FSFE Newsletter - July 2016

[press at fsfeurope.org]

 = FSFE Newsletter - July 2016 =

[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201607.fi.html ]

 == EIF v. 3: the EU hampers its own goal to promote better interoperability with harmful licensing terms ==

The FSFE provided the European Commission with our input in regard to
the ongoing revision of the European Interoperability Framework[1]
(EIF). The EIF aims to promote enhanced interoperability in the EU
public sector, and is currently going through its third revision since
2004. Whilst the draft version[2] gives preference to Open Standards in
delivering public services, it also promotes harmful FRAND (so-called
"fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory") licensing terms for
standards. In practice, these are highly anti-competitive and unfit[3]
not only for Free Software but for the whole software sector in general.
In addition, the draft also ignores the proven relationship between
interoperability and Free Software: many national frameworks explicitly
require their national services to be based on Free Software[4]. We
asked the European Commission to address these and other shortcomings
and ensure interoperability in an efficient way.[5]

 == FSFE summit - Registration open and how to attend ==

>From September 2nd to 4th we will be holding the first ever FSFE summit.
This is the main event to bring together FSFE members and supporters
from all over Europe[6]. In the last weeks our amazing team behind the
FSFE summit invested their online time, coffee breaks and even their
daydreams to offer you an event that is worthy of your visit and worthy
of being the official celebration of 15 years of FSFE. The event is pan-
European, organised for the community, includes old stagers and
newcomers, and takes place in the heart of Berlin. Every day there is a
new theme, built on talks about technology, freedom and society. And
last but not least, there will be social events in the evening that give
the opportunity to meet up, share ideas and plan new activities.

Registration for the first FSFE summit is now officially open[7].
Additionally, on the very same page you find valuable information about
the questions you might have about attendance. Better be quick as
tickets will be "sold out" soon!

Please be aware that our summit team is still working hard to shape an
inspiring and balanced community program for you and it will be finally
announced in the next weeks.

 == From the community ==

Given the latest news about implemented encryption in popular chat
applications, Hannes Hauswedell discusses the important aspects of
privacy in communication[8], and gives some examples of current
applications and ongoing projects that respect privacy on different
levels. Beyond encryption, says Hannes, our privacy is in need of Free
Software, device integrity and federated networks. Framasoft has
translated this blogpost into French[9].

-
Björn Schießle blogs about the History and Future of Cloud
Federation[10] where he explains the concept of server-to-server sharing
in Owncloud/Nextcloud and its development to a "federated cloud ID",
which looks similar to an email address. Like email, "federated cloud"
refers to a user on a specific server.

-
GA member Torsten Grote writes about the ongoing proprietarisation of
Android[11] and how this effectively cripples other versions of Android
and makes them increasingly useless. Torsten also argues that even
crippled Android versions are still an important fundament for
communities to increase the people's freedom.

-
Daniel Pocock writes about WebRTC and communications projects as part of
Google Summer of Code, under the umbrella of the Debian Project[12]. His
overview includes WebRTC plugins for popular CMS and web frameworks,
truly peer-to-peer alternatives, and the GNU/Linux Desktop Telepathy
framework.

-
Erik Albers writes how EU ministers recently missed the chance to set
Free Software as an integral part of their Open Access strategy and why
there is no Open Science without the use of open standards and Free
Software[13].

-
Björn Schießle writes about Freedom for whom[14] where he shares his
thoughts about the harm which the Contributor License Agreement (CLA)
causes to Free Software communities and how businesses and communities
can benefit from developing complete Free Software solutions.

-

 == What else have we done? ==

Erik Albers, head of the Team summit, blogged on several occasions this
month to share the ongoing process of organising the first ever FSFE
summit. He shared insights about the PR/Logo[15], the summit
committee[16] and the registration and the team behind it[17].

-
FSFE supported the creation of the Software Heritage initiative, an
archive of Free Software code[18]. It collects programs, applications
and snippets of code distributed under free licenses from a wide variety
of active and defunct sources with the aim of protecting code from
sinking into oblivion.

-
We once had the idea of creating national chapters of the FSFE, but it
turned out to be unnecessary. Matthias Kirschner now states that the
FSFE Chapter Germany e.V. has been officially dissolved[19].

-
The FSFE sent its concerns to the Vice President of the Digital Single
Market Andrus Ansip, the Commissioners Elżbieta Bieńkowska, Günther
Oettinger, and Margrethe Vestager in regard to harmful FRAND licensing
terms[20] in the EU's standardisation plans.

-
We joined the initiative "transparent civil society" that is now
reflected in a new section in our About Page[21]. Our Transparency
Commitment[22] lists all information necessary to be part of the
initiative.

-
FSFE Austria represented the FSFE with a booth at Veganmania 2016 in
Vienna[23] (DE), at Fair Planet 2016 in Linz[24] (DE) and at Linuxwochen
Linz 2016[25].

-
FSFE's vice president, Alessandro Rubini, helped to organise the Italian
Free Software Conference Confsl 2016 and represented FSFE in a dedicated
session[26].

-
FSFE group Munich represented the FSFE with a booth at the first Corso
Leopold 2016[27] (DE).

-
The "FreieSoftwareAG" represented the FSFE with a booth in Offenburg[28]
(DE).

-

 == Take action! ==

Get your ticket for the first FSFE summit from 2nd to 4th of September
now[29]!

Also, help us to spread the word[30] in your favorite mailing list, your
blog, your social media channels or share the news with your neighbours.

 == Good Free Software News ==

April updates us on their campaign regarding the French Digital Republic
Bill wherein the French parliament has given priority to Free
Software[31]. Whilst general legal framework in France is only taking
baby steps in promotion of Free Software, by the end of 2018, almost 70%
of all workstations in the French town of Fontaine will run
GNU/Linux[32]. Bulgaria, on the other hand has currently become the
leading example in Free Software policies by adopting a law that
requires all software written for the government to be Free Software and
to be developed as such in a public repository[33]. Andalusia is keeping
up with the trend and has announced that funding two of the region's key
Free Software projects, GECOS and Guadalinux will continue[34]. Colleges
in Europe are creating courses to train students to help companies
choose and use Free Software cloud services[35].

Thanks to all the volunteers[36], Fellows[37] and corporate donors[38]
who enable our work,

your editors Cellini, Polina and Erik, FSFE[39]

-- 
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-20160624-01.en.html
  2. https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/files/57b2ecd5-effa-4594-9ef2-47e7ecc67047
  3. https://fsfe.org/activities/os/why-frand-is-bad-for-free-software.en.html
  4. https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/EU%20Policies%20overview%3A%20Free%20Software%20and%20Open%20Standards
  5. https://fsfe.org/activities/os/eif-v3.en.html
  6. https://fsfe.org/community/events/2016/summit/frontpage
  7. https://fsfe.org/community/events/2016/summit/attendance
  8. https://blogs.fsfe.org/h2/2016/05/31/why-privacy-is-more-than-crypto/
  9. https://framablog.org/2016/06/27/le-chiffrement-ne-suffira-pas/
 10. http://blog.schiessle.org/2016/07/04/history-and-future-of-cloud-federation/
 11. https://blog.grobox.de/2016/the-proprietarization-of-android-google-play-services-and-apps/
 12. https://danielpocock.com/webrtc-sip-xmpp-projects-gsoc-2016
 13. http://blog.3rik.cc/2016/06/there-is-no-open-science-without-the-use-of-open-standards-and-free-software/
 14. http://blog.schiessle.org/2016/06/15/freedom-for-whom/
 15. http://blog.3rik.cc/2016/05/fsfe-summit-about-logo-and-pr/
 16. http://blog.3rik.cc/2016/06/fsfesummit-some-updates-and-introducing-our-committee/
 17. http://blog.3rik.cc/2016/07/fsfesummit-registration-open/
 18. https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160630-01
 19. https://k7r.eu/fsfe-chapter-germany-ev-officially-dissolved/
 20. https://fsfe.org/activities/os/why-frand-is-bad-for-free-software.en.html
 21. https://fsfe.org/about/about.en.html
 22. https://fsfe.org/about/transparency-commitment.en.html
 23. https://blog.widerstroem.com/weblog/6/veganmania-2016-in-wien
 24. https://blog.widerstroem.com/weblog/7/fair-planet-2016-in-linz
 25. https://blog.widerstroem.com/weblog/8/linuxwochen-linz-2016
 26. http://blogs.fsfe.org/rubini/2016/06/29/confsl-2016-the-italian-free-software-conference/
 27. https://www.softmetz.de/2016/06/13/erster-corso-leopold-2016-die-fsfe-war-dabei/
 28. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fast_edi/?p=502
 29. https://fsfe.org/community/events/2016/summit/attendance
 30. https://fsfe.org/community/events/2016/summit/frontpage#spreadtheword
 31. https://www.april.org/en/progress-report-aprils-campaign-around-french-digital-republic-bill
 32. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/%E2%80%98open-source-values-match-municipal-public-services%E2%80%99
 33. https://thepolicy.us/bulgaria-got-a-law-requiring-open-source-98bf626cf70a#.nfmord3u7
 34. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/andalusia-renews-funds-key-open-source-projects
 35. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/european-colleges-share-smes-open-source-training
 36. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.en.html
 37. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
 38. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html
 39. https://fsfe.org