[FSFE PR][EN] FSFE Newsletter

Free Software Foundation Europe press at fsfeurope.org
Thu Oct 5 22:18:54 CEST 2006


1. Regional and international Fellowship meetings
2. FSFE at the Wizards of OS in Berlin
3. Georg Greve at SERCI workshop in Helsinki, Finland
4. FSFE at WIPO General Assembly
5. Other public appearances


1. Regional and international Fellowship meetings

Regional Fellowship meetings become more and more regular: in Vienna,
where the fourth Austrian Fellowship meeting took place, the attendants
decided to move from bi-monthly to monthly meetings. In Düsseldorf,
the first Fellowship meeting in the Ruhr area was organised, and more
will follow.

At the same time, preparations for the first international Fellowship
meeting in Bolzano are getting up to speed.

  http://fsfe.org/events/first_meeting_of_fellows


2. FSFE at the Wizards of OS in Berlin

The Free Software Foundation Europe participated at Wizards of OS 4 from
14 to 16 September in Berlin, Germany. A team of 12 people - members of
the FSFE and volunteers - helped to staff the booth and informed
intersted people about Free Software related issues. 

During the conference Bernhard Reiter gave an interview about Free
Software in general, Free Software in education, science and public,
administration, software patents, Free Software buisness models, Digital
Restriction Management (DRM), and the work of FSFE. The interview is
available online in German.

  http://netzpolitik.org/2006/netzpolitik-podcast-mit-bernhard-reiter-zu-freier-software/

Georg Greve, also gave several interviews. One about Free Software as a
cultural technique, how you can help Free Software, and other things is
also available online in German.

  http://netzpolitik.org/2006/netzpolitik-podcast-mit-georg-greve-von-der-fsfe/

On Friday, Ciaran O'Riordan and Georg Greve held the GPLv3 Workshop in
which they informed about current issues and how people can participate
in the process.

  http://www.wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=2871

On Saturday Matthias Kirschner participated in the "Show of Free
Knowledge" where he explained Free Software using the cooking recipe
analogy.

  http://www.wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=2819&L= (German)


3. Georg Greve at SERCI workshop in Helsinki, Finland

FSFE president Georg Greve was invited to participate in a workshop of
the Society for Economic Research on Copyright Issues (SERCI) about the
question of software copyright and patents. As one of the speakers in a
policy panel with participants from Nokia, Microsoft and FFII, Georg
Greve answered issues on political aspects of software freedom and the
Microsoft antitrust case. A short summary can be found in his blog at

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


4. FSFE at WIPO General Assembly

End of September was the General Assembly of the WIPO, UN's body for
Copyrights, Patents and related issues. This year's assembly had two
very contentious to deal with: The future of the Development Agenda to
reform WIPO and the potential Broadcasting Treaty. As FSFE president
Georg Greve reported on Thursday of the WIPO GA, both seem to evolve in
ways that look much better than they could have:

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


5. Other public appearances

Rainer Kersten, Bernhard Reiter, and Werner Koch represented the FSFE
at an event called "come2linux" in Essen, Germany, where they had some
interesting conversations with people insterested in the background
of Free Software.

Patrick Ohnewein and Reinhard Müller both held a keynote at a Free
Software event in Hall/Tirol, Austria, called "Tiroler Linuxtag".
Patrick spoke about CoCOS, a competence center for Free Software, and
about Free Software in Southern Tyrol. Reinhard gave a general overview
on Free Software and informed about the Fellowship.

At this year's annual KDE conference in Dublin, Ireland, Ciarán
O'Riordan delivered a keynote on software patents and led a Birds of
Feather session on GPLv3.


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


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