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FSFE Newsletter - December 2009
by Free Software Foundation Europe 14 Jan '10

14 Jan '10

FSFE Newsletter - December 2009 Despite the temperatures dropping below zero all over Europe and the Christmas holidays approaching, FSFE kept working as usual for software freedom. The major news of December are that we have begun to restructure our website, added Andreas Tolf Tolfsen as webmaster deputy coordinator, and published a statement on the EC's settlement with Microsoft in the browser antitrust case. Read on to learn more about what we did in December. Moreover, let us offer you our best wishes for a great and Free 2010! Giacomo Poderi 1. Fellowship Jabber meeting: What do your taxes buy? Free Software in the public sector, 21 Dec 2. Restructuring FSFE's website 3. The Fellowship interviews: Simon Josefsson 4. FSFE welcomes Andreas Tolf Tolfsen as core team member and webmaster deputy coordinator 5. November Fellowship grants IN THE SPOTLIGHT 6. FSFE welcomes greater user choice in browsers, warns that Free Software is excluded from interoperability IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST 7. Samba team receives Microsoft's interoperability information UPCOMING EVENTS 8. Election for Fellowship GA representative 1. Fellowship Jabber meeting: What do your taxes buy? Free Software in the public sector, 21 Dec Various Fellows participated in an interesting jabber meeting on Free Software in the public administration. Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's president, chaired the meeting and brought his sound experience on the topic into the chat-room. The ISO standardization process, Open Standards, procurement rules in the Netherlands, and Free Software in the Swiss Federal Court and Munich were discussed for nearly two hours. As usual the conversation went on much longer in an informal way, after the official closure of the meeting. http://blogs.fsfe.org/blog/2009/12/18/what-do-your-taxes-buy-free-software-… 2. Restructuring FSFE's website In order to make FSFE's work more accessible, the web team this month started work on a major restructuring of fsfe.org's content and usability. The website wasn't originally designed to include so many documents and information related to so many different domains: from the legal to the political, from the educational to the community oriented and more. The time has now arrived to improve its structure, and so that it can reflect the diversity and quality of FSFE's work. The web team's goal is to make our website easier to browse and to read, and make it possible to find information much faster. If you would like to help...join the web team! http://www.fsfe.org/contribute/web/index.en.html http://home.e-tjenesten.org/~ato/2009/12/restructuring-fsfe-website 3. The Fellowship interviews: Simon Josefsson This month, Stian Rødven Eide interviewed Simon Josefsson. Simon is a Fellow and 'old' established GNU hacker with interest in security, who in November received the Nordic Free Software Award. His contributions to the Free Software world include such ubiquitous projects as GnuTLS and Libssh2. In the interview, Stian and Simon talk about differences between proprietary and Free Software in relation to security issues, discuss encryption, DNS and different projects that Simon is involved in, such as GnuTLS, GNU SASL and GSS. Read the interview at: http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=98 4. FSFE welcomes Andreas Tolf Tolfsen as core team member and webmaster deputy coordinator After contributing to FSFE's web team for three years, Andreas Tolf Tolfsen has taken on the role of webmaster deputy coordinator within FSFE, becoming part of the European core team. Andreas is a Norwegian Free Software activists with years of experience on web design and web technologies. Together with Reinhard Muller, webmaster coordinator, Rolf Camps, deputy coordinator, and the web team, Andreas' first big challenge will be the restructuring of FSFE's website. At the same time, he will work on the setting up of a Norwegian country team. Welcome on board Andreas! http://www.fsfe.org/about/team.html http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=79 5. November Fellowship grants The Fellowship grants project we launched in November generated a great response in the Free Software community. We received many outstanding applications by activists coming from all over Europe: choosing the first three people to receive the grants was not easy at all. Finally, Alexjan Carraturo from Italy, Ferdinand Thommes from Germany and Matija Šuklje from Slovenia stood out from the evaluation process due to their lasting and diverse contributions to Free Software. We welcome them in the Fellowship! http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join http://fellowship.fsfe.org/grant.en.html IN THE SPOTLIGHT 6. FSFE welcomes greater user choice in browsers, warns that Free Software is excluded from interoperability FSFE congratulated the European Commission on pushing Microsoft to give users greater choice between different browsers. The settlement that the Commission reached on the Microsoft's browser case is an improvement from the scenario that FSFE criticised this October. In early 2010, Microsoft will provide the users of its operating systems with a ballot screen that should make it easy for users to chose between different web browsers. The screen will suggests various browsers available on the market, Free Software ones included. This settlement relates to only one of the two issues that Microsoft currently faces with the EU Commission. FSFE also congratulates the Commission for the decision to keep open the investigation on Microsoft's refusal to let other products interoperate with its own desktop programs. Microsoft has offered a voluntary commitment, but FSFE warns that this will not be enough for real competition to develop. http://www.fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20091216-01.html Relevant links: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1941 http://www.fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20091008-01.html http://www.fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20091006-01.html IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST 7. Samba team receives Microsoft's interoperability information During December 2007, as a consequence of the drawn-out EU vs Microsft antitrust case, the Samba team was finally able to receive Microsoft's network interoperability information. The specifications were requested with a one-time access fee of 10.000 EUR for full access to crucial information. This event marked an important victory for competition in the IT market. It was a great achievement for Free Software, FSFE and the Samba team. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2008q1/000193.html UPCOMING EVENTS 8. Election for Fellowship GA representative During the whole month of February 2010 it will be possible to vote for the second Fellowship representative in FSFE's General Assembly (GA). Fellows will soon have the chance to declare their candidature and to vote again for participation in FSFE's highest decision-making body. We encourage you to run for the second seat! http://www.fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20090601-01.html http://www.fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20090411-01.html You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html You can join the Fellowship or find how to support us on http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join http://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.html You can order our merchandise at http://fsfe.org/order/order.html Copyright 2009, Free Software Foundation Europe <pr(a)fsfeurope.org>. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

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New Free Software related books for friends
by Matthias Kirschner 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

Hi all, <commercial> you have no idea what to buy as a Christmas present? I wrote a blog entry to solve that.</commercial> ;) As last year I wrote a short blog entry with some Free Software releated books as a suggestion <http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=399> for you. Hope it helpful. If yes you can vote for it on fsdaily <http://www.fsdaily.com/Community/Good_Free_Software_related_books_as_a_pres…>. Best wishes, Matthias -- German Coordinator, Fellowship Coordinator Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) [] (http://fsfe.org) Join the Fellowship of FSFE! [][][] (http://fsfe.org/join) Your donation powers our work! || (http://fsfe.org/donate)

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Help needed for pdfreaders photograph
by Matthias Kirschner 12 Jan '10

12 Jan '10

Hi all, we are looking for a photograph which we can use to promote PDFreaders.org in an upcomming activity. We had the idea of one of this street signs (e.g. at highways) were the government or the European Union are advertising a project (e.g. this bridge is sponsered by the EU and XY). We want to modify it, so we have something like: "To drive on that highway you need a [car model]. You can do a gratis test drive at your local [car manufactor] dealer. Your government." That is like the Adobe advertisement on many websites from the government. We would need a high quality picture of one of those signs, the right for us to modify it, so we can use it on our websites and give the press the right so they can use it however they like. So if you are able to sent us a photograph (either made by yourself, a friend of you, or you find it on the internet with the necessary rights for us), please sent it to pdfreaders(a)fsfeurope.org. Looking forward to your help, Matthias -- German Coordinator, Fellowship Coordinator Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) [] (http://fsfe.org) Join the Fellowship of FSFE! [][][] (http://fsfe.org/join) Your donation powers our work! || (http://fsfe.org/donate)

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Fellowship interview with Simon Josefsson
by Stian Rødven Eide 21 Dec '09

21 Dec '09

Hi all, The latest instalment of our Fellowship interview series has now been published: http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/simon-josefsson/ Please forward where appropriate and vote for the story at http://www.fsdaily.com/Community/FSFE_Fellowship_interview_with_Simon_Josef… all the best, /Stian

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PR: FSFE welcomes greater user choice in browsers, warns that Free Software is excluded from interoperability
by Matthias Kirschner 16 Dec '09

16 Dec '09

We just published a PR [1] about: FSFE welcomes greater user choice in browsers, warns that Free Software is excluded from interoperability Free Software Foundation Europe congratulates the European Commission on pushing Microsoft to give users greater choice between different browsers. "The selection screen will make users aware that they can make their own choices," says Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's President. "We are glad that FSFE has helped the Commission to put limits to Microsoft's desktop monopoly." The Commission announced today that it has settled its antitrust case against Microsoft regarding web browsers. FSFE participated in the case as an interested third party. "Microsoft has abused its dominant market position to push out competitors by tying its own browser to the Windows operating system," says Gerloff. "The company's continued refusal to comply with Open Standards [2] also means that many websites today are designed to work only with Internet Explorer, leaving users of other browsers at a disadvantage." == Interoperability == The European Commission is also investigating the way Microsoft prevents competitors from interfacing with many of its desktop productivity programs. Microsoft has offered a unilateral commitment. Yet these promises are useless for Free Software developers, since they exclude commercial use of Microsoft's interoperability information. Carlo Piana, FSFE's legal counsel, says: "The patent commitments are clearly insufficient, because they don't allow commercial exploitation. This keeps out competition from Free Software, which in many areas is the biggest competitor to Microsoft's programs. Instead, Microsoft will continue to threaten commercial Free Software developers and their customers with patent FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt)." FSFE's President Karsten Gerloff says: "We welcome the Commission's decision to keep the interoperability investigation open while it monitors whether Microsoft's promises help to promote competition. We are confident that the Commission will take action if the commitment doesn't improve things for Free Software." Distrubte it when you think it makes sense. On identi.ca we wrote about it on !fsfe, !gnu, and !fs. You can also vote for the news on fsdaily [3]. And of course discuss it here :) Best wishes, Matthias 1. http://fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20091216-01.en.html 2. http://fsfe.org/projects/os/def.en.html 3. http://www.fsdaily.com/Business/Non_commercial_is_NOT_Free_Software_Microso… -- German Coordinator, Fellowship Coordinator Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) [] (http://fsfe.org) Join the Fellowship of FSFE! [][][] (http://fsfe.org/join) Your donation powers our work! || (http://fsfe.org/donate)

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FSFE Newsletter - November 2009
by Free Software Foundation Europe 12 Dec '09

12 Dec '09

Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) Newsletter - November 2009 November: another month full of activities and work to do for FSFE. Among other things we launched the Fellowship grant project, fought for Open Standards in the European public sector, had an excellent time at the FSCONS in Sweden, and participated in WIPO to ensure that Free Software principles are respected. To keep FSFE strong and independent, we have launched our year-end fund raising campaign: Cooking for Freedom. Giacomo Poderi 1. WIPO meeting on implementation of Development Agenda, Geneva, Switzerland, 16-20 Nov 2. Fellowship Jabber meeting: Free Software in Education 3. FSCONS 2009, Lindholmen, Sweden 13-15 Nov 4. The Nordic Free Software Award to Simon Josefson and Daniel Stenberg 5. FSFE takes action on the problems of the EIF v2 6. The Fellowship grants IN THE SPOTLIGHT 7. FSFE calls for donations: Invest in freedom! IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST 8. Launch of the Freedom Task Force UPCOMING EVENTS 9. European "Open Source" and Free Software Law Event, Brussels, Belgium, 09 Dec 1. WIPO meeting on implementation of Development Agenda, Geneva, Switzerland, 16-20 Nov Thanks to the consistent support by FSFE and other organisations, the World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) Development Agenda is finally on the way to implementation. Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's President, participated to the event in Geneva to help WIPO make use of Free Software and Open Standards. In the meeting, WIPO's member states discussed the mechanisms for monitoring the progress of WIPO's Development Agenda in practice. http://www.fsfe.org/projects/wipo/wipo.html 2. Fellowship Jabber meeting: Free Software in Education On November 18, more than 25 Fellows joined a chat session to follow Thomas Jensch's introduction to the FSFE's Education project. Thomas talked about the general scope of the project and about specific challenges to be met before bringing to full active status the project, such as gathering information on the different European education systems, and developing good strategies for being effective also at the level of Universities. Afterwords, the Fellows asked questions and provided interesting feedbacks to Thomas. http://www.fsfe.org/projects/education/education.html 3. FSCONS 2009, Lindholmen, Sweden 13-15 Nov The Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit (FSCONS) which took place in Lindholmen, Göteborg, Sweden was a great success. FSFE's Swedish Team co-organised the event, and FSFE got a very friendly reception in an engaging atmosphere of Free Software, hackers and technology people. Martin Gollowitzer, deputy Fellowship coordinator, organised a OpenPGP Card Workshop, Matthias Kirschner, Fellowship coordinator, and Andreas Tolf Tolfsen moderated a workshop on the restructuring of our website. Hannes Hauswedell presented a talk about PDFreaders.org. Finally, Adrian de Groot and Karsten Gerloff held two sessions respectively about the Freedom Task Force and FSFE's work for the public sector. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=380 http://wiki.fsfe.org/FSCONS-FSFE 4. The Nordic Free Software Award to Fellow Simon Josefson and Daniel Stenberg This year, Nordic Free Software Award presented during FSCONS reflected the globalisation of the internet and the critical importance of network services for all software users. The award went to two excellent hackers: Simon Josefson and Daniel Stenberg. Simon is a member of the Fellowship and was rewarded for his long-lasting and excellent work on the network security packages GNUTLS and GNU Sishi of the GNU Project. Daniel's contributions to curl, libcurl and many other packages were considered crucial to the Free Software community. http://fscons.org/award http://blog.josefsson.org/2009/11/15/nordic-free-software-award-2009/ 5. FSFE takes action on the problems of the EIF v2 Early this month, FSFE commented on a worrisome leaked draft of the European Interoperability Framework v2 (EIF). The current EIF serves as a cornerstones for interoperability in Europe. The draft for the second version is a clear step backwards. FSFE worked hard to prevent this document to be adopted by putting pressure on EU members states and by tracking the 'evolution' of the EIF v2 draft. We also published a press release explaining why the current version is unacceptable for Free Software and for the European IT sector. http://www.fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20091127-01.html http://www.fsfe.org/projects/os/eifv2.html 6. The Fellowship grants This month FSFE launched an important initiative to award outstanding Free Software activists with Fellowship grants that will cover the Fellowship contribution for one year. Three grants each month will be assigned during the next 12 months. Everybody who is actively working for Free Software but cannot afford the Fellowship contribution can apply for the grant. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/grant.en.html http://www.fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20091109-01.html IN THE SPOTLIGHT 7. FSFE calls for donations: Invest in freedom! FSFE has been working for the Free Software community in Europe and beyond since 2001. Donations have always been crucial to sustain our work. They allow us to remain independent of any company or government, in order to do what is best for Free Software. In November we published a call for donations, so that the new year will find us ready to take on the many and demanding challenges of 2010. Karsten Gerloff published a letter explaining the reasons to donate to FSFE. This year, there is a special reward for the biggest donor of 2009. That person will share a cooking session with two people from FSFE's executive team. Software and cooking are both about creativity and freedom, and we are looking forward to an afternoon or evening of inspired discussions. If you believe in our work or you benefited from it, if you believe in Free Software principles and you want them to be defended: invest in freedom! http://www.fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20091118-01.html Relevant links: http://www.fsfe.org/donate/letter-2009.html http://www.fsfe.org/donate/donate.html IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST 8. Launch of the Freedom Task Force After many preparations, in November 2006 we finally launched the Freedom Task Force (FTF). The project required sound planning and lot of efforts before it could be announced. In short time, thanks to Shane Coughlan's excellent work as the project's coordinator, the FTF became a key knowledge centre in Europe for Free Software licensing issues. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2006q4/000162.html UPCOMING EVENTS 9. European "Open Source" and Free Software Law Event, Brussels, Belgium, 09 Dec Adriaan de Groot, FTF Coordinator, will hold a speech entitled "Use the Source -- but what is it?" at the European "Open Source" and Free Software Law Event (EOLE) on 9 December in Brussels. http://eolevent.eu/ You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html You can join the Fellowship or find how to support us on http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join http://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.html You can order our merchandise at http://fsfe.org/order/order.html Copyright 2009, Free Software Foundation Europe <pr(a)fsfeurope.org>. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.

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RFC - e-mail in tough environments
by Matthias Kirschner 11 Dec '09

11 Dec '09

Hi all, I just published a blog entry [1]. Although I explained this topic a lot of times in the past I never wrote down the most basic principles of e-mail usage. Now I finally did it so I can point friends who are news in the Free Software community to this short guide. If you find it useful I will add it to wiki.fsfe.org. Would you go to a job interview in your sweatpants? Would you sent your CV with handwritten corrections? If you answer those questions with no, you might also want to write professional e-mails. The Free Software community is a tough environment when it comes to e-mail usage. This short guide tries to help you that the community perceive you as a professional communicator. - *Quotation* As a general rule: Do not quote the whole e-mail again, neither above your message, below or in the middle. Quote only the parts which are necessary. Use inline replying (for examples see Wikipedia’s article on posting style [2]) and trim messages if possible. - *Subject* Choose a good meaningful subject line. “e-mail”, “help”, “hello”, or “questions” are not good subjects ;). When the topic of an e-mail changes, it helps to change the subject, too. Often it is beneficial to separated threads into different thread with different subjects. - *Line break of e-mails* Should be around 72 characters. Nobody will kill you if it is 70 or 74 or even 76. But a lot of people will get angry if you do not have a line break at all. - *E-Mail signature* Keep it small and simple. Signatures longer than five lines should be avoided. The separated for the signature is “– ” (minus minus blank) and then line break. The blank is important as many e-mail programs then know that it is a signature. - *Mailinglists* Use list-reply. It is not necessary to include the sender in To: or Cc: if he is subscribed. If the e-mail programs are configured correct the sender will be Cc’ed if he is not subscribed or wishes to be Cc’ed. - *Forwarding e-mails* When you forward e-mails try to give a short summary of the e-mail. Forwarding a huge e-mail thread to a list with only “FYI” will make you no friends. - *General remark* The better you structure an e-mail and the better you present the content — the higher is the chance that people will read your e-mail. If you like it you can also vote for it on fsdaily [3]. Looking forward to your comments, Matthias 1. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=405 2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style 3. http://www.fsdaily.com/Beginner/E_mail_usage_in_the_Free_Software_community -- German Coordinator, Fellowship Coordinator Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) [] (http://fsfe.org) Join the Fellowship of FSFE! [][][] (http://fsfe.org/join) Your donation powers our work! || (http://fsfe.org/donate)

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Raymond, climate
by Carsten Agger 10 Dec '09

10 Dec '09

Just an observation: While the "Open Source Initiative" may have failed, I did appreciate some aspects of "The Cathedral and the Bazaar". In that respect, it's sad to see Eric Raymond make a complete and utter fool of himself in the alleged "climate conspiracy": http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/12/quote_mining_code.php

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Briefing notes on the benefits of Free Software?
by Peter Lewis 08 Dec '09

08 Dec '09

Hi there, I work with a voluntary sector organisation in the UK, who are currently doing a review of their IT strategy and systems, and I asked recently if they were considering Free / Open Source solutions, as their previous systems are all based on Microsoft software (desktops, web servers, email, everything). After a short chat about what Free Software meant and how it's different from proprietary software, they had lots of questions, including "can this really save us money?", "will it give us more control?", "is it reliable?", "how secure is it?" etc. As a result, I've been asked to send them some information on Free / Open Source Software which will help to inform them in making decisions about their new strategy and procurement. So, can anyone recommend a good briefing note or two which would be suitable? Ideally it would be aimed at voluntary / public sector organisations in the UK and accessible by general management (not IT specialists), though other good materials would also be useful. Thanks in advance, Pete.

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Re: Raymond, climate
by Niall Douglas 04 Dec '09

04 Dec '09

Why is it that so many with opinions on climate change have never bothered to read the most recent IPCC report? Firstly, a *lot* of money goes into climate change research - it's one of THE best funded global inter-disciplinary research programs in existence at the moment with several hunded million dollars invested annually. This research outputs *hundreds* of research papers per year, some into the leading peer research journals. In this context, *one* NASA report is a drop in the ocean - in fact, the *entire* output from NASA is fairly small in proportion to the annual output. Put simply, even if NASA were inventing all of its output, it wouldn't actually matter much to "scientific consensus". Secondly, here's a major wakeup call: Nowhere in the (most recent) IPCC report does ***ANYONE*** claim that climate change is definitely man-made. In fact, the most recent report clearly says that HALF of total culmulative radiative forcing is UNEXPLAINED. This doesn't mean it isn't man-made, just that no one actually can prove it one way or another. Chances are a good chunk ISN'T man-made and the report explains how and why. The IPCC report is a best attempt at a consensus of current scientific position. If a few more people with strong opinions on climate change bothered to not be so ignorant, the world would be a considerably better place. Unfortunately it's too easy to claim there are secret plans to take over the world or strip people of their rights blah blah etc. In fact, people should worry considerably more what happens when fossil fuel price rises cause food and clean water price rises. Current projections have about 2bn people dying in famine and that will provoke large scale public disorder (i.e. read introduction of curfews and police state powers even in the West). This process is projected to begin by 2012- 2013 plus or minus two years. Cheers, Niall On 4 Dec 2009 at 9:19, Carsten Agger wrote: > On Fri, 2009-12-04 at 07:51 +0000, Sam Liddicott wrote: > > The link I posted (http://www.abv.org.uk/node/47) contains references > > about the NASA fakery. I gave up in frustration to find any debunking > > attempt based on anything more than fuzzy feeling, and the debunking > > of the leaks is just was weak. Maybe you have some good debunking of > > the NASA fakery that will convince a skeptic? > > > > The reference in your link is to this posting: > > http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=2964 > > I believe there's a good round-up of this sort of criticism here, > although it doesn't address that specific article: > > http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/11/mountains-and- mole > hills/ > > > Seriously, the notion that NASA would be faking its temperature data to > achieve (what?) political ends requires a conspiracy of the magnitude of > 9/11. > > (The physical laws which would dictate that a substantial increase of > greenhouse gases like CO2 leads to higher temperatures are really very > simple: The Planck radiation law, the Stefan Boltzmann equation and the > notion of emissivity as influenced by the presence of greenhouse gases. > Global warming basically follows from the discoveries of John Tyndall > (1820-1893) and Svante Arrhenius (1859-1927), but I suppose they were in > on the conspiracy too?). > > best regards, > > Carsten > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > Discussion(a)fsfeurope.org > https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

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