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Certified Open: Welcome to life after ICT lock-in
by press＠fsfeurope.org 09 Nov '07

09 Nov '07

[for immediate release] Welcome to life after ICT lock-in Certified Open trial period launched Today sees the launch of the trial period for Certified Open, a programme to evaluate the technical and commercial lock-in of ICT solutions. Certified Open promotes fair and effective competition in the delivery of software, hardware and services. Certified Open is a joint venture between OpenForum Europe (OFE) and Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). The programme originated in UK local government and European Commission eTen projects and was further developed with industry, community and user engagement. The certification process is simple and fast. It is based on self-assessment and uses an on-line application process. The programme tests technical and commercial aspects of interoperability and awards Gold, Silver or Bronze certificates to successful applicants. Accreditations and answers to certification questions are listed on-line for public review to ensure fairness. There is a neutral appeal process to resolve irregularities and a governance council to oversee development and forward planning. Graham Taylor, Director of OpenForum Europe said: "Certified Open represents a complete solution for public and private sector users to check the openness of their ICT solutions. We frequently see examples where organisations have become locked-in to a system due to the costs involved in change. Analysis carried out by OFE has indicated that 90% of public sector organisations no longer have the freedom to choose ICT solutions on the basis of competitiveness, functionality or price because of lock-in." Certified Open is designed to ensure freedom from lock-in and openness to fair competition. The framework assesses dependence on proprietary or undocumented protocols, dependence on undocumented or proprietary data formats, licensing terms that preclude the use of alternative products, extensions to standards to ensure good performance and the use of pseudo-standards dependent on patents or other restrictions that prevent compatible competing implementations." Georg Greve, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe stated: "Vendor lock-in has become the primary problem for IT decisions in general and Free Software adoption in particular. It distorts the market and denies Free Software solutions equal competition on the merits. The problem has been that many lock-ins are invisible, for example reliance on proprietary protocols or needing to use certain document formats. Certified Open makes that lock-in visible and allows users to measure their dependency. Suppliers can highlight clearly when their products are interoperable, and we hope that Certified Open will provide an incentive to ensure that they are. Our goal is to give back freedom of choice to all users." NOTES FOR EDITORS For more information please contact Graham Taylor on + 44 771 359 3217 or Jennifer Webber + 44 7908 643 983. 1. Graham Taylor is speaking at the Open Source Summit, hosted by Olswang and Greenberg Traurig and held at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre today at 1630. Graham will be available for comment via Jennifer Webber on +44 7908 643 093. 2. Certified Open is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee in the UK. There is no equity or profit to distribute and any surpluses generated will be returned to the development of Certified Open. It is intended that this is the first step towards the establishment of a Foundation. The Board of Certified Open Limited currently consists of four directors, two from each of the founding organisations - OpenForum Europe and Free Software Foundation Europe. Certified Open was originally developed with support of the UK Government's eInnovations programme, and the eTEN programme of the European Commission. It has already been extensively trialled with support from the community, industry and user organisations. 3. The Certified Open programme has a 3 Month Trial period running until end January 2008. During this period all accreditations will be free of charge and submissions will remain confidential. The trial can be accessed at www.certifiedopen.com. 4. OpenForum Europe is a not-for-profit, independent organisation launched in March 2002 to accelerate, broaden and strengthen the use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in business and government. OFE pursues the vision of an open, competitive European IT market by 2010 in line with the European Commission i2010 Strategy, with the mission of facilitating open competitive choice for IT users 5. Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and involved in global activities. FSFE is dedicated to Free Software, software that can be used, studied, shared and improved by its users. FSFE was founded in 2001 to create awareness for Free Software, secure Free Software politically and legally, and give people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software. FSFE wishes to secure equal participation in the information age and freedom of competition. Contact: Joachim Jakobs, Media Relations Email: jakobs(a)fsfeurope.org Tel: +49 700 373387673 Ext: 404 Mobile: +49 179 6919565

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FSFE Newsletter
by Free Software Foundation Europe 07 Nov '07

07 Nov '07

Welcome to FSFE's October newsletter. This month, issues of interoperability, sustainable ICT and Free Software in education have been receiving attention. There are also changes inside FSFE, with the Fellowship reviewing its infrastructure and long-term projects like the FTF European Legal and Technical networks continuing to expand. Exciting times indeed. You may notice that the newsletter has a slightly different format this month. We would appreciate any feedback or comments you have. They can be sent directly to coughlan(a)fsfeurope.org. - Shane, FSFE Zurich Office 1. European Commission vs. Microsoft decennial battle is over 2. FSFE at Free Software information event in Austrian school 3. FSFE's German deputy coordinator discusses Sustainable-IT in Berlin 4. Sun donates T1000 server to FSFE 5. Fellows plan the future of the Fellowship portal 6. FSFE's European Legal and Techincal Networks grow 7. Brussels meetings and Free Software awareness Forthcoming events: 8. Strategic implementation of Free Software, Stockholm, Sweden 1. European Commission vs. Microsoft decennial battle is over The European Commission and Microsoft have agreed that Microsoft is finally in compliance with the obligations contained in the 2004 Commission ruling against the Seattle company. The Commission had ruled that Microsoft distorted the market by failing to provide interoperability information for their products. Microsoft subsequently appealed against the Commission's decision and lost at the European Court of First Instance. Part of the ruling requires reasonable and non discriminatory terms for interoperability information and related patents. One reason for this was the intention to enable Free Software projects like Samba to access the information, and our legal experts are currently assessing whether the agreed conditions meet these requirements. What is certain is that Microsoft will not appeal against the judgment of the Court of First Instance, which has become final and definitive. Please visit fsfeurope.org for updates. http://www.fsfeurope.org/ 2. FSFE at Free Software information event in Austrian school As reported in an earlier newsletter, the "BG Rechte Kremszeile" public school in Austria has switched to Free Software. Recently the school organised an event to report their experience with the switch. Three speakers from the FSFE and the Vienna Fellowship group were invited to talk about the general concepts of Free Software. A number of teachers and decision-makers from other schools attended the event and showed interest in the adoption of free solutions for their own schools. https://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q3/000181.html 3. FSFE's German deputy coordinator discusses Sustainable-IT in Berlin, Germany Matthias Kirschner, FSFE's German deputy coordinator, took take part in a panel discussion at the Sustainable-IT conference on the 18th of October. The topic was "IT sustainability -- international. How can software contribute to resource protection and a fair distribution of knowledge." http://www.sustainable-it.org/ 4. Sun donates T1000 server to FSFE Sun has donated a T1000 server to FSFE's Fellowship. "The work that the Free Software Foundation Europe undertakes is important for all of us. Sun is honoured to have donated a Sun Fire(TM) T1000 server, based on the GPL licensed OpenSPARC(TM) chip, to power the FSFE Fellowship site," said Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer, Sun Microsystems, Inc. Thanks to this new hardware FSFE is able to refocus the Fellowship's on-line presence and provide new services to all our supporters. http://www.fsfe.org/supporters/ 5. Fellows plan the future of the Fellowship portal The Fellows of FSFE are discussing the future of the Fellowship portal. Since 2005, the fsfe.org portal has sought to provide tools for Fellows to communicate and collaborate. The current discussion is about what services are most important to the Fellows today and what tools would be useful for the future. The discussion is covering the use of forums, calenders, mailing lists and other services. You can add your view by joining the list: https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion 6. FSFE's European Legal and Techincal Networks grow FSFE's Freedom Task Force has been busy building pan-European legal and technical networks. The goal is to strengthen the legal foundation of Free Software through building connections between professionals and researchers active on the continent. The networks now have 45 legal experts and 25 technical specialists, and contain contacts in Canada, the USA, Singapore and Taiwan. To learn more visit the website: http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/network.html 7. Brussels meetings and Free Software awareness Ciaran O'Riordan has been busy in Brussels. Along with the usual meetings about ODF, O'Riordan has been to Helsinki and Florence to talk about GPLv3 and has been writing about this in his blog. http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes Forthcoming events: 8. Strategic implementation of Free Software, Stockholm, Sweden On the 8th of November, the FSFE and its Freedom Task Force (FTF), in collaboration with the Internet Academy in Sweden, will give a course on Strategic implementation of Free Software in businesses. The course will take place in Stockholm, Sweden and given predominantly in Swedish. http://www.internetacademy.se/strategi.html You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

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FSFE Newsletter
by Free Software Foundation Europe 09 Oct '07

09 Oct '07

1. Microsoft antitrust: A victory for Free Software and freedom of competition 2. WIPO: FSFE calls for interoperability and Open Standards 3. Freedom Task Force signs MoU with TIS Free Software Center, Southern Tyrol, Italy 4. Videos of FSFE president Georg Greve with Chilean Minister of Economy 5. FSFE supports protest against increased surveillance of digital communication 6. FSFE presents FSCONS and The Scandinavian Free Software Award 7. FSFE at OpenExpo, Switzerland 8. Get active 1. Microsoft antitrust: A victory for Free Software and freedom of competition European Commission demands for Microsoft to cease obstruction of interoperability with its products and to cease bundling practices have been upheld in the European Court of First Instance. These events originate in a complaint by Sun Microsystem about a lack of interoperability information for Microsoft products in 1998. This lead to the Commission's 2004 decision that Microsoft unfairly distorted the market and Microsoft's subsequent appeal against this ruling at the European Court. This appeal has now been rejected on all counts and it was even noted that the Commission had been too lenient with Microsoft on some issues. More information can be found in FSFE's press release and a Groklaw article explaining the fallacies of Microsoft's spin following the decision: http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q3/000186.html http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070923170905803 2. WIPO: FSFE calls for interoperability and Open Standards The 2007 Assembly of the Member States was quite confrontational and could not reach agreement despite going into overtime. This was largely due to the turmoil surrounding WIPO's Director General Kamil Idris and allegations of misconduct. There was also tension over the fees WIPO receives and the need to increase effectiveness of organisation. It quickly became clear that budgeting could endanger the success of agreements like the Development Agenda. In response, FSFE is calling for interoperable, vendor-independent and Open Standards based procurement at WIPO, and for the WIPO committees to study Free Software and Open Standards more closely: http://fsfeurope.org/projects/wipo/statement-20070928 3. Freedom Task Force signs MoU with TIS Free Software Center, Southern Tyrol, Italy FSFE's Freedom Task Force has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the TIS Free Software Center about increased cooperation in the field of Free Software licensing and training. Both groups expect to work closely together on developing common services. 4. Videos of FSFE president Georg Greve with Chilean Minister of Economy The Chilean Ministry of Economy has put the recording of a meeting between Chilean Minister of Economy Alejandro Ferreiro and FSFE president Georg Greve on-line on YouTube. The talks are about economics of Free Software and legislation to create a transition path towards freedom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz6LO16JNPU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae2MCdUTKME 5. FSFE supports protest against increased surveillance of digital communication The German Chapter of the FSFE supported a protest under the slogan "Liberty instead of Fear - Stop the Surveillance Mania!" on 22nd September in Berlin. In total more than 15,000 people participated in the demonstration. The protest took a stand against the retention of telecommunication data, an issue that is extremely topical on Autumn's political agenda in Germany. Other issues of concern included the suggested covert on-line-searching of computers. By supporting the protest, FSFE emphasises the value of liberty in digital communication. The large turnout shows that people consider the continuing tightening of surveillance laws to be unacceptable. This was the largest protest for civil liberties and privacy protection in Germany since the census in 1987. 6. FSFE presents FSCONS and The Scandinavian Free Software Award The Free Software Conference Scandinavia (FSCONS) is going to take place in Gothenburg, Sweden on the 7th and 8th of December 2007. It is the first event of its kind in the region and is inspired by the growing momentum around Free Software. Top notch programmers, hackers, lawyers, and government representatives will speak to stakeholders from all areas of Free Software. Spreading the buzz for Free Software in the region is the goal. As part of FSCONS, FSFE is also presenting the first Scandinavian Free Software Award. Presented to a person, project or organisation from Scandinavia that has showed an outstanding contribution to the cause and spirit to Free our minds, it is to become an annual event. http://www.fscons.org http://www.fscons.org/award_idea 7. FSFE at OpenExpo, Switzerland At this year's OpenExpo in Zurich, FSFE president Georg Greve opened the event with a keynote speech entitled "Free Software is compatible with your business." The audio recording and slides (all in German) are available at: http://www.openexpo.ch/openexpo-2007-zuerich#c188 8. Get active Do you want to contribute to digital freedom? Get active by joining our Fellowship, contributing as a translator, webmaster or booth volunteer, or even come to one of our offices as an intern. Find out more by visiting the link below: http://fsfeurope.org/contribute You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

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FSFE, Samba: A triumph for freedom of choice and competition
by FSF Europe Press 17 Sep '07

17 Sep '07

FSFE, Samba: A triumph for freedom of choice and competition "Microsoft can consider itself above the law no longer," says Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). "Through tactics that successfully derailed antitrust processes in other parts of the world, including the United States, Microsoft has managed to postpone this day for almost a decade. But thanks to the perseverance and excellent work of the European Commission, these tactics have now failed in Europe," Greve continues. Carlo Piana, FSFE's legal counsel: "FSFE and the Samba Team welcome the decision of the court. This is a milestone for competition. It puts an end to the notion that deliberate obfuscation of standards and designed lock-in is an acceptable business model and forces Microsoft back into competing on the grounds of software technology." "The Samba Team would like to thank the European Commission for its outstanding job over the past years. Millions of users around the world will reap the rewards of their work," comments Jeremy Allison, co-author of the Samba project. "This is a very important day for the Samba Team: we hope to finally compete on a level playing field, without being denied access to interoperability information. Samba would then be able to offer consumers real choice, with the benefits of software freedom." Volker Lendecke of the Samba Team: "Now that the court has decided, we will be watching closely what the exact licensing terms for the interoperability information are. It will be very important to make sure that the information is usable in Free Software, otherwise the great success the Commission has achieved here is severely harmed. Samba is one of the most important players in the workgroup server market, the market in which the comission wanted to restore competition." "This is a very good day for Europe, but it is only a step along the way. The recurrent theme for Microsoft's behaviour over the past years is an apparent perception of interoperability as a threat to overcome," summarises FSFE counsel Carlo Piana. "The most recent example was provided by MS-OOXML, which Doug Mahugh of Microsoft described as a commercially motivated response to the threat provided by the ODF ISO standard and the interoperability and choice it offers. Tactical, not technical considerations were the driving force behind Microsoft's global efforts to manipulate national standardisation bodies into blind acceptance of MS-OOXML." FSFE president Greve concludes: "Today's decision has set a very important precedent for the future. Secret manipulation of open formats and protocols has clearly been marked as unacceptable conduct. We now encourage the European Commission take up the recent antitrust complaint brought forward by ECIS. In a joint effort with the Samba Team and OpenOffice.org, the FSFE gladly offers its expertise to the European Commission for that investigation." 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. Contact: Web page: http://fsfeurope.org Email: press(a)fsfeurope.org You can reach the FSFE switchboard from: 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 About Samba: Samba is an Open Source/Free Software suite that has, since 1992, provided file and print services to all manner of SMB/CIFS clients, including the numerous versions of Microsoft Windows operating systems. Samba is freely available under the GNU General Public License. Contact: Web page: http://www.samba.org

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FSFE Newsletter
by Free Software Foundation Europe 13 Sep '07

13 Sep '07

1. FSFE engages with irregularities in the ISO voting process 2. FTF informal legal network now covers sixteen European countries 3. Two days of Free Software in Chile 4. The Fellowship site now supports multiple languages 5. First distributed Fellowship meeting 6. FSFE German Team at FrOSCon 7. Fellows of the Rhein/Ruhr area holding monthly talks 8. Building the Fellowship in Kaiserslautern, Heidelberg, Darmstadt and Karlsruhe 9. FSFE supports demonstration "liberty instead of fear", September 22nd 10. Speeches about SELF, Open Standards and Free Software in Argentina 11. Free Software and Free Documentation licence consultations 1. FSFE engages with irregularities in the ISO voting process FSFE has been deeply involved in the ISO voting process on Microsoft's Office OpenXML proposal, and has uncovered serious irregularities in various national standardisation body's handling of the matter. These irregularities have included committee stacking, conflicts of interest, concerns raised by parties being ignored, and lack of due consideration to legal issues like Microsoft's vague 'Open Specification Promise.' FSFE president Georg Greve was interviewed by ZDnet regarding the international voting process. In Switzerland, FSFE and the Swiss Internet User Group (SIUG) lodged formal objections to the process with the national standardisation body, which were later published by Groklaw: http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39288959,00.htm http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2007081708383138 2. FTF informal legal network now covers sixteen European countries FSFE's Freedom Task Force now has connections with lawyers in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Greece, Germany, Spain, Switzerland, The Netherlands and the UK. The network also includes legal researchers in Ireland, Serbia and Sweden and legal contacts in Taiwan, Singapore, Canada, the USA and Australia. As always, the FTF offers licence consultancy and education, fiduciary services and licence enforcement for individuals, projects and businesses. Please help us to continue spreading the word about this Free Software infrastructure project: http://www.fsfeurope.org/ftf email: ftf(a)fsfeurope.org 3. Two days of Free Software in Chile On invitation of the Chilean educational ministry and in coordination with our sister organisation FSFLA and GNU Chile, FSFE president Georg Greve spoke at the Universidad Mayor and an event of the educational ministry in Santiago, as well as the library of the national congress in Valparaiso. Georg Greve also discussed strategic and practical Free Software issues with the vice-minister of education and economic impact of Free Software with the minister of economics. 4. The Fellowship site now supports multiple languages Thanks to the contributions of Fellow Alejandro Serrano and Ivan Čukić, with support from other fellowship hackers, fsfe.org now supports adding content in other languages besides English. For the moment Italian, Spanish and German are supported, but more will come. Most of the work has gone into modifying the standard UI provided by eZ Publish and put all the files in a svn repository. Expect more changes and additions in functions during the next weeks. http://www.fsfe.org 5. First distributed Fellowship meeting While the monthly Fellowship meetings in Vienna have become a jour fixe in the calendar of many Austrian Fellows, the August meeting was special: for the first time, a Fellowship meeting took place in two locations at the same time. The net.culture.labs in Vienna and Dornbirn hosted this event, both connected via videoconferencing over a broadband internet line sponsored by Telekom Austria. http://www.fsfe.org/en/fellows/meetings/austria/20070814 6. FSFE German Team at FrOSCon Thanks to the organisational skills of Michael Kesper, members of the FSFE German Team attended FrOSCon (St. Augustin/Germany) on the 25th and 26th of August. Myriam Schweingruber delivered a talk about "Women in IT - View points and possible explanations", and Michael Kesper discussed interaction with other projects. FSFE maintained a booth at the entrance to the fair where ad hoc talks were held and FSFE and Fellowship merchandise was available. http://www.froscon.de/ 7. Fellows of the Rhein/Ruhr area holding monthly talks The Fellows of the Rhein/Ruhr area have monthly public meetings with talks on the last Wednesday of each month in Duesseldorf. In August, Fellow Dr. jur. Michael Stehmann spoke about the new Par.202c in the German criminal code which bans possessing, using, publishing and distributing so-called "hacker tools". As Michael stated, this regulations are very poorly formulated, practically useless in their attention, and might be used as a pressure instrument against innocent people. 202c tries to define pure ownership of broadly defined network analysis tools as the preparation for crime. email: rheinland(a)lists.fsfe.org 8. Building the Fellowship in Kaiserslautern, Heidelberg, Darmstadt and Karlsruhe As you know FSFE tries to keep in contact with its Fellows and attract additional ones. One aspect of this work sees Joachim Jakobs meeting with LUGs and other local FS-related groups in between Kaiserslautern and Heidelberg, Darmstadt and Karlsruhe. Last Friday he met with the LUG Landau. Landau is just a small town but nevertheless about a dozen people attended. If you are interested in helping JJ organise a local Fellowship in this area please contact him directly. email: jj(a)fsfe.org 9. FSFE supports demonstration "liberty instead of fear", September 22nd "Civil rights groups are calling on citizens to join in a protest march against excessive surveillance by businesses and governments. On 22 September 2007 concerned citizens will take to the streets with the slogan "Liberty instead of fear - Stop the surveillance mania!". Groups will initially meet at Pariser Platz (Brandenburger Tor), Berlin, at 2.30 pm. The German Chapter of FSFE decided to join this demonstration and asks everybody for participation. http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/125/116/lang,en/ 10. Speeches about SELF, Open Standards and Free Software in Argentina Before the SELF board meeting in Cordoba, Argentina, to prepare for the launch of the first version of the SELF platform, FSFE's Georg Greve and Jonas Oberg spoke at the Septimas Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre, giving talks about SELF, Open Standards, the problems of MS-OOXML and the political importance of Free Software: http://selfproject.eu 11. Free Software and Free Documentation licence consultations The public consultations continue for the GNU Free Documentation License, the GNU Affero General Public License, and the new GNU Simpler Free Documentation License. We advise you to take a look as soon as possible if you might have a comment about these free documentation licences or the "Affero" version of the GPL which additionally deals with software used over public networks: http://gplv3.fsf.org/doclic-dd1-guide.html http://gplv3.fsf.org/agplv3-dd2-guide.html Meanwhile, FSFE has been providing ongoing advice about GPLv3 since it's mid-summer launch. The lack of controversial news is welcomed as a sign that broad compromised was indeed reached and no obvious mistakes were made. You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

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Advanced international educational platform goes live Free courses and a professional environment for teachers
by Joachim Jakobs 04 Sep '07

04 Sep '07

Advanced international educational platform goes live Free courses and a professional environment for teachers A milestone for education on Free Software and Open Standards has been reached. On September 5th 2007 the beta version of the SELF Platform [1] goes live. The official launch [2] is taking place during a conference on Free Software in Education in the Netherlands, accompanied by satellite launch events in Sweden, Bulgaria, Argentina, Mexico and India with workshops and conferences. The SELF Platform has been developed by a global team of non-profit organisations, universities and volunteers engaged in the SELF Project, an initiative for the collaborative sharing and creation of free educational and training materials on Free Software and Open Standards. Users, primarily learners and teachers, are enabled to assemble selections of learning contents and create custom-made learning material for lessons in their language. The Platform is launched in beta stage to involve the growing community in optimising the tool. Hundreds of documents on Free Software, such as OpenOffice.org, The Gimp, or GNU/Linux, and documents on Open Standards have been screened by a team of experts in regards to quality, free license and validity. The result is a basic collection of high-quality learning materials that have been, or will be atomised and entered into the SELF Platform. Inspired by Wikipedia, the multilingual SELF Platform is not only a self-sustaining source of knowledge and a tool to evaluate, adapt, create and translate free learning materials on Free Software, but also creates a much needed room for interaction between the Free Software and the education communities in a broader sense. The SELF Project is carried by a consortium of non-profit organisations and universities in Europe, Asia and Latin America. The initial setup of the Platform has been financially supported by the European Union. [1] http://selfplatform.eu [2] http://selfproject.eu/launch 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://fsfeurope.org

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FSFE Newsletter
by Free Software Foundation Europe 09 Aug '07

09 Aug '07

1. Mythbusting MS-OOXML 2. First Swedish Fellowship meeting held in Gothenburg 3. Free Software on Exit festival 2007, Novi Sad, Serbia 4. Freedom in the hills: the Bergtagung 5. GNU GPL licence confirmed once again in a court of law 6. Submit Free Software projects to the Trophées du Libre 7. Ongoing work of spreading GNU GPLv3 understanding 8. Tell a friend about the Fellowship, share this newsletter 1. Mythbusting MS-OOXML Microsoft has been busy trying to spin the debate on its proprietary office format Microsoft Office OpenXML in ways to suggest that it was open, accessible, good for archival and enrolled the help of several of its partners to make it seem like there was no danger of lock-in. FSFE has engaged in mythbusting the archival myth, the conversion myth and the myth of openness and accessibility in the past month(s). The links below provide a solid initial reference for you to explain why MS-OOXML should be avoided by companies and especially governments. http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-questions-for-ms http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-converter-hoax http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-questions 2. First Swedish Fellowship meeting held in Gothenburg The first Swedish Fellowship meeting was held at ITUniversitetet in Gothenburg on the 4th of July. FSFE representatives presented the Fellowship, GPLv3, SELF, EU and Richard Stallman's activities in Sweden for 2007. Many of the participants wanted to engage more in FSFE activities, and it was agreed that it would be useful to have a public mailing list for communication. Immediate future plans are to run a workshop in Gothenburg with a focus on GPLv3. 3. Free Software in Exit Festival 2007, Novi Sad, Serbia Members of the Serbian team participated in a public event related to Free Software and Open Standards at the Exit 2007 music festival in Novi Sad. Ivan Jelić participated in the "Free and Open" discussion on MyExit stage, the MyExit social network gathering. He spoke about the four freedoms and the social impact of Free Software, with participation from representatives of other active organizations related to Free Software and the regional representative of Red Hat. A day after MyExit stage performance, Ivan Čukić delivered a speech on the Agora stage, a place dedicated for Serbian and regional NGO sector. Ivan introduced the basic principles of Free Software to the audience, speaking about Free Software Network Serbia, FSFE and current projects and activities. http://www.fsfe.org/en/fellows/attitude/escape_to_freedom/free_software_on_… 4. Freedom in the hills: the Bergtagung Between the 20st to the 22nd of July 2007 FSFE Fellows Ramon Cahenzli and Alex Antener organised an event called Bergtagung in the Swiss alps. In a small village called Siat, hackers, media artists and geeks met for hiking, drinking beer, discussing conspiracies and grilling in a beautiful landscape. This is the second time this event has taken place, with a third planed for next summer. For more information check the website: http://bergtagung.org 5. GNU GPL licence confirmed once again in a court of law The terms of the GNU GPL licence have been confirmed as binding once again, with a German court ruling that VoIP company Skype was failing to uphold its obligations as a distributor. Skype had been selling a Free Software-based telephone without meeting the terms of the GNU GPL licence. Harald Welte of gpl-violations.org, the Freedom Task Force's partner project, was the plaintiff in the case. Shane Coughlan, FTF coordinator, pointed out in a press release that this case showed the important of adhering to the terms of the GNU GPL, and stressed that companies cannot ignore their obligations. The FTF offers personal assistance for businesses using Free Software. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q3/000182.html http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q3/000180.html 6. Submit Free Software projects to the Trophées du Libre FSFE President Georg Greve has been invited to preside over the jury of the fourth Trophées du Libre, an award for the most innovative and promising Free Software projects from numerous countries. This important event promotes emerging technologies, thus encouraging greater adoption, and has a clear focus on the professional promotion of Free Software. If you feel that your favourite projects have not yet achieved the fame they deserve, now is the time to spread the word and to get them involved! http://www.tropheesdulibre.org/IMG/pdf/Trophees_du_libre_EN.pdf http://www.tropheesdulibre.org/-Inscrivez-votre-projet-.html?lang=en http://www.cetril.org/ 7. Ongoing work of spreading GNU GPLv3 understanding Since the publication of GPLv3 a month ago, FSFE has been replying to questions from free software projects and legal experts. Questions range from how projects can migrate from other licences to GPLv3, to how specific clauses of GPLv3 work and how they benefit the free software community. Some work has also been required to rebut misleading articles, but the number of such articles has been pleasantly low. http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/ 8. Tell a friend about the Fellowship, share this newsletter You can help FSFE and the Fellowship by making sure more people know about the Fellowship. Please consider spreading the word at your local user groups and with your friends in the technology world. Don't forget to let them know about our Fellowship crypto card! Maybe a good way to start is by sharing a copy of this newsletter with people who might be interested. http://fsfe.org/en/about https://fsfe.org/en/fsfeuser/register https://fsfe.org/en/card You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

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FSFE offers to help companies adhere to Free Software licence terms
by Joachim Jakobs 27 Jul '07

27 Jul '07

FSFE offers to help companies adhere to Free Software licence terms The terms of the GNU GPL licence have been confirmed as binding once again, with a German court ruling that Skype was failing to uphold its obligations as a distributor. FSFE wants to help other vendors understand their GNU GPL obligations. Harald Welte of gpl-violations.org took Skype to court in Munich, Germany, regarding misuse of GNU GPL code he wrote for the Netfilter component of the Linux kernel. This is the first time a non-German company has been convicted for GNU GPL licence violations, though the gpl-violations.org project has reached numerous out of court settlements with various vendors in the past. Skype had been selling the SMC WSKP100 VoIP telephone without providing either source code or a written offer for the source code with the product itself. Though Skype later included a supplementary text to the product which referred to the use of GPL software and contained URLs to source code downloads, this also failed to meet the terms contained in the GNU GPL licence. The ruling of the German court in favour of Harald Welte is welcomed by FSFE. "Adhering to the terms of the GNU GPL is not difficult, and this case re-emphasises the importance of doing so, " says Shane Coughlan, Freedom Task Force coordinator at FSFE. "Skype did not recognise this and unfortunately had to be reminded of their obligations in a court of law. While many vendors are working pro-actively to resolve licensing issues, problems remain in the European market place. We would like to see them resolved as quickly and as amicably as possible." "The main focus of the gpl-violations.org project is to fix problems vendors have with shipping products that contain GNU GPL code," says Armijn Hemel, an engineer at the gpl-violations.org project. "We want to work with vendors to implement long-term solutions to compliance issues. It is our wish to ensure everyone operates according to the same terms and rules, as decided by the authors of the code in question." There are several ways that companies distributing GNU GPL code in Europe can get help and advice. Armijn Hemel, an engineer at the gpl-violations.org project, offers compliance services for embedded devices. FSFE's Freedom Task Force has also recently launched professional consultancy services for businesses making use of Free Software in their products. "There are avenues of information and advice for businesses using Free Software," says Shane Coughlan. "One of the purposes of the FTF is to help companies avoid costly mistakes. Where the FTF can help people, we will. If we don't have the answers in-house we will help guide people to the external information or expertise they need. The one thing I would like to stress is that businesses should not and cannot ignore these issues." The Freedom Task Force can be found at http://www.fsfeurope.org/ftf The Freedom Task Force can be emailed at ftf(a)fsfeurope.org 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. About gpl-violations.org: In the past 30 months, gpl-violations.org has helped uncover and negotiate more than 100 GPL violations and has obtained numerous out-of-court settlement agreements. The gpl-violations.org project is a not-for-profit effort to bring commercial users and vendors of Free Software into compliance with the licence conditions as set forth by the original authors. The project was founded and is managed by Mr. Harald Welte, a Linux Kernel developer and Free Software enthusiast. For more information on the project, its mission, milestones and goals, please see http://gpl-violations.org Contact: You can reach the FSFE switchboard from: Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57 ext 408 Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73 ext 408 Sweden: +46 31 7802160 ext 408 Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66 ext 408 UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7 ext 408 Shane Coughlan, FTF Co-ordinator, FSFE extension: 408 Joachim Jakobs, Media Relations, FSFE extension: 404 mobile: +49-179-6919565 Further information: http://fsfeurope.org

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FSFE Newsletter
by Free Software Foundation Europe 12 Jul '07

12 Jul '07

1. FSFE's General Assembly and the first Benelux fellowship meeting 2. GPLv3 and LGPLv3 have been released 3. Free Software personal consultancy for businesses 4. Six questions to national standardisation bodies 5. Georg Greve in India 6. FTF useful tips translated to Asian languages 7. Free Software in Austrian Schools 8. Get your friends to support the Fellowship and FSFE 1. FSFE's General Assembly and the first Benelux fellowship meeting The first Benelux meeting of the Fellowship took place on Thursday the 28th of June in Brussels and provided an excellent opportunity for the local fellows to get to know each other. Two days later the General Assembly of FSFE met at FSFE's Brussels office for a productive discussion about the foundation's past work and future direction. Georg Greve was re-elected as president and Jonas Oberg as vice-president of FSFE, with Reinhard Muller elected as the Head of Office. The executive summary for the last two years of FSFE's work can be found on-line here http://fsfeurope.org/documents/reports/es-2007 2. GPLv3 and LGPLv3 have been released The final text of both the GNU GPL version 3 and the GNU LGPL version 3 licences were released on the 29th of June 2007. The GPLv3 is the result of eighteen months of drafting, a process which included four published drafts and thousands of comments from interested parties. http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/ http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.html 3. Free Software personal consultancy for businesses FSFE has always helped the community through providing pro bono advice, and through this we have discovered that businesses often require additional personal assistance. For this reason, FSFE is offering businesses a chance to get individual consultancy regarding Free Software issues at its Zurich, Switzerland office. Shane Coughlan, FTF coordinator, will be available for reserved sessions starting from July 13th. The sessions cost 150 Euro per hour, with a special discounted rate of 100 Euro for companies that have fellowship members among their employees. The FTF can also organise and hold in-house training sessions and workshop on Free Software licensing. By making use of this service, companies will also help to sustain FSFE's continuing community work. http://fsfeurope.org/ftf 4. Six questions to national standardisation bodies Microsoft very actively seeking ISO approval as an Open Standard for their proprietary MS-OOXML format. Should ISO approve this format as a standard, Free Software may find itself locked out of the office application and collaboration market and the barriers to Free Software adoption will increase. FSFE president Georg Greve spoke about the necessity and value of interoperability at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Calcutta. In order to help people understand the issue, FSFE also published six questions that every national standardisation body should have good answers to if it wants to approve Microsoft's application. Read more and help us spread the word at http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-questions 5. Georg Greve in India In cooperation with FSFE's sister organisation, the Free Software Foundation India (FSF India), FSFE president Georg Greve visited the Indian subcontinend and gave speeches in Mumbai, Calcutta and Trivandrum at institutions like the Tata Institute for Fundamental Research (TIFR) or the Technopark in Trivandrum, the first of its kind in India. You can read more about the trip and some truly exciting things about Free Software accessibility for the visually impaired at http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/last_night_in_india http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/back_from_india 6. FTF useful tips translated to Asian languages FSFE's Freedom Task Force is proud to announce that the useful tips for users and vendors of GNU GPL version 2 software are now available in Korean and Traditional Chinese. These documents are intended to help users and vendors think about licence compliance and to guide people to authoritative sources of information on the Internet. By making these documents available in more languages the FTF aims to continue building productive infrastructure for Free Software in Europe and beyond. Useful tips for users: http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/useful-tips-for-users_ko.pdf http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/useful-tips-for-users_zh_tw.pdf Useful tips for vendors: http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/useful-tips-for-vendors_ko.pdf http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/useful-tips-for-vendors_zh_tw.pdf 7. Free Software in Austrian Schools During the monthly meetings of the Fellowship in Austria, a constant topic was the importance of Free Software in education to give the next generation the freedom to become an active part of society. Some committed Fellows carried this message into schools and as a result of the initiative of two teachers, the "BG Rechte Kremszeile" in Krems decided to switch the whole school to exclusively Free Software with the start of the next school year. The Free Software Foundation Europe congratulates the school on their decision and encourages others to follow the example. Our thanks go to the Fellows involved in this initiative. 8. Get your friends to support the Fellowship and FSFE FSFE's Fellowship is a community of people united by their interest in Free Software and freedom in all aspects of the digital age and FSFE is dedicated to supporting all aspects of Free Software in Europe. Please tell your friends and collegues about the Fellowship and FSFE. Their help and support would be invaluable in helping us to accomplish our goals across Europe. Join the fellowship https://fsfe.org/en/fsfeuser/register Donate to FSFE http://fsfeurope.org/help/donate-2002.en.html Volunteer time and energy http://fsfeurope.org/help/help.en.html You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html

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FSFE offers Free Software personal assistance for businesses
by Joachim Jakobs 11 Jul '07

11 Jul '07

FSFE offers Free Software personal assistance for businesses Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has always helped the community through providing pro bono advice, and through this has discovered that businesses often require additional personal assistance. For this reason, FSFE is offering businesses a chance to get individual consultancy regarding Free Software issues at its Zurich, Switzerland office. Shane Coughlan, FTF coordinator, will be available for reserved sessions starting from July 13th. The sessions cost 150 Euro per hour, with a special discounted rate of 100 Euro for companies that have Fellowship members among their employees. The FTF can also organise and hold in-house training sessions and workshop on Free Software licensing. "We started the FTF so individuals, projects and businesses could get high quality information and expertise when required," says Georg Greve, President of FSFE. "Most of that work is pro bono and done to support the growth of the Free Software community, but that has various limits. This new service specifically targets companies that want to obtain personal assistance from a known and trusted community organisation. It's also worth pointing out that by making use of this service, companies will help to sustain FSFE's continuing pro bono community work." The FTF will continue to provide education, compliance assistance and fiduciary services to individuals, projects and businesses as before. "Individual consultancy is not a replacement for any of our existing work," says Shane Coughlan, FTF coordinator. "It's an additional service to complement it and to help bring us a little closer to Free Software legal infrastruture in Europe that can provide solutions to anyone no matter how large or small their requirements." 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.

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