1. Two lucky Fellows win a notebook 2. Giacomo Poderi starts internship at FSFE 3. FSFE core team continues to grow 4. Ciarán O'Riordan and Gareth Bowker speak in London 5. Free Software Forum in Brasil 6. Access to Knowledge Conference in USA 7. Hearing for Microsoft antitrust case
1. Two lucky Fellows win a notebook
The Fellowship is extremely important to sustain the activities of the Free Software Foundation Europe. For this reason, the FSFE tries to find ways of saying thank you to all who joined: This year, two HP Compaq notebooks were donated for random distribution among our Fellows. The winners of the raffle are Andrea Di Dato from Italy, and Wouter van Heyst from the Netherlands. Congratulations once more and enjoy your new machines!
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2006q2/000134.html
2. Giacomo Poderi starts internship with FSFE
The Free Software Foundation Europe welcomes Giacomo Poderi as its new intern. Giacomo lives in Zürich and works for FSFE from April to August 2006. His main task is administrative support for the President, the office, and the whole FSFE team. Giacomo has studied Philosophy in Bologna, Italy, and chose to work for FSFE because it allows to take part in some processes deeply related with social and technical aspects of daily life.
FSFE thanks Alexander Finkenberger for the valuable work he did during his internship, which ended in March. Alexander has decided to continue to work for FSFE on a volunteer basis and remains active in the core team of FSFE.
3. FSFE core team continues to grow
Antonella Beccaria, Cristian Rigamonti and Patrick Ohnewein joined the core team of FSFE. All of them have been active supporters of Free Software for several years. Together with Stefano Maffulli, they turn Italy into a firm and powerful base of the Free Software Foundation Europe.
4. Ciarán O'Riordan and Gareth Bowker speak in London
On April 7th, the British Computer Society hosted a Free Software evening where Ciarán O'Riordan gave a presentation about FSFE's work against software patents and about the GPLv3, and Gareth Bowker gave a presentation about copyright law and how DRM can restrict computer users. Both answered questions and the discussion with the attendees continued for a long time afterward.
5. Free Software Forum in Brasil
Georg Greve and Ciaran O'Riordan took part in the 7th edition of the Free Software Forum (FISL) in Porto Alegre, Brasil. Georg Greve gave one of the opening talks ("Free Software - Social Movement or Technological Revolution?"), and participated in the sessions on Free Software Foundation Latin America, 100% Free Software distributions, and the license compatibility panel for the 2nd international conference on GPLv3. Ciaran O'Riordan spoke about the work against software patents and participated in various ways in the GPLv3 conference. Besides these public appearances, both also worked with FSFE's sister organisation, the FSF Latin America and the local Free Software community to strengthen the international Free Software network.
6. Access to Knowledge Conference in USA
The Information Society Project at Yale Law School held a landmark conference on Access to Knowledge (A2K) on April 21-23. Karsten Gerloff moderated a podium on "Licensing Frameworks for Access to Knowledge". The speakers investigated the possibilities and limitations of licenses in regulating knowledge. The debate centered on the limits of the Creative Commons concept.
The conference was a great opportunity to make contact with other activists and academics in the A2K field. The organisers have documented most of the conference in a public wiki.
http://research.yale.edu/isp/a2k/wiki/index.php/Yale_A2K_Conference
7. Hearing for Microsoft antitrust case
After many years of investigation, years of legal battle and literally billions of Euro spent by Microsoft to uphold its monopoly, the European Court in Luxembourg convened in its grand jury of 13 judges for a one-week hearing. The purpose of this hearing was to decide whether Microsofts accusations of unfair treatment and mistakes in judgement by the European Commission are founded and whether the decision should be abolished or modified.
In close cooperation with the Samba Team, the Free Software Foundation Europe had a Team of five people present in Luxembourg to defend the Commissions decision: Accompanied by FSFE president Georg Greve, FSFE's lawyer on the case, Carlo Piana, and FSFE's media coordinators Joachim Jakobs and Antonella Beccaria, Samba Team founder Andrew Tridgell spoke in court on behalf of the FSFE. His clear and profound explanations greatly helped invalidate many of the false claims made by Microsoft. A decision is expected within this year, and also thanks to the work done by FSFE and Samba, some slight optimism is warranted.
You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html