= Tagesschau.de awarded for the use of Open Standards =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20110330-01.en.html ]
Berlin, 30. March 2011 - Today the ARD internet platform Tagesschau.de
will receive an award for the use of Open Standards at the "Document
Freedom Day". The prize is awarded by the Free Software Foundation
Europe (FSFE) and the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure
e.V. (FFII) for offering the broadcasted shows also in the free video
format "Ogg Theora" <http://theora.org/>.
In Berlin FSFE and FFII will hand over a certificate and a cake with the
"rOgg On!" label on to Sven Bruns, technical manager at tagesschau.de.
In Hamburg, Sabine Klein, vice editorial director of tagesschau.de will
accept a DFD cake on behalf of the editorial team.
"In times of non-free video formats still dominating the internet,
tagesschau.de is an example for other broadcasting corporations how to
provide unrestricted access to their media.", says Matthias Kirschner,
Germany-Coordinator of FSFE.
In contrast to proprietary video formats Ogg Theora is a free video
format that every software producer is allowed to support without
licensing requirements. Therefore software users are not dependent on a
single software vender but can apply Ogg Theora on various devices.
Stephan Uhlmann, member of the FFII board: "It's convenient to support
the currently dominating format instead of using Open Standards. But
this domination brings along patents whose exclusive control disables
alternative software solutions and later innovations. In contrast to
this users of Open Standards have free choice of their software. But no
matter whether Apple, Microsoft or GNU/Linux: the videos of
tagesschau.de will always be playable."
Ogg Theora is supported by all media players in common GNU/Linux
distributions. One can also play Ogg-files on Microsoft Windows or
Apple's Mac OS X by using the VLC player. Furthermore, many modern
webbrowsers directly support the format.
On tagesschau.de, all regular videos are available as Ogg Theora. At
tagesschau24 <http://www.tagesschau.de/tagesschau24/>, videos are
directly embedded via the new webstandard HTML5. In other parts of the
website, it still needs to be manually set to "download the file" and
then the format "Medium (Ogg)" has to be clicked.
"We hope that all other multimedia contents – especially the media
library and live streams – will soon be available in a free format.
Moreover we would be glad about Ogg Theora or WebM videos
<http://www.webmproject.org/> in higher quality levels", indicates
Matthias Kirschner.
Press pictures of the award ceremony will be available March 30. at 2pm.
on <http://wiki.fsfe.org/DFD-2011-Berlin-Hamburg-Bilder>.
== Press contacts ==
Matthias Kirschner <mk(a)fsfe.org>, Free Software Foundation Europe
Linienstraße 141, 10115 Berlin
Phone: +49-30-275 95 290
Mobile: +49-1577-178 000 3
Stephan Uhlmann <uhlmann(a)ffii.org>, FFII Office Berlin
Malmöer Str. 6, 10439 Berlin
Phone: +49-170-4225008
== About Document Freedom Day ==
The Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a global action day for free
document formats and Open Standards. It takes place every year on last
Wednesday in March since 2008. In recent years over 200 teams of
volunteers in over 60 countries have shared the benefits of Open
document formats and Open Standards. This years city sponsorship for
Berlin is done by tarent AG and for Hamburg inmedias.it GmbH.
http://www.documentfreedom.org/
== 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.
http://fsfe.org/
== About FFII ==
The FFII is a not-for-profit association registered in twenty European
countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the
public benefit, based on copyright, free competition, open standards.
More than 1000 members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters have
entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions
concerning exclusion rights ("intellectual property") in data
processing.
http://www.ffii.org/
(Please support us to reach more people in their native language. Join
our translator team http://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/.)
= FSFE Newsletter - March 2011 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201103.en.html ]
== Revolution failed: Facebook not available in Egypt ==
"On 27th January facebook was shut down in Egypt. For the moment this
stopped the protests. Media assumes that this is due to the influence of
Mubarak's granddaughter who is Mark Zuckerberg's girl-friend." Of course
this is not true. But with software which is controlled by one company,
something like this can happen. What if the owner of the social network
would have been an Egypt company? Would this company have been able to
resist state pressure?
For a long time dedicated people have been working on decentralised Free
Software solutions, to make sure there is no vulnerable single point of
control. We as citiziens should be in control of our tools, and as most of
those tools today are comprised of software we do need decentralised
software. That's why FSFE organised a related track at FSCONS[1] , and
our staff as well as dedicated volunteers like Torsten Grote gather
information[2] , give talks[3] or interviews[4] .
1. http://www.fscons.org/divide
2. http://wiki.fsfe.org/CloudComputing
3. http://wiki.fsfe.org/CloudComputing#Video
4. http://wiki.fsfe.org/CloudComputing#Audio
Karsten Gerloff gave a talk on "Power Software Freedom"[5] (there is a
good summary by Brian Gough[6] ) at FOSDEM this month, and one of the
event's keynotes "Why Political Liberty Depends on Software Freedom More
Than Ever"[7] by Eben Moglen targetted this topic as well, especially the
so-called "Freedom Box"[8] which started to receive good media coverage
in turn, and will hopefully push this topic even further.
5.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2011/02/05/fosdem-talk-on-power-software-free…
6.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/bjg/2011/02/decentralised-systems-and-the-tendency-to…
7. http://mirrors.dotsrc.org/fosdem/2011/maintracks/political.xvid.avi
8. http://wiki.fsfe.org/CloudComputing#Freedom_Boxes
== Lawyered! - FSFE's legal workshop ==
More than 75 lawyers, for 2 days, in 1 room -- and all of this organised
by the FSFE. What is it about? We do this to ensure that the best possible
legal knowledge about Free Software is shared between everyone, no matter
whether individuals, businesses or initiatives.
As part of this, FSFE facilitates an annual event called European Legal
Network Conference[9] to allow legal experts to discuss the future of
Free Software law and governance. This has become the world's premier
event for debating, discussing and sharing knowledge around Free Software
legal affairs.
9. http://fsfe.org/projects/ftf/legal-conference.en.html
This year it will be held at the NH Barbizon Palace, Amsterdam, between
the 7th and 8th of April, and will feature speakers like Carlo Piana from
FSFE, Mark Shuttleworth from Canonical, Eben Moglen from SFLC, and Harald
Welte from gpl-violations.org.
== Something completely different ==
- Leaked documents highlight Germany's Foreign Office move back to non-
free software: This move is intransparent, and the more we find out the
more questions we have. See
- Foreign Office: Will it switch off the Free Software beacon?[10]
- Leaked Documents: Change of strategy in the Foreign Office against
recommodations.[11]
- "One study after the other"[12] . Interview from the German Newspaper TAZ
with your editor
- Without Free Software in the Foreign Office[13] - Dradio interview with
Bernhard Reiter.
10. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20110202-02.en.html
11. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release-de/2011q1/000182.html
12.
http://www.taz.de/1/netz/netzoekonomie/artikel/1/eine-studie-nach-der-ander…
13.
http://ondemand-mp3.dradio.de/file/dradio/2011/02/28/drw_201102281034_netzp…
- "Love love love": The Beatles sing about it, we wanted to have some for
Free Software activists at Valentine's Day. As last year we run a
campaign animating people to show their love for Free Software[14] . See
Maëlle's blog post for this years summary[15] and mark February 14th for
2012.
- Fellowship Interview with Italy's PDFreaders heart[16] : While your
editor can inform more people about our our pdfreaders campaign[17] like
in a FOSDEM talk[18] this campaign would not be such successfull without
many dedicated volunteers. This month Fellowship interview is with
Massimo Babieri, IT manager at the Earth Science Department, of the
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, leader of the band The
Radiostars, and "Mr PDFreader" in Italy.
- What happens with your code "when you’re no longer coding. When your
uplink is permanently disconnected. When you’re dead." Armijn Hemmel
wrote an article why the Fiduciary Licence Agreement is an important
tool][19] .
- New editions of Matija Suklje's "Free Software and law related links"
are available for 29.1.-4.2.2011[20] , 5.2.-11.2.2011[21] , and
12.2.-18.2.2011[22] .
- At GoOpen 2011[23] the 22-23rd of March in Oslo, Norway, the Swedish
FSFE team is helping to organise a special FSCONS[24] track. The track
takes some inspiration from previous FSCONS conferences in Sweden and
introduces speakers on Free Software and Free Society.
14. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/valentine/2011/valentine-2011.en.html
15. http://blogs.fsfe.org/maelle/?p=228
16. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=257
17. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/pdfreaders.en.html
18. http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/310/fosdem-saturday
19. http://blogs.fsfe.org/adridg/?p=1094
20. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/226
21. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/228
22. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/230
23. http://www.goopen.no/program/
24. http://www.fscons.org
== Get active - Activities for Document Freedom ==
Document Freedom Day (DFD)[25] is a global day for document liberation.
March 30th will be a day of grassroots effort to educate the public about
the importance of Free Document Formats and Open Standards[26] in general.
This is how you can help:
25. http://www.documentfreedom.org
26. http://fsfe.org/projects/os/os.en.html
- Join and help a team![27]
- Blog about it, and link to our campaign!
- Donate money to DFD![28]
- Sponsor the campaign![29]
- Put a banner on your website with our Artwork"[30]
- Use !dfd group on Identi.ca and #dfd2011 tag on Identi.ca and Twitter
27. http://documentfreedom.org/2011/teams.en.html
28. http://documentfreedom.org/2011/support.en.html
29. http://documentfreedom.org/2011/sponsors.en.html
30. http://documentfreedom.org/2011/artwork.en.html
Regards,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <http://www.fsfe.org>
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Upcoming FSFE Events <http://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
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Free Software Discussions <http://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>