[FSFE PR][EN] FSFE welcomes KDE's adoption of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)

[Free Software Foundation Europe]

FSFE welcomes KDE's adoption of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement (FLA)

Free Software Foundation Europe welcomes the adoption of the Fiduciary
Licence Agreement by the K Desktop Environment project. The FLA is a
copyright assignment that allows Free Software projects to assign their
copyright to single organisation or person. This enables projects to
ensure their legal maintainability, including important issues such as
preserving the ability to re-license and certainty to have sufficient
rights to enforce licences in court.

"We see the adoption of the FLA by KDE as a positive and important
milestone in the maturity of the Free Software community," says Georg
Greve, president of Free Software Foundation Europe. "The FLA was
designed to help projects increase the legal maintainability of their
software to ensure long-term protection and reliability. KDE is among
the most important Free Software initiatives and it is playing a central
role in bringing freedom to the desktop. This decision of the KDE
project underlines its dedication to think about how to make that
freedom last."

Adriaan de Groot, Vice President of KDE e.V., the organisation behind
the KDE project, said "KDE e.V. has endorsed the use of a particular FLA
based directly on the FSFE's sample FLA as the preferred way to assign
copyright to the association.  We recognise that assignment is an option
that individuals may wish to exercise; it is in no way pushed upon KDE
contributors. There are also other avenues of copyright assignment
available besides the FLA, but we believe this is the easiest way to get
it done, with little fuss. Enthusiasm for the FLA was immediate --
people were asking for printed versions of the form before the week was
out so that they could fill one in."

"The FLA is a versatile document designed to work across different
countries with different perceptions of copyright and authorship,"
says Shane Coughlan, Freedom Task Force coordinator.  "As a truly
international project, KDE provides a great example of how the FLA can
provide legal coherency in the mid-to-long term.  It's been a pleasure
to help with the adoption process and FSFE's Freedom Task Force is ready
to continuing supporting KDE in the future."

KDE's adoption of the FLA is the result of cooperation between
KDE e.V. and FSFE's Freedom Task Force over the last year and a half,
part of the deepening collaboration between the two associate
organisations.

About the FLA:

   The FLA was written by Dr. Axel Metzger (Ifross) and Georg Greve
   (FSFE) in consultation with renowned international legal and
   technical experts. Parties involved in the evolution of the FLA at
   some point or another included RA Dr. Till Jaeger, Carsten Schulz,
   Prof. Eben Moglen, RA Thorsten Feldmann, LL.M., Werner Koch,
   Alessandro Rubini, Reinhard Muller and others. The latest revision
   was compiled by Georg Greve and FSFE's FTF coordinator Shane M
   Coughlan based on feedback provided by Dr. Lucie Guibault of the
   Institute for Information Law in the Netherlands.

About KDE:

   KDE is an international technology team that creates free and open
   source software for desktop and portable computing. Among KDE's
   products are a modern desktop system for Linux and UNIX platforms,
   comprehensive office productivity and groupware suites and hundreds
   of software titles in many categories including Internet and web
   applications, multimedia, entertainment, educational, graphics and
   software development. KDE software is translated into more than 60
   languages and is built with ease of use and modern accessibility
   principles in mind. KDE4's full-featured applications run natively on
   Linux, BSD, Solaris, Windows and Mac OS X.

About the Free Software Foundation Europe:

   The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
   non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
   involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
   participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in
   the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
   Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
   furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
   modify and copy.Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues,
   securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people
   Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues
   of the FSFE.

The Freedom Task Force can be found at http://www.fsfeurope.org/ftf/
The Freedom Task Force can be emailed at ftf at fsfeurope.org

Contact:

   You can reach the FSFE switchboard from:
    Belgium:     +32 2 747 03 57
    Germany:     +49 700 373 38 76 73
    Sweden:      +46 31 7802160
    Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
    UK:          +44 29 200 08 17 7

   Shane Coughlan, FTF Coordinator,  FSFE extension: 408

   Further information: http://fsfeurope.org