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Could there be a law to protect the free choice of operating system?
by Vicen Rodriguez 02 May '13

02 May '13

Hello: A few months ago I decided to buy a laptop for one of my children. I wanted to buy a new laptop without an operating system (OS) on it to install an OS to my liking. It became a complicated problem. Most stores selling computers offered me a laptop with an OS installed; it was an OS I don't want to use and I don't want to pay for. Finally, in a town near the city where I live (but not in the 1,6 million people city where I live), I found a shop offering new laptops that could be purchased with or without an OS installed, and, in case of buying the computer with OS, they said what was the price that was being paid for it. Despite achieving my goal after a long and tedious process, I realized that in Spain, and perhaps in the entire European Union, most computers are sold with a proprietary OS already installed, without offering details of the amount the citizen is paying for that OS, and do not giving the real possibility of rejecting that OS, buy the computer without it and not be charged for it. 1. - I think it should be a right for all and every citizen of the European Union, when buying a computer, to have the details of the amount which corresponds to the computer or hardware and how much is charged for the OS and other software . 2. - I think it should be a right for all and every citizen of the European Union, when buying a computer, to have the real possibility, at the time of purchase, of rejection of the acquisition of the OS and any other software that the manufacturer and / or seller offered with the computer. I can understand that a manufacturer and / or seller could say that computers they offer have not been tested with an OS other than the one they recommend, but, once the buyer is informed about that, I can't understand why must he buy an OS he may not want and for whose use he must accept a series of contractual terms which are entirely beyond his purpose of buying a computer. I think the freedom and rights of all and every citizen of the European Union must be strictly observed in any transaction, and that freedom and those rights should be the priority over the profit of companies and corporations who may have intended to impose their interests. We can fully exercise our freedom only if we have freedom of choice. I am aware that if a measure such as I propose is adopted for the sale / buying computers process, there would be no reason to not adopt it also in relation to mobile phones, game consoles and other devices. This is not the main objective of my proposal, but, considering these possible implications, I still think it could be a good measure. I also believe that the adoption of a measure such as I propose, in addition to directly defend the rights of citizens and consumers in the European Union, would be an incentive for competition and the free market within the European Union, would promote greater transparency in the relationship between computer manufacturers and developers of operating systems and applications and help avoid the possibility of de facto monopolies, something that could happen if one or more companies take advantage of its dominant position. For all that I have said, I think it could be a good measure that would increase the use of free software. But I do not know how we can get running something like this. I consulted some pages of the European Union website [1] [2] [3], but I lack the knowledge to assess what is the best way to try to carry out the proposal. I'm sure there are people in this forum better informed and with better capabilities than me to take the proposal forward. What can we do? Regards Vicen [1] http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/consultations/index_es.htm [2] http://ec.europa.eu/spain/participa/danos-tu-opinion/index_es.htm [3] http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/welcome?lg=es P.S.: I apologize for my bad English and the mistakes.

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Re: [Free-RTC] Lumicall in GSoC? Help needed!
by Daniel Pocock 22 Apr '13

22 Apr '13

Hi Sylvain, Would you potentially put your name on the Debian wiki to co-mentor our Free RTC in Debian category? http://wiki.debian.org/SummerOfCode2013/Projects#Enabling_free_multimedia_r… Regards, Daniel On 03/04/13 16:04, Sylvain Berfini wrote: > Hi Daniel, > > I know I'm a bit late, but I may be able to help with the mentoring part. > > Regards. > > Le 28/03/2013 20:56, Daniel Pocock a écrit : >> I'd like to try and get Lumicall accepted as a GSoC 2013 project >> http://www.lumicall.org/google-summer-of-code >> >> This means Google would pay students to work on it over the summer and >> all work would be contributed back to the free software community. >> >> Help is needed: >> >> - can anybody with Java experience offer to be part of the mentoring >> team? >> >> - can anybody help with a reference from a previous GSoC participant or >> a Google employee? >> >> I need to submit answers (including mentor names) to Google by tomorrow, >> so if you can help, please reply ASAP >> _______________________________________________ >> Free-RTC mailing list >> Free-RTC(a)lists.fsfe.org >> https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/free-rtc >

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Lumicall in GSoC? Help needed!
by Daniel Pocock 28 Mar '13

28 Mar '13

I'd like to try and get Lumicall accepted as a GSoC 2013 project http://www.lumicall.org/google-summer-of-code This means Google would pay students to work on it over the summer and all work would be contributed back to the free software community. Help is needed: - can anybody with Java experience offer to be part of the mentoring team? - can anybody help with a reference from a previous GSoC participant or a Google employee? I need to submit answers (including mentor names) to Google by tomorrow, so if you can help, please reply ASAP

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Trying to make a DIY server
by Nuno Castro 20 Mar '13

20 Mar '13

Good people, I'm currently planning a big endeavour. I have a small, but dedicated, team of people who want to provide a decentralized, free and ethical web solution for the Portuguese section of the IWA[1]. Our plan is to create a server from scratch. I know of some projects, like Jerry, the DIY server[2] and specific distros for hosting, such as yunohost[3]. But I was wondering if anyone could give me tips or clues to get started and get going with this demanding project. We are planning to make local and nation-wide innitiaves promoting free software, and if we could make this project happen, it would be a big boost to our confidence and it would also be a starting point to make workshops and lectures to share the knowledge we may acquire with the general population, providing the basis to make an ethical, decentralized network of independent service providers. Also, check out this amazing project (it's mostly in catalan, but there's an English translation going on)[4]. Stay cool, happy hacking, Nuno Castro [1]iwa-ait.org [2]http://flavors.me/jerrydiy [3]yunohost.org [4]http://www.guifi.net/en/node/38392 P.S.: pessoal da ANSOL, desculpem estar a escrever em en_US, ainda que saiba que nao e problema.

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Fellowship Shell Server
by Michael Clemens 14 Mar '13

14 Mar '13

Dear fellows, I think it would be nice to have our own multi user unix system that provides shell accounts and maybe additional services to us. Every fellow could have his/her own shell account and access to the following programs: * IRC clients (e.g. irssi) * jabber clients (e.g. mcabber) * mail clients (e.g. mutt, pine) * compilers (gcc etc.) * screen/tmux * git Additional services could be: * OpenVPN service, so fellows can encrypt their connection when they are on the road * web site hosting * databases (MySQL, postgresql etc.) * SSH tunneling * File storage In order to start this project, the following two conditions have to be fullfilled: * Enough fellows have to show interest in such a system * Besides me, I would need two other fellows with skills in Linux/Unix administration (and maybe in IT security) who will take care of the system If this will be the case, I would suggest the following procedure: * I would rent a single server system and an additional FTP account as backup space * We (the 3 admins) would build up a system with some basic services, harden it and develop/implement scripts for the automation of administrative tasks like account creation etc. * We and some some volunteer beta testers would play around with it * The FSFE would take over the server and its rent * The system would be open for all of us * Additional services could be added What do you think? Cheers, Michael

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[FYI] New bittorrent service, users asking for freedom
by Nicolas JEAN 13 Mar '13

13 Mar '13

Hi all, I was reading the news today about the Bittorrent company launching its new P2P broadcast service, which is apparently non-free. I was pleasantly surprised to see what top priority features the visitors are asking for (at least the top 2): https://bittorrentlive.uservoice.com/forums/137268-general/filters/top :) -- Nicolas JEAN - Web coordinator Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfe.org) Is Free Software important to you? Join us! (http://fsfe.org/join)

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Add Fellowship groups to the Wiki menu
by Christian Kalkhoff 13 Mar '13

13 Mar '13

Hi, wouldn't it be nice, if a link to FellowshipGroup would be added to the Wiki's menu? At the moment I can reach events and fellow pages from there but I have to dig a bit (or come from fellowship.fsfe.org) to find the group list. Perhaps the group page could even be made a bit more welcoming, possibly a map with all groups beside the list? What do you think? Regards, Christian -- Christian Kalkhoff - Softwarebefreier - software liberator Fellow of FSFE - Support FSFE! http://fsfe.org/support/?softmetz CAcert assurer http://softmetz.de/

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Fwd: Re: Could there be a law to protect the free choice of operating system?
by howard 05 Mar '13

05 Mar '13

I think the car analogy is quite meaningless. The car manufacturers are entirely responsible for the car as a system and cannot sell it without stringent safety criteria being met. This would not be possible without them having control over the components and their integration into the whole system. There are bits they could leave out such as radios but not anything necesaary to drive the car. The OS in a computer is more like the driver of the car. The car company is not responsible for how anyone drives, provided the car is designed in such a way to make it safe for suitable drivers (e.g. not children, or people who have some disability unless it has been modied). Computers can run perfectly well under many different operation systems provided they are built with the appropriate compatibility. The monopoly enjoyed by Microsoft prevents consumers choosing their OS of choice. For software that runs under Windows I prefer XP, but my laptop bundled with Windows 7 home edition cannot be "downgraded" to XP. This is quite wrong and trading standards organisations are wrong to let MS get away with their domination of the hardware manufacturers and retail distributer network. Howard Lane GreenNet On 5/3/2013 14:51, Albert Dengg wrote: > hello, > On Tue, Mar 05, 2013 at 01:31:49AM +0100, Nikos Mavrogiannopoulos wrote: > ... >> It is not about companies and marketplace. It is about consumers who >> consider options that provide a good balance between quality and price >> of the products they buy. Freedom to modify the product may be >> considered by some, but still it is within some balance. >> >> For example would you pay 100.000 euros for a car where you can replace >> engine, lights, seats, cpu, software etc, or would you buy a 15000 mass >> produced one? The example is exaggerated, but consider that even smaller >> price differences, make a lot of impact to certain people. > I think your analogy is not entirely accurate: > the situation with cars is actually that they tend to include more and > more technology to actually prevent the customer from changing > anything...not because it is a technical requirement but to be able to > sell more expensive spare parts. >> So in almost every example I can think of, if companies are forced with >> legislation to break their products in multiple separate parts, prices >> would go up in the average case, and go down in few (geeky) cases. Do >> you really believe the average person is prepared to pay more for >> something that has not any immediate impact visible to him (not everyone >> is a mechanic or software developer). Most probably he'd just import his >> product from a country where they don't have those laws. > well...how would it be more expensive for them? > > we are actually not asking to support linux in particular (in the way > that you can call their support hotline and start asking questions on > running linux on their hardware), but only to leave out a non essential > part (like for example you would want to order your car withouth leather > seats because you want to use your custom velvet seat covers and > therefore have no use for the more expensive extra option of leather > seats). > > yours, > albert > > > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > Discussion(a)fsfeurope.org > https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

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Promotion material for the CommonsFest 2013
by Jann Eike Kruse 04 Mar '13

04 Mar '13

Hi all! In short: I am looking for a large banner/poster/roll-up like this: https://fsfe.org/news/2012/report-1212/chorlton.jpg For an event in April: http://commonsfest.info In detail: I am looking for FSFE promotion material for a festival, which a few friends and I are organizing. The "Festival of the Commons" intends to promote such things as peer-to-peer collaboration, freedom of knowledge, copyleft licensing, and of course free software. The festival will be in Heraklion, Crete, in six weeks from now during the 14-21 April 2013. Besides talks and workshops there will be an exhibition with some info booths. That's where I would like to make some fliers and other info material available to the visitors. I already found some fliers etc. on the fsfe.org server, which we can print ourselves. Is there some big banner, poster, roll-up or such available during that time, which we could borrow for one week. Cheers, Jann -- PS. I also set up a fellowship event, I hope that's okay: https://wiki.fsfe.org/FellowshipEvents/CommonsFest%202013

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RE: Name of the system (was: Firefox Mobile + Geeksphone = Awesome)
by Jelle Hermsen 02 Mar '13

02 Mar '13

Yeah, I don't expect there will be much GNU in Firefox OS. Personally I would love to see a mobile GNU distro that stipulates software freedom, but compared to the utter jail that is iOS and the mirky grounds of Android/Linux I can only praise Mozilla's efforts. They might be talking about the "open web" instead, which is somewhat conflicting with the Free Software point of view, but their take on apps do give the opportunity to give the users the freedom they deserve. I could for example host my own apps, licensed under the AGPL and there won't be any shitty App Store rules preventing this. But still, I would love to have a GNU in my pocket :) Jelle -------- Original message -------- From: "Andreas K. Foerster" <list(a)akfoerster.de> Date: 27/02/2013 19:33 (GMT+01:00) To: discussion(a)fsfeurope.org Subject: Name of the system (was: Firefox Mobile + Geeksphone = Awesome) Hello, i think, it would be great if Firefox OS gets adopted. One aspect, that I don't like however, is the choice of the name. It uses Linux as it's kernel, and which libc does it use? The GNU libc? Well, it was always unfortunate that most people don't mentioned GNU. Now they stop even mentioning "Linux". They call it "Android", "ChomeOS", "Firefox OS"... whatever. Even large distros like Ubuntu and even Debian stopped to name it on their frontpage! Most people think GNU/Linux is an odd system, because barely anybody uses it, they think. However that is not the reality. GNU/Linux is almost everywhere. The real problem is not that it is barely used, but that those, who use it, very often are not aware that they do. I think, what we really need is, a better "marketing" for GNU/Linux. -- AKFoerster <http://AKFoerster.de/> _______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list Discussion(a)fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion

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