[FSFE PR][EN] FSFE - Newsletter September 2010

press at fsfeurope.org press at fsfeurope.org
Sat Sep 4 15:10:03 CEST 2010


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= FSFE Newsletter - September 2010 =

   In this edition we are covering Free Software in education, distributed
   Free Software solutions as alternative to centralised services, some ways
   to celebrate what we -- the Free Software community -- already achieved,
   and how you can participate in the European football championship even if
   you are not interested in football.

   A lot of us used August to recharge our batteries. We also supercharged
   our internship team, as Nicolas Jean joined Maëlle Costa and Sam Tuke.
   Karsten [24]gave an interview in Noticias de Gipuzcoa (Spanish) where he
   talks about how Free Software contributes to the division of power in
   democracies. He also discusses how Free Software helps local enterprises
   to acquire advanced technology skills, and keeps profits in the region. I
   (Matthias) gave an interview to Dradio to explain a wider audience, that
   [25]'Free does not mean gratis (German)', explaining how and why to earn
   money with software you can use, study, share, and improve.

== Free Software in education ==

   As more people understand technology, more people will understand why
   Free Software is important for our society. Our aim is that children and
   students do not only learn how to use software, but understand the
   principles how software and computers in general work. With Free Software
   there are no artificial barriers to stop you from learning. You can dive
   right in and see exactly how professionals design software.

   Our [26]education team is connecting people working on these topics to
   avoid duplication of efforts, spreads information about Free Software in
   education and explains the importance of software freedom.

   Edu-team member [27]Guido Arnold published a summary covering news about
   Free Software in education over the last 16 month in European countries,
   including news from Free Software distributions aiming for education, and
   news what happened in the education team itself.

== Celebrate Software Freedom ==

   Many of us dedicate a lot of time and energy working for freedom in the
   digital age. One possibility to celebrate our achievements worldwide is
   [28]Software Freedom Day on September 18th. At this day we encourage you
   to celebrate Free Software, and share your joy with others.

   We organise and take part in several events. Our Austrian Fellows are
   organising an event in Graz, Hugo Roy is planning an activity in Paris,
   our German Fellows take part at events in Berlin, Bonn, Cologne, and
   Offenburg. Our President Karsten will give a talk at a celebration in the
   Royal Library of The Hague/Netherlands and Reinhard Müller will hold a
   speech at FrOSCamp in Zurich titled "Free yourself -- how to save the
   world in five easy steps". For more details check out [29]our event page
   and [30]the Fellowship calendar.

== Free Software Championship ==

   Do you like Football? To like Guido's Free Software championship, you
   don't have to. The idea is to run a parallel tournament to the football
   championship in Europe 2012 where the discipline is Free Software usage
   in government. Guido developed the [31]ground rules and uses the
   [32]information from our page about Free Software usage in the public
   administration as input. Participate by [33]adding missing data about the
   Free Software usage in governments to our website and discuss the rules
   with Guido. If you like to microblog about it, you can use the hashtag
   #euro4fs.

== Will distributed Free Software preserve our freedom? ==

   Today, the majority of Europe's citizens communicate on-line, often
   hundreds of times a day. Employers demand it, communities need it, yet
   more and more digital communication happens through only a handful of
   globalised service providers. Whether emailing, social networking,
   blogging, calling over VOIP, sharing files or researching data, control
   over our data and what we can do remains firmly out of our grasp.

   A democratic society relies on dividing power between its institutions
   and citizens. Individuals deserve control of their own actions and
   information in the digital age.

   Does Free Software offer us this control, through distributed, accessible
   and transparent ways of interacting? That is what we want to discuss. We
   will be hosting an own track at FSCONS. Our five talks form a series
   entitled [34]'Divide and Reconquer: regaining control of our
   communications', and includes speakers from software initiatives that are
   changing the future of the Internet.

   'Divide and Reconquer' invites you to engage with the empowering concept
   of decentralised networks, understand how recent trends have concentrated
   control, and witness the most exciting tools available for taking the
   power back.

     * The foundations of the Internet: the dawn of peer-to-peer (working
       title) - Benjamin Bayart (French Data Network)
     * The Centralisation of the Internet (working title) - Torsten Grote
       (FSFE)
     * Socially responsible social networks (working title) - Michael
       Chisari (Appleseed Project), Jaussoin Timothée and Ludovic Bocquet
       (Movim)
     * Web Search By The People, For The People (working title) - Michael
       Christen (YaCy)
     * TBA - Matt Lee (FSF)

== Get active: Encourage people think about distributed software ==

   For our monthly get active item, we would like to encourage more people
   to think about distributed Free Software programs as an alternative to
   centralised services. Our track 'divide and reconquer' at FSCONS will
   deal with that. Please help us:

     * Attend the conference, discuss the topics with us and afterwards
       continue discussions with friends. [35]Accommodation booking through
       FSCONS will close by the end of September.
     * Help out as a volunteer during the conference in Gothenburg. For
       example you can help us with recording the talks so more people can
       benefit from them. Get in [36]touch with us. Your help will be very
       much appreciated.
     * Promote the conference on your website, or by inviting friends.
     * Check out the topics of the track and send us possible questions for
       the speakers to [37]our discussion lists.

   Thank you for supporting FSFE!

   Regards,
   Matthias Kirschner- FSFE
   
   
   1. http://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss
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   3. http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201009.en.html#content
   4. http://fsfe.org/index.en.html
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   6. http://fsfe.org/projects/work.en.html
   7. http://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.en.html
   8. http://fsfe.org/donate/donate.en.html
   9. http://fsfe.org/order/order.en.html
  10. http://fsfe.org/press/press.en.html
  11. http://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html
  12. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/
  13. http://wiki.fsfe.org/
  14. http://planet.fsfe.org/
  15. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
  18. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/about
  19. http://softwarefreedomday.org/
  20. http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201009.de.html
  21. http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201009.el.html
  22. http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201009.fr.html
  23. http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201009.it.html
  24.
http://www.noticiasdegipuzkoa.com/2010/08/23/economia/el-dinero-que-se-gasta-en-software-libre-se-queda-aqui-y-encima-se-destina-a-desarrollar-tecnologia-de-alto-nivel
  25. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=627
  26. http://fsfe.org/projects/education/eduteam.en.html
  27.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2010/08/free-software-in-education-clearing-the-backlog/
  28. http://softwarefreedomday.org/
  29. http://fsfe.org/events/events.en.html
  30. http://wiki.fsfe.org/FellowshipEvents
  31. http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2010/08/euro-2012-in-free-software/
  32. http://wiki.fsfe.org/Free_Software_usage_in_public_administration
  33.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2010/08/euro2012-qualifying-preparing-for-day-2/
  34. http://fsfe.org/events/fscons-2010.en.html
  35. http://fscons.org/catalog/14
  36. mailto:fellowship at fsfeurope.org
  37. http://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html
  38. http://fsfe.org/about/kirschner/kirschner.en.html
  39. http://fsfe.org/index.en.html
  40. http://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss
  41. http://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss
  42. http://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml
  43. http://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html
  44. http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201009.en.html#top
  45. http://fsfe.org/index.en.html
  46. http://fsfe.org/source/news/nl/nl-201009.en.xhtml
  47. http://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/index.en.html
  48. http://fsfe.org/about/fsfnetwork.en.html
  49. http://www.fsf.org/
  50. http://www.fsf.org.in/
  51. http://www.fsfla.org/
 
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