FSFE Newsletter - March 2016

Wed Mar 2 19:48:27 CET 2016

Please consider in line URLs.

Thanks for all you do.
On Mar 2, 2016 7:11 AM, <press at fsfeurope.org> wrote:

>  = FSFE Newsletter - March 2016 =
>
> [ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201603.en.html ]
>
>  == "I love Free Software" Day 2016 ==
>
> For the 6th time in a row we asked everyone to express their gratitude
> and appreciation towards Free Software contributors on Valentine's Day.
> Check out our #ilovefs 2016 report and see who got acknowledged this
> year through countless blog posts, pictures, artwork, memes, personal
> notes and many more[1]. Don't forget to mark next year's 14 February as
> "I love Free Software" Day to continue this nice tradition of
> acknowledging the people and hard work of everyone behind Free Software.
> We thank all participants who found time to say "thank you" and for
> making #ilovefs 2016 such a success!
>
>  == "No cloud" went viral ==
>
> Just before "I love Free Software" Day, thanks to a spontaneous Reddit
> post we received over 200 orders of our promotional material[2] in the
> time span of 48 hours. In comparison, in 2015 we had around 370 orders
> in total. After 24 hours we had more orders than usual in 6 months. The
> majority of orders requested "no cloud" material but beside that people
> also ordered our leaflet with basic information about Free Software, the
> GnuPG leaflet, and our F-Droid leaflet.
>
>  == European Free Software Policy Meeting 2016 ==
>
> In the end of Janury we organised, together with Open Forum Europe, a
> pre-FOSDEM policy meeting in Brussels with the active Free Software
> policy groups around Europe[3]. The purpose of the meeting was to learn
> about each other's activities and exchange views, with an emphasis on
> public policy related actions. In total, 19 organisations participated
> in the meeting. In addition, Member of the European Parliament Julia
> Reda, and a representative of the IT department of the European
> Commission, Pierre Damas, attended the meeting to present the work of EU
> institutions in the field of Free Software.
>
>  == From the community ==
>
> February was dedicated to the sweet love declarations to Free Software
> in the light of #ilovefs day. Check out our #ilovefs 2016 report above
> for more detailed information about different blogposts, and get
> inspired for the next year's celebrations by following Florian Snow's
> idea for DIY #ilovefs banners[4].
>
> -
> Paul Boddie combined retrocomputing with Python programming and wrote
> how to make Python programs faster with Shedskin[5].
>
> -
> Marcus Moeller gave tips about getting started with the federated social
> network GNU social[6].
>
> -
> Björn Schießle contemplated about the future of GitHub and the next
> generation of code hosting platforms[7].
>
> -
>
>  == What else have we done? ==
>
> After the adoption of the European Parliament's own-initiative report
> "Towards a Digital Single Market" which included several positive
> references to increase the use of Free Software in public sector, it
> turned out that the meaning of "free" got lost in translation. In
> particular the Italian version of the report referred to Free Software
> as "gratis" as in free beer, instead of "libre" as in freedom. We asked
> the staff of the member of the European Parliament Julia Reda to help us
> and draw attention of the authors of the report to this mistake. The
> mistake got fixed and the Italian version of the report now rightfully
> refers to software freedom, and not the price[8].
>
> -
> We've simplified a lot of our internal processes: no longer it is
> necessary for someone helping us with our web pages or in other teams to
> register a guest account in our systems. Instead they will now register
> in the same system as our Fellows. It may not sound like much, but it's
> a revolution in simplification which we're very happy with! Read about
> how you too can contribute to our work[9]
>
> -
> We published a report of our work in 2015[10]. From teaching people to
> use encryption for their e-mail, to changing the direction of policy on
> a European level, FSFE worked hard in 2015 to empower users to control
> technology. We saw a lot of improvements in how we work, and we ended
> the year positively with a lot to look forward to in 2016. We want to
> thank everyone for helping us making the world a better place!
>
> -
> As hinted at in the previous newsletter, we've teamed up with KDE, Qt,
> VideoLAN and others who are organising QtCon 2016 in Berlin 2-4
> September 2016. We'll use the opportunity to host an FSFE summit during
> QtCon, with more information forthcoming.
>
> -
>
>  == Take Action ==
>
> We still have plenty of "no cloud" stickers and other informational
> material in stock! Help us to spread the word about software freedom in
> your local community by ordering our leaflets, stickers, postcards and
> posters[11].
>
>  == Good Free Software news ==
>
> The French government is reviewing its existing Free Software support
> contract, signed in 2011, and asks Free Software communities and the
> public to help them draft their next multi-year framework contract for
> Free Software services and support.[12] Meanwhile, the French Parliament
> has approved a first draft law for a Digital Republic, which encourages
> the use of Free Software by public administrations, and considers source
> code of software developed by or for public administrations to be public
> information[13]. Schools in the capital of Estonia, Tallinn, are
> gradually moving to Free Software after the city administration decided
> to switch to Free Software[14] in January 2015. By September 2015 more
> than 4000 workstations and laptops across the 50 schools in Tallinn are
> running on Free Software. In Germany, Federal Pension Insurance, which
> is the largest in the country, is increasing the use of Free Software by
> publishing a call for tender seeking assistance for its Free Software-
> based services[15].
>
> Thanks to all the volunteers[16] , Fellows[17] and corporate donors[18]
> who enable our work,
>
> your editors Polina Malaja and Jonas Öberg FSFE[19]
>
> --
> Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
> FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
> Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
> Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
> Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
>
>   1. https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160222-01.en.html
>   2.
> http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/the-reddit-effect-more-orders-in-24-hours-than-usually-in-6-months/
>   3. https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160205-01.en.html
>   4.
> https://blogs.fsfe.org/floriansnow/2016/02/13/make-your-own-personal-banner-for-i-love-free-software-day/
>   5. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=1233
>   6.
> https://blogs.fsfe.org/mmoeller/2016/02/03/getting-started-with-gnu-social/
>   7.
> http://blog.schiessle.org/2016/02/12/the-next-generation-of-code-hosting-platforms/
>   8.
> http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/now-italian-european-parliaments-dsm-report-speaks-about-freedom-not-price/
>   9. https://fsfe.org/contribute/
>  10. https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160224-01.en.html
>  11. https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.en.html
>  12.
> https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/france-involves-public-draft-support-contract
>  13.
> https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/france-assembly-encourages-use-free-software
>  14.
> https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/tallinn-schools-piloting-open-source-software
>  15.
> https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/open-source-largest-german-pension-fund
>  16. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.en.html
>  17. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
>  18. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html
>  19. https://fsfe.org/index.en.html
> _______________________________________________
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> Newsletter-en at fsfeurope.org
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