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Question about free licenses
by Carsten Agger 17 Apr '14

17 Apr '14

Silly question, maybe: Is it acceptable for a free license to limit the use of whatever it covers to lawful purposes? The question is not about a free software license, but about an open data license - specifically this one, by the Danish government body Digitaliseringsstyrelsen (Agency for Digitalization): http://digitaliser.dk/resource/2432531 The clause that makes me wonder is this: "Det skal sikres, at brug af data er i overensstemmelse med dansk ret." ... meaning ... "It must be ensured that the data are used in acccordance with Danish law." Apart from this one clause, the license is a very decent BSD- or MIT-style license. But I wonder if this one clause is a poison pill that they should be adviced to take out? Now suppose ... someone took property value data to make an app which figures out which families may be rich and uses it to burgle them. When they are caught, should they also be prosecuted for breaking the open data license? They might, but it seems absurd. A second scenario: Someone makes another and perfectly legitimate traffic monitoring application, and someone buys that app and uses it to figure out when trucks carrying valuable goods pass. The crooks did not make the app, which is legit. Should the supplier of the app be prosecuted for not ensuring a legal use of the data? But how could they? Could a free software license contain such a clause? I guess it would be non-free. But open data or open content? I'm a bit confused as to what to think about that.

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Buying group software
by Federico Bruni 11 Apr '14

11 Apr '14

In Italy there are local buying groups who order food or any stuff from local organic farms. They are called GAS (Gruppo di Acquisto Solidale). I'm wondering if you know similar groups in Europe. If yes, do they use a Free web service to collect the orders? In Italy we have a small Italian project, probably run by one person: http://www.economia-solidale.org/ The php code should be on Sourcefourge. Of course an international Free Software project would scale much better. Does it exist already and I'm missing it? Or there's no interest in such a service? Thanks Federico

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Open Data and Hacktivism
by Carsten Agger 11 Apr '14

11 Apr '14

I did a talk in English about this in Open Space Aarhus, the local hackerspace, this evening. You can read my blog post about it: https://blogs.fsfe.org/agger/2014/04/10/speaking-about-open-data-and-hackti… or just hop directly to the slides: http://modspil.dk/docs/open_data_and_hacktivism.pdf

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Unitary Patents and the European Patent Court
by Carsten Agger 09 Apr '14

09 Apr '14

As you may or may not know, on May 25 there's a referendum in Denmark concerning whether to join the European Patent Court. If the result of the referendum is a no, that means the new unitary patent will not be valid in Denmark. From a free software perspective this is kind of a no-brainer: Currently, each year about 6,000 EPO patents (of all kinds) are validated in Denmark. When the unitary patent is introduced, we can expect that number to grow to about 60,000. EPO's practices regarding software patents are very dubious, and we have no idea how the new patent court will view "computer implemented inventions"; but the whole setup is worrying. I have co-authored an open letter to IT companies which was published on the Danish web magazine Den Fri: http://www.denfri.dk/2014/03/softwarepatenter-aabent-brev-til-danmarks-virk… (also available on my own blog, http://www.modspil.dk/itpolitik/softwarepatenter_og_patentdomstol___bent_br…) Apart from publishing it there, we have also sent it to all web bureaus in the Aarhus area and plan to send it to all small/medium software companies in Denmark. We and many others, are also doing other things to get the no, of course. It's a tall order: At least 30% of eligible voters must vote no for our accession to the patent court to fall. A majority of say 29,9% against 20% of eligible voters would not be enough, and turnout for European elections is traditionally low. Still, we hope the best. General question: The European Court used to think the setup concerning the new Patent Court is illegal. Do they still think that? Best Carsten

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Writing Hyperlinks
by Hugo Roy 28 Mar '14

28 Mar '14

Hi all, I know it's not really specific to Free Software. However, I am sure this could be interesting to anyone reading this list and to all folks publishing articles or blog posts on fsfe.org web sites. This is a short article on what makes a good hyperlink: Writing Hyperlinks: Salient, Descriptive, Start with Keyword <http://www.nngroup.com/articles/writing-links/> Summary: To help users quickly find what they need, anchor text should stand out from the body content and accurately describe the page that it refers to. Best, -- Hugo Roy, Free Software Foundation Europe, <www.fsfe.org> Deputy Coordinator, FSFE Legal Team, <www.fsfe.org/legal> Coordinator, FSFE French Team, <www.fsfe.org/fr> Support Free Software, sign up! <https://fsfe.org/support>

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Open Standards t-shirts on sale
by Sam Tuke 25 Mar '14

25 Mar '14

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 Last week the t-shirts for Document Freedom Day 2014 went on sale on the FSFE shop: https://fsfe.org/order/order.en.html#girlie-dfd-purple https://fsfe.org/order/order.en.html#tshirt-dfd-purple There are two designs, both in slim fit Organic (Bio) and Fair Trade cotton, both available in Men and Women's sizes. They could make a nice Easter present for your favourite freedom lover :) Best, Sam. - -- Sam Tuke Campaign Manager Free Software Foundation Europe IM : samtuke(a)jabber.fsfe.org Is freedom important to you? Join the fellowship.fsfe.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iF4EAREIAAYFAlMxmZUACgkQ1bR1Itj7YQUc+gEAkhAgpxiYiMmnOmfZehfNaQp1 UmBTyR3nT6qqwTiYeWoBALOHmfY67EolMdVlR7Q4W4iQKcs6vjVT6obmayvNZlIQ =9AEM -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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First two Libre Graphics Mag articles online
by Sam Tuke 25 Mar '14

25 Mar '14

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA256 The first two articles by Libre Graphics for Document Freedom Day have been published: http://libregraphicsmag.com/blog/ Today's piece is entitled "Working together, developing open standards" about the active improvement of SVG for graphics. One is being posted each day this week. Best, Sam. - -- Sam Tuke Campaign Manager Free Software Foundation Europe IM : samtuke(a)jabber.fsfe.org Is freedom important to you? Join the fellowship.fsfe.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1 Comment: Using GnuPG with Thunderbird - http://www.enigmail.net/ iF4EAREIAAYFAlMxcRgACgkQ1bR1Itj7YQUtdwEAyj1Yv6r1/YzZHxSpHDFkDcrv G6u3qhZKOhug+NMcbx8A+gIAVwgC3gf+Olt8xNra09tEkicnElusJbYm629n9Gp8 =9lzQ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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Re: FSFE Newsletter - February 2014
by Fabian Keil 11 Mar '14

11 Mar '14

Fellowship of FSFE <fellowship(a)fsfeurope.org> wrote: > - Matthew Garrett criticised Canonical's contributor agreement[19]. > Other copyright assignment tools, such as FSFE's Fiduciary License > Agreement[20] and the GNU Project's copyright assignment, enable > developers to prevent their code from being used in non-free software. > In contrast, Canonical's agreement explicitly states that the company > may distribute people's contributions under non-free licenses. If you > value software freedom, FSFE recommends you not to sign agreements > which make it possible to distribute your code under non-free > licenses. Is this recommendation, the reasoning behind it and the process that led to it documented somewhere? The recommendation seems to imply that people who prefer or don't object to non-viral free software licenses don't value software freedom. Fabian

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Free Software campaigns for European Elections 2014
by Erik Albers 06 Mar '14

06 Mar '14

Dear FSFE community, as you might have already read in the news [1], FSFE is supporter of two current campaigns about the European Elections 2014. Both campaigns need your participation and your support. = wepromise.eu = this is a camapaign by European Digital Rights (EDRi) in cooperation with various partners [2], among them FSFE. Politicians are asked to sign for "digital rights". Therefore, there is a Charter [3] with 10 points, among them Data protection, transparency, encryption and similar demands as well as the promise "I will support measures allowing or promoting widespread use of Free Software (Open Source Software). This includes government and public entities, in particular entities that receive funding from the EU budget. " What can you do? You can promise to just vote for a candidate that supports these digital rights. the more participate, the higher impact the campaign has. Politicians love to count votes and the more people state they will only vote for a candidate that signed this Charter, the more likely politicians sign the Charter. = freesoftwarepact.eu = this is a campaign by April. In contrast to wepromise.eu this campaign directly addresses the use and the political importance of Free Software. Politicians are encouraged to sign a Free Software pact [4], with that they promise to further the use and distribution of Free Software and Open Standards in administrations and to only vote for laws and Directives that are in accordance with the need of Free Software. In addition, the participatory part in this campaign is somehow different than wepromise.eu: You cannot sign the campaign yourself, but the campaign needs you to contact politicians and candidates from your country and to persuade them to sign the pact. soon there will be translations of the pact available in other languages, by now there are a lot of drafts for proofreading in the wiki [5]. How do I know who are my candidates? You can find current politicians representing your country on europarl [6]. Lists about new and current candidates for your country you can best find on the homepages of your country's parties that run for the European elections. I would be very happy to see a lot of you engaging in these campaigns. Every signature is worth two times: On one hand, with every candidate you contact, you make sure that there is one more politician who heard about the importance of Free Software for politics and the voting public. In addition, as FSFE we can use every signature to contact these politicians in the upcoming 5 years whenever there are critical polls about Directives that may harm the evolution of Free Software. Thank you very much for you attention, Erik [1] http://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20140304-01.en.html [2] http://www.wepromise.eu/en/page/partners [3] http://www.wepromise.eu/en/page/charter [4] http://www.freesoftwarepact.eu/post/The-Free-Software-Pact [5] http://wiki.april.org/w/Free_software_pact:_list_of_tasks [6] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/map.html -- Erik Albers | https://fsfe.org/about/albers Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) - Campaigns & Community Free as in Freedom!

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Promise to vote for digital rights for the European Election
by Matthias Kirschner 04 Mar '14

04 Mar '14

We support an activity by EDRi which has a 10 point declaration of digital rights. Candidates can sign it, but more importantly: YOU! You promise to vote for a candidate who signed the 10 point Charter (Free Software is one point of it): http://www.wepromise.eu/en The more people will commit to that the more candidates will see that it is worth working on those topics. So please help to make this campaign of EDRi a success by giving your promise. If you hurry up you will be number 600. Best Regards, Matthias -- Matthias Kirschner - Vice President FSFE Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, t +49-30-27595290 Weblog (blogs.fsfe.org/mk) - Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) Receive monthly Free Software news (fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html) Your donation enables our work (fsfe.org/donate)

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