1. IPRED2 - the new attack against freedom
2. Stichting NLnet donate 150,000 EUR to support GPLv3 activities
3. Alessandro Rubini in Slovenia
4. Stefano Maffulli at the OpenOffice.org Conference in Slovenia
1. IPRED2 - the new attack against freedom
The European Commission has recently published it's draft for a second
directive on the enforcement of "intellectual property rights." The
text proposes criminalising most infringements of patents, copyrights,
and trademarks, and also criminalising the aiding, abetting, or
inciting of such an infringement. By requiring that jail sentences,
large fines, and other harsh punishments be available for these new
crimes, this directive could create enough fear to prevent citizens
and companies from participating in the production and distribution of
software, and to an extent, the use of software and the publication of
information. It would also turn patent, trademark, and copyright laws
into affordable weapons for well-funded companies to use on
competitors.
Ciaran O'Rioran has put together a page in which he explains how this
directive could be abused to harm Free Software and what can be done
against it.
http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/ipred2/
2. Stichting NLnet donate 150,000 EUR to support GPLv3 activities
Stichting NLnet, a non-profit foundation based in The Netherlands,
announced to donate 150,000 EUR to support the GPLv3 activities of the
Free Software Foundation and the Free Software Foundation Europe. This
is an important contribution, and NLnet hopes to encourage other
grant-making organisations to help fund this unique project.
3. Alessandro Rubini in Slovenia
In Portoroz in Slovenia, Alessandro Rubini participated in a business
conference about Free Software. He gave a talk about the the use of
Free Software in business and participated in a round table discussion
about how the government should help Free Software companies grow. Apart
from these official appearances, he spent most of the time in Slovenia
establishing contacts with other Free Software advocates from both
Slovenia and Croatia.
4. Stefano Maffulli at the OpenOffice.org Conference in Slovenia
At the OpenOffice.org Conference in Koper - Capodistria, Stefano
Maffulli spoke at the round table that closed OOoConf2005. The debate
ranged from the decision of Massachusetts to use OpenDocument Format to
the next advancements in OpenOffice.org. The Conference was very well
managed and the hospitality of LUG Trieste and LUGOS (Slovenia) was
wonderful.
You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
[ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/wipo/statement-20050930.en.html ]
Statement of the Free Software Foundations
Free Software Foundation Europe
Free Software Foundation Latin America
towards the 2005 WIPO general assemblies
Mr. Chairman,
on behalf of the Free Software Foundations Europe and Latin America,
let me express my congratulations to you and your colleagues on your
chairing this historic general assembly. The Free Software Foundations
are globally active centres of expertise acting in a network of sister
organisations based in India, Latin America, Europe and the United
States of America.
Our area of expertise are the issues raised by a digitised society and
economy, questions which are addressed effectively by Free Software;
as defined by the freedom of unlimited use for any purpose, the
freedom to study, the freedom to modify and the freedom to distribute.
Through the Free Software Foundation Europe the FSFs participated in
all sessions of the Development Agenda IIM process and also followed
the broadcasting treaty negotiations with great interest. Our comments
relate to both activities.
Mr Chairman,
much has been said and written about the knowledge society that
humankind is about to enter. Looking at the regulatory initiatives,
one stumbles upon a paradox: While society is getting ready to unleash
human creativity as it has never done before, regulatory proposals
seek to create new barriers.
The Broadcasting Treaty is a good example of such a new barrier for
which the potential benefits and costs seem unequally matched in
disfavor of humankind.
The result of ignoring the wisdom of approaching crucial legal
regulation can be seen in another area: software patents have been
introduced without evaluation, and according to the findings of
several renowned institutions we now have to realise that they are
harmful to competition and stifle innovation. For your information:
these institutions include Massachussetts Institute of Technology
(MIT), the Boston University School of Law, Price Waterhouse Coopers,
US Federal Trade Commission and Deutsche Bank Research.
The situation has degenerated to the point that a vice president of
IBM, Mr Wladawsky-Berger, likened software patents to weapons of mass
destruction in a New York Times interview.
Similar experiences seem possible with the Broadcasting Treaty.
Erecting additional barriers and raising all barriers by introduction
of criminal sanctions against commercial infringement at a time when
humankind is still struggling to fully understand the implications of
the digital age would be hasty and unwise.
Mr. Chairman,
the traditional toolset of WIPO revolves centrally around limited
monopolies, such as Copyrights, Patents or Trademarks. These have
often been treated on the basis that more is always better, an
approach that ignores both Liebigs law of the minimum as well as
Shelfords law of tolerance: Not only will increasing the dose of the
non-limiting factor have no positive effect, an overdose can be toxic.
Finding the proper balance between too little and too much is the
challenge that lies before any regulation. Given the fundamental
impact of all regulations made on WIPO level, wisdom would suggest a
conservative approach:
New regulations should only be introduced if scientific evidence and
evidence from a public review period conclusively show it to have a
positive effect.
Old regulations should be reviewed periodically as to whether they are
still up to the needs of the time, or whether they require adjustment.
In the light of the wisdom of Liebig and Shelford, agreeing to the
creation of a WIPO Research and Evaluation Office (WERO) would seem
trivial, so would the search for alternative means of fostering
creativity.
As the secretariat and member states correctly pointed out repeatedly
in the past: WIPO exists to promote creativity. At the time of its
inception, most alternative means of fostering creativity were not yet
concieved, in particular those related to digitalisation. Now that
they exist, what would seem more natural for WIPO than exploring them?
The discussions around the Development Agenda have proven to be most
difficult, also because of procedural discussions, which indeed took
the majority of the time spent in the IIM process. After these had
been largely resolved, substantive discussion took place, cut short by
the need to come to a formal outcome that could be presented to this
general assembly.
Not continuing what was begun, or changing from a horse to a mule
midstream, as the honored Indian delegate so eloquently put it, would
be wasting the time and effort spent on this initiative by all sides,
North and South. For this reason we strongly support the notion of
letting the IIM process finish what it began.
Mr Chairman,
Thank you for your attention.
Statement by Mr. Georg C.F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org>
Free Software Foundation Europe, President
Hello,
Browsing through the OpenSolaris.org website today I came across the
"OpenSolaris Fan Buttons and Banners"[0] page.
Clicking on a button brings you to a licence page for that image. The
full text is below
OpenSolaris Fan Button and Banner Trademark License
Sun Microsystems, Inc. is pleased to offer you a limited license to
use the OpenSolaris Fan Button or Banner depicted below, but does not
transfer title in this Fan Button or Banner or its included Sun
trademark - OpenSolaris.
Your use of an OpenSolaris Technology Fan Button or Banner on your Web
site indicates you agree to the following terms of the OpenSolaris Fan
Button and Banner Trademark License and of the OpenSolaris Fan Button
and Banner Usage Guidelines.
1. The OpenSolaris Technology Fan Button or Banner must be
configured on your Web site as an active link back to the OpenSolaris
technology web page at http://opensolaris.org.
2. The OpenSolaris Technology Fan Buttons or Banner is intended
solely for use and display in HTML on the World Wide Web. Do not use
it in advertising/promotional materials, collateral, products, labels,
packaging or any other printed material.
3. Your use of the OpenSolaris Technology Fan Button or Banner
acknowledges Sun's ownership of the button/banner and the included Sun
trademarks, including OpenSolaris, and such use inures to the benefit
of Sun Microsystems, Inc. Sun grants you no rights in the Fan Button
or Banner or the included trademarks other than those described
herein. Any other use may be considered an infringement.
4. While Sun welcomes constructive criticism of the OpenSolaris
technology, You may not use the Fan Button or Banner or any Sun
trademark on a web page which contains subject matter which Sun
considers, at its sole discretion, in poor taste or to be disparaging
to Sun or its products or services.
5. This license is revocable at any time at Sun's sole discretion.
In addition, if we find that You are not following the terms of this
license or the OpenSolaris Technology Fan Button and Banner Usage
Guidelines, we will give You twenty-one (21) days after our electronic
notice to either cure the violation or remove the Fan Button or Banner
from your web site. Sun further reserves the right, at its sole
discretion, to modify this license, the Fan Button and Banner Usage
Guidelines, or the Button/Banner itself, or to terminate this entire
program or any aspect of it. You will have thirty (30) days after
electronic notice to conform to the new changes and/or guidelines.
Is this licence acceptable as a free software licence? I'm interested
in the following points
4. Sun welcomes constructive criticism but do not use this image on a
site that is critical of Sun.
5. Sun reserves the right to revoke the licence for these images at any time
Thanks for any opinions you have about it
[0] http://www.opensolaris.org/os/about/buttons/
--
~sm
Jabber: mozrat(a)gmail.com
www: http://beerandspeech.org
Please send congratulations to FFII and Nosoftwarepatents.com for
their glorious work keeping software excluded from patentability
in Europe!
Seth
> http://www.cnetnetworks.co.uk/awards/2005_winners.html#contri_software
Outstanding Contribution to Software Development
Winner: NoSoftwarePatents.com & The Foundation for a Free
Information Infrastructure (FFII)
NoSoftwarePatents.com and the FFII joined forces last year to
campaign against the European software patent directive, which
many feared would open the doors to an increasingly litigious
marketplace in which small businesses would struggle to survive.
In July this year, the European Parliament unexpectedly rejected
the directive, a victory which can be attributed to the tireless
work of this alliance.
I've made a web page about the IPRED2 proposal from the Commission:
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ipred2/ipred2.en.html
And there's a public mailing list for discussion of this:
https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/ipred2
The current status is that the proposal has just been released by the
Commission. The next thing to happen is the rapporteur has to be chosen,
this will happen in October. There are no estimates yet for when it will go
to first reading.
Info about why this is a problem is on the above webpage.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan, ___________________/ Join the Fellowship of FSFE to
http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/ _/ support the campaigns against software
___________________________________/ patents and IPRED2 http://fsfe.org
Hi all,
it is unfortunate that while other journalists had the presence of
mind to realise confusion of a single journalist for what it was,
Slashdot did not.
For your information, since Slashdot did not react to my request of
clarification, I have posted the attached clarification to LWN.net to
hopefully limit the spread of misinformation somewhat.
Also I'd like to add one more thing: So far I considered the "internet
taxation" misinformation a secondary issue, much less important than
the GPLv3 issue itself.
Unfortunately, when adding a fix for the worst misinformation about
patents, the journalist also added more quotes and material to the
issue on DRM and "internet taxation".
To make clear you know where this comes from and where I stand, let me
point out that I did not advocate internet taxation when speaking with
the journalist, nor do I think it is a good idea: Indeed I had long
fights with people who suggested something like this during the United
Nations World Summit on the Information Society.
The journalist asked me whether I knew of any alternatives to DRM, to
which I said that many people advocate all sorts of different
concepts, including cultural flatrates or production on demand
models. When asked whether a cultural flatrate could be considered a
kind of tax, I said this might be one way of looking at it.
I did not endorse any of these models, only said that alternatives to
DRM are thinkable and that we should consider them, because I do
consider DRM a very bad idea.
I am deeply sorry for that mess: It was the first time we worked with
that particular journalist. My apologies for any confusion I may have
caused.
Regards,
Georg
------------------------------
Hi all,
there seems to be confusion spread about the GPLv3, based on a Reuters
article published today and copied to several locations, including
MSNBC from where Slashdot grabbed it. Unfortunately in this article
Reuters displayed some items of pure speculation as facts and in doing
so oversimplified them to the extent that they became false.
The true news is what you can see in this release: We have begun
preparing the GPL Version 3 process for real and there will be a long
discussion throughout 2006 about the changes made. Since that process
will be quite a lot of work, the Free Software Foundations are very
happy that Stichting NLnet supports this process and hope that others
will do the same.
As to what the GPL version 3 draft will contain: Noone has that
information right now, it is all in Richard Stallmans head, who has to
gather the ideas and get to work on the draft. Until that draft has
been published, everything is pure speculation and your guess is as
good as mine.
Reuters picked up strongly on two of the the points which were made
before by Eben Moglen in the eweek article and quoted me falsely. They
later did some slight improvement in terms of reducing the
oversimplification, but still portrayed things in a rather one-sided
way, in particular making mere speculation seem fact, while ignoring
the true facts.
So the best thing you can do is to ignore that article.
It is FUD and I am deeply sorry for this, for I have been centrally
(if falsely) quoted as the contributor of it.
That has been a most unpleasant experience.
Regards,
Georg Greve
FSFE, President
------------------------------
--
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)
1. Heading towards the GPLv3
2. Karsten Gerloff at the ATTAC Germany summer academy
3. AFFS General Meeting
4. Improving the infrastructure
1. Heading towards the GPLv3
The world wide network of Free Software Foundations is currently
preparing the next step in the evolution of the GNU General Public
License, the most used license in the Free Software world. While there
is no doubt that the current version (GPLv2) holds in court and is
applicable all over the world, the GPLv3 will address aspects that
were not as pressing or did not exist at the time the GPLv2 was
written, like programs that are used over the internet. Other issues
likely to be of interest are software patents, compatibility with
other copyleft licenses, DRM and TCP.
The Free Software Foundation Europe is determined to put as much time
and energy into this project as it needs to make the GPLv3 as powerful
and successful as the GPLv2 is.
The FSFE has set up a mailing list for public discussion of GPLv3, to
which you are invited to subscribe at
https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/gplv3
2. Karsten Gerloff at the ATTAC Germany summer academy
Karsten Gerloff was asked to give a speech about the current
developments within the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)
and the A2K (Access To Knowledge) Treaty at ATTAC Germany's summer
academy in Goettingen. His talk was part of a seminar on intellectual
monopoly rights.
Karsten was also invited to attend a meeting of the ATTAC "Knowledge
Commons" working group.
3. AFFS General Meeting
On 13 August, FSFE's UK based associate organisation AFFS held its
General Meeting. Ciaran O'Riordan held a talk about what has been
achieved with regards to software patentability, and how the road
ahead looks like.
4. Infrastructure
As August was a quite unspectacular and not many events were scheduled
this month, the FSFE team worked on what could be considered "house
keeping" -- improving the infrastructure so we will be ready for the
next work-intensive months.
A new asterisk server allowing Voice Over IP connections within the
team and the reorganisation of mail distribution lists and internal
data repositories should help improving communication, which is always
a challenge when people are spread all over Europe.
The Fellowship was another target of improvements: while the current
system works well and stable, the time has come for the first round of
improvements. A major point is the upcoming migration of the portal
site www.fsfe.org from Plone to ez Publish.
You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
Hello all,
as some of you may know already, the FSF Europe (FSFE) [1] will attend
the GNU/LinuxWorld Conference & Expo 2005 [2] again.
1. http://fsfeurope.org
2. http://www.linuxworldexpo.de
GNU/LinuxWorld is one of the most important tradeshows related to Free
Software business applications, all over Europe. The event takes place
from November 15 - 17, 2005 in Frankfurt (Germany).
Like in the years before, the FSFE will attend as exhibitor with an
appropriate booth. To man the booth, we are looking for Fellowship
members and/or volunteers interested in Free Software and thus would
like to support the FSFE.
The main work will be to answer questions and to involve visitors in
interesting discussions related to many aspects of Free Software.
T-Shirts and other merchandise will be sold, too. Furthermore, it is
planned to present the Fellowship program incl. the OpenPGP compliant
smartcard again.
Please give me a short note, if you are interested in supporting the
FSFE this way. A short statement incl. a time frame in which you would
prefer to be with us would be a good idea, too.
Thanks and regards,
Volker
--
Volker Dormeyer <volker(a)ixolution.de>
Join the Fellowship and protect your Freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org)
Hi, I'll write this one in German as it won't be of much interest for people
who don't speak German ;)
Hallo,
einige dürften ja bereits das DeshalbFrei Wiki kennen, das Leuten, die sich
z.B. wenig mit Computern auskennen, freie Software erklären und näher bringen
will. Um auf aktuelle Geschehnisse besser eingehen zu können, haben wir nun
zusätzlich ein Weblog eingerichtet, dass sich mit diesen Themen beschäftigen
soll:
* Neuigkeiten rund um das DeshalbFrei Projekt
* Neues aus der Community / den Projekten
* Neues zu freien Programmen, Formaten und Protokollen
* Meldungen über den Einsatz freier Software in Behörden, Schulen und Firmen
* Freie Software in der Presse und Literatur zu freier Software
Die ersten Beiträge sind schon veröffentlicht, über Feedback freuen wir uns
wie immer :)
Christoph Neuroth
deshalbfrei.org
Hi all,
FYI, my paper is now online. I am sorry, it's only available in German.
Cultural technique software -
Why organisations, which communicate with developing countries, have to
use Free Software.
Abstract:
"Um eine nachhaltige Entwicklung zu ermöglichen, muss Software, als
Kulturtechnik des 21. Jahrhunderts, den Menschen in den
Entwicklungsländern zur Verfügung stehen. Hierfür müssen
Organisationen selbst konsequent Freie Software einsetzen."
http://www.fsfe.org/Members/mk/kulturtechnik_software-1.4.pdf
I am looking forward to receive feedback.
With best wishes,
Matze
--
Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org)