[immediate release]
The Vista message: Upgrade to GNU/Linux now!
Microsoft has recently been criticised for some of its decisions
regarding its Microsoft Vista operating system, that threaten our
fundamental democratic and social values.
"Unfortunately, many of the articles and statements about problems
with Microsoft Vista are not truly specific to Vista. Very similar
problems exist in any proprietary software," says Georg Greve, FSFE's
president. "Ever since the first FSF was founded in 1985, the Free
Software Foundations have understood and worked against the threats
that proprietary software poses to our society."
He continues: "Because these dangers are more widely understood today
we have seen an unprecedented move to Free Software by governments,
users and companies alike in the past years. The more proprietary
software makes use of its absolute control over the user, the more
people are starting to look for alternatives."
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is encouraging all users of
proprietary software to consider all costs and alternatives:
Free Software has proven a strong tendency to be more reliable, more
secure, and more in line with our democratic and social values. The
choice should be easy to make.
In 2006, the FSFE launched its Freedom Task Force (FTF), an activity
that offers education and services in Free Software licensing, one of
the important issues to consider for any government or company
investigating a switch to Free Software. The FTF also answer queries,
provide training on all levels, and help to implement best practices
in all organisations. With a network of legal and technical experts
throughout Europe, it's perfectly equipped to deal with these issues
on a daily basis.
One of the technical issues that the FSFE is working on is freedom
>From Digital Restriction Management (DRM). This technique gives
industry a hitherto unprecedented power over anything consumers do
with their devices and arbitrarily decide and change what the user may
do with the digital information at her disposal, completely bypassing
national or international laws.
FSFE vice president Jonas Ã\u2013berg explains: "While DRM is a separate
issue in some regards, it's important to realise that the media
channel providers are pushing for DRM primarily in proprietary
software. This is because they know that with proprietary software,
the user has no control over it, and there is no way to restore his or
her legitimate rights. When using Free Software, the user can change
and adapt the software, or have someone do it, thereby bypassing the
most unacceptable restrictions. So it is no wonder that the industry
is pushing for products such as Microsoft Vista and other proprietary
software: it gives them more control over what the user can do."
All of these aspects should be taken into account when looking
forward. The COSPA-project, funded by the European Union, considers
it an advantage remain "independent of software vendors". And even
more importantly, it highlights the fact that Free Software leads to
the creation of new software businesses and one step towards reaching
the European Union Lisbon goals of making Europe the most competitive
knowledge economy by 2010.
FSFE considers this a unique opportunity: With the release of Vista,
users will need to upgrade to a new operating system that will feel
different and require some time to get used to its functionality. The
same is true for any modern GNU/Linux distribution.
It is about the same investment in effort, but it will give you
control over your own data.
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation
in the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, 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.
Contact:
Free Software Foundation Europe
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73
Shane Coughlan, FTF Co-ordinator, FSFE extension: 408
Joachim Jakobs, Media Relations, FSFE extension: 404
mobile: +49-179-6919565
Further information: http://fsfeurope.org
If you want to subscribe to this mailing list you can do so at
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/press-release
Get active, protect your freedom by joining the Fellowship of FSFE at
http://www.fsfe.org/join
FSFE becomes the legal guardian of the OpenSwarm Project
The OpenSwarm Project has become a signatory of the Fiduciary
licence Agreement (FLA), a copyright assignment that allows FSFE
to become the legal guardian of projects.
Anastasios Hatzis, the developer behind the OpenSwarm model-driven
development platform for Python applications, lead the process of
assigning copyright to FSFE. "My company - HATZIS Edelstahlbearbeitung
GmbH - wanted to foster a development community around the OpenSwarm
technology while also underwriting our commitment to Free Software,"
said Anastasios. "The FLA has provided us with an excellent way to
ensure code coherency and a framework for long-term development."
The OpenSwarm Project will be protected by FSFE's Freedom Task Force
(FTF). Shane Coughlan, FTF Coordinator, explains "The Freedom Task
Force is here to help strengthen the legal foundation of the Free
Software eco-system. The Fiduciary licence Agreement is part of this.
It provides a clear way for projects to consolidate their copyright.
In the case of OpenSwarm, FSFE is acting a legal guardian for the
project and ensuring that the developers can focus on maturing an
exciting development platform."
"FSFE is committed to help increase the maturity of the Free Software
community, including the legal maintainability of Free Software in the
long-term," explains FSFE president Georg Greve. He adds: "The FTF has
a specific part to play in this and we would like to thank Stichting
NLnet for their support in its launch and initial activities. We hope
other groups will also lend support."
Shane Coughlan summarises "the FTF mission to help educate
individuals, projects and businesses in the advantages of Free Software
licences, and to help the use of Free Software licences through
fiduciary assignment and legal guardianship. The Bacula project was
the first to avail of our fiduciary programme, and OpenSwarm underlines
the continued developer interest in this service."
The Freedom Task Force can be found at http://www.fsfeurope.org/ftf
The Freedom Task Force can be emailed at ftf(a)fsfeurope.org
About the OpenSwarm Project:
Development of OpenSwarm has been started at the HATZIS
Edelstahlbearbeitung GmbH. HATZIS is a family-owned and med-sized
steel-engineering company in Bavaria, Germany, which provides to
more than 300 companies construction and production services for
highest quality components made of stainless steel.
OpenSwarm is planned to be a holistic set of model-driven software
development tools focused on the easy creation of powerful and
business logic enriched applications in the field of Web- and
data-centric solutions for industry, public sector and non-profit
organisations. The generated software systems are implemented in
Python and data is stored in PostgreSQL databases, so they can be
hosted on almost any platform.
Further information: http://openswarm.sourceforge.net/
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation
in the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, 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.
Contact:
Free Software Foundation Europe
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73
Shane Coughlan, FTF Co-ordinator, FSFE extension: 408
Joachim Jakobs, Media Relations, FSFE extension: 404
mobile: +49-179-6919565
Further information: http://fsfeurope.org
If you want to subscribe to this mailing list you can do so at
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/press-release
Get active, protect your freedom by joining the Fellowship of FSFE at
http://www.fsfe.org/join
1. Looking back and forward
2. Georg Greve at "Nexell informiert"
3. Get Active: Join the Fellowship!
1. Looking back and forward
2006 was an exciting year for the Free Software community and for FSFE.
The Free Software Foundation Europe was and is involved in the
preparation of the new version of the GPL, the world's most successful
Free Software license, in the European Commission's efforts to stop
Microsoft abusing their monopoly, in the UN World Summit on Information
Society (WSIS), the UN Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the World
Intellectual Property Organsiation (WIPO), and the EU funded project for
Scientific Education and Learning in Freedom (SELF). Besides that, FSFE
has taken the main initiative to launch drm.info, a portal about the
dangers of Digital Restriction Management.
Probably the most important project for the next year will be the
Freedom Task Force (FTF), which will provide licensing education,
ficuciary activities and license enforcement in the field of Free
Software.
2007 will be an important year for Free Software: With more and more big
players (like Sun or Novell) shifting a growing share of their business
activity towards Free Software, effects of a single move of one of these
players get stronger for both good and bad decisions. The existence of
an independent organisation like FSFE that keeps the focus on the long
term goals is essential for the Free Software ecosystem to remain
balanced.
2. Georg Greve at "Nexell informiert"
In Zurich, Georg Greve gave a lecture titled "What is Free Software and
are Free Software solutions professional enough for our daily business?"
during the "Nexell informiert". "Nexell informiert" is a meeting where
experts are invited to talk and spread awareness about Free Software
issues, organised by the Nexell, an independent team of international
and multilingual CRM professionals.
3. Get Active: Join the Fellowship!
The Fellowship of FSFE is a community for digital freedom. Becoming a
Fellow is the easiest and most direct way to support the Free Software
Foundation Europe and Free Software in general. Fellows contribute in
three ways: financially, through the weight they give to the voice of
FSFE, and - if they want - through the work they do.
To help the Fellows in getting active, FSFE provides some infrastructure
for them to meet and coordinate: blogspace on fsfe.org, an email address
forwarding, a jabber account, and ad-hoc mailing lists - all available
exclusively for the Fellows.
However, probably the nicest thing a Fellow gets from FSFE is the
personalised OpenPGP conformant crypto card, so each Fellow can protect
his freedom and privacy directly and immediately.
https://www.fsfe.org
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html