[FSFE PR][EN] FSF Europe Newsletter

Free Software Foundation Europe press at fsfeurope.org
Thu Dec 8 18:30:27 CET 2005


1. First Austrian Fellowship meeting
2. Tweakfest in Zürich
3. UN World Summit on Information Society
4. LinuxWorld Expo in Frankfurt/Main
5. Seminar in Dublin about preventing software patentability
6. Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre in Rosario (Argentinia)
7. LinuxDay in Italy
8. Removal of Free Software from WSIS "Vienna Conclusions"
9. Welcoming the Free Software Foundation Latin America


1. First Austrian Fellowship meeting

Karin Kosina and Reinhard Müller organized the first Austrian Fellowship
meeting, where Fellows and other people interested in the work of the
FSFE could meet, get information about the FSFE and share experiences
and opinions about Free Software. Due to the positive feedback from the
participants, such meetings will be organized about bi-monthly in
Vienna, and other members of the FSFE are starting to organize similar
events in other cities. All these events will, as usual, be announced on
the Fellowship website.

  http://www.fsfe.org/


2. Tweakfest in Zürich

The Zürich Academy of Design and Art was the location for the two-day
digital media and arts conference "Tweakfest 2005 - Visions of Digital
Life Style". Georg Greve gave a keynote about the significance of
digital freedom, the global situation of knowledge regulation and
afterwards participated in a panel discussion titled "Copy Right". He
also enjoyed seeing dancing robots, which you can read about on his
blog:

  http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/back_from_tweakfest_ch_2005


3. UN World Summit on Information Society (WSIS)

The UN World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) has seen an impressing
amount of media coverage during the last month; mainly because of the
discussions within the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG). The
FSFE, however, has been involved in the WSIS process since its start,
and much of the work involved over the last years has remained largely
unrecognized by the public, even though it now turned out to be very
valuable.

In Bilbao in Spain, there was a Summit of Cities and Local Authorities
in preparation of the WSIS in Tunis. Around 2000 local representatives
from all over the world attended, and Jonas Öberg represented the FSFE.
He made a presentation on freedom of information laws and how it relates
to Free Software.

FSFE's president Georg Greve participated in the second phase of the
summit in Tunis, Tunisia, coordinating the drafting of the Patents,
Copyrights and Trademarks (PCT) working group of Civil Society for the
final Civil Society declaration, as well as documenting various of the
interesting projects in his blog and having interesting discussions
with many people. He also participated in a side event on the future
of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), including WIPO
deputy director-general Philippe Petit, which received much attention.

  http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/off_to_tunis


4. LinuxWorld Expo in Frankfurt/Main

The FSFE was present with a booth at the LinuxWorld Expo in
Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Volker Dormeyer, Joachim Jakobs, Myriam
Schweingruber, Michael Kallas, Bernhard Reiter, Reinhard Müller,
Cornelius Wasmund, and Matthias Kirschner were able to answer a lot of
questions about Free Software on the booth. Again, Volker did a great
job organizing FSFE's appearance at this event.


5. Seminar in Dublin about preventing software patentability

Ciaran O'Riordan gave the keynote and participated in a lively questions
and answers session, along with Gareth Bowker, in a seminar organised by
O'Riordan with Irish Free Software Organisation. The audience included
journalists, policy setters, and the largest of Ireland's pro software
patent lobby groups. A transcript of the Questions and Answers session
is online, and audio and video recordings should be online in the near
future:

  http://ifso.ie/events/2005-11-18/


6. 5th Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre in Rosario (Argentina)

The Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre are a wandering event in
Argentina, and the 5th edition was organised by a very dedicated group
of Free Software activists in Rosario. Georg Greve gave a keynote
titled "Digital Freedom - why it matters and how to protect it" and
used the opportunity to spend some time with the Latin American Free
Software community. Also, after most of the event had been spent
peer-reviewing the statutes and giving all conference participants the
chance to comment, it then saw the official launch of FSFE's new sister
organisation, the Free Software Foundation Latin America (FSFLA). In
the name of the FSFE, Georg Greve participated as a guest to the
official introduction and welcomed the FSFLA in the global network of
Free Software Foundations.


7. LinuxDay in Italy

The LinuxDay is a group of Free Software events all over Italy which
is coordinated by the Italian Linux Society and organised by local
user groups. FSFE participated for the first time this year at the 
national level sending a video message from Stefano Maffulli, wishing
everybody a great day for the Italian Free Software community. The 8
minute video covered the history of the Free Software movement, the
successes and the future battles, including IPRED2 and the fight against
the infamous Legge Urbani.

The video, only in Italian, is available at

  http://www.italy.fsfeurope.org/it/events/2005/linuxday/linuxday.en.html


8. Removal of Free Software from WSIS "Vienna Conclusions"

In June 2005, FSFE members Georg Greve and Karin Kosina participated
in the "ICT & Creativity" conference in Vienna. The outcome of this
conference were the "Vienna Conclusions", which were substantially
different from the text that the working group had concluded in Vienna:
All references to Free Software had been removed, promotion of Digital
Restriction Management (DRM) had been added, and statements about the
central role of software for the digital society had been watered down
-- apparently on request of Microsoft and IFPI.  

A more extensive summary about the entire proceedings can be found in
a groklaw article written by Georg Greve:

  http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051130185547876


9. Welcoming the Free Software Foundation Latin America

With its involvement in UN Organisations like WSIS or WIPO, the Free
Software Foundation Europe has extended its work beyond the borders of
Europe. Looking at these experiences, the FSFE is more than ever
committed to the concept of a world wide network of equal Free Software
Foundations working together in intense cooperation.

The entire Free Software Foundation Europe is proud and happy for its
new sister organisation and is glad that it could do its part in
helping to bring it about. The FSFE warmly welcome the FSFLA in the
network of Free Software Foundations and looks forward to fruitful
cooperation.


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


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