[FSFE PR][EN] FSF Europe Newsletter

Free Software Foundation Europe press at fsfeurope.org
Wed May 10 09:08:36 CEST 2006


1. Two lucky Fellows win a notebook
2. Giacomo Poderi starts internship at FSFE
3. FSFE core team continues to grow
4. Ciarán O'Riordan and Gareth Bowker speak in London
5. Free Software Forum in Brasil
6. Access to Knowledge Conference in USA
7. Hearing for Microsoft antitrust case


1. Two lucky Fellows win a notebook

The Fellowship is extremely important to sustain the activities of the
Free Software Foundation Europe. For this reason, the FSFE tries to
find ways of saying thank you to all who joined: This year, two HP
Compaq notebooks were donated for random distribution among our
Fellows. The winners of the raffle are Andrea Di Dato from Italy, and
Wouter van Heyst from the Netherlands. Congratulations once more and
enjoy your new machines!

  http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2006q2/000134.html


2. Giacomo Poderi starts internship with FSFE

The Free Software Foundation Europe welcomes Giacomo Poderi as its new
intern. Giacomo lives in Zürich and works for FSFE from April to August
2006. His main task is administrative support for the President, the
office, and the whole FSFE team. Giacomo has studied Philosophy in
Bologna, Italy, and chose to work for FSFE because it allows to take
part in some processes deeply related with social and technical aspects
of daily life.

FSFE thanks Alexander Finkenberger for the valuable work he did during
his internship, which ended in March. Alexander has decided to
continue to work for FSFE on a volunteer basis and remains active in
the core team of FSFE.


3. FSFE core team continues to grow

Antonella Beccaria, Cristian Rigamonti and Patrick Ohnewein joined the
core team of FSFE. All of them have been active supporters of Free
Software for several years. Together with Stefano Maffulli, they turn
Italy into a firm and powerful base of the Free Software Foundation
Europe.


4. Ciarán O'Riordan and Gareth Bowker speak in London

On April 7th, the British Computer Society hosted a Free Software
evening where Ciarán O'Riordan gave a presentation about FSFE's work
against software patents and about the GPLv3, and Gareth Bowker gave a
presentation about copyright law and how DRM can restrict computer
users. Both answered questions and the discussion with the attendees
continued for a long time afterward.


5. Free Software Forum in Brasil

Georg Greve and Ciaran O'Riordan took part in the 7th edition of the
Free Software Forum (FISL) in Porto Alegre, Brasil. Georg Greve gave
one of the opening talks ("Free Software - Social Movement or
Technological Revolution?"), and participated in the sessions on Free
Software Foundation Latin America, 100% Free Software distributions,
and the license compatibility panel for the 2nd international
conference on GPLv3. Ciaran O'Riordan spoke about the work against
software patents and participated in various ways in the GPLv3
conference. Besides these public appearances, both also worked with
FSFE's sister organisation, the FSF Latin America and the local Free
Software community to strengthen the international Free Software
network.


6. Access to Knowledge Conference in USA

The Information Society Project at Yale Law School held a landmark
conference on Access to Knowledge (A2K) on April 21-23. Karsten Gerloff
moderated a podium on "Licensing Frameworks for Access to Knowledge".
The speakers investigated the possibilities and limitations of licenses
in regulating knowledge. The debate centered on the limits of the
Creative Commons concept.

The conference was a great opportunity to make contact with other
activists and academics in the A2K field. The organisers have documented
most of the conference in a public wiki.

  http://research.yale.edu/isp/a2k/wiki/index.php/Yale_A2K_Conference


7. Hearing for Microsoft antitrust case

After many years of investigation, years of legal battle and literally
billions of Euro spent by Microsoft to uphold its monopoly, the
European Court in Luxembourg convened in its grand jury of 13 judges
for a one-week hearing. The purpose of this hearing was to decide
whether Microsofts accusations of unfair treatment and mistakes in
judgement by the European Commission are founded and whether the
decision should be abolished or modified.

In close cooperation with the Samba Team, the Free Software Foundation
Europe had a Team of five people present in Luxembourg to defend the
Commissions decision: Accompanied by FSFE president Georg Greve,
FSFE's lawyer on the case, Carlo Piana, and FSFE's media coordinators
Joachim Jakobs and Antonella Beccaria, Samba Team founder Andrew
Tridgell spoke in court on behalf of the FSFE. His clear and profound
explanations greatly helped invalidate many of the false claims made
by Microsoft. A decision is expected within this year, and also thanks
to the work done by FSFE and Samba, some slight optimism is warranted.


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


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