[FSFE PR][EN] FSF Europe Newsletter

FSF Europe press at fsfeurope.org
Sat Jan 8 19:58:52 CET 2005


1. Poland disapproves software patent directive in EU Council
2. First victory for EU and FSFE in Microsoft trial
3. FSFE Chapter Italy meets the Italian audience
4. Chapter Italy awarded Prof. Stefano Rodotà
5. Other public appearances


1. Poland disapproves software patent directive in EU Council

With its veto, Poland blocked the final approval of the software patent
directive in the EU Council.  This means that the directive will have
to be discussed again in the Council. Several countries are expected to
have changed their mind against software patents since the last
discussion in May, where only a thin majority was pro software patents.

The FSFE and its associate organisations worked hard on a political
level both in Poland itself and in other countries backing Poland in
this decision to make the veto possible.

  http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/swpat/


2. First victory for EU and FSFE in Microsoft trial

Bo Versterdorf, President of the European Court, has rejected
Microsoft's appeal to delay execution of the sanctions.  Microsoft has
been forced by the European Commission to publish technical information
about the interfaces of their Windows Operating System to enable
competitors to reach interoperability between their systems and Windows.
The fact that the rest of Microsoft's opponents have decided to resign
from this case, means that this becomes an even more important victory
for the EU Commission and the FSFE.

  http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/ms-vs-eu/


3. FSFE Chapter Italy meets the Italian audience

 From December 15th until December 18th, the Italian Chapter of the FSFE
attended four events in Trieste, Torino, Bologna and Milano.

During the four days, Stefano Maffulli gave a speech about the
activity of the FSFE and future perspectives of Free Software in
Italy, Alessandro Rubini spoke about "Gnu General Public License Vs
Creative Commons Public License", Lele Rozza underlined the importance
of Free Software for the public administration.  More meetings will be
organized for next months.


4. Chapter Italy awarded Prof. Stefano Rodotà

During the event in Milano, the Italian Chapter of the FSFE awarded
Prof. Stefano Rodotà (head of the Italian Data Protection Authority)
the 2004 Italian "Free Software, Free society" award.  Prof. Rodotà
was awarded for his commitment in building awareness around the issue
of personal data protection and into protecting freedom in a digital
society.


5. Other public appearances

Georg Greve gave two public speeches in December: At the University of
Lüneburg, Germany, he gave an introduction to Free Software with a
focus on the effects of Free Software on society, also introducing the
FSFE. At an event held by the University Hamburg, Germany, under the
heading of "programmers and other lawmakers" he also talked about the
current developments in the EU software patent issue and the Microsoft
trial.


You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html



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