LWN has an interesting article "Permissive licenses, community, and
copyleft" <https://lwn.net/Articles/660428/>. It is about a talk by HP's
Chief Technology Officer Martin Fink:
He then ended the session with an extended appeal to move the
open-source software industry away from permissive licenses like
Apache 2.0 and toward copyleft licenses like the GPL. Not doing so, he
said, puts the FOSS community at just as much risk of collapse as
license proliferation threatened to in years past.
Regards,
Matthias
--
Matthias Kirschner - President - Free Software Foundation Europe
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany - t +49-30-27595290
Weblog (blogs.fsfe.org/mk) - Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner)
Receive monthly Free Software news (fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html)
Your donation enables our work (fsfe.org/donate)
The Portuguese government is doing a consultation on Digital
Interoperability, including the adoption of OpenDocument Format 1.2 as a
mandatory standard within government.
For those of you that are based in Portugal please consider to give
input to this:
https://participe.gov.pt/Forum/Index/campanha/95
Regards,
Matthias
--
Matthias Kirschner - President - Free Software Foundation Europe
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany - t +49-30-27595290
Weblog (blogs.fsfe.org/mk) - Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner)
Receive monthly Free Software news (fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html)
Your donation enables our work (fsfe.org/donate)
Hi. I point to pdfreaders.org to friends who uses Windows. One problem
that has happened more than once is that the first reader that mentions
Windows-support, Evince, had their last release for Windows around 5
years ago. The situation for Okular appears to be similar. I believe
this is counter-productive: Windows users will try Evince, will fail to
get it to work because the release is too old and not supported anymore,
and will go away. When I point them directly towards SumatraPDF they
are happy (until they want the "Print-To-PDF" feature). Would you
consider dropping the "Windows" links for PDF readers that doesn't have
supported Windows downloads? I think this would be an overall
improvement to the site.
Thanks,
/Simon
I read an interesting article from opensoure.com about recent challenges
to adopting Free Software in the US.
I wrote a short summary, and maybe you all get some new info out of it.
Any comments are welcome!
--
Asa Ritz
Free Software Foundation Europe
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin
Your donation enables our work (fsfe.org/donate)
Dear all,
First I would like to congratulate FSFE as they are mentioned as a group to consult with in the document regarding Climate Change Guidelines for open knowledge [1] with what regards software in science.
Next week there is a symposium that will be held in Viena registration seems to be still open [2] to discuss policies on open knowledge. It seems to be open for anybody to attend, so if in Vienna next week maybe it is interesting. Sadly I will not be attending but was asked to review the documents found in [1] to see if there was anything I could input. A quick word search for software and open document format shows some promising results, even the mention of software freedom (not gratis or open source). But maybe I am being naïve. I will have a deeper look over the weekend. If any of you is willing to have a look and feedback I would appreciate!
The interesting thing seems that the JPI for climate change starts this open knowledge guidelines and it is later adapted to other joint program initiatives (JPI) such as Oceans or Water. Which could have a snow ball effect across EU?
UK seems to be mentioned as an example.
So again, if any of you have comments on the pdf documents found in [1] I would like to hear from you. Mainly about software freedom and open document formats treated as first class citizens, but I am open to any other discussion (but I guess the others will be off list).
Regards,
Andres
[1] http://www.jpi-climate.eu/jpi-themes/OpenAccessOpenKnowledge
[2] http://www.jpi-climate.eu/news-events/events/10862495/Symposium-Designing-C…
--
Richmond Makerlabs
Ham United Group
Today we finally ended the PDFreaders campaign. Thanks to all of you who
helped to make this campaign a success!!!
Best Regards,
Matthias
* press(a)fsfeurope.org <press(a)fsfeurope.org> [2015-10-13 07:54:16 +0200]:
> = FSFE convinces 1125 public administrations to remove proprietary software advertisements =
>
> [ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20151013-01.en.html ]
>
> After six years of activity, the PDFreaders campaign[1] is coming to a
> close this month as one of our most successful campaigns.
>
> The campaign began in 2009 with the intent of removing advertisements
> for proprietary PDF reader software from public institutions' websites.
> To start it all off, volunteers submitted 2104 "bugs", or instances of
> proprietary PDF software being directly promoted by public authorities,
> and the FSFE listed[2] them online. Since then, hundreds of Free
> Software activists took action by writing to the relevant public
> institutions and calling for changes to their websites. We received a
> lot of positive feedback from the institutions thanking us for our
> letters, and to date, 1125 out of the 2104 websites (53%) edited their
> websites by removing links to proprietary PDF readers, or adding links
> to Free Software PDF readers.
>
> In addition to writing letters, FSFE also collected signatures for a
> petition calling for an end to advertisement for proprietary software
> products on government websites[3]. 90 organizations, 63 businesses, and
> 2731 individuals signed this petition.
>
> Furthermore, we were able to push for change at both national and
> international levels.
>
> - In Germany, national parties[4] gave statements in favor of free PDF
> readers and the German Government itself has recommended the usage of
> our text snippet in their migration guide[5]. FSFE's coordinator for
> Germany, Max Mehl, covers it[6] in more detail on his blog.
>
> - In the EU: the European Parliament directly asked[7] the European
> Commission what were the reasons for advertising a specific software
> and which steps were taken to solve this problem.
>
> - In 2011 one of our pdfreaders.org coordinators, Hannes Hauswedell, was
> in contact with Google[8], asking them to release the PDF reader
> included in their Chrome browser as Free Software. Finally, in May
> 2014, the pdfium sources were published openly[9], and while FSFE's
> enquiry might not have been the only reason they were released, it
> marks an important change for the widespread adoption of Free Software
> PDF readers.
>
> "This success would not have been possible without the help and hard
> work from our volunteers and the support from our donors. *Thank
> you!* While many public and private web-sites still promote
> proprietary readers, the level of awareness has changed
> significantly during our campaign and now it should be much easier
> for you to approach the remaining web-site administrators. Also most
> internet users today already use Free Software when they open a PDF
> file in their browser -- a huge difference from 2009!" says Hannes
> Hauswedell who started the campaign. "Of course work still remains
> and we invite you to keep on reminding (public) administrators to
> use Open Standards and not recommend proprietary software. And with
> your support, we too, will continue to fight for a web that respects
> its users' privacy and freedom!"
>
> To get involved[10] you can use our sample letter[11] to send to the
> relevant public administration, or you can write one of your own. Just
> make sure to include where to find a list of Free Software PDF
> readers[12] that could replace the link from their website.
>
> A special thanks again to the activists, volunteers, and donors who
> helped make this campaign a success!
>
> 1. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/pdfreaders.en.html
> 2. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/buglist.en.html
> 3. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/petition.en.html
> 4. http://gruen-digital.de/2012/03/document-freedom-day-kleine-anfrage-zur-wer…
> 5. http://www.cio.bund.de/Web/DE/Architekturen-und-Standards/Migrationsleitfad…
> 6. http://blog.mehl.mx/2015/german-government-wants-authorities-to-advertise-p…
> 7. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/parliamentary-questions-eu.en.html
> 8. http://blogs.fsfe.org/polina/2015/09/10/free-pdf-reader-for-the-web-browser/
> 9. https://twitter.com/nasko/status/469595752734269440
> 10. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/follow-up.en.html
> 11. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/letter.en.html
> 12. http://pdfreaders.org
>
>
> == About the Free Software Foundation Europe ==
>
> Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers users to
> control technology. Software is deeply involved in all aspects of our
> lives; and it is important that this technology empowers rather than
> restricts us. Free Software gives everybody the rights to use,
> understand, adapt and share software. These rights help support other
> fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech, press and privacy.
>
> The FSFE helps individuals and organisations to understand how Free
> Software contributes to freedom, transparency, and self-determination.
> It enhances users' rights by abolishing barriers to Free Software
> adoption, encourage people to use and develop Free Software, and
> provide resources to enable everyone to further promote Free Software
> in Europe.
>
> http://fsfe.org/
>
> _______________________________________________
> Press-release mailing list
> Press-release(a)fsfeurope.org
> https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/press-release
>
--
Matthias Kirschner - President - Free Software Foundation Europe
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany - t +49-30-27595290
Weblog (blogs.fsfe.org/mk) - Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner)
Receive monthly Free Software news (fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html)
Your donation enables our work (fsfe.org/donate)
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Hash: SHA1
Hi
I am Paul, I decided to join the list so I could discuss advocacy and
related topics to Free software.
I live in Devon, and use Mint 17.2 as my main desktop OS. I also run
the Torbay Tech jam and as part of this am keen to promote software
freedom etc.
http://torbaytechjam.org.uk/
I would be interested in hearing from anyone in the Local area who is
also interested in promoting free software so that we can perhaps
collaborate a little.
I have also been a member of the Devon and Cornwall GNU / Linux user
group for a long time, so know a few of the people on that list too.
I work in a school so am in a good position or will be in a better
position soon to try and promote software freedom in schools, as that
does also tie in with the curriculum, perhaps using software legally,
free software is an alternative to buying software or most certainly
pirating software of any kind.
Anyway that is all for now, hopefully I can help promote free software
down in Devon a little more.
Paul
- --
http://www.zleap.net @zleap14
t: @zleap14 diaspora : zleap(a)joindiaspora.com
Documentation lead @ ToriOS http://www.torios.org
Torbay Tech Jam http://torbaytechjam.org.uk
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Hello,
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/volkswagen-pulls-2016-diesel-lin…
states:
The VW scandal came to light when researchers from the International
Council on Clean Transportation and West Virginia University performed all
kinds of tests on VW vehicles, discovering that when the vehicles were on
the road, they polluted substantially more than when they were being tested
for pollution emissions.
If this software was open-source (not even free!) the process to find the
problem woudl be much easier and less costly. And most probably the issue
would not occur at the very first place - VW engineers woudl not have
temptation to do what they did.
Do you think VW case can be used as an example of the benefits which free
software might provide to the society?
--
WBR & WBW, Vitaly
Dear all,
our current intern Asa wrote an article about the Sony Rootkit fiasco
from 2005, which we published today
<http://fsfe.org/activities/drm/sony-rootkit-fiasco.html>.
This page outlines some facts about the rootkit and how it was handled,
as well as some context about what these kinds of restrictions mean for
the notion of computers as general purpose machines. 31 October 2015
marks the 10 year anniversary of when the rootkit was discovered, and in
preparation for this day, we ask you all to use this information and
spread the word, not only about the Sony rootkit, but about the dangers
of digital restrictions on users' freedoms everywhere.
Best Regards,
Matthias
--
Matthias Kirschner - President - Free Software Foundation Europe
Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany - t +49-30-27595290
Weblog (blogs.fsfe.org/mk) - Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner)
Receive monthly Free Software news (fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html)
Your donation enables our work (fsfe.org/donate)