Welcome to FSFE's October newsletter. This month, issues of interoperability, sustainable ICT and Free Software in education have been receiving attention. There are also changes inside FSFE, with the Fellowship reviewing its infrastructure and long-term projects like the FTF European Legal and Technical networks continuing to expand. Exciting times indeed.
You may notice that the newsletter has a slightly different format this month. We would appreciate any feedback or comments you have. They can be sent directly to coughlan@fsfeurope.org. - Shane, FSFE Zurich Office
1. European Commission vs. Microsoft decennial battle is over 2. FSFE at Free Software information event in Austrian school 3. FSFE's German deputy coordinator discusses Sustainable-IT in Berlin 4. Sun donates T1000 server to FSFE 5. Fellows plan the future of the Fellowship portal 6. FSFE's European Legal and Techincal Networks grow 7. Brussels meetings and Free Software awareness
Forthcoming events: 8. Strategic implementation of Free Software, Stockholm, Sweden
1. European Commission vs. Microsoft decennial battle is over
The European Commission and Microsoft have agreed that Microsoft is finally in compliance with the obligations contained in the 2004 Commission ruling against the Seattle company. The Commission had ruled that Microsoft distorted the market by failing to provide interoperability information for their products. Microsoft subsequently appealed against the Commission's decision and lost at the European Court of First Instance. Part of the ruling requires reasonable and non discriminatory terms for interoperability information and related patents. One reason for this was the intention to enable Free Software projects like Samba to access the information, and our legal experts are currently assessing whether the agreed conditions meet these requirements. What is certain is that Microsoft will not appeal against the judgment of the Court of First Instance, which has become final and definitive. Please visit fsfeurope.org for updates.
2. FSFE at Free Software information event in Austrian school
As reported in an earlier newsletter, the "BG Rechte Kremszeile" public school in Austria has switched to Free Software. Recently the school organised an event to report their experience with the switch. Three speakers from the FSFE and the Vienna Fellowship group were invited to talk about the general concepts of Free Software. A number of teachers and decision-makers from other schools attended the event and showed interest in the adoption of free solutions for their own schools.
https://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q3/000181.html
3. FSFE's German deputy coordinator discusses Sustainable-IT in Berlin, Germany
Matthias Kirschner, FSFE's German deputy coordinator, took take part in a panel discussion at the Sustainable-IT conference on the 18th of October. The topic was "IT sustainability -- international. How can software contribute to resource protection and a fair distribution of knowledge."
http://www.sustainable-it.org/
4. Sun donates T1000 server to FSFE
Sun has donated a T1000 server to FSFE's Fellowship. "The work that the Free Software Foundation Europe undertakes is important for all of us. Sun is honoured to have donated a Sun Fire(TM) T1000 server, based on the GPL licensed OpenSPARC(TM) chip, to power the FSFE Fellowship site," said Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer, Sun Microsystems, Inc. Thanks to this new hardware FSFE is able to refocus the Fellowship's on-line presence and provide new services to all our supporters.
http://www.fsfe.org/supporters/
5. Fellows plan the future of the Fellowship portal
The Fellows of FSFE are discussing the future of the Fellowship portal. Since 2005, the fsfe.org portal has sought to provide tools for Fellows to communicate and collaborate. The current discussion is about what services are most important to the Fellows today and what tools would be useful for the future. The discussion is covering the use of forums, calenders, mailing lists and other services. You can add your view by joining the list:
https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion
6. FSFE's European Legal and Techincal Networks grow
FSFE's Freedom Task Force has been busy building pan-European legal and technical networks. The goal is to strengthen the legal foundation of Free Software through building connections between professionals and researchers active on the continent. The networks now have 45 legal experts and 25 technical specialists, and contain contacts in Canada, the USA, Singapore and Taiwan. To learn more visit the website:
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/network.html
7. Brussels meetings and Free Software awareness
Ciaran O'Riordan has been busy in Brussels. Along with the usual meetings about ODF, O'Riordan has been to Helsinki and Florence to talk about GPLv3 and has been writing about this in his blog.
http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes
Forthcoming events:
8. Strategic implementation of Free Software, Stockholm, Sweden
On the 8th of November, the FSFE and its Freedom Task Force (FTF), in collaboration with the Internet Academy in Sweden, will give a course on Strategic implementation of Free Software in businesses. The course will take place in Stockholm, Sweden and given predominantly in Swedish.
http://www.internetacademy.se/strategi.html
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.