I'm happy to begin my first newsletter with a call for financial support. To stay financially independent, FSFE relies on the Free Software community. We have the pure goal of protecting users' rights and spreading software freedom, and this is enabled by a large number of people making small and medium sized donations. Like you.
To protect everyone's freedom to write software, and to spread software freedom, please help us encouage people to join the Fellowship (http://fellowship.fsfe.org/), or to make a donation and get listed on our Thank GNUs page.
Ciaran O'Riordan, FSFE Brussels Office
1. Analysis of Patents in Standardisation 2. FSFE thanks Jonas Oberg for years of work as Vice President 3. FTF talks strategy with the European embedded Linux industry 4. Get your 'Windows Tax' rebate! 5. Project spotlight: UN & WIPO lobbying 6. This time in 2007 7. Upcoming events
1. Analysis of Patents in Standardisation
Following up on the November "IPR in ICT Standardisation" Workshop in Brussels, FSFE president Georg C. F. Greve analysed the conflicts between patents and standards. The result is a paper about the most harmful effects of patents on standards, the effectiveness of current remedies, and potential future remedies.
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/os/ps
2. FSFE thanks Jonas Oberg for years of work as Vice President
FSFE's General Assembly would like to thank Jonas Öberg for his years of service as Vice President of FSFE. His hard work has ensured the functioning of internal structures such as financial and policy setting. As vice-president, Jonas was a driving force in two restructurings of the organisation and his efforts will be visible in FSFE for years to come.
Taking over as interim Vice President until the next General Assembly meeting, FSFE would like to welcome aboard Pablo Machon.
3. FTF talks strategy with the European embedded Linux industry
Shane Coughlan, Freedom Task Force coordinator at FSFE, delivered a talk entitled 'The strategic implementation of Free Software in business' at the CELF Embedded Linux Conference Europe 2008 on Friday 7th November in Ede, Netherlands.
Shane discusssed how successful implementation of a Free Software business strategy is assisted by the kind of generic market knowledge which members of the FTF's European Legal Network have been working to develop over the past several months.
FSFE was also present at the NLUUG conference which took place the previous day, to spread the word and connect with local FSFE Fellows.
4. Get your 'Windows Tax' rebate!
Members of FSFE's German chapter are in the process of collecting information about how to reclaim the cost of Microsoft Windows licensing fees from computer hardware manufacturers.
The Fellows are collaborating in a public wiki page, and we would like to invite contributions. Showing which firms have fair policies on this issue is a great way of making it easy for consumers to incorporate this into their buying decisions, and thus influence corporate policies.
If you have been able to gain a refund from a manufacturer, please share your knowledge.
http://wiki.fsfe.org/Windows-Tax_Refund
5. Project spotlight: UN & WIPO lobbying
Our work within international treaty processes is some of our most important, but also some of our least visible. The meetings themselves are rarely discussed in the media, and most of the work happens in many private discussions beforehand. You don't get in by just knocking on the door, and you don't change policy by just collecting business cards and emailing your suggestions around.
This work is vital because these international agreements trump the European Parliament and our national governments. If an agreement is made at the international level, then the European Parliament has to obey it, and so do our national governments. Another reason for us doing this work is that we happen to have a President who has a talent for this, Georg Greve.
Some information about this work is available on our website:
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/igf/igf.en.html http://fsfeurope.org/projects/wipo/wipo.en.html http://fsfeurope.org/projects/wsis/wsis.en.html
6. This time in 2007:
This time last year, FSFE was involved in the United Nations Internet Governance Forum in Rio de Janeiro, delivering training courses in Nijmegen, and holding FTF events in Linz, Lausanne, Nijmegen and Düsseldorf - among many other activities.
Amazing progress has been made in the last year. FSFE's influence in international institutions has grown, and the FTF continues to build legal infrastructure for Free Software through its training, documentation and outreach activities. If you'd like to know more about what was going on in November last year, please see the newsletter archives:
http://mailman.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q4/000190.html
7. Upcoming events
An up-to-date list of our upcoming events can be found at: http://fsfeurope.org/events/events.en.html
When this newsletter was being written, we had the following upcoming list: 2008-12-18: Fellowship Christmas get-together in Gothenburg, Sweden 2008-12-19: Zurich, 'Licensing questions and other legal issues' workshop 2008-12-19: Monthly Fellowship meeting in Vienna, Austria
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
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