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Microsoft tries to fool European Comission
by Rui Miguel Silva Seabra 25 Jan '06

25 Jan '06

Danger Will Robinson: http://today.reuters.com/business/newsarticle.aspx?type=ousiv&storyID=2006-… Smith said all source code related to protocols in the Commission remedy would be made available, but only for inspection. It may not be used by licensees. He said Microsoft would charge no extra money for the code beyond what it was already planning to charge for the protocol licenses. Rui

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Howto: Create Free Professional Banner!
by Roland Häder 22 Jan '06

22 Jan '06

Hello GNU people out there, I have finished the very first ALPHA version of my documentation how to create cool advert-banners for your homepages. It's licensed under the GNU FDL so feel free to download it from my server. But one thing: I have "re-produced" and heavily modified Jens Lautenbacher's toturial which can be found here: http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/The_Basics/ But in the head it says: "Text and images Copyright (C) 2002 Jens Lautenbacher and may not be used without permission of the author." Does this mean I am allowed to produce a totural like mine or not? Well, addionally I have added an album which contains screenshots of my work when I have designed my "Against-Software-Patents" banner. Direct link to the album: http://photos.mxchange.org/viewer.php?album=albums/Design-Arbeiten/HOWTOs&p… Link to all (currently one...) my documentation works: http://docs.mxchange.org Cheers, Roland PS: Please never ask me for a M$ Word document... ;-)

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possible gpl violation by webshop xt:commerce
by Hanno Böck 21 Jan '06

21 Jan '06

Hi, Just found the following issue: The webshop xt:commerce, which is a fork of the GPLed oscommerce, doesn't provide it's latest version for download, but they still claim it's GPL. Now, to get the source, you need to pay a "development- and support fee" of 98 eur for twelve months. So this seems to be a clear violation of the GPL. What's the next step? Writing a polite email to them probably. Can anyone help me writing it (preferrably in german), especially pointing to the correct parts of the gpl? (Contact me via jabber, see below) -- Hanno Böck Blog: http://www.hboeck.de/ GPG: 3DBD3B20 Jabber: jabber(a)hboeck.de "Was berechtigt eigentlich jeden Computerbesitzer, ungefragt seine Meinung abzusondern?" Jean-Remy von Matt

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Microsoft grateful for Vienna Manipulations?
by Georg C. F. Greve 20 Jan '06

20 Jan '06

FYI. [ http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/microsoft_grateful_for_vienn… ] Microsoft grateful for Vienna Manipulations? greve Friday 20 January 2006 Many of you read the GROKLAW article on how Microsoft manipulated the Vienna Conclusions of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Many people around the world spoke up against this form of political manipulation and control by joining the call to "Fellow Me: Say NO! to Vienna Manipulations" Two months later, Austrian chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel has yet to answer the inquiries by the media about these outright manipulations of a United Nations event he himself opened and was patron of, and the results of which were distributed officially by the Austrian government at the summit in Tunis. I would not hold my breath, though: "Schweigekanzler" was selected as "word of the year 2005" in Austria. It could be translated to English as "silent chancellor", or maybe even "hush-up-chancellor". Microsoft however seems to have loved so much discretion. At least that was my first thought when I read the article "Microsoft looks beyond Vista, sees Vienna" on CNET News.com: "The 'Blackcomb' code name has been changed to 'Vienna,' but we do not have any other details to share on timing or focus," Microsoft said in a statement to CNET News.com. "This does not reflect a big change for us; we have used city code names in the past, which are derived from cities/locations in the world known for great 'vistas'--the kinds of places we all want to see, experience and that capture the imagination. Vienna fits with this concept." Vienna fits the concept of a place that Microsoft likes to see, huh? Given the lack of response to such outright political manipulation at the highest levels, I'm not surprised. Even for Microsoft it is rather obscene that they would so blatantly choose the name of a city where they were caught red-handed while manipulating the outcome of a United Nations conference. Apparently Microsoft feels like rubbing in their superiority to concepts like democracy. Even though I had hoped this was public knowledge by now, it really seems that not enough people have heard about this. So please put something along these lines in as many places as possible: Microsoft likes Vienna and what it stands for? I don't: Fellow Me: Say NO! to Vienna Manipulations Here is the HTML blurb you could use for that: vienna_manipulations.html

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Re: Closing this list (gplv3@fsfeurope.org)
by Florian Weimer 19 Jan '06

19 Jan '06

* Georg C. F. Greve: > In case you are interested in general discussions on Free Software, > our mailing list discussion(a)fsfeurope.org will remain available for > that. Will there be a general discussion list for users who wish to exchange thoughts, without the intent of submitting a formal comment yet? Such a list would be quite useful, even if the S/N were pretty low and you'd have to use your killfile extensively.

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A good license for PHP framwork?
by "Roland Häder" 18 Jan '06

18 Jan '06

Hello, I'm planing to write and release freely a framwork written in PHP with abstract database access (currently only a MySQL layer is finished). The purpose of the framework is to help young webmasters programming simple webbrowser-games. The framework will provide a simple CMS, template support, (currently) single-language-support but multi-language will be added soon, CSS files for ease style-changing and a simple admin menu. I also plan to let the people decide if they want to sell their game scripts or also release it freely. I gues the LGPL might be a good idea? Or the always-good GPL? Regards, Roland Häder -- Telefonieren Sie schon oder sparen Sie noch? NEU: GMX Phone_Flat http://www.gmx.net/de/go/telefonie

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First Fellowship meeting in Berlin
by Matthias Kirschner 17 Jan '06

17 Jan '06

Dear Friends of Free Software, I would like to invite all of you from Berlin and the surrounding area to the first Fellowship meeting of Berlin. We hope to have a comfortable evening to chat with like-minded people, get know to each other and discuss about our future plans. What: First Fellowship meeting of Berlin When: Thursday, 19th January 2006, 18:00 Uhr Where: Newthinking Store (Tucholskystr. 48, 10117 Berlin) I am looking forward to meeting you all in person. See you on the 19th January. With best wishes, Matthias Kirschner PS: Send me a note, when you already know, if you are able to come. -- Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org)

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Re: Volunteer needed for BGW (was: Brave GNU World)
by Georg C. F. Greve 09 Jan '06

09 Jan '06

|| On Sat, 7 Jan 2006 14:13:46 +0100 || "Alain M. Lafon" <preek(a)stud.uni-stuttgart.de> wrote: aml> I'm a native german speaker, too, but I'd like to help by doing aml> a "rough" translation - after I've finished people may judge aml> wheter it is worth to be read by others. Are we talking about aml> 8-12 issues here? The last translated issue is #59. Last weekend I wrote issue #82. So we are talking 23 issues overall... quite a bit of work. It seems too much for any single person, but maybe together we can get them translated. There is a Brave GNU World project on Savannah [1] that is used to administrate write access to the BGW web page. If anyone feels like putting German issues online, I can email them to you to be put into the standard template that is used on the site. Given that this is mainly all done by hand, it would seem a task for someone who can do scripting and/or is willing to set up a CMS. Such a CMS could probably be hosted on FSFE's servers if we had someone/a group to get it up and running & administrate it afterwards. Connecting it somehow with the Fellowship [2] would seem interesting. In the end, I am more concerned about getting it done than how exactly it is done -- although I would like to be involved in the design of the page and its look & feel at least a little bit. Someone to pick this task up would effectively have a good bit of conceptual freedom in how to do it, though. Regards, Georg [1] https://savannah.gnu.org/projects/bravegw/ [2] http://www.fsfe.org -- 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)

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FSF Europe Newsletter
by Free Software Foundation Europe 09 Jan '06

09 Jan '06

1. Celebrating the 20th newsletter 2. Georg Greve at LACFREE in Recife in Brazil 3. Henrik Sandklef at Chalmers University in Gothenburg 4. Karsten Gerloff at the 22nd CCC in Berlin 5. Voicing security concerns against personal pressure 6. Free Software energy in Northern Ireland 1. Celebrating the 20th newsletter This is the 20th edition of the Free Software Foundation Europe's monthly newsletter. Written by the FSFE team for the community, the newsletter has become an important means to inform interested people about FSFE's activities. Thanks to the excellent work of the FSFE translators team, the newsletter is available in at least 4 languages every month, most of the time even 5 or 6 languages. 2. Georg Greve at LACFREE in Recife, Brazil While Brazil generally has a reputation as one of the leading Free Software nations, the Brazilian Northeast has had very little activity in this area. That is why UNESCO supported the Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Free Software Development and Usage (LACFREE) in Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, a city with social inequality statistics comparable to Namibia. FSFE's president Georg Greve participated in no less than four workshops: one about the Free Software Foundations and our international network, one about Free Software in Education and Culture, one about Legal issues of Free Software and one about Free Software and eGovernance, totalling in no less than four speeches and 12 hours of panel time in just three days. Additionally, he gave interviews for a state newspaper and a community radio. http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/lacfree_2005 3. Henrik Sandklef at Chalmers University in Gothenburg Henrik Sandklef held a presentation at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. The topic he talked about included the concept of Free Software, the Free Software Foundations, the GNU project, and current threats to software freedom like IPRED or DRM. 4. Karsten Gerloff at the 22nd CCC in Berlin At the Chaos Computer Club's 22nd Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, Germany, Karsten Gerloff gave a talk on Free Software, Access to Knowledge and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). At the center of the talk was the importance of Access to Knowledge for culture and development. 5. Voicing security concerns against personal pressure Thomas Maus, a German IT security consultant, gave a talk at the Chaos Communication Congress in which he raised concerns about electronic health file systems as planned in Germany and possibly other countries. Last year he did a talk about examining one test system finding major security problems. Subsequently there have been various attempts to suppress his questions. The 2005 talk included some details how this was done. While the problems of the planned health system are a scandal in itself, this is also a major example that legislation forbidding reverse engineering or examining digital restriction systems can be and will be used to make it practially impossible for a public to inspect and criticise large and vital computer systems. Single experts like Mr. Maus can be pressured too easily. This is why the FSFE supported him and made it possible that this information is public now. One of our press release is available in German: http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release-de/2005q4/000081.html You will find the two talks online at (in German): http://events.ccc.de/congress/2005/fahrplan/events/546.en.html The one from 2004 had not been available for almost a year. 6. Free Software energy in Northern Ireland There has been a recent flurry of interest in Free Software in Northern Ireland, both within industry associations and GNU/Linux users. During December, Ciaran O'Riordan was in contact with many individuals and organisations, and took part in a Free Software workshop in Newry. Lack of central communication points was highlighted as a core problem, so, to assist coordination of Free Software activities, FSFE is pleased to announce the launch of the fsfe-ni mailing list: http://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-ni You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html

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EU Consultation: "database rights"
by Alex Hudson 06 Jan '06

06 Jan '06

Here's something interesting: http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/copyright/prot-databases/prot-dat… We've had a copyright-like protection of databases (collections of facts) for nearly ten years now, and the EU Commission has just published a study of the impact of this directive on the "database industry". Somewhat to their displeasure, it seems, the study has shown that the database industry hasn't grown (in fact, it shrunk), and there isn't an economic justification for the directive. They did, however, survey the industry to see what the industry thought of it, and people who make databases apparently like the directive. "So that's alright, then" :) James Boyle at the FT captures this nicely: "Imagine applying these arguments to a drug trial. The patients in the control group have done better than those given the drug, and there is evidence that the drug might be harmful. But the drug companies like their profits, and want to keep the drug on the market. Though “somewhat at odds” with the evidence, this is a “political reality.” Getting rid of the drug would reopen the debate on the search for a cure. Change is costly – true. But what is the purpose of a review, if the status quo is always to be preferred?" http://news.ft.com/cms/s/99610a50-7bb2-11da-ab8e-0000779e2340.html There is now a period of feedback on the report. Although database rights have only a limited impact on free software, I think we are stakeholders and should reply to the EU. Also, it's another chance to open the eyes of our politicians to the problems these laws cause :) Cheers, Alex.

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