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FSFE Newsletter - July 2010
by Free Software Foundation Europe 04 Jul '10

04 Jul '10

(Please support us to reach more people in their native language. Join our translator team http://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/.) = FSFE Newsletter - July 2010 = [Permanent URL: http://www.fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201007.en.html ] This edition covers Neelie Kroes' statement about Open Standards, the Free Software discussion in Saxony (Germany), and the relicensing of WebM to be GPL compatible, and asks you all to keep in touch with your politicians about Free Software issues. Beside that, FSFE's strategic decision making body, the General Assembly [1] (GA) , met in Bozen, Italy. The various outcomes of this meeting will become apparent in the next months and years. On the operational side we organised Fellowship meetings [2] in Tampere (Finland), Göteburg (Sweden), Paris, Lille (France), Berlin, Düsseldorf, Siegen, (Germany), as well as a Fellowship jabber meeting about ACTA. Stian published a new Fellowship interview with David Reyes Samblas Martinez [3], in which he answers questions on hardware manufacturing, e-learning and Free Software politics. == "Proprietary technology is a waste of money" == No, this is not a quote from someone out of the Free Software community. As Karsten reported in his article [4] it was Neelie Kroes, European Commission’s vice president, who comment at the Open Forum Europe (OFE) meeting in Brussels on 10 June. She also said that: "Many authorities have found themselves unintentionally locked into proprietary technology for decades. After a certain point that original choice becomes so ingrained that alternatives risk being systematically ignored, no matter what the potential benefits. This is a waste of public money that most public bodies can no longer afford." Kroes also backed up our definition of Open Standards [5]. She made clear that "truly open" standards "do not come with any constraints for implementers". This is important as it means that programmers can implement a standard in Free Software; Microsoft and others have been trying to convince the Commission that a standard is "open" even if it cannot be implemented in Free Software. These developments are good news - please share them! == "Free" State of Saxony argues against Free Software == Already in May German politicians had a discussion about Free Software in the Free State of Saxony's state parliament. I (Matthias) published an analysis about this discussion [6] (in German). The state government talks about strategic reasons against Free Software, but does not name any of them. The CDU and the FDP say they do not want to influence the market. On the other hand the state government educates all their pupils with software from a monopolist and advertises Adobe's proprietary software on their websites. In their tenders they do not ask for Free Software, but complain that there are too few Free Software service providers and programs. Beside that they use the term "market standards" against Free Software. That such discussions happen in parliament are a very good sign. They mean that politicians have to think about Free Software, and that we can all enter discussion with politicians about Free Software, too. That is why we asked people from Saxony to send their politicians feedback on the discussion, and to write them what they liked about the discussion and ask questions like ‘when politicians talk about strategic reasons against Free Software, what are these reasons?’. The speech by Neelie Kroes quoted above is also something that you can point politicians to. == Free Video Formats / Software licenses == In May, Google updated the license for their WebM project [7] to make it GPL-compatible. As explained in the last issue [8] WebM is important so users do not have to install the non-free flash plugins anymore, but have a free video format to play and encode videos. WebM was already Free Software, as the rightsholders stated in the licence that users have the freedom to use, study, share, and improve it. The problem was that its license was not compatible with the GNU General Public License (GPL) [9]. There are a lot of Free Software licenses [10], but the GNU GPL is the most famous Free Software copyleft license and is used by a large percentage of Free Software. It ensures the four freedoms and adds the condition that those freedoms remain intact in further distribution of the software. If people use the same licence or at least GPL-compatible licences, then programmers can exchange code freely, and easily, so programmers do not have to reinvent the wheel again but can use already existing code. That is why it is so important that programmers use the GNU AGPL [11], GPL, LGPL [12], or a compatible Free Software license for their software. There is also an article by David Wheeler which is worth reading, why you should make your software GPL compatible [13], like WebM does now. == Get active: Give your politicians continuous feedback == Our mission is to explain the concept of Free Software to as many people as possible. This month the German team had a booth at the GNU/Linuxtag in Berlin and explained Free Software to all the different visitors, gave interviews and speeches about "Freedom in the cloud" and common misunderstandings about Free Software. Depending on the audience you should use slightly modified explanations. To support Free Software supporters, we are providing links to video [14] and audio [15] files, as well as transcripts of speeches [16]. As Fellow [17] you automatically have an account there, but you can just register for a guest account [18] and help us to make those pages a good resource for people who want to learn from others how to best explain the benefits of software freedom. Regards, Matthias Kirschner - FSFE 1. http://www.fsfe.org/about/members.en.html 2. http://wiki.fsfe.org/FellowshipEvents 3. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/david-reyes-samblas-martinez/ 4. http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/?p=359 5. http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/def.en.html 6. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=589 7. http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/googles-updated-webm-license 8. http://www.fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201006.en.html 9. http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/gpl.html 10. http://www.fsf.org/licensing/licenses/ 11. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl.html 12. http://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl.html 13. http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/gpl-compatible.html 14. http://wiki.fsfe.org/Video 15. http://wiki.fsfe.org/Audio 16. http://wiki.fsfe.org/Transcripts 17. http://fellowship.fsfe.org 18. http://wiki.fsfe.org/UserGuide?action=newaccount -- Free Software Foundation Europe <http://www.fsfe.org> FSFE News <http://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss> Upcoming FSFE Events <http://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss> Fellowship Blog Aggregation <http://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml> Free Software Discussions <http://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>

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“Gno” and “Gyes” campaigns - About positive Free Software campaigning
by Matthias Kirschner 28 Jun '10

28 Jun '10

hi there, I wrote a short blog entry with the title: “Gno” and “Gyes” campaigns - About positive Free Software campaigning http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=593 We always try to do positive campaigning. Do we achive that? I am intersted in your opinion. Best wishes, Matthias -- Matthias Kirschner - Fellowship Coordinator, German Coordinator Free Software Foundation Europe (fsfe.org) Free Software is important to you? Join today! (fsfe.org/join)

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Fwd: one major speaker coming for 2 weeks at least, lets share costs!
by jamesmikedupont＠googlemail.com 28 Jun '10

28 Jun '10

Hi, Peter Salus, Gylnn Moody, Rob Savoy and Leon Shiman and others are coming to both conferences in Sept. Lets organize some more balkan stops and bring them to visit many other cites. lets work together to share expenses and we can make an economical and fun event! mike ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: jamesmikedupont(a)googlemail.com <jamesmikedupont(a)googlemail.com> Date: Fri, Jun 18, 2010 at 3:25 PM Subject: one major speaker coming for 2 weeks at least, lets share costs! To: boukouvalas(a)gmail.com, elefteria(a)abiss.gr, karounos(a)mail.ntua.gr, Elena Ignatova <elenaignatova(a)gmail.com>, novica(a)bagra.org, Sanjin Buzo < sanjin.buzo(a)oneworldsee.org>, Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>, brian(a)briks.si, mm(a)yuhu.biz, sponsorship(a)freesb.eu, info <info(a)flossk.org> Hi, We have now booked peter salus for two seeks in sept. from the 10-26 , he is interested in doing a road show in between the freesb on sept 11-12 and the sfk on 25-26. Peter salus is of groklaw fame, the autor of the history of unix. Also we have glynn moody the author of rebel code, leon shiman the founder of x.org, and rob savoy of gnash/cygwin. We would like to try and share costs with you, so if we can arrange for a talk someplace else between the 14-24 we can organize a road show. We are planning right now for tirana, shkdoer and prizren, but it might be better to do skopje, thesaloniki, podgorica and nis. those would all be in the area. thanks, mike -- James Michael DuPont Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova and Albania flossk.org flossal.org -- James Michael DuPont Member of Free Libre Open Source Software Kosova and Albania flossk.org flossal.org

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National Free Software Policy in Republic of Macedonia
by Novica Nakov 09 Jun '10

09 Jun '10

Hello, In the past month or so, an effort for drafting a national policy on free software started in Macedonia. Some background info for the project is available in English at this site: http://www.metamorphosis.org.mk/programs/e-governance-national-free-and-ope… The local non-profit that promotes free software (http://slobodensoftver.org.mk/) is coordinating the process. We think that it would be very useful if we can compile a list of this kind of documents being drafted or implemented in Europe or elsewhere. So, if you know of any examples please let us know. Thanks! Novica

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RMLL 2010
by Michel Roche 09 Jun '10

09 Jun '10

Hello, is any representative from the FSFE planning to show up at the RMLL 2010 in Bordeaux (6-11 July 2010) ? Last year, the booth was quite a success, so it certainly would be a good idea to organise it again. Personnaly, I won't be able to be there all week long, but only on the last two or three days. I'm on vacation before, but fortunately not far from Bordeaux, so I'll be able to attend to a part of the RMLL, and also be able to stand at the booth for some time (despite there are many interesting conferences to attend to meanwhile :-) So who's up ? Michel Roche

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Richard M. Stallman in Thessaloniki - 01/06/2010
by Kostas Boukouvalas 04 Jun '10

04 Jun '10

Tomorrow Richard M. Stallman will give a speech in Thessaloniki. You can find more info at http://www.gnugr.org, Association of Greek Users and Friends of Free Software, regarding the event. We succeeded to print FSFE material to share, around 400 black and white copies of various FSFE official promotional material, printed on laser printer. Currently we have a great feedback, and you might have seen also internet traffic coming along to FSFE website, from Greece. The attendees are almost 300 persons pre-registered and we are doing our best for the event.

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Appleseed: Free Software Social Networking
by Sam Tuke 04 Jun '10

04 Jun '10

I've been watching this project for years and trying to get the lead developer to pick it back up. Since the recent facebook privacy scare its been under active development again, and they have just sent their initial newsletter. Unlike diaspora, Appleseed actually has an extensive and comparatively mature codebase. It looks like the project will soon have its own non-profit foundation, and certainly seems like something worth promoting and supporting. Their newsletter: http://opensource.appleseedproject.org/newsletter/06-02-2010.html Accounts on Appleseed are currently by invite only.

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Richard Stallman to speak tomorrow for the first time in Kosovo
by jamesmikedupont＠googlemail.com 04 Jun '10

04 Jun '10

Hi, I would like to tell you all, that RMS will be visiting Kosovo tomorrow to speak at the national Library. I would also like to invite you all to take part in our FLOSSK/FLOSSAL Summer of Code, we are organizing two weeks of conferences, workshops and beach parties! Sept 11-26 in Albania and in Kosovo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mdupont/OpenLetterToFreeSoftwareCommuniti… [image: 4665452523_2dd2158a66_b_d.jpg] http://www.flickr.com/photos/h4ck3rm1k3/4665452523/ Thanks, mike

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Published: Fellowship interview with Leif-Jöran Olsson
by Stian Rødven Eide 31 May '10

31 May '10

Hi all, The latest Fellowship interview has now been published: http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/david-reyes-samblas-martinez/ Please spread widely and vote at: http://www.fsdaily.com/Community/FSFE_Fellowship_interview_with_David_Reyes… all the best, /Stian

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People and Planet
by Sam Tuke 27 May '10

27 May '10

I recently found this page on the environmentalist People and Planet site: http://peopleandplanet.org/floss This is really a great endorsement for Free Software, from a well established UK charity. I wondered if FSFE has had anything to do with this? If not then it seems to me that we should note the page's existence, and use content/contacts from it in future when doing more charity targeted campaigning. If FSFE has not yet made contact with this group then perhaps we should, just to let them know that we exist, appreciate their efforts, and would like to support them if possible in using and promoting FOSS. Sam. PS Is there a better list for this?

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