to be processed. The wiki can be edited
by anyone, so I'm looking forward to seeing what the community and other
projects make of it. If other campaigns, large and small, would like to use
en.swpat.org as a workspace, that would be welcome. It makes sense for
projects with common goals to be interconnected."
"Most of the information currently on en.swpat.org was gathered
casually. Each time I see something interesting in a document, I make a note
of it in the wiki." O'Riordan continued, "If more people start contributing
in this piecemeal manner, we can create something really useful with very
little effort. Good wikis are made sentence by sentence. There's no need for
anyone to try to write a full article."
"There were hesitations about compiling articles about individual companies
and organizations. swpat.org should become a reference, not a platform for
announcements or for smear campaigns, but there is useful info that can be
gathered about companies, so I decided to allow it and we'll keep a close
eye on how those articles get used."
"By placing all the information side-by-side, we can spot inconsistencies
and fill the gaps. I recently found information about software patent case
law in France. Everyone I previously talked to said that the only European
software patent case law was in Germany and England. On en.swpat.org,
there's a page for collecting case law, so now everyone can see that there
are three European countries with case law. And maybe there are others that
are yet to be uncovered."
As the "en" in the web address suggests, there are plans to add wikis for
languages other than English in the future. Adding new languages will depend
on finding a group of dedicated people for that language. The various
language wikis will be linked together and coordinated much like is done in
Wikipedia. That is to say, there'll be a lot of independence and each wiki
will be useful as a starting point for research by the contributors to other
swpat.org wikis. But that's for the future.
About End Software Patents
End Software Patents is a project formed to eliminate patents on software
and other designs with no physically innovative step. End Software Patents
is funded by donations handled on its behalf by the Free Software
Foundation. For more information on participating in the project, or to
access its knowledge base, please visit its website at:
http://endsoftwarepatents.org/
To be kept informed about End Software Patents, please join the mailing list:
http://campaigns.fsf.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/esp-action-alert
About the Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting
computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer
programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom)
software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux
variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to
spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use
of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an
important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the
FSF's work can be made at http://donate.fsf.org. Its headquarters are in
Boston, MA, USA.
Media contact for this ESP press release:
Ciaran O'Riordan
Director, End Software Patents
Tel: +32 487 64 17 54
email: ciaran [at] fsf.org
###
_______________________________________________
FSF And GNU Press mailing list <info-press(a)gnu.org>
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-press
If you were wondering when the newsletter would come back, stop
wondering - it's back! We apologise for the delays in delivering the
newsletter over the past few months and assure you that our monthly
newsletter will now resume the task of updating you regularly about
FSFE activities.
This month's newsletter has been specially extended to include items
for the first quarter of 2009. Starting from the next month onwards,
the traditional format of the newsletter will be back: one month, one
newsletter!
I am pleased to take over the role of newsletter editor that
previously belonged to Reinhard, Shane and Ciaran. I'll do my best to
keep up their good work and to improve upon it. If you have any
suggestions or comments, do not hesitate to contact me at: poderi <AT>
fsfeurope <DOT> org
Giacomo Poderi
1. FSFE at the international workshop on "Regulation of the Internet", 31 March
2. FSFE statements at 13th Session of the Standing Committee on the Law of
Patents, 23-27 March
3. DFD 2009, global day for document liberation, 25 March
4. FSFE at the Chemnitzer Linux-Tage, 14-15 March
5. Happy Birthday to FSFE!
6. FSFE brings Free Software to CeBIT 2009, 03-08 March
7. Fellowship vote for GA seats - Call for nominations: the candidates
8. Regular Fellowship meetings and special KDE release parties
9. Meetings of the special interest groups
10. FSFE engages in the EU browser case
11. FSFE presence at FOSDEM 2009, 07-08 February
12. The Fellowship interviews: Colin Turner and Enrico Zini
13. The Fellowship launches the Free PDF Readers campaign
14. FTF publishes "Building legal infrastructure for your Free Software project"
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
15. European Licensing and Legal Workshop for Free Software, 23-24 April
16. FSCONS Fellowship meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden, 15 April
17. Voting procedures for the Fellowship seat at the General Assembly
1. FSFE at the international workshop on "Regulation of the Internet", 31 March
Free Software Foundation Europe's (FSFE) President Georg Greve represented
the organisation by participating in the workshop entitled "Technical
Regulation of the Internet: From Standardisation to Behavorial and Societal
Norms", which was held in Paris on the 31st March. The main topic of the
workshop was the relevance of standardisation processes in the context of
'open innovations'. In relation to this event, Georg wrote an article
entitled "Considerations on Innovation and Competition Policy".
http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=309
2. FSFE statements at 13th Session of the Standing Committee on the Law of
Patents, 23-27 March
Georg Greve participated in the 13th Session of the Standing Committee
on the Law of Patents (SCP) of the World Intellectual Property
Organisation (WIPO), in Geneva. On behalf of FSFE, he made important
statements on the issues of patents and standardisation, patents and
future works, exceptions and limitations of patents. If you want to
know what is going on at WIPO, Georg wrote a roundup on the SCP/13
with many links and pointers to background information at
http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=302
3. DFD 2009, global day for document liberation, 25 March
Thanks to the hard work made by Ivan Jelic and the support provided by
FSFE, once again it has been possible to celebrate the global day for
document liberation. Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a collaborative and
volunteer driven effort to educate the public about the importance of Free
Document Formats and Open Standards in general. 273 teams of which 82 were
new ones and 72 countries with at least one team are the numbers of the
DFD 2009. The DFD team is currently gathering and organising all the
information about this year's activities. These will be published on the
DFD web pages. If you have material about local document liberation
activities, please send an e-mail to: contact AT documentfreedom.orghttp://documentfreedom.org/
4. FSFE at the Chemnitzer Linux-Tage, 14-15 March
Isabel Drost, Dirk Zemisch and Rainer Kersten managed a FSFE booth at
the Chemnitzer Linux-Tage on the 14th and 15th March. The event was a
big success, with about 2600 visitors in all. The FSFE booth received
visits from many interesting visitors, and the team enjoyed the
friendly atmosphere at the event. FSFE will surely be at Chemnitzer
Linux-Tage 2010 to repeat the experience. If you are interested in
helping us to manage this or any of our other booths, please contact
us. It's hard work, but lots of fun!
http://fsfeurope.org/contribute/booth/booth.html
5. Happy Birthday to FSFE!
On the 11th March, FSFE celebrated its eighth birthday. Established in
2001, the Foundation has constantly contributed to the diffusion of
Free Software principles in Europe. For the past eight years, its work
has ranged from the educational to the political, and from the
technical to the social. A rich history of achievements that FSFE
intends to keep up, while addressing new challenges for the benefit of
Free Software. To mark the occasion, we published a special interview
with Georg Greve, founder and current president of FSFE. The interview
traces the origins of the Foundation and its main achievements.
Enjoy the reading and once again...Happy Birthday to FSFE!
http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=27http://fsfeurope.org/news/2009/news-20090311-01.html
6. FSFE brings Free Software to CeBIT 2009, 03-08 March
For the first time, FSFE participated at this year's CeBIT expo in
Hanover, the largest computer expo in the world. FSFE was there with a
booth and three talks held by Bernhard Reiter, Shane Coughlan and
Georg Greve. The volunteers at the booth were kept busy during the
entire expo, helping to spread Free Software principles and explain
them to the public. Bernhard, German chapter coordinator, conducted a
speech entitled "Free Software, the sustainable alternative". Shane,
Freedom Task Force (FTF) coordinator, discussed "the strategic
implementation of Free Software in business". Georg challenged the
public not to be afraid of turning to Free Software and explained
clearly why there is little to fear, but a lot to gain in making the
chance, with a speech entitled "To dare more freedom!".
Georg: http://streaming.linux-magazin.de:8080/cos09/di02.ogg
Shane: http://streaming.linux-magazin.de:8080/cos09/do08.ogg
7. Fellowship vote for GA seats - Call for nominations: the candidates
In March, the candidacy period was open for Fellows to candidate for
the election to their first reserved seat at FSFE General Assembly
(GA). We are happy to announce that the Fellows running for the
election are: Torsten Grote, Jan-Hendrik Peters, Michel Roche and
Bjoern Schiessle. Soon they will present themselves to the Fellowship
so that other Fellows will have the chance to form their opinion about
the vote. There will be a two months period for the voting process, which
will conclude in time for the next GA in Miraflores de la Sierra, Spain,
19-21 June.
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/2009/news-20090301-01.html
8. Regular Fellowship meetings and special KDE release parties
In the first quarter of 2009, the Fellowship proved to be as lively as
ever. Regular meetings happened in Germany, Austria and Sweden. The
Fellows met in Augsburg, Berlin, Frankfurt, Gothenburg and Vienna.
They talked about Free Software, participation to events, planned future
activities, and most importantly, they got the chance to get to know
each other better. Additionally, at the end of January, special
Fellowship events were held in Berlin, Stuttgart, Vienna and Zurich to
celebrate the release of KDE 4.2, in cooperation with the KDE community.
We are happy to see the community growing and being active and we would
welcome similar meetings taking place all around Europe.
http://techbase.kde.org/Events/KDE42ReleaseParties#Europe
Zürich KDE 4.2 launch event speeches: http://sss2009.blip.tv/#1830788
9. Meetings of the special interest groups
On the 24th February and the 24th March, two FSFE Freedom Task Force
legal special interest groups meetings took place. The first meeting
was at the law firm Kemp Little's offices in London, while the second
one was hosted in Frankfurt, at the offices of attorneys WilmerHale.
Both meetings discussed linking and were reserved to the members of
the European Legal Network: a professional network of legal experts
facilitated by the FTF.
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/network.html
10. FSFE engages in the EU browser case
FSFE declared its support the European Commission's antitrust
investigation against Microsoft and has requested to be admitted as an
interested third party. In January, the European Commission DG
Competition issued a statement of objections regarding Microsoft's
tying of Internet Explorer (IE) to the Windows Operating System
product family. This action built on a complaint originally submitted
by Opera. FSFE provided valuable support to the Commission in the
previous European Commission antitrust case from 2001 to 2007. FSFE
hopes to join the new investigation and will provide all the required
expertise to the Commission.
http://fsfeurope.org/news/2009/news-20090227-01.html
11. FSFE presence at FOSDEM 2009, 07-08 February
As in past years, FSFE participated in the Free and Open Source
Development European Meeting (FOSDEM) in Brussels. The event promotes
the widespread use of Free Software, provides Free Software developers
and communities with a place to meet, to get in touch with other
projects, and to promote the development and the benefits of Free
Software solutions. We set up a booth where we informed people about
our recent activities, the Fellowship of the FSFE and Free Software in
general. We also sold our merchandise articles. The booth included a
special FTF desk to discuss licensing issues with FOSDEM participants.
http://www.fosdem.org/2009/
12. The Fellowship interviews: Colin Turner and Enrico Zini
For the "Smallest unit of freedom" interviews series, we present you
Colin Turner and Enrico Zini. Colin works as a scientist and teacher
at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. He has been
advocating Free Software in schools and universities for many
years. Enrico is a prominent Italian Debian developer. He has been
involved in many different projects relating to Free Software and he
is deeply concerned about social issues. Both are long time Fellows.
Colin Turner http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=17
Enrico Zini http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=7
13. The Fellowship launches the Free PDF Readers campaign
The Fellowship of FSFE is proud to announce its latest initiative:
pdfreaders.org, a site providing information about the Portable
Document Format (PDF) with links to Free Software PDF readers for all
major operating systems. Hannes Hauswedell and Jan-Hendrik Peters
worked hard during the past months. Thanks to all the feedback
received from Fellows and interested people, they managed to improve
the beta version of the website and to make it ready for a great
launch in February. Help us spread the word!
http://pdfreaders.org/http://fsfeurope.org/news/2009/news-20090202-01.html
14. FTF publishes "Building legal infrastructure for your Free Software project"
In January, FTF released an important guide to help Free Software
projects to understand the relevance of having a formal legal
infrastructure and how to set it up. Written as a quick and easy
guide, the document is spreading fast and receiving good feedback from
the Free Software community.
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/building-legal-infrastructure.html
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
15. European Licensing and Legal Workshop for Free Software, 23-24 April
FSFE announced the second European Licensing and Legal Workshop which
will take place at the Hotel Okura on the 23rd and the 24th of April
2009 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
http://fsfeurope.org/news/2009/news-20090323-01.html
16. FSCONS Fellowship meeting in Gothenburg, Sweden, 15 April
On the 15th of April, Fellows and other interested parties are invited
to attend an open planning meeting and get-together to discuss FSCONS
2009. The meeting starts at 19:00 in Delirium Cafe, Kronhusgatan 2B.
17. Voting procedures for the Fellowship seat at the General Assembly
Information on the voting procedures and about the candidates' profile
are under processing while I'm writing this newsletter. They will
appear shortly, stay tuned!
http://fsfeurope.org/news/news.html
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.html
You can find how to support FSFE on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/contribute/contribute.html
Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
### FSF releases audio recording of LibrePlanet conference
BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Monday, March 30, 2009 -- The Free
Software Foundation (FSF) today released the complete audio recordings
from the first day of the LibrePlanet GNU/Linux conference, held on
March 21, 2009, in Cambridge, MA.
The recordings include a talk given by Samba's Jeremy Allison on
Microsoft and its relationship with the free software community, and
Gnash developer Rob Savoye announcing the Cygnal project -- a rich
media server with features roughly compatible with the Flash Media
Server. Two members of the autonomo.us group, Evan Prodromou and FSF
director Mako Hill, spoke about efforts to engineer for free network
services and the successful launch of the micro-blogging service
identi.ca.
The event, which was attended by free software activists from all over
the world, also included a panel discussion on regional software
activism efforts from Brian Gough of the GNU Project, Ryan Bagueros of
North-by-South and Bradley M. Kuhn of the Software Freedom
Conservancy. FSF president Richard Stallman announced a new article
and campaign targeting the dangers of nonfree JavaScript, then
presented the FSF Award for the Advancement of Free Software to Wietse
Venema, developer of the Postfix mail server, and the FSF Award for
Projects of Social Benefit to Creative Commons.
"These recordings provide the free software community an opportunity
to hear about some of the important work underway, and to get
connected with the priorities that the Free Software Foundation is
staking out for the coming year" said Peter Brown, FSF executive
director.
The recordings, presented in the Ogg Vorbis and Ogg Speex codecs, as
well as photographs of the event, courtesy of local photographer Matt
Hins can be found at http://fsf.org/conference/
### About the Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to
promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and
redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and
use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating
system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free
software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and
political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites,
located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information
about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at
<http://donate.fsf.org>. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA.
### Media Contacts
Matt Lee
Campaigns manager
Free Software Foundation
+1 (617) 542 5942 x24
<campaigns(a)fsf.org>
###
_______________________________________________
FSF And GNU Press mailing list <info-press(a)gnu.org>
http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-press
A great global community is gathering today to celebrate the second
Document Freedom Day. After a successful 2008 celebration, Document
Freedom Day teams all over the world are joining efforts to raise
awareness for Document Freedom and Open Standards.
In a world where records are increasingly kept in electronic form, Open
Standards are crucial for valuable information to outlive the
application in which it was initially generated. The question of
Document Freedom has severe repercussions for freedom of choice,
competition, markets and the sovereignty of countries and their governments.
"We are happy to see our community getting bigger this year", says Ivan
Jelic, DFD Coordinator. "We expect large variety of activities organized
by DFD teams, from speeches and informative events, to university
document liberation or open standard promotion in local governments."
"Like all Open Standards, Document Freedom provides users with the
freedom to choose their application freely, and yet still be able to
communicate and collaborate with others.", explains Georg Greve,
president of FSFE. "This freedom of choice provides the basis for
competition in the field of text processing software. Where there is
healthy competition, companies and software developers are driven to
innovate, and monopoly pricing becomes impossible. So Document Freedom
means better software and lower cost. Document Freedom also means that
yesterday's documents can easily be read with tomorrow's software,
protecting and preserving your data against forced vendor
incompatibilities through the upgrade treadmill."
The DFD team will do its best to gather all the information about this
year activities, organize them and publish on DFD web pages. If you have
material about local document liberation activities, please send mail
to: contact AT documentfreedom.org
How you can get active
The Document Freedom Day is a collaborative effort.
You can make a difference by linking to http://documentfreedom.org,
generate your own artworks or use the ones available at
http://documentfreedom.org/Artwork.
You could also print out some of the DFD leaflets at
http://www.documentfreedom.org/Artwork#Leaflet and give them to your
co-workers, family or friends. And if you feel creative, consider taking
pictures or small video testimonials that show the world what Document
Freedom means to you!
About the Document Freedom Day
The Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a global day for Document Liberation
with roughly 250 active teams worldwide. It is a day of grassroots
effort around the world to promote and build awareness for the relevance
of Free Document Formats in particular and Open Standards in general.
Document Freedom Day is supported by a large group of organizations and
individuals, including, but not limited to ANSOL, Ars Aperta,
BrOffice.org, COSS, Esoma, Estándares Abiertos, FFII, Free Knowledge
Foundation, Free Software Foundation, Free Software Foundation Europe,
Free Software Foundation Latin America, Funambol, Google, IBM, NLnet,
ODF Alliance, Open Forum Europe, Open Source Initiative (OSI), Opentia,
OSL, iMatix, Red Hat, Sun, The Open Learning Centre.
The list of DFD Teams is available at:
http://documentfreedom.org/Category:Teams
About the Free Software Foundation Europe
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organization active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in the
information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the furthering of
Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study, modify and copy.
Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues, securing Free
Software politically and legally, and giving people Freedom by
supporting development of Free Software are central issues of the FSFE.
http://fsfeurope.org
You can find this text online at
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/2009/news-20090325-01
FSFE announces the second European Licensing and Legal Workshop for Free Software
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) today announces that the second European
Licensing and Legal Workshop will be held at the Hotel Okura on the 23rd and
the 24th of April 2009 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This conference will
provide a forum for discussions on supply chain management, compliance
procedures, licence management, community interaction, and other legal issues
related to the growth of the European Free Software market.
The European Licensing and Legal Workshop is an event held primarily for the
members of the European Legal Network, a private, non-partisan network of 185
Free Software experts across 27 countries and 4 continents facilitated by FSFE.
There is limited space available at the event and attendance for non-network
members is by invitation only. Projects and companies interested in
participating should contact the FTF at ftf at fsfeurope.org.
The European Licensing and Legal Workshop is kindly supported by Bender von
Haller Dragsted, Blackduck, Canonical, HP and Mozilla.
This event is one of the activities of FSFE's Freedom Task Force (FTF). The
FTF is an infrastructure activity to help individuals, projects and businesses
understand Free Software licensing and the opportunities that it presents. The
FTF works in partnership with gpl-violations.org to deal with licence
violations in the European arena. The goal of the FTF is to foster best
practice throughout the industry.
For more information about the FTF or the European Licensing and Legal Workshop
please contact the FTF:
About the Freedom Task Force
<p>The Freedom Task Force is an activity run by Free Software Foundation
Europe to help people understand Free Software licensing and the
opportunities it presents. We offer educational services, facilitate
larger infrastructure activities and manage FSFE's legal affairs.
Our goals are to share knowledge about Free Software law, to
safeguard the interests of Free Software projects, to connect
experts in this field and to help other groups achieve similar goals.
We believe in positive, constructive dialogue and seek at all times
to support the long-term sustainability of Free Software.
The FTF's homepage can be found at http://www.fsfeurope.org/ftf and you can
contact us via email: ftf @ fsfeurope.org
You can phone us at:
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57 Ext. 22
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73 Ext. 22
Sweden: +46 31 7802160 Ext. 22
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66 Ext. 22
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7 Ext. 22
Press contact: Shane Coughlan, FTF Coordinator, FSFE extension: 408
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit non-governmental
organisation active in many European countries and involved in many global
activities. Access to software determines participation in a digital society.
To secure equal participation in the information age, as well as freedom of
competition, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is
dedicated to the furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use,
study, modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues,
securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people Freedom by
supporting development of Free Software are central issues of the FSFE.
You will find further information about the work of the FSFE at
http://www.fsfeurope.org.
Contact:
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73
Sweden: +46 31 7802160
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7