>From 7pm to 8pm, there's a session to discuss GPLv3. It's part of aKademy,
so it's in Trinity.
Specifically, Lecture Theatre 1, in the Lloyd building. For anyone that
came to the aKademy core days, this session is in the same building.
Here's a map:
http://conference2006.kde.org/organization/location.php
Directions:
>From the main entrance on Dame St., take the first right-hand exit from the
court yard and then turn left before the grassy area. Keep going straight
(past the ball monument, past the cricket pitchs, between two buildings) and
when you get to a T junction (with the Hamilton building right in front of
you), turn left and it will be on your left.
To get there from the entrance near Merion Square (down by the dental
hospital), just walk straight, along side the prefabs, past the steps up to
the Hamilton building, and it'll be on your left.
I'm also told that fom the Westland row entrance, you walk straight, take
the first left, take a right at the open space area and right again.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org
First International Meeting of the Fellowship of FSFE in Bolzano, Italy
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is delighted to announce
the first international Meeting of the Fellowship of FSFE. [1]
Following up on an idea proposed by the Fellows themselves, and
organised in part by the Fellowship of FSFE, Fellows from all over
Europe will be coming together in the afternoon of 11 November 2006 in
Bolzano, Italy, to discuss issues of digital freedom in general, and
the work of FSFE [2] and the Fellowship in particular.
This meeting will provide an excellent opportunity to meet other
Fellows in person, collect ideas, and plan for the next yet of Free
Software agenda setting in Europe. It will also be a unique chance to
get first hand information from all the people working for FSFE
internationally, and ask for the information you always wanted to
know. Fellows will also be the first to know about FSFE's plans for
the next months and year, including a very special announcement.
"FSFE is a very busy organisation that has grown a lot in the past
years. Although I work full-time for FSFE, it is not always easy to
keep track of all the things that are going on," says Stefano
Maffulli, Italian representative and Fellowship coordinator of
FSFE. "I believe this event will be a unique opportunity for people to
get first-hand information and participate in the intellectual
environment of FSFE."
He concludes: "If you haven't joined the Fellowship so far, this event
is a very good reason to do so immediately. [3]"
"The Fellowship is an integral part of FSFE's work, it has made much
possible that we otherwise could not have done," explains Georg
Greve, FSFE's president. "We believe this meeting will also be an
excellent way for us to say thanks by reporting back to the people who
made much of our work possible and taking their input into the next
round."
In order to accomodate the busy agendas of the Free Software community
and to allow people to make more efficient use of their travel
expense, FSFE has dedided to co-locate the first International Meeting
of the Fellowship of FSFE with the South Tyrol Free Software
Conference (SFSCon) [4], the annual fall gathering hosted by the Free
Software Community in Bolzano. [5]
There is much to be seen: The Plone Sprint [6] from 6th through 9th of
November, the actual SFSCon on 10th and the morning of the 11th, and
then the Fellowship meeting for all Fellows of FSFE on the afternoon
of the 11th. Entrance to the SFSCon event is free and open to the
public, but registration is required. Please visit the web site of the
SFSCon [4] and select "registration". The Fellowship Meeting is for
Fellows only, but it will be possible to sign up to the Fellowship
during the conference.
[1] http://www.fsfe.org/events/
[2] http://www.fsfeurope.org/
[3] http://www.fsfe.org/join/
[4] http://www.sfscon.it/
[5] http://www.sfscon.it/where
[6] http://sfscon.it/data/plone-sprint
About the Free Software Foundation Europe
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) is a charitable
non-governmental organisation dedicated to all aspects of Free
Software in Europe. Access to software determines who may participate
in a digital society. Therefore the freedoms to use, copy, modify and
redistribute software - as described in the Free Software definition -
allow equal participation in the information age. Creating awareness
of these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and
giving people freedom by supporting development of Free Software are
central issues of the FSF Europe, which was founded in 2001 as the
European sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation in the
United States.
www.fsfeurope.org
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Hash: SHA1
Hi,
It was with much shock and surprise that the following message has
been observed on-line.
This was announced on freenode:
-christel- [Global Notice] On the 12th September Rob Levin,
known to many as Freenode's lilo, was hit by a car while riding
his bike. He suffered head injuries and passed away in hospital
on the 16th. For more information please visit
#freenode-announce
Rob 'lilo' Levin was the founder and leader of the Freenode IRC network.
___
My own comments
His support for FLOSS software, and his commitment to help others were
inspirational.
In my dealings with him he was a really nice guy, both on-line and on
the the phone.
He will be sadly missed by all who knew him.
Stories on /. digg and many other networks starting to appear.
Regards,
Paul O'Malley
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Version: GnuPG v1.4.2.2 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
iD8DBQFFDId2oWm0gT2CRXkRAt4HAJ9SgdWRw3robE3vmQnCTVj18o7cOwCfeaHE
dHcHo7xe2lI9JeIynhcSiqA=
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http://online.wsj.com/article_print/SB115802923001560290.html
How Hartmut Pilch,
Avid Computer Geek,
Bested Microsoft
Foe of Software Patents,
He Prevailed With Europe;
Next, a Court Battle
By *MARY JACOBY*
September 12, 2006; Page A1
BRUSSELS -- A proposal here to create a new European patents court has
the support of *Microsoft* Corp., *Siemens* AG and many other giants of
Western industry. But can it survive an attack from Hartmut Pilch?
A 43-year-old linguist from Munich, Mr. Pilch speaks Chinese, Japanese
and an artificial language called Lojban intended to eliminate ambiguity
and promoted by some programmers. He is the unlikely leader of a
movement of self-styled computer geeks out to sink a patents plan they
say would stifle software programmers.
"Patents on software mean any programmer can be sued at any time," says
Mr. Pilch, a simultaneous translator who writes computer programs for
his own use in his leisure time.
In July last year, heeding appeals posted on the Web site of Mr. Pilch's
lobbying group, about 200 programmers descended on the European
Parliament in Strasbourg, France, waving signs demanding the right to
freely exchange computer code. "U.S. Software Patents Go Out," read a
banner, in English, held aloft by two young Frenchmen.
The Parliament was poised to approve a law extending American-style
software patents to Europe, the most lucrative consumer market outside
the U.S. A technology industry group had hired a boat to cruise the
river outside Parliament with a banner urging the lawmakers on. The
programmers rented canoes and paddled out to the boat to unfurl their
own banner: "Software Patents Kill Innovation." The president of the
Parliament later called the incident a "naval battle."
The unhappy result for the big technology companies: A panicky
Parliament suddenly backed off a law the industry giants had spent
several years and millions of euros lobbying to enact. "It was the sheer
volume and number of people," said Parliament member Sharon Bowles of
Britain, a patent attorney and industry ally. The surprise winners: U.S.
software companies *Red Hat* Inc. and *Sun Microsystems* Inc., the only
large companies that had taken public stands against the software
patents law.
Today, the battle has shifted to an effort to create a special patents
court that would handle appeals cases from all over Europe. Companies
like Microsoft support the idea in large part because many national
courts currently reject software patents, bucking rulings by the
European-wide patent office.
Mr. Pilch wants to maintain the antisoftware patent status quo, and so
do the European programmers and students who belong to his group, the
Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure. Known as FFII, the
organization is committed to the idea that basic computer language
should be as free as human speech.
Mr. Pilch calls his mission vital to keeping Europe free from the
lawsuits over digital rights that he claims increasingly hamper
innovation in the U.S. Software around the world already is adequately
protected from theft by copyright laws, he says.
Mr. Pilch's opponents liken FFII to a bunch of communists who don't want
companies to profit from what they create. "They do sound closer to Karl
Marx than Adam Smith," said Mark MacGann, executive director of the
European Information & Communications Technology Industry Association,
which represents *Philips Electronics* NV, *SAP* AG, Microsoft and more
than 70 other companies backing software patents.
Mr. Pilch counters: "That's not true. I want to make money, too." He
admits, however, that he became so absorbed in lobbying last year that
he forgot to bill clients in the small translation business he operates
out of a run-down office in Munich.
Mr. Pilch began FFII in 1998, as little more than a Web site. As news
spread, he began getting small donations from like-minded programmers
and small businesses. His growing cadre of volunteers, however,
struggled to remember the Lojban words, such as "Cnino" ("news") and
"Penmi" ("events"), that Mr. Pilch used to name FFII email lists.
"It would have been easier just to call them 'news' and 'events,' " says
German university student Andre Rebentisch, who helps administer the
lists. Still, more than 200 people eventually registered to help
maintain FFII's member-edited site.
In 2002, the European Commission, the executive arm of the European
Union, proposed the law that drew FFII's ire. It aimed to elevate the
European Patent Office and its pro-software patent policies over the
national courts. The EU's argument: A simpler, more unified patent
system would make Europe's economy more competitive. Mr. Pilch's FFII
put out a statement saying the proposal "paves the way to a global
control of the information society by multinational -- mostly U.S."
technology companies.
In April 2004, as the debate heated up, several hundred FFII
demonstrators marched around European Union offices in Brussels in
yellow "No Software Patents" T-shirts. They hoisted banners slamming
Microsoft. Some demonstrators wore Che Guevara-style berets meant to
symbolize a revolution against the Redmond, Wash., company's dominance
of software markets. A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment.
Buoyed by $61,000 in grants from the Open Society Institute, the
philanthropy of billionaire George Soros, FFII sent an army of students
to lobby EU lawmakers. "Sometimes they would just burst in the door and
demand to see you," says Ms. Bowles, the pro-patent member of
Parliament. "Some of them didn't seem to understand the concept of
making an appointment."
Mr. Pilch spent so much time lobbying that he began showing up exhausted
for his day job in Munich. Japanese and Chinese clients were furious,
says his Chinese-born wife, Wang Tao. Because he was forgetting to bill
for his work, money was tight. The couple's two small children hardly
ever saw him. "The marriage almost broke up," Ms. Wang says.
The grass-roots show of force worked. At the 2005 meeting in Strasbourg,
pro-industry members of Parliament abandoned the proposed software law.
"They produced a whole movement," said German Parliament member
Klaus-Heiner Lehne, who led the unsuccessful push for the law. "Industry
was sleeping."
FFII has reorganized to fight the proposal for a patent court. Prodded
by his wife, Mr. Pilch has ceded day-to-day control of the group to
Pieter Hintjens, owner of a small software business. Mr. Hintjens, a
Belgian, was elected president at an FFII board meeting and keg party in
Brussels last November, which, he says, "lasted until the beer ran out."
In July, the EU held a hearing in Brussels on the new patent court and
related proposals. FFII activists packed the room, applauding loudly
when speakers criticized the court. His group still is short of cash,
Mr. Hintjens says. But he believes the movement has an asset even more
vital than money: "a burning, true, almost religious conviction that we
are right."
*Write to *Mary Jacoby at mary.jacoby(a)wsj.com <mailto:mary.jacoby@wsj.com>^1
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115802923001560290.html
_______________________________________________
A2k mailing list
A2k(a)lists.essential.org
http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k
Yep, that's this Thursday. Sorry about the two day warning.
We've moved the meeting to give us some lead in time for the aKademy
conference (http://conference2006.kde.org/). Marcus Furlong and some
other KDEers will be there.
Note that this will be the IFSO meeting for September, so there will
be no official meeting on the 19th. Aside from this change, the default
date for IFSO meetings remains the third Tuesday of the month.
Good luck,
Malcolm.
___________________________________________________________
All new Yahoo! Mail "The new Interface is stunning in its simplicity and ease of use." - PC Magazine
http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html
IFSO will have a stall and I'll be doing a patents talk on the Sunday and a
GPLv3 BoF on the Tuesday. This should be a good opportunity for
consolidating the community, so I think it's worth helping.
Marcus Furlong <furlongm(a)hotmail.com> writes:
> Hi all,
>
> This year's KDE conference aKademy in Dublin is getting closer, only 10 days
> to go before 200+ KDE devs arrive in Dublin! If anyone is interested in
> helping out with the conference, even if for a couple of days over the
> weekend, drop me a line at furlongm(a)cs.tcd.ie as it'll be greatly
> appreciated and it should be good fun!
>
> Marcus.
>
> PS The website [http://akademy2006.kde.org] now contains a fairly full
> program of events and gives a fair idea of what type of stuff will be going
> on.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org
1. Moving forward in the GPLv3 public consultation process
2. SELF project issues call for material
3. New office in Sweden
4. School of Art and Design Zürich donates hosting services to FSFE
5. Giacomo Poderi ends his internship
6. Alex Antener joins the core team
1. Moving forward in the GPLv3 public consultation process
On 23 and 24 August, the 4th international GPLv3 conference took place
in Bangalore, India. The event was organised by FSFE's sister
organisation, the Free Software Foundation India, and FSFE helped the
organisers by sharing their experiences from the 3rd conference in
Barcelona.
Regarding Europe, the FSFE still keeps a high level of public appearance
to inform people about the essence and the backgrounds of the proposed
changes in GPLv3. Most notably, Jonas Öberg presented the GPLv3 at one
of the regular meetings of Dataföreningen, the Swedish computer
association, and Ciarán O'Riordan did a presentation at the Danish Unix
User Group DKUUG.
http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/gplv3.en.html
2. SELF project issues call for material
SELF (Science Education and Learning in Freedom), an EU funded project
to create and collect educational material about Free Software and open
standards, issued a call for material. Everybody who knows of existing
material that might be interesting to the SELF project is encouraged to
register it online so that it can be evaluated and considered for the
SELF platform.
http://www.selfproject.eu/repository/submit
3. New office in Sweden
Thanks to a cooperation with the Göteborg University, the FSFE has been
able to start an office in Sweden. This will help the FSFE to build up an
even stronger presence in the nordic region and give the volunteers and
employees of the FSFE in Sweden a permanent place to work from.
4. School of Art and Design Zürich provides home for new FSFE server
The School of Art and Design Zürich (HGKZ, "Hochschule für Gestaltung
und Kunst Zürich") supports the FSFE by donating rack space and
bandwidth for a new server. This is an important and valuable
contribution to FSFE, which took the summer break opportunity to further
consolidate and improve its server infrastructure.
5. Giacomo Poderi ends his internship
August was the last month of Giacomo Poderi's internship. The FSFE
thanks him for his valuable and reliable work. Giacomo found his
internship a really formative experience, where he also got the chance
of seeing how a lively and active organization like FSFE works to try
ensuring that rights in the 'digital age' are not disregarded. He
remains an active member of the FSFE and will continue to contribute in
the Italian team.
6. Alex Antener joins the core team
Alex Antener from Zürich joined the FSFE core team as the first Swiss
member. The focus of his work with FSFE is building up a strong team
to support Free Software in Switzerland, in cooperation with FSFE's
associate organisations. Having attended a school of arts rather than a
technical school, he also aims to provide a bridge between Free Software
issues on the one side and education and culture on the other.
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html