1. Regional and international Fellowship meetings
2. FSFE at the Wizards of OS in Berlin
3. Georg Greve at SERCI workshop in Helsinki, Finland
4. FSFE at WIPO General Assembly
5. Other public appearances
1. Regional and international Fellowship meetings
Regional Fellowship meetings become more and more regular: in Vienna,
where the fourth Austrian Fellowship meeting took place, the attendants
decided to move from bi-monthly to monthly meetings. In Düsseldorf,
the first Fellowship meeting in the Ruhr area was organised, and more
will follow.
At the same time, preparations for the first international Fellowship
meeting in Bolzano are getting up to speed.
http://fsfe.org/events/first_meeting_of_fellows
2. FSFE at the Wizards of OS in Berlin
The Free Software Foundation Europe participated at Wizards of OS 4 from
14 to 16 September in Berlin, Germany. A team of 12 people - members of
the FSFE and volunteers - helped to staff the booth and informed
intersted people about Free Software related issues.
During the conference Bernhard Reiter gave an interview about Free
Software in general, Free Software in education, science and public,
administration, software patents, Free Software buisness models, Digital
Restriction Management (DRM), and the work of FSFE. The interview is
available online in German.
http://netzpolitik.org/2006/netzpolitik-podcast-mit-bernhard-reiter-zu-frei…
Georg Greve, also gave several interviews. One about Free Software as a
cultural technique, how you can help Free Software, and other things is
also available online in German.
http://netzpolitik.org/2006/netzpolitik-podcast-mit-georg-greve-von-der-fsf…
On Friday, Ciaran O'Riordan and Georg Greve held the GPLv3 Workshop in
which they informed about current issues and how people can participate
in the process.
http://www.wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=2871
On Saturday Matthias Kirschner participated in the "Show of Free
Knowledge" where he explained Free Software using the cooking recipe
analogy.
http://www.wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=2819&L= (German)
3. Georg Greve at SERCI workshop in Helsinki, Finland
FSFE president Georg Greve was invited to participate in a workshop of
the Society for Economic Research on Copyright Issues (SERCI) about the
question of software copyright and patents. As one of the speakers in a
policy panel with participants from Nokia, Microsoft and FFII, Georg
Greve answered issues on political aspects of software freedom and the
Microsoft antitrust case. A short summary can be found in his blog at
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/piracy_redefined_and_other_g…
4. FSFE at WIPO General Assembly
End of September was the General Assembly of the WIPO, UN's body for
Copyrights, Patents and related issues. This year's assembly had two
very contentious to deal with: The future of the Development Agenda to
reform WIPO and the potential Broadcasting Treaty. As FSFE president
Georg Greve reported on Thursday of the WIPO GA, both seem to evolve in
ways that look much better than they could have:
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/wipo_general_assembly_broadc…
5. Other public appearances
Rainer Kersten, Bernhard Reiter, and Werner Koch represented the FSFE
at an event called "come2linux" in Essen, Germany, where they had some
interesting conversations with people insterested in the background
of Free Software.
Patrick Ohnewein and Reinhard Müller both held a keynote at a Free
Software event in Hall/Tirol, Austria, called "Tiroler Linuxtag".
Patrick spoke about CoCOS, a competence center for Free Software, and
about Free Software in Southern Tyrol. Reinhard gave a general overview
on Free Software and informed about the Fellowship.
At this year's annual KDE conference in Dublin, Ireland, Ciarán
O'Riordan delivered a keynote on software patents and led a Birds of
Feather session on GPLv3.
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
DRM.info: Informing about the dangers of controlling private media use
Early this morning, a group of contributing organisations and authors
launched DRM.info, [1] a collaborative information platform about the
potential dangers of Digital Restriction Management (DRM) initiated by
the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE).
"'Your devices don't trust you!' is the basic message of DRM. In fact
they trust you so little that they will not even tell you that they
put you under surveillance," says Joachim Jakobs, FSFE's media
coordinator. "The SONY rootkit case has shown that software was
secretly installed without the users consent, reported back to SONY,
and even damaged the Windows installation when being removed." [2]
Given the political implications of putting the owners of computers,
media players, mobile phones and other devices under the control of
the vendors of the devices, it is no wonder people would prefer if
noone knew of DRM: A Disney executive told the 'Economist' [3] one
year ago: "If consumers even know there's a DRM, what it is, and how
it works, we've already failed."
In contrast, DRM.info is based on the idea that people should be
informed and involved in decisions that will affect them on a very
personal level.
"DRM technologies are based on the principle that a third party has
more influence over your devices than you, and that their interests
will override yours when they come in conflict. That is even true
where your interest is perfectly legitimate and legal, and possibly
also for your own data," explains Georg Greve, FSFE's president.
Libraries are also concerned about the impact of DRM on their ability to
preserve our cultural heritage, to provide future access to public
domain material and to exercise user priviledges under copyright law.
"Libraries see DRM as a threat to our activities because it can
undermine or even prevent legitimate access to and use of digital
content", said Teresa Hackett, eIFL.net. "We welcome DRM.info as a
platform for public debate on these important issues for society".
Georg Greve finishes: "DRM.info is about to end the silence on DRM and
you can help us with that task: Download a DRM.info web button today
and link to it." [4]
[1] http://drm.info
[2] http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2005/11/sonys_drm_rootk.html
[3] http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=4342418
[4] http://drm.info/artworks/drm-button
About DRM.info
DRM.info is a collaboration between several independent
organisations and individuals. The views expressed reflect those of
the organisation in question and, unless otherwise stated, are not
made on behalf of the other contributors. All the contributors have
a shared concern about the lack of an informed social debate on
issues surrounding DRM technologies.
Contributors:
Consumer Project on Technology (CPTech)
Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFI)
Electronic Information for Libraries (eIFL.net)
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)
iCommons (iCommons)
International Federation of Library Associations and
Institutions (IFLA)
netzpolitik.org (netzpolitik.org)
and independent author Cory Doctorow.
DRM.info media partners:
Linux Magazine Brasil, Brazil
Linux Magazine Espana, Spain
PC World.cz, Czech
Punto Informatico, Italy:
"DRM is a crucial issue when we look at the effects of those
technologies on innovation and freedom of access. Punto Informatico
believes that any such issue as DRM, which is already producing an
outstanding impact on the development of the Information Society,
must be put on the table of a large and partecipated debate. Our
mission after more than ten years is still to contribute to inform
Italian Internet users about the chances each one of us has in
order to play a role in the shaping of our digital future"
Paolo De Andreis, Punto Informatico main editor
VNU Business Publications Deutschland, Germany
"VNU germany is going to join the DRM info-campaign as we have
experienced in the past and strongly believe that DRM is not adding value
to our business, benefitting our customers or creating new opportunities
on the marketplace."
Christian Miessner, Associate Publisher Online
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a charitable
non-governmental organisation dedicated to all aspects of Free
Software in Europe. Access to software determines who may
participate in a digital society. Therefore the Freedoms to use,
copy, modify and redistribute software - as described in the Free
Software definition- allow equal participation in the information
age. Creating awareness for these issues, securing Free Software
politically and legally, and giving people Freedom by supporting
development of Free Software are central issues of the FSFE. The
FSFE was founded in 2001 as the European sister organisation of the
Free Software Foundation in the United States.
Further information: http://fsfeurope.org
--
Joachim Jakobs <jj(a)office.fsfeurope.org
Media Relations - FSF Europe (http://fsfeurope.org)
Tel: +49 700 - 373387673, Ext.: 404
Mobile: +49-179-6919565