[FSFE PR][EN] FSFE Newsletter

Free Software Foundation Europe press at fsfeurope.org
Thu Jul 12 11:42:36 CEST 2007


1. FSFE's General Assembly and the first Benelux fellowship meeting
2. GPLv3 and LGPLv3 have been released
3. Free Software personal consultancy for businesses
4. Six questions to national standardisation bodies
5. Georg Greve in India
6. FTF useful tips translated to Asian languages
7. Free Software in Austrian Schools
8. Get your friends to support the Fellowship and FSFE


1. FSFE's General Assembly and the first Benelux fellowship meeting

The first Benelux meeting of the Fellowship took place on Thursday the
28th of June in Brussels and provided an excellent opportunity for the
local fellows to get to know each other.  Two days later the General 
Assembly of FSFE met at FSFE's Brussels office for a productive 
discussion about the foundation's past work and future direction.  
Georg Greve was re-elected as president and Jonas Oberg as 
vice-president of FSFE, with Reinhard Muller elected as the Head of 
Office.  The executive summary for the last two years of FSFE's work 
can be found on-line here

  http://fsfeurope.org/documents/reports/es-2007


2. GPLv3 and LGPLv3 have been released

The final text of both the GNU GPL version 3 and the GNU LGPL version 3
licences were released on the 29th of June 2007.  The GPLv3 is the 
result of eighteen months of drafting, a process which included four 
published drafts and thousands of comments from interested parties.

http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-3.0.html


3. Free Software personal consultancy for businesses

FSFE has always helped the community through providing pro bono advice,
and through this we have discovered that businesses often require
additional personal assistance.  For this reason, FSFE is offering
businesses a chance to get individual consultancy regarding Free
Software issues at its Zurich, Switzerland office.  Shane Coughlan, FTF
coordinator, will be available for reserved sessions starting from July
13th.  The sessions cost 150 Euro per hour, with a special discounted
rate of 100 Euro for companies that have fellowship members among their
employees.  The FTF can also organise and hold in-house training
sessions and workshop on Free Software licensing.  By making use of this
service, companies will also help to sustain FSFE's continuing community
work.

http://fsfeurope.org/ftf


4. Six questions to national standardisation bodies

Microsoft very actively seeking ISO approval as an Open Standard for
their proprietary MS-OOXML format. Should ISO approve this format as a
standard, Free Software may find itself locked out of the office
application and collaboration market and the barriers to Free Software
adoption will increase.

FSFE president Georg Greve spoke about the necessity and value of
interoperability at the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in
Calcutta. In order to help people understand the issue, FSFE also
published six questions that every national standardisation body
should have good answers to if it wants to approve Microsoft's
application. Read more and help us spread the word at

  http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-questions


5. Georg Greve in India

In cooperation with FSFE's sister organisation, the Free Software
Foundation India (FSF India), FSFE president Georg Greve visited the
Indian subcontinend and gave speeches in Mumbai, Calcutta and
Trivandrum at institutions like the Tata Institute for Fundamental
Research (TIFR) or the Technopark in Trivandrum, the first of its kind
in India. You can read more about the trip and some truly exciting
things about Free Software accessibility for the visually impaired at

  http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/last_night_in_india
  http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/back_from_india


6. FTF useful tips translated to Asian languages

FSFE's Freedom Task Force is proud to announce that the useful tips for
users and vendors of GNU GPL version 2 software are now available in
Korean and Traditional Chinese.  These documents are intended to help
users and vendors think about licence compliance and to guide people to
authoritative sources of information on the Internet.  By making these
documents available in more languages the FTF aims to continue building
productive infrastructure for Free Software in Europe and beyond.

Useful tips for users:

  http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/useful-tips-for-users_ko.pdf
  http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/useful-tips-for-users_zh_tw.pdf


Useful tips for vendors:

  http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/useful-tips-for-vendors_ko.pdf
  http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/useful-tips-for-vendors_zh_tw.pdf


7. Free Software in Austrian Schools

During the monthly meetings of the Fellowship in Austria, a constant
topic was the importance of Free Software in education to give the
next generation the freedom to become an active part of society. Some
committed Fellows carried this message into schools and as a result
of the initiative of two teachers, the "BG Rechte Kremszeile" in
Krems decided to switch the whole school to exclusively Free Software
with the start of the next school year.

The Free Software Foundation Europe congratulates the school on
their decision and encourages others to follow the example. Our
thanks go to the Fellows involved in this initiative.


8. Get your friends to support the Fellowship and FSFE
 
FSFE's Fellowship is a community of people united by their interest in 
Free Software and freedom in all aspects of the digital age and  FSFE 
is dedicated to supporting all aspects of Free Software in Europe.  
Please tell your friends and collegues about the Fellowship and FSFE.
Their help and support would be invaluable in helping us to accomplish
our goals across Europe.

Join the fellowship

  https://fsfe.org/en/fsfeuser/register

Donate to FSFE

  http://fsfeurope.org/help/donate-2002.en.html

Volunteer time and energy

http://fsfeurope.org/help/help.en.html


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


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