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Re: Kernel developers' position on GPLv3
by Stefano Spinucci 23 Sep '06

23 Sep '06

On 9/22/06, Alfred M. Szmidt <ams(a)gnu.org> wrote: > However, if the Linux Kernel could use the GPLv3 would be better > than, as they say, a "Balkanisation of the entire [snip] Universe > upon which we rely". > > Those who wish to do evil, or allow evil, will always think lesser > about our goals. > > Or do you think that if the Linux Kernel 'll stay with GPLv2 this > won't be a problem ??? > > Unless you get agreement from anyone who has ever contributed a > legally significant amount of code to Linux, then Linux will stay as > GPLv2 only. Then, you think that the "Balkanisation menace" is only smelly FUD, and that GPLv2 and v3 can cohesist without problems ??? I'm not an expert, but we can have a GNU toolchain v3 and a Kernel v2 ??? --- Stefano Spinucci (a GPLv3 supporter, and a freedom lover)

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First International Meeting of the Fellowship of FSFE in Bolzano, Italy
by FSF Europe - Press Agency 21 Sep '06

21 Sep '06

First International Meeting of the Fellowship of FSFE in Bolzano, Italy The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is delighted to announce the first international Meeting of the Fellowship of FSFE. [1] Following up on an idea proposed by the Fellows themselves, and organised in part by the Fellowship of FSFE, Fellows from all over Europe will be coming together in the afternoon of 11 November 2006 in Bolzano, Italy, to discuss issues of digital freedom in general, and the work of FSFE [2] and the Fellowship in particular. This meeting will provide an excellent opportunity to meet other Fellows in person, collect ideas, and plan for the next yet of Free Software agenda setting in Europe. It will also be a unique chance to get first hand information from all the people working for FSFE internationally, and ask for the information you always wanted to know. Fellows will also be the first to know about FSFE's plans for the next months and year, including a very special announcement. "FSFE is a very busy organisation that has grown a lot in the past years. Although I work full-time for FSFE, it is not always easy to keep track of all the things that are going on," says Stefano Maffulli, Italian representative and Fellowship coordinator of FSFE. "I believe this event will be a unique opportunity for people to get first-hand information and participate in the intellectual environment of FSFE." He concludes: "If you haven't joined the Fellowship so far, this event is a very good reason to do so immediately. [3]" "The Fellowship is an integral part of FSFE's work, it has made much possible that we otherwise could not have done," explains Georg Greve, FSFE's president. "We believe this meeting will also be an excellent way for us to say thanks by reporting back to the people who made much of our work possible and taking their input into the next round." In order to accomodate the busy agendas of the Free Software community and to allow people to make more efficient use of their travel expense, FSFE has dedided to co-locate the first International Meeting of the Fellowship of FSFE with the South Tyrol Free Software Conference (SFSCon) [4], the annual fall gathering hosted by the Free Software Community in Bolzano. [5] There is much to be seen: The Plone Sprint [6] from 6th through 9th of November, the actual SFSCon on 10th and the morning of the 11th, and then the Fellowship meeting for all Fellows of FSFE on the afternoon of the 11th. Entrance to the SFSCon event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. Please visit the web site of the SFSCon [4] and select "registration". The Fellowship Meeting is for Fellows only, but it will be possible to sign up to the Fellowship during the conference. [1] http://www.fsfe.org/events/ [2] http://www.fsfeurope.org/ [3] http://www.fsfe.org/join/ [4] http://www.sfscon.it/ [5] http://www.sfscon.it/where [6] http://sfscon.it/data/plone-sprint About the Free Software Foundation Europe The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) is a charitable non-governmental organisation dedicated to all aspects of Free Software in Europe. Access to software determines who may participate in a digital society. Therefore the freedoms to use, copy, modify and redistribute software - as described in the Free Software definition - allow equal participation in the information age. Creating awareness of these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues of the FSF Europe, which was founded in 2001 as the European sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation in the United States. www.fsfeurope.org

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question about software patents (sandisk/sisvel)
by Hanno Böck 19 Sep '06

19 Sep '06

Hi, I have a question about this case (german article): http://www.golem.de/0609/47577.html Now, from what I know, software patents aren't allowed in europe (that's why we were demonstrating in front of the european parliament last spring and succeeded). So, why is it possible that a company takes legal action for patents on mp3-stuff? - Is this one of the "epa gives sw-patents although they're not allowed"-case? Then, why don't companies like sandisk take legal actions against the patent? - Is this in someway not considered "software"? - What else is going on there? I never got a really competent answer on why the mp3-patent seems to be valid in europe, so I hope anyone here has deeper knowledge. I think it's important for free software projects like ffmpeg, mad or lame to have this situation cleared up. cu, -- Hanno Böck Blog: http://www.hboeck.de/ GPG: 3DBD3B20 Jabber: jabber(a)hboeck.de

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A business model based on patents and open source.
by David Picon Alvarez 15 Sep '06

15 Sep '06

Hi, There's an article on groklaw about a business model based on sw patents and open source. Besides the patents being, from my understanding, purely data processing stuff which shouldn't get patented in the first place, the scheme is rather insidious, since it enforces through the patent licence that internal modifications for one's own use of the software must be distributed to the public. While distributing improvements to the public is generally a good thing, it seems to me that this is an excessive requirement that renders the scheme non-free. You can get more info at URL below: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2006091118502284 I believe free software advocacy organizations should oppose this use of patent law, even if it is more permissive towards free software than the norm. Otherwise pro-swpat people will start saying that "even those free software radical lunatics think patents are OK sometimes". --David.

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Re: Supporting FSFE
by MJ Ray 13 Sep '06

13 Sep '06

Ciaran O'Riordan wrote: > MJ Ray <mjr@...> writes: > > it would be nice to see where the EUR120/year's going to go... > > With my time [...] Sorry, it wasn't meant to be an anecdote request. I guess I should have written "there's no clear way of tracking the money from the fellowship site." > FSFE's funds are more transperant than most NGOs: > http://fsfeurope.org/about/funds/funds.en.html Are you sure? Most associations I'm involved with present their accounts in their annual report, so I'm surprised that 2005 is still unavailable. Maybe that says more about how important clear accounting is to me than most NGOs, though. FSFE does have more information more readily available than many, though. Would the 2005 and 2006 accounts be available on request? (if the FSFE accounts are published to April, like many) > [...] If you see low hanging fruit, make a suggestion.f Link http://fsfeurope.org/about/funds/funds.en.html and the coming year's budget from the money request page. > > 1. No support for FSF*'s non-free-software actions (FDL and so on) > > Personally, I'm also not a fan of the GFDL, but I think it's > disproportionate to black ball FSFE's work because of this. So we disagree. FDL is an increasing pain in the backside for my work. It hurts my bottom line, as it were. > RMS said a year and a half ago that GFDL would be updated. [...] > http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/6019 > Eben Moglen says that a draft of the next version of the GFDL is almost > ready [...] When it changes, then things change. Not before. I've made that mistake in the past. FSF does nothing to do with FDL on time. As it's not really much to do with free software, that's understandable. > > 2. No personal data for sites without a privacy policy or P3P support. > > Hmm, seems like an easily correctable oversight. I've raised it now: > http://fsfe.org/en/forums/fellowship_smoothers/privacy_policy Let us know what happens. It seemed a bit odd for a group aimed at "the spearhead of those who are aware of issues of privacy, security and digital self-determination" not to have anything like ol' Auntie Beeb's http://www.bbc.co.uk/privacy/ Thanks, -- MJ Ray - see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html North End, Lynn, Norfolk, England Work: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ IRC/Jabber/SIP: on request

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Re: RSS aggregator for fsfe.org (was Re: question about software patents (sandisk/sisvel))
by MJ Ray 13 Sep '06

13 Sep '06

Alfred M. Szmidt <ams@...> wrote: > 1. No support for FSF*'s non-free-software actions (FDL and so on) > > The GFDL has nothing to do with software, there is nothing non-free > software related with it, nor has it much to do with software. It is > a decent free _documentation_ license. So, the Free *Software* Foundation should not be promoting it, if it has nothing to do with software or free software. I don't much mind which way you want to argue it, but the FSF should not promote the FDL. I also disagree that it is a free documentation licence. Documentation with unnecessary uneditable adverts/propaganda which cannot be removed are not free in most senses, and an immoral waste of paper when printed. Thanks, -- MJ Ray - see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html North End, Lynn, Norfolk, England Work: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/ IRC/Jabber/SIP: on request

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FSFE Newsletter
by Free Software Foundation Europe 08 Sep '06

08 Sep '06

1. Moving forward in the GPLv3 public consultation process 2. SELF project issues call for material 3. New office in Sweden 4. School of Art and Design Zürich donates hosting services to FSFE 5. Giacomo Poderi ends his internship 6. Alex Antener joins the core team 1. Moving forward in the GPLv3 public consultation process On 23 and 24 August, the 4th international GPLv3 conference took place in Bangalore, India. The event was organised by FSFE's sister organisation, the Free Software Foundation India, and FSFE helped the organisers by sharing their experiences from the 3rd conference in Barcelona. Regarding Europe, the FSFE still keeps a high level of public appearance to inform people about the essence and the backgrounds of the proposed changes in GPLv3. Most notably, Jonas Öberg presented the GPLv3 at one of the regular meetings of Dataföreningen, the Swedish computer association, and Ciarán O'Riordan did a presentation at the Danish Unix User Group DKUUG. http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/gplv3.en.html 2. SELF project issues call for material SELF (Science Education and Learning in Freedom), an EU funded project to create and collect educational material about Free Software and open standards, issued a call for material. Everybody who knows of existing material that might be interesting to the SELF project is encouraged to register it online so that it can be evaluated and considered for the SELF platform. http://www.selfproject.eu/repository/submit 3. New office in Sweden Thanks to a cooperation with the Göteborg University, the FSFE has been able to start an office in Sweden. This will help the FSFE to build up an even stronger presence in the nordic region and give the volunteers and employees of the FSFE in Sweden a permanent place to work from. 4. School of Art and Design Zürich provides home for new FSFE server The School of Art and Design Zürich (HGKZ, "Hochschule für Gestaltung und Kunst Zürich") supports the FSFE by donating rack space and bandwidth for a new server. This is an important and valuable contribution to FSFE, which took the summer break opportunity to further consolidate and improve its server infrastructure. 5. Giacomo Poderi ends his internship August was the last month of Giacomo Poderi's internship. The FSFE thanks him for his valuable and reliable work. Giacomo found his internship a really formative experience, where he also got the chance of seeing how a lively and active organization like FSFE works to try ensuring that rights in the 'digital age' are not disregarded. He remains an active member of the FSFE and will continue to contribute in the Italian team. 6. Alex Antener joins the core team Alex Antener from Zürich joined the FSFE core team as the first Swiss member. The focus of his work with FSFE is building up a strong team to support Free Software in Switzerland, in cooperation with FSFE's associate organisations. Having attended a school of arts rather than a technical school, he also aims to provide a bridge between Free Software issues on the one side and education and culture on the other. You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html

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question about software patents (sandisk/sisvel)
by Hanno Böck 04 Sep '06

04 Sep '06

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Transcript of RMS from Bangalore, India on GPLv3
by Ciaran O'Riordan 01 Sep '06

01 Sep '06

I've made a transcript of Richard's talk at the recent 4th international GPLv3 conference in Bangalore: http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/bangalore-rms-transcript.en.html One of the easiest things each of us can do to raise awareness of the GPLv3 process is to pass that webpage URL to mailing lists, forums, news sites, user-submission sites, wikis, and other appropriate places. -- Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3 http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ GPLv3 and other work supported by http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org

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Explaining Free Software - good examples
by Matthias Kirschner 28 Aug '06

28 Aug '06

Hi all, I am looking for a good way to explain Free Software to *non-programmers* during a moderated show. It should be short (about 6 minutes), not to technically (I do not want to scare them off), and illustrative. To start I thought about using the recipe analogy because I have good experiences with this example which others also share. But now there should be an example for the audience, which shows the advantage of the freedom to modify the software to your own needs. There should be some pictures so not only someone is visible who is just talking or explaining without really showing something. First I thought of a /translation example/: Think about the case your mother want to use a program, but she is not able to read English. And than show someone who is translating a program into another language (there is the possibility to show things on a screen). But I do not know if that is something people are really concerned with. So someone had the idea to adept a /Mozilla Firefox extension/ (Firefox, because it is available on different platforms and a lot of people already know it and perhaps use it). For example, adapt a library search to a local library. But I do not know how difficult it is to do something like this and I am unsure if the audience will understand it. It should be easy to modify it. It does not matter if the result is funny, or useful. A friend argued OpenOffice.org, FireFox and embedded devices (which also was an idea) are bad examples for showing practical work on the source code and it would be better to use a language and application that does not need a /building step/, like a python application. Another friend said he thinks you cannot explain Free Software to a non-programmer by showing someone modifying software, because the audience does not know what a program is, so there is no point in showing them a program and pretend to tell them that 'it is easy to modify it'. After thinking about this I am playing with the idea to just use the recipe example and show someone cooking. But I am not sure if it is good not showing software at all. Now, what do you think? Do you have good approaches which might help me? Or have experiences that a certain approach did not work with a non-programmer audience? I am looking forward to your replies. With best wishes, Matze -- Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org)

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