Housekeeping items are the least popular of all tasks in any organisation, and any organisation that is working under pressure has a tendency of accumulating them.
That is why after the intensive work of the past year to build up and grow the Freedom Task Force, work on antitrust and OOXML issues, and various other activities, FSFE had some of them as well.
Fortunately, after substantial preparation and three intensive days, FSFE's General Assembly in June managed to take care of them and send everyone home highly motivated and with a full task list. The results of this will become slowly visible throughout the coming year.
But this does not mean that FSFE's teams have been inactive meanwhile, quite the opposite. The STACS EU project produced good news, FSFE continued to spread education about Free Software and licenses, and the Fellowship was active as ever with meetings in Vienna and Berlin.
Fellowship meetings are excellent gathering points to meet others and get active. And of course we plan to provide some more also from FSFE's side on this front. But if you want your Fellowship meeting in the area, you need not wait. Just call a meeting yourself!
If you don't know where to start, contact fellowship@fsfeurope.org.
Georg Greve, FSFE President
1. FSFE general assembly in Zürich, Switzerland 2. STACS reveal Citizens Science web site 3. FSFE welcome to release of WINE 1.0 4. Examining the importance of Free Software licenses at IOTC 2008, Ireland 5. Fellowship meeting in Vienna 6. Fellowship meeting in Berlin 7. FSFE welcomes new system administrator
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
8. 'How SELF helped building structures for freedom' speech at FKFT, 2008-07-16 9. 'Licences that support freedom' speech at FKFT, 2008-07-16 10. Zurich Fellowship meeting, 2008-07-18
1. FSFE general assembly in Zürich, Switzerland
FSFE's General Assembly came together for its annual meeting in Zürich, Switzerland. During three days from June 6th until 8th, participants were locked into FSFE's Zürich office to discuss past, ongoing and future projects and reviewed FSFE's employee and budgeting situation. The General Assembly also agreed upon constitutional changes that will be published after filing with the authorities. Stay tuned.
2. STACS reveal Citizens Science web site
The STACS project is proud to announce the launch of the website Citizens Science. The aim of the website is to provide a common meeting ground for researchers to come together with NGOs to discuss and find common projects to work on for the future. Citizens Science is run by the STACS project, which consists of FSFE and five other NGO organisation, each dedicated to their own area of expertice, for instance free software, democracy, public health and biomedicine.
You can find the Citizens Science website on http://citizens-science.org/
3. FSFE welcome to release of WINE 1.0
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) acknowledges the importance of the work being done by the Wine developers, whose efforts help many users to migrate to Free Software. Matthias Kirschner on the topic: "It's the same support that training wheels provide when learning to ride a bicycle, they take away the fear and help the children to learn to ride by themselves - Just as Wine 'balances' the burden proprietary software puts upon its user."
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2008q2/000212.html
4. Examining the importance of Free Software licenses at IOTC 2008, Ireland
Shane Coughlan represented FSFE at IOTC 2008 in Dublin, Ireland. He delivered a speech on the 18th of June discussing Free Software in business. Other speakers at the event included Graham Taylor from Open Forum Europe, Adam Jollans from IBM and Stephen McGibbon from Microsoft. Discussions were lively and quite a few different opinions were offered regarding the future of the software market in North Western Europe.
5. Fellowship meeting in Vienna
The twenty-third Austrian Fellowship meeting took place on the 20th of June in Vienna. The informal meeting began at 6pm and the official agenda began at 7pm. As well as Fellows, the Austrian Fellowship extended an invitation to all people interested in FSFE or Free Software. The event is continuing to grow in popularity.
6. Fellowship meeting in Berlin
The Fellowship Group Berlin met on the 12th of June in the NewThinking Store. The meeting began at 7:30pm and was open to everyone interested in discussing Free Software.
7. FSFE welcomes new system administrator
FSFE's system need are too large to survive purely on voluntary love alone, they require professional care. After a search around Europe, the choice fell on Emil Radulovic from Serbia and member of FSFE's Serbian Team and associate organisation, FSN Serbia. After getting an overview of FSFE's systems, Emil will start overhauling some of the infrastructure, starting with the Fellowship.
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
8. 'How SELF helped building structures for freedom' speech at FKFT, 2008-07-16
SELF has contributed on various levels to freedom in software and education. The work of the SELF Legal Experts Group (LEG) has helped to evolve a better understanding of Open Standards and provided a reference line for free educational materials. The coordinator of the SELF LEG, FSFE president Georg Greve, will provide an insight on how SELF has helped advance the state of the art, and how the work done in the SELF consortium will provide lasting benefit to the Free Software community.
9. 'Licences that support freedom' speech at FKFT, 2008-07-16
Shane will talk about the types of licence that provide and protect freedoms of use, study, sharing and improvement in the context of both technology and education. He will review the main challenges that platforms like SELF may encounter from the legal point of view and what kind of mechanisms help support reliable legal infrastructure. He will also discuss the work of FSFE's Freedom Task Force in providing education and support services relating to legal support for Free Software in Europe.
10. Zurich Fellowship meeting, 2008-07-18
There will be a Fellowship meeting at the FSFE Zurich office from 18:00 until 19:30 on Friday the 18th of July. Some free (as in beer) beer will be provided and all Fellows nearby are invited to attend. It will be a good chance to get to know each other in person, to discuss ways of spreading the word about Free Software in Switzerland, and to generally have a good time. This meeting will be hosted by Shane Coughlan, the coordinator of FSFE's legal activities. However, he promises not to talk about licences unless someone asks. If you are coming to the meeting please let Shane know by sending an email to coughlan@fsfeurope.org.
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
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