Dear Friends of Free Software,
We would like to invite you to our next meeting of the Fellows in Berlin
and the surrounding area. We will meet
- Friday, February 17, 2006
- at 7 pm
- in the newthinking store [1], Tucholskystr. 48, 10117 Berlin-Mitte
During our first meeting, we decided to meet regularly to discuss topics
that we are interested in. These include
- Free Software in Berlin, what can WE do?
- Report from "Open Source Meets Business" [2]
- generation of Free Software advocacy material
If you are interested in those topics, we would be happy to meet you
during an open-minded evening with other fellows and friends.
Please send me a note if you like to come, so we get enough seats for
everybody.
With best wishes,
Matze
1. http://store.newthinking.de
2. http://www.open-source-meets-business.de
--
Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org)
Hi all,
this is more a "fyi notice" than anything else:
Thanks to the efforts of Werner Koch, Harald Welte, Nils Färber and
myself, last week I finally managed to solve two major problems for my
personal use of smart cards / OpenPGP crypto cards, such as the
Fellowship crypto card [1], that might be bothering others as well.
* 100% Free Software PCMCIA smart card reader
Problem one was to find a PCMCIA smart card reader that could be used
under GNU/Linux with 100% Free Software.
Most PCMCIA readers under GNU/Linux seem to use proprietary libraries,
which is unacceptable. From a security viewpoint, I also consider it
self-defeating: Obviously the security of the system is only as strong
as the security of the non-freelayer and all its maintaining
infrastructure at the producing company, which the user has no control
over.
Thanks to Werner, Harald and Nils, it is now possible to use the
Omnikey CardMan 4040 exclusively with Free Software under
GNU/Linux. You will find more information here:
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/fellowship_crypto_card_the_c…
* Remote SSH logins with crypto card authentication
Problem two was to do remote logins via SSH with authentication
through the smart card. There was a problem with the gpg-agent that
did not do PIN caching, and thus was somewhat annoying to use in real
life. Werner just addressed this problem, and now it works rather
flawlessly.
The gpg-agent replaces the ssh-agent for authentication, and it is
possible to do remote securely authenticated OpenSSH logins. You can
find information here:
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/authenticating_ssh_logins_wi…
So I hope this will help others with similar problems to solve them.
If anyone feels like playing with it, adding to it, making it easier
to use, or GUIfying it, that would be great. It would be good to see
the technology improve and spread.
Also, if people were to join the Fellowship (and such contribute to
the work of FSFE) in order to have play with the cards and find more
applications of it that are both fun and useful, that would be great.
Regards,
Georg
[1] http://www.fsfe.org/card/
--
Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org>
Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org)
Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org)
FSF have released a video of the opening presentation of the GPLv3 launch:
http://gplv3.fsf.org/av/gplv3-draft1-release.ogg.torrent
And I've made a transcript:
http://www.ifso.ie/documents/gplv3-launch-2006-01-16.html
...which I'd like to widely publicise to ensure that no one else wastes
there time doing the same thing.
The recording contains about 20 minutes of Richard Stallman and 70 minutes
of Eben Moglen, both spend the time describing the changes in the license
and why they were made.
One reason for making the transcript is that it can be used as a starting
point for anyone else who will give presentations about GPLv3 this year.
Other reasons are grep-ability, web-search engines, and translatabilitiy
(human or machine).
I haven't transcribed the post-presentation Q&A, but IMO, it's not too
interesting anyway. I may transcribe some bits, or note the highlights
if/when I get time.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan, _________| Support free software: join FSFE's Fellowship
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ | & encourage others to do so: http://fsfe.org
___________________________| http://ciaran.compsoc.com/fsfe-fellowship.html
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Hi,
ams(a)gnu.org schrieb am 10.02.06 12:28:55:
> There is no doubt that free software needs free documentation, even
> FSF says this. If so, why does FSF allow restrictions to
> modifications of documentation (using FDL) that does not allow for
> software?
>
> Because such restrictions make sense, you don't need the right to
> modify my thoughts about why I wrote the book, or to whom I dedicated
> the book.
You're talking about books but the argument was about, say, the the gcc
manual.
>
> There is people that thinks software is the conjuction of programs
> and their documentation (and other thing, like images, etc.). For
> example, Debian project seems to think this way.
>
> Debian consideres _everything_ software, which is simply bogus. Some
> images might make sense to have as verbatim only, same applies for
> many texts about philosophy, or even music recordings. This does not
> apply to functional works, like software, where modification is an
> essential right.
And documentation of software belongs to the software itself as much
as the source code.
>
> You don't need the right to modify my poem about dragons, or infact,
> this text.
Nobody said so.
>
> Why limit modification of documentation of a free program, if we do
> not want that limit for the program itself and if the documentation
> is necessary?
>
> You aren't limited anywhere when you modify free documentation of a
> free program. This is like saying that you are limited by the GPL to
> create non-free works, which is simply nonsense.
I could interpret your message as saying that GFDL was not free,
otherwise, its sense is unclear to me.
The main question I see about this was:
Why are manuals/docs of GNU GPLed programs not under GNU GPL license, a
license that is bullet-proof, easily understood (in comparison to GFDL,
at least) and also practically useful?
Best wishes
Michael
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1. Fellowship meetings in Vienna and Berlin
2. Discussion about Free Software in Austrian schools started
3. First draft of GPLv3 presented
4. Microsoft still trying to avoid competition
1. Fellowship meetings in Vienna and Berlin
Matthias Kirschner organised the first Fellowship meeting in Berlin.
Bernhard Reiter, FSFE's coordinator for Germany, was there to inform
about FSFE's work. A good discussion evolved, and interest in more
regular meetings was clearly voiced.
In Vienna, Karin Kosina and Reinhard Müller had invited to the second
Austrian Fellowship meeting. There was a very good discussion about
Free Software in Austrian schools.
While it was decided to stick with bi-monthly meetings in Vienna,
Berlin might even see monthly meetings if enough volunteers are found
to help with the organisation. Upcoming Fellowship meetings will be
announced on the FSFE events page as usual:
http://www.fsfeurope.org/events/events.en.html
2. Discussion about Free Software in Austrian schools started
Most schools in Austria still use and teach mostly proprietary
software. While many schools show very good initiatives towards the
adaption of Free Software, there is still a long road ahead. The FSFE
has created a mailing list meant for general discussion about Free
Software in Education in Austria, without being focussed on a specific
project or type of school.
https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-at
3. First draft of GPLv3 presented
The MIT in Boston, USA, hosted the first international conference on
the GPLv3. Georg Greve, Stefano Maffulli and Ciaran O'Riordan
represented the FSFE on this event that marks the first milestone of
the way towards a new version of the world's most successful Free
Software license.
4. Microsoft still trying to avoid competition
In a press release, Microsoft announced licensing Windows Server
source code instead of specifications, claiming to thus meet the
requirements put before them by the European Commission. FSFE was once
again quick to explain how this announcement is a mere attempt to
distract from Microsofts non-compliance with the European Court order,
and a tactical ploy to endanger Free Software developers: after having
seen such Windows source code, a developer writing interoperable
software is potentially subject to copyright infringement lawsuits
brought about by Microsoft.
Several media, including the Wall Street Journal and the International
Herald Tribune, followed FSFE's explanations on this issue.
You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
Greetings
As you will notice, English is not my mother tongue and therefore i apologize
for my English.
My name is Jan Braunisch. I am a student from Sweden who is a big fan of Free
Software. Sadly I have not contributed code to any project but i have been
very active in helping other users of Free Software.
Today I had a discussion in an IRC-channel about the possibilities of Linux
being released under the coming GNU GPL v3.
I was told that Linux may only be distributed under the GPL v2 and i was told
to look at http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/1/25/273 where Linus Torvalds explains
that only GPL v2 may be used.
Because I thought this was very strange I decided to take a look at the source
code of Linux itself. This is what i discovered:
* Many of the files (about one third of the .c-files) contained the standard
text found in most GPL:ed programs and which can be found at the end of the
GPL as the recommended way of releasing a program under the GPL.
* Most files had only a copyright notice and nothing about the license used
for the software.
* The only thing in the root directory of the kernel source tree containing
anything about the licensing of the software was the COPYING file, which only
contained a copy of the GPL v2 along with these notes:
NOTE! This copyright does *not* cover user programs that use kernel
services by normal system calls - this is merely considered normal use
of the kernel, and does *not* fall under the heading of "derived work".
Also note that the GPL below is copyrighted by the Free Software
Foundation, but the instance of code that it refers to (the Linux
kernel) is copyrighted by me and others who actually wrote it.
Also note that the only valid version of the GPL as far as the kernel
is concerned is _this_ particular version of the license (ie v2, not
v2.2 or v3.x or whatever), unless explicitly otherwise stated.
the second note was added a few years ago only to clarify how the licensing of
Linux is to be understood, hence it should not be treated as anything other
than a note.
In my opinion, this is not a valid way to license software under the GPL.
Now i have two questions, and i would be extremely grateful if you could
answer them for me:
What rights do I have to use the source code in the kernel tree which has not
specified a license? Is it released under the GPL, is it in the Public Domain
or am I not allowed to do anything with it?
If the code is Free Software under the GPL, may I only use GPL v2 as Linus
says or am i allowed to use any version of the GPL if i want to redistribute
it, according to "If the Program does not specify a version number of this
License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software
Foundation." under section 9 of the GPL.
Best regards
Jan Braunisch
hi.
from may 4th - 7th 2006 in athens there will be the 4th european social
forum. about 40000 ppl who think that "another world is possible" will meet
there. i am thinking about organizing the following workshop/seminary there:
* the production of free software as a showcase for a new type of
economy: cooperation instead of capitalist competition.
or something along that lines. people who would be interested in
participating there could email me.
greetings from vienna,
mond.
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
. Franz Schaefer GPG KeyID: CFA2F632
.. +43 699 106 14 590 +43 720502048 Fingerprint: 57C2 C0CC
... schaefer(a)mond.at 6F0A 54C7 0D88 D37E
... http://www.mond.at/ C17C CB16 CFA2 F632
I just found this surprising new project from John Gilmore:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/gnash/2005-12/msg00000.html
----------------
Gnash is a new GNU project to build a media player that's compatible
with Macromedia "Shockwave Flash" standards and plays common ".swf"
files. Gnash will work both as a standalone application, and as a
browser plugin (initially for Firefox).
Gnash is based on the excellent work done on the public domain program
"GameSWF", a graphics library for games that contains the heart of a
Flash interpreter. Further development will aim this code toward the
goal of playing arbitrary Flash "movies". This goal diverges from the
goals of the GameSWF maintainers (which are to make a good public
domain graphics library for games), and they were unwilling to accept
some of our patches as a result. We're forking the code and pushing
foward. New code for Gnash will be licensed under the GPL (version 2
or better). I'm sure we can contribute public domain bug fixes back
to GameSWF, though our major development will be GPL licensed.
John Gilmore
----------------
More on John Gilmore here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gilmore_%28advocate%29
I found out about Gnash in the Take Action section of the gnu.org homepage.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan, _________| Support free software: join FSFE's Fellowship
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ | & encourage others to do so: http://fsfe.org
___________________________| http://ciaran.compsoc.com/fsfe-fellowship.html
[Visible on SFinfo at 1600 UTC tomorrow. Reception and some background
on my Google Problems page http://mjr.towers.org.uk/blog/2006/google ]
WEF Digital 2.0: Powering a Creative Economy
Neue technologische Designs ermöglichen ein grosses Feld von neuen Konsumgütern und Produkten. Zugleich bereiten sie aber auch den Boden vor für die zerstörerischen Kräfte von morgen.
- Was kommt in der nächsten technologischen Revolution auf uns zu?
- Welche Technologien der nächsten Generation treiben die globale Wirtschaft an?
- Wie sollen neue Unternehmen oder die heutigen multinationalen Betriebe am besten auf diese neuen Gelegenheiten setzen?
Teilnehmer:
- Geoffrey Moore, Managing Partner TCG Advisors LLC, USA
- John T. Chambers, President and CEO Cisco Systems Inc., USA
- William H. Gates III, Chairman and Chief Software Architect Microsoft, USA
- Eric Schmidt, CEO Google Inc., USA
- Niklas Zennström, Co-Founder and CEO Skype Technologies SA, UK
http://www2.sfdrs.ch/tvprogramm/tv_detail.php?slotid=43C6E7DA-6BF7-4CAF-AEA…
[Now, the only one of those who doesn't alarm me is the first one
and that's probably only because I don't know who he is. Gather
round, one and all, get ready to chuck the rotten fruit at the TV.]
--
MJ Ray - personal email, see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Work: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/irc.oftc.net/slef Jabber/SIP ask
Hi all,
it's FOSDEM time again. This years Free Software Developers Meeting
(FOSDEM) will take place in Brussels during the weekend 25/26 of
February.
A few days ago, we started to plan the representation of the FSFE at
this event. FOSDEM ist one of the major events related to Free Software,
which is very close to the community.
1) Our Team
We are looking for some people able to help us at our booth. As usual,
the major job would be to talk to interesting people and sell some
merchandise stuff. We will present and inform about the Fellowship
program as well.
Please let me know if you are interested in supporting the FSFE this
way. Even if you know somebody, who might be interested, I would like to
encourage you, to tell me.
2) Hotel
The FOSDEM team was able to gain a special (although not very good) rate
for FOSDEM visitors at the Saint Catherine Ibis Hotel. The rate is at
EUR 69,- per room/night (it doesn't matter, whether it is a double room,
or not) plus EUR 10,- breakfast per person/night. The hotel can be
booked with a special form, only.
Additionally, I would like to offer to look for an additional Hotel in
the hope to get a better rate.
Please let me know what you think here?
Thanks and regards,
Volker
--
Volker Dormeyer <volker(a)ixolution.de>
Join the Fellowship and protect your Freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org)