1. FSFE becomes the legal guardian of the OpenSwarm Project
2. Transcript of Richard Stallman on the Free Software movement
3. Windows Vista released - FSFE recommends switching to GNU/Linux
4. Get Active: Join the Revolution!
1. FSFE becomes the legal guardian of the OpenSwarm Project
OpenSwarm is the second project to make use of the fiduciary services
of the FSFE Freedom Task Force. OpenSwarm is planned to be a holistic
set of model-driven software development tools focused on the easy
creation of powerful and business logic enriched applications in the
field of Web- and data-centric solutions. By signing the Fiduicary
License Agreement (FLA) with FSFE, the project allows FSFE to become
its legal guardian.
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q1/000165.html
2. Transcript of Richard Stallman on the Free Software movement
Ciarán O'Riordan has compiled a transcript of a lecture given by
Richard Stallman in Zagreb. This speech is certainly a good source of
information about various Free Software related topics.
http://www.fsfeurope.org/documents/rms-fs-2006-03-09.en.html
3. Windows Vista released - FSFE recommends switching to GNU/Linux
FSFE has taken the opportunity of Windows Vista's launch to remind about
the dangers and threats arising from the use of proprietary software. As
many users will have to convert to a new operating system anyway, FSFE
recommends to take the chance to get rid of the chains of proprietary
software and switch to a Free Software solution.
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q1/000166.html
4. Get Active: Join the Revolution!
The internship position in FSFE's office in Zürich is becoming vacant in
March, and FSFE is looking for somebody to continue the series of
interested and motivated interns. An internship with FSFE is an
interesting, challenging and exciting experience, and there are few
other opportunities to work with a highly dynamical NGO on an
international level.
http://www.fsfeurope.org/contribute/internship.en.html
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
FSFE releases solution to increase legal strength of Free Software projects
FSFE releasing the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA) under the
terms of the GNU Free Documentation Licence (GFDL) and the
Creative Commons Attribution/Share-alike (CC by-sa) licence.
The Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA) is a copyright assignment
carefully crafted for the specific needs of Free Software projects to
bundle their copyright in a single organisation or person. This will
enable projects to ensure their legal maintainability, including
important issues such as preserving the ability to relicense and
certainty to have sufficient rights to enforce licences in court.
The FLA is a truly international copyright assignment working in both
copyright traditions that was written by Dr. Axel Metzger (ifrOSS) and
Georg Greve (FSFE) in consultation with renowned international legal
and technical experts. The latest revision was compiled by Georg Greve
and FSFE's FTF coordinator Shane M Coughlan based on feedback provided
by Dr. Lucie Guibault of the Institute for Information Law in the
Netherlands.
"The FLA has been carefully formulated to meet the legal requirements
of every country and it ensures that assignment or licence granted
has the same scope irrespective of the country in which it is signed,"
says Dr. Lucie Guibault. "This marks a clear step forward in
copyright assignment and offers real benefit to the Free Software
community."
There are two ways the FLA would be used: A project can apply to be
accepted into FSFE's Fiduciary Program, examples for this are
Bacula.org and OpenSwarm. This has the advantage that the work of
handling the legal issues and taking care of licence compliance will
be done by FSFE's Freedom Task Force and its large team of technical
and legal experts. This allows the project to focus on project
management and technical work.
The other usage would be to use the FLA and adapt it to assign the
rights to another organisation set up by the project team itself. This
organisation would then have to take care of the paperwork and licence
compliance work itself, but it would still benefit from the solidity
of the FLA for the gathering of rights and FSFE's Freedom Task Force
will be glad to provide insight and experience to such organisations.
"For us the most important issue is not whether projects assign their
copyright to FSFE or any other organisation. We just want to do our
part so projects do not neglect these issues," explains Georg Greve,
president of the FSFE. "Legal maintainability is a key issue for Free
Software adoption. We started the Freedom Task Force to help ensure
legal maintainability in practice as well as spread knowledge about
these issues. Our idea for a healthy Free Software eco-system is to
have a healthy and heterogenous infrastructure of organisations that
will cooperate with each other to support Free Software in this way."
Shane Coughan, coordinator of the Freedom Task Force adds: "Deciding
which approach is best for a project depends on many different
factors and always boils down to individual circumstances. Ideally,
organisations handling these issues should be non-profit and have
a clear primary focus on Free Software."
"When building such an organisation, it is also important that people
pay attention to the possibility of having to withstand organisational
attacks from the outside as well as legal battles in court. Not all
Free Software projects will want to adopt such hardened structures,
which might contradict their technical and project management
principles and structures," Mr Coughlan continues. "In that case, the
FLA allows FSFE to help safeguard the project in the legal sphere,
while maintaining the project's absolute independence in management
and project decisions."
Whichever way projects prefer, the Free Software Foundation Europe and
its Freedom Task Force will be happy to help projects adopt the
Fiduciary Licence Agreement.
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.
--
Joachim Jakobs <jj(a)office.fsfeurope.org
Media Relations - FSF Europe (http://fsfeurope.org)
Tel: +49 700 - 373387673, Ext.: 404
mobile: +49-179-6919565
Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org)
[immediate release]
The Vista message: Upgrade to GNU/Linux now!
Microsoft has recently been criticised for some of its decisions
regarding its Microsoft Vista operating system, that threaten our
fundamental democratic and social values.
"Unfortunately, many of the articles and statements about problems
with Microsoft Vista are not truly specific to Vista. Very similar
problems exist in any proprietary software," says Georg Greve, FSFE's
president. "Ever since the first FSF was founded in 1985, the Free
Software Foundations have understood and worked against the threats
that proprietary software poses to our society."
He continues: "Because these dangers are more widely understood today
we have seen an unprecedented move to Free Software by governments,
users and companies alike in the past years. The more proprietary
software makes use of its absolute control over the user, the more
people are starting to look for alternatives."
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is encouraging all users of
proprietary software to consider all costs and alternatives:
Free Software has proven a strong tendency to be more reliable, more
secure, and more in line with our democratic and social values. The
choice should be easy to make.
In 2006, the FSFE launched its Freedom Task Force (FTF), an activity
that offers education and services in Free Software licensing, one of
the important issues to consider for any government or company
investigating a switch to Free Software. The FTF also answer queries,
provide training on all levels, and help to implement best practices
in all organisations. With a network of legal and technical experts
throughout Europe, it's perfectly equipped to deal with these issues
on a daily basis.
One of the technical issues that the FSFE is working on is freedom
>From Digital Restriction Management (DRM). This technique gives
industry a hitherto unprecedented power over anything consumers do
with their devices and arbitrarily decide and change what the user may
do with the digital information at her disposal, completely bypassing
national or international laws.
FSFE vice president Jonas Ã\u2013berg explains: "While DRM is a separate
issue in some regards, it's important to realise that the media
channel providers are pushing for DRM primarily in proprietary
software. This is because they know that with proprietary software,
the user has no control over it, and there is no way to restore his or
her legitimate rights. When using Free Software, the user can change
and adapt the software, or have someone do it, thereby bypassing the
most unacceptable restrictions. So it is no wonder that the industry
is pushing for products such as Microsoft Vista and other proprietary
software: it gives them more control over what the user can do."
All of these aspects should be taken into account when looking
forward. The COSPA-project, funded by the European Union, considers
it an advantage remain "independent of software vendors". And even
more importantly, it highlights the fact that Free Software leads to
the creation of new software businesses and one step towards reaching
the European Union Lisbon goals of making Europe the most competitive
knowledge economy by 2010.
FSFE considers this a unique opportunity: With the release of Vista,
users will need to upgrade to a new operating system that will feel
different and require some time to get used to its functionality. The
same is true for any modern GNU/Linux distribution.
It is about the same investment in effort, but it will give you
control over your own data.
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:
Free Software Foundation Europe
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73
Shane Coughlan, FTF Co-ordinator, FSFE extension: 408
Joachim Jakobs, Media Relations, FSFE extension: 404
mobile: +49-179-6919565
Further information: http://fsfeurope.org
If you want to subscribe to this mailing list you can do so at
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/press-release
Get active, protect your freedom by joining the Fellowship of FSFE at
http://www.fsfe.org/join
FSFE becomes the legal guardian of the OpenSwarm Project
The OpenSwarm Project has become a signatory of the Fiduciary
licence Agreement (FLA), a copyright assignment that allows FSFE
to become the legal guardian of projects.
Anastasios Hatzis, the developer behind the OpenSwarm model-driven
development platform for Python applications, lead the process of
assigning copyright to FSFE. "My company - HATZIS Edelstahlbearbeitung
GmbH - wanted to foster a development community around the OpenSwarm
technology while also underwriting our commitment to Free Software,"
said Anastasios. "The FLA has provided us with an excellent way to
ensure code coherency and a framework for long-term development."
The OpenSwarm Project will be protected by FSFE's Freedom Task Force
(FTF). Shane Coughlan, FTF Coordinator, explains "The Freedom Task
Force is here to help strengthen the legal foundation of the Free
Software eco-system. The Fiduciary licence Agreement is part of this.
It provides a clear way for projects to consolidate their copyright.
In the case of OpenSwarm, FSFE is acting a legal guardian for the
project and ensuring that the developers can focus on maturing an
exciting development platform."
"FSFE is committed to help increase the maturity of the Free Software
community, including the legal maintainability of Free Software in the
long-term," explains FSFE president Georg Greve. He adds: "The FTF has
a specific part to play in this and we would like to thank Stichting
NLnet for their support in its launch and initial activities. We hope
other groups will also lend support."
Shane Coughlan summarises "the FTF mission to help educate
individuals, projects and businesses in the advantages of Free Software
licences, and to help the use of Free Software licences through
fiduciary assignment and legal guardianship. The Bacula project was
the first to avail of our fiduciary programme, and OpenSwarm underlines
the continued developer interest in this service."
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 OpenSwarm Project:
Development of OpenSwarm has been started at the HATZIS
Edelstahlbearbeitung GmbH. HATZIS is a family-owned and med-sized
steel-engineering company in Bavaria, Germany, which provides to
more than 300 companies construction and production services for
highest quality components made of stainless steel.
OpenSwarm is planned to be a holistic set of model-driven software
development tools focused on the easy creation of powerful and
business logic enriched applications in the field of Web- and
data-centric solutions for industry, public sector and non-profit
organisations. The generated software systems are implemented in
Python and data is stored in PostgreSQL databases, so they can be
hosted on almost any platform.
Further information: http://openswarm.sourceforge.net/
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:
Free Software Foundation Europe
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73
Shane Coughlan, FTF Co-ordinator, FSFE extension: 408
Joachim Jakobs, Media Relations, FSFE extension: 404
mobile: +49-179-6919565
Further information: http://fsfeurope.org
If you want to subscribe to this mailing list you can do so at
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/press-release
Get active, protect your freedom by joining the Fellowship of FSFE at
http://www.fsfe.org/join
1. Looking back and forward
2. Georg Greve at "Nexell informiert"
3. Get Active: Join the Fellowship!
1. Looking back and forward
2006 was an exciting year for the Free Software community and for FSFE.
The Free Software Foundation Europe was and is involved in the
preparation of the new version of the GPL, the world's most successful
Free Software license, in the European Commission's efforts to stop
Microsoft abusing their monopoly, in the UN World Summit on Information
Society (WSIS), the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the World
Intellectual Property Organsiation (WIPO), and the EU funded project for
Scientific Education and Learning in Freedom (SELF). Besides that, FSFE
has taken the main initiative to launch drm.info, a portal about the
dangers of Digital Restriction Management.
Probably the most important project for the next year will be the
Freedom Task Force (FTF), which will provide licensing education,
ficuciary activities and license enforcement in the field of Free
Software.
2007 will be an important year for Free Software: With more and more big
players (like Sun or Novell) shifting a growing share of their business
activity towards Free Software, effects of a single move of one of these
players get stronger for both good and bad decisions. The existence of
an independent organisation like FSFE that keeps the focus on the long
term goals is essential for the Free Software ecosystem to remain
balanced.
2. Georg Greve at "Nexell informiert"
In Zurich, Georg Greve gave a lecture titled "What is Free Software and
are Free Software solutions professional enough for our daily business?"
during the "Nexell informiert". "Nexell informiert" is a meeting where
experts are invited to talk and spread awareness about Free Software
issues, organised by the Nexell, an independent team of international
and multilingual CRM professionals.
3. Get Active: Join the Fellowship!
The Fellowship of FSFE is a community for digital freedom. Becoming a
Fellow is the easiest and most direct way to support the Free Software
Foundation Europe and Free Software in general. Fellows contribute in
three ways: financially, through the weight they give to the voice of
FSFE, and - if they want - through the work they do.
To help the Fellows in getting active, FSFE provides some infrastructure
for them to meet and coordinate: blogspace on fsfe.org, an email address
forwarding, a jabber account, and ad-hoc mailing lists - all available
exclusively for the Fellows.
However, probably the nicest thing a Fellow gets from FSFE is the
personalised OpenPGP conformant crypto card, so each Fellow can protect
his freedom and privacy directly and immediately.
https://www.fsfe.org
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
1. First international Fellowship conference
2. Freedom Task Force started
3. FSFE becomes the legal guardian of Bacula.org
4. Inaugural meeting of the Internet Governance Forum
5. Fifth international GPLv3 conference
6. Trophees du Libre
7. Introducing Mathias Klang
8. FSFE at public events
9. Get Active: tell your company about FSFE!
1. First international Fellowship conference
More than 40 Fellows from all over Europe came together at the first
international Fellowship conference in Bolzano, South Tyrol, Italy.
The main disuccion topics were the advocacy project, the Fellowship
web page, the new logo of the FSFE, and heads-up information on the
Freedom Task Force. Besides that, the Fellows and the members of the
FSFE core team used the opportunity to meet each other in person and
talk about various topics in smaller groups.
2. Freedom Task Force started
After years of planning, FSFE was finally able to announce its most
recent activity, the Freedom Task Force (FTF). The FTF will help
projects and companies to ensure legal maintainability of their Free
Software through three main areas of activity: licensing education,
fiduciary services, and - when necessary - enforcement of Free
Software licenses.
The FTF provides a point of reference and contact for all these issues
and is being coordinated by Shane M. Coughlan, who is working closely
with similar projects, such as Harald Welte of gpl-violations.org. The
startup of the Freedom Task Force was made possible by a contribution
of EUR 30.000,- by Stichting NLnet. FSFE thanks NLnet for their
support and encourages others to contribute to secure these activities
in the long term; you can lend a hand through volunteer engagement,
financial contributions, and participation in the Fellowship.
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2006q4/000159.htmlhttp://fsfeurope.org/ftf/
3. FSFE becomes the legal guardian of Bacula.org
The first project to make use of FSFE's Freedom Task Force and its
fiduciary services is Bacula.org, arguably the most advanced Free
Software backup solution currently available. Using the Fiduciary
Licence Agreement (FLA) of FSFE, Bacula.org has made FSFE the
fiduciary of its legal interests to ensure the long-term freedom
of the project, helping the Bacula.org project to further mature and
focus on its technical and project coordination.
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2006q4/000161.html
4. Inaugural meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)
FSFE was very involved in the United Nations World Summit on the
Information Society (WSIS), in which FSFE president Georg Greve
co-coordinated the global Civil Society work on Free Software, Open
Standards and knowledge regulation issues. One of the outcomes of the
WSIS is the United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF), an open,
inclusive, multi-stakeholder dialog forum for future policies of
internet use and regulation.
To ensure that such dialogs and global policy trends include the Free
Software perspective, FSFE will be following the IGF, which held its
inaugurational meeting in Athens. FSFE president Georg Greve brought
Free Software issues to the table in one of the main-room panels as
well as participated in the launch of the Dynamic Coalitions on Open
Standards and Access to Knowledge and Freedom of Expression.
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/igf/
5. Fifth international GPLv3 conference
The fifth international GPLv3 conference took place in Tokyo, Japan,
and was hosted by FSFE's associate organsiation, the Free Software
Initiative Japan (FSIJ). Georg Greve and Ciaran O'Riordan represented
the FSFE at the event, which is expected to be the last international
GPLv3 conference before the release of the final version of the GPLv3
in spring next year.
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/tokyo-rms-transcript.en.htmlhttp://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/tokyo-ciaran-transcript.en.html
6. Trophees du Libre
Organised by the Cente Européen de Transfert et de Recherche en
Informatique Libre (CETRIL), the 3rd edition of the Trophees du Libre
was held in Soissons, France. To express FSFE's support for this way
of encouraging and endorsing Free Software projects, FSFE president
Georg Greve participated in the jury and had many interesting
conversations with other people of the Free Software community.
7. Introducing Mathias Klang
Mathias Klang joined the core team of FSFE, strengthening the Swedish
team. Mathias is a researcher in legal informatics at the University
of Göteborg in Sweden. He studied law in Göteborg and later
specialised in IT law at the University of Strathclyde in Scotland.
His research interests and publications lie primarily in the areas of
the law & technology in connection with topics such as democracy,
human rights, free expression, censorship, free software, open access
and ethics. He has published many research articles in addition to
co-editing (with Andrew Murray) a work entitled "Human Rights in the
Digital Age" (2005), written (and successfully defended) his doctoral
dissertation "Disruptive Technology: Effects of Technology Regulation
on Democracy" (2006).
8. FSFE at public events
Many core team members of the FSFE were present at the South Tyrolean
Free Software Conference (SFScon) in Bolzano, Italy. Georg Greve
presented the Free Software Foundation Europe, Jonas Öberg talked
about the SELF project, Stefano Maffulli held a speech about the
Fellowship of FSFE, and Werner Koch did an Introduction in encryption
technologies and a Workshop on GnuPG und the Fellowship Crypto-Card.
The FSFE also wants to thank the organisers of the event for also
hosting the first international Fellowship conference after the
official end of the actual SFScon.
Michael Kallas, Rainer Kersten and Güven Bay organised a booth at the
LWE in Cologne, Germany, where they had a number of interesting
conversations and informed people about the work of the FSFE.
Jonas Öberg gave a talk on SELF and the GPLv3 at the Update computer
club of the Uppsala University in Sweden.
Shane Coughlan spoke at a meeting in central Zurich organised by "Nexell
Informiert" on Wednesday, November 29th. He introduced the concept of
Free Software and explained how the Freedom Task Force (FTF) can help
businesses understand Free Software licensing. The reaction from Nexell
customers was very positive, many of whom are considering the adoption
of Free Software solutions over the coming year.
9. Get Active: tell your company about FSFE!
>From now on, every newsletter will contain an idea how everybody can
contribute to the Free Software movement and to the work of the Free
Software Foundation Europe.
Spreading the word about Free Software has always been a key activity
of the FSFE, and everybody can help with this, even in his daily
environment:
* Inform the decision makers in your company about the idea of Free
Software, or try to bring them to Free Software events.
* Inform them about FSFE's work and why it matters to them.
* If you think that your company could benefit from legal education
around Free Software, point them to the Freedom Task Force.
* Encourage them to do more to ensure freedom in the digital age by
donating to the Free Software Foundation Europe.
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
FSFE becomes the legal guardian of the Bacula Project
The Bacula Project has became the first signatory of the Fiduciary
licence Agreement (FLA), a copyright assignment that allows FSFE
to become the legal guardian of projects.
Kern Sibbald, the founder and lead developer of the Bacula network
backup solution, assigned his copyright to FSFE. "I wanted to
underline the commitment of the Bacula Project to Free Software," said
Kern. "Bacula has always been a community project and we're just
solidifying that for the long-term. I am very thankful that the FSFE
is providing this service because it removes an important administrative
burden from the project, which allows us to focus on the task of
programming."
The Bacula Project will be protected by FSFEs Freedom Task Force
(FTF). Shane Coughlan, FTF Coordinator, explains "The FTF is
committed to making projects more secure. The Fiduciary licence
Agreement is one part of this. We want to allow developers to focus
on their core work. That's why we are taking care of the legal side
of things while Kern continues making a fantastic network backup
system."
"We are delighted to help Bacula accomplish its full potential. The
Free Software ecosystem is maturing rapidly these days and the Freedom
Task Force with its Fiduciary Licence Agreement, licensing education,
licensing advice and enforcement services is an important part in
this," explains FSFE president Georg Greve. He adds: "We very much
thank Stichting NLnet for doing their part in making this possible,
and hope that others will step up to likewise support this effort."
Shane Coughlan summarises "our mission is to help individuals,
projects and businesses who develop and use Free Software. The Bacula
assignment is the first step in our larger fiduciary programme. We
are looking forward to welcoming other projects on board."
The Freedom Task Force can be found at http://www.fsfeurope.org/ftf
The Freedom Task Force can be emailed at ftf(a)roundup.fsfeurope.org
About the Bacula Project:
Bacula is a set of computer programs that permit people to manage backup,
recovery, and verification of computer data across a network of computers
of different kinds. The Bacula Project is managed and coordinated by Kern
Sibbald.
Further information: http://bacula.org
Contact:
Free Software Foundation Europe
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73
Shane Coughlan, FTF Co-ordinator, FSFE extension: 408
Joachim Jakobs, Media Relations, FSFE extension: 404
mobile: +49-179-6919565
If you want to subscribe to this mailing list you can do so at
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/press-release
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.
Further information: http://fsfeurope.org
Get active, protect your freedom by joining the Fellowship of FSFE at
http://www.fsfe.org/join
1. DRM.info platform launched
2. Introducing Shane M. Coughlan and Maria Luisa Carli
3. FSFE helped liberating Italian ZIP code database
4. FSFE at LWE fairs in Utrecht (Netherlands) and London (UK)
5. FSFE Swedish Team at the Internet Days in Stockholm (Sweden)
1. DRM.info platform launched
Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology affect all users of
digital technology. At the same time, there is an almost total lack of
critical dialog. To address this issue, FSFE has contacted multiple
organisations from various areas, such as consumer rights, libraries,
digital rights and Creative Commons, and jointly started the DRM.info
platform to provide the critical view that is currently missing.
Accompanying the launch, FSFE organised protests in various cities,
including Zürich and Gothenburg, to inform people about the problem
that in order for DRM to work, they need to be at least partially
disowned of the devices they bought, surrendering control over them to
third parties.
The platform, which also contains pictures from the protests, can be
found online at
http://DRM.info/
Please help FSFE and its collaborators on DRM.info to spread the
information, link to DRM.info and point others to it!
2. Introducing Shane M. Coughlan and Maria Luisa Carli
Shane Martin Coughlan has started to work for FSFE full time as a
project coordinator. Shane was born in Dublin City and moved to England
for higher education. He graduated 2003 in Birmingham with an MA in
International Studies (Globalisation and Governance). He joined FSFE
because he believes ICT needs to be available to society at large, and
he thinks FSFE is in an excellent position to work towards this goal.
Maria Luisa Carli works as an intern for FSFE from October 2006 to June
2007. Marilu was born in Foligno, Italy. She gradueted 2004 in businness
law and did an MBA at University of Perugia. Marilu joined to FSFE
because she was impressed by the enthusiasm that drives the
organization and by the international and motivated team.
Both work together with FSFE president Georg Greve in FSFE's new
office in Zürich, Switzerland, which has been set up as the third
operational base after Düsseldorf and Gothenburg.
3. FSFE helps liberating Italian ZIP code database
As soon as the ZIP codes have been updated by the private company
Poste Italiane, the official list of codes distributed as compressed
text file has disappeared from the websites of Poste Italiane and of
the Ministry of Communication. Such text file was used to develop
Free Software useful in many commercial environments. Poste Italiane
made available the ZIP codes only with proprietary software and
proprietary formats (even encrypted) running only on one operating
system or via a web search form.
As ZIP codes are public data under Italian laws, FSFE's Italian Team
helped the developers of Free Software providing legal expertise and
protection to rebuild the list of codes using a crawler. FSFE also
promoted an open letter to the Minister of Communication asking to
release the list of ZIP codes as before.
http://www.italy.fsfeurope.org/it/projects/cap/
4. FSFE at LWE fairs in Utrecht (Netherlands) and London (UK)
During the 2006 LWE in Utrecht, FSFE president Georg Greve presented
the strategic value of Free Software in business as part of a Free
Software masterclass in collaboration with Harald Welte. The show also
served to present and promote to the public the "Scientific Education
and Learning in Freedom" (SELF) project.
FSFE's Gareth Bowker and Rainer Kersten were in London, manning a
booth at the LinuxWorld Expo on 25-26th of October. The show itself
was very successful, raising a significant amount of awareness about
the work FSFE do in Europe - as well as outfitting the UK masses in
FSFE's latest fashions! Thanks must also go to Richard Smedley and
Simon Morris for helping out on the booth.
5. FSFE Swedish Team at the Internet Days in Stockholm (Sweden)
During the last week of October, the Swedish II Foundation held their
annual Internet Days in Stockholm, where the FSFE participated with
its Swedish team. Besides having a booth with information about our
activities, FSFE vice president Jonas Öberg also participated in a
panel debate on open document formats.
The Swedish Team of the FSFE was also there as one of the recipients
of the II Foundation stipends that are given out during the Internet
Days each year. The stipend was given to the Swedish Team to complement
the activities of the SELF project in Sweden, in particular to work
with schools in Sweden to give educations based on SELF material and
make more material from SELF available in Swedish.
Henrik Sandklef from the FSFE also received a stipend from the II
Foundation. His work will focus on translations of manuals and other
documents for GnuPG into Swedish.
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
FSFE Launching Freedom Task Force, Co-operating with gpl-violations.org
FTF to educate programmers and corporations on how to avoid
licensing problems, as well as enforce Free Software licences
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) announced today the launch
of the Freedom Task Force, [1] thanks to a grant of EUR 30.000 from
Stichting NLnet. The organisation, working closely with Harald Welte
of gpl-violations.org [2], seeks to help programmers properly set up
and organise projects legally, as well as educate companies to
understand how the GPL works. As needed, the purpose of the group
will also include enforcement in the case of licence violations. FTF
is located in FSFE's offices in Zurich, Switzerland.
"Free Software itself has become commercial mainstream, but knowledge
about Free Software and in particular its licences is often lagging
behind," explains Georg Greve, FSFE's president. "With large companies
like SUN embracing Free Software at the heart of their business, the
software ecosystem is transforming in ways that underline the
requirement for services like the FTF."
FTF will include experts with technical and legal backgrounds as well
as volunteers, working together to provide organised and co-ordinated
responses to individual cases where there may be misunderstandings
about what a licence requires or a violation of its terms. FSFE has
hired Mr. Shane Coughlan to serve as FTF Co-ordinator.
Shane Coughlan on the other tasks of the FTF: "We seek to give
commercial and non-commercial Free Software developers the maximum
support possible with our fiduciary activities. By helping them bundle
their legal interests, we are able to safeguard the legal status of a
project while it can focus on technological and managerial issues. For
projects that FSFE has accepted into its fiduciary program, FSFE will
also be in a position to defend their interests in the eventuality of
licence violation."
Harald Welte, the first person who enforced the GNU GPL in court, will
be working closely with the FTF: "My gpl-violations.org work has shown
how much the community needs a more focussed approach to deal with
these violations. While there was good contact with FSFE in the past,
we will now be working closely together, sharing our information and
resources to best protect the rights of Free Software developers."
"We have as a primary goal to help corporations to adhere to the
licences from the onset, rather than to have to enforce violations
later," explains Mr. Coughlan. "We encourage those responsible for
compliance for their company to contact us, so we can work together to
avoid licence compliance problems, rather than having to later solve
problems that could have been avoided in the first place."
Stichting NLnet [3] Chairman Teus Hagen expressed pleasure at the
launch of FTF: "We are very happy to support the launch of the FTF
because in our view this is a timely and necessary step to consolidate
Free Software. We ourselves at times felt the need for a reliable
partner to handle these issues, and in our experience the FSFE is such
a partner. We hope that many others will contribute to and support
this effort, and see the FTF as an important step in the maturing of
Free Software."
[1] http://fsfeurope.org/ftf
[2] http://gpl-violations.org
[3] http://www.nlnet.nl
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.
Further information: http://fsfeurope.org
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:
Free Software Foundation Europe
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73
Shane Coughlan, FTF Co-ordinator, FSFE extension: 408
Joachim Jakobs, Media Relations, FSFE extension: 404
mobile: +49-179-6919565
1. Regional and international Fellowship meetings
2. FSFE at the Wizards of OS in Berlin
3. Georg Greve at SERCI workshop in Helsinki, Finland
4. FSFE at WIPO General Assembly
5. Other public appearances
1. Regional and international Fellowship meetings
Regional Fellowship meetings become more and more regular: in Vienna,
where the fourth Austrian Fellowship meeting took place, the attendants
decided to move from bi-monthly to monthly meetings. In Düsseldorf,
the first Fellowship meeting in the Ruhr area was organised, and more
will follow.
At the same time, preparations for the first international Fellowship
meeting in Bolzano are getting up to speed.
http://fsfe.org/events/first_meeting_of_fellows
2. FSFE at the Wizards of OS in Berlin
The Free Software Foundation Europe participated at Wizards of OS 4 from
14 to 16 September in Berlin, Germany. A team of 12 people - members of
the FSFE and volunteers - helped to staff the booth and informed
intersted people about Free Software related issues.
During the conference Bernhard Reiter gave an interview about Free
Software in general, Free Software in education, science and public,
administration, software patents, Free Software buisness models, Digital
Restriction Management (DRM), and the work of FSFE. The interview is
available online in German.
http://netzpolitik.org/2006/netzpolitik-podcast-mit-bernhard-reiter-zu-frei…
Georg Greve, also gave several interviews. One about Free Software as a
cultural technique, how you can help Free Software, and other things is
also available online in German.
http://netzpolitik.org/2006/netzpolitik-podcast-mit-georg-greve-von-der-fsf…
On Friday, Ciaran O'Riordan and Georg Greve held the GPLv3 Workshop in
which they informed about current issues and how people can participate
in the process.
http://www.wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=2871
On Saturday Matthias Kirschner participated in the "Show of Free
Knowledge" where he explained Free Software using the cooking recipe
analogy.
http://www.wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=2819&L= (German)
3. Georg Greve at SERCI workshop in Helsinki, Finland
FSFE president Georg Greve was invited to participate in a workshop of
the Society for Economic Research on Copyright Issues (SERCI) about the
question of software copyright and patents. As one of the speakers in a
policy panel with participants from Nokia, Microsoft and FFII, Georg
Greve answered issues on political aspects of software freedom and the
Microsoft antitrust case. A short summary can be found in his blog at
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/piracy_redefined_and_other_g…
4. FSFE at WIPO General Assembly
End of September was the General Assembly of the WIPO, UN's body for
Copyrights, Patents and related issues. This year's assembly had two
very contentious to deal with: The future of the Development Agenda to
reform WIPO and the potential Broadcasting Treaty. As FSFE president
Georg Greve reported on Thursday of the WIPO GA, both seem to evolve in
ways that look much better than they could have:
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/wipo_general_assembly_broadc…
5. Other public appearances
Rainer Kersten, Bernhard Reiter, and Werner Koch represented the FSFE
at an event called "come2linux" in Essen, Germany, where they had some
interesting conversations with people insterested in the background
of Free Software.
Patrick Ohnewein and Reinhard Müller both held a keynote at a Free
Software event in Hall/Tirol, Austria, called "Tiroler Linuxtag".
Patrick spoke about CoCOS, a competence center for Free Software, and
about Free Software in Southern Tyrol. Reinhard gave a general overview
on Free Software and informed about the Fellowship.
At this year's annual KDE conference in Dublin, Ireland, Ciarán
O'Riordan delivered a keynote on software patents and led a Birds of
Feather session on GPLv3.
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html