Hi all.
A student is interested in doing a small project about migration from
closed to open source (e.g. Microsoft Office to Open Office). I think
the student would like to get in touch with few people who've been
involved. If you have any suggestions, I'll pass them along.
Malcolm
Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
With ISO's Ballot Resolution Meeting taking place Feb 25th-29th, discussion
of the OOXML format and the ISO process is heating up again. Here are four
documents that were published today (or at least I found them today):
DIS-29500: Deprecated before use? by Georg Greve
http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-idiosyncrasies.en.html
About OOXML's original purpose of preserving compatibility with an
idiosyncratic format, how the changes to the format now exclude that
compatibility, and how complexity and lack of a re-useable source code
reference implementation makes implementation impractical or impossible.
A Pre-BRM Miscellany, by Rob Weir
http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/02/pre-brm-miscellany.html
"Photo ID requirements, badged access to the meeting room, prohibitions
against cameras and recording devices, no observers, no press."
(thanks to Sean Daly for this link)
Developers warned over OOXML patent risk, by Brett Winterford
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/software/0,39044164,62037862,00.htm
ZDNet Australia article about concern over the means of terms in Microsoft's
Open Specification Promise
A picture of a printed copy of the OOXML spec :-)
http://blog.janik.cz/images/OOXMLSpec.png
(I hope there was a good reason for making this printed copy. It will
surely never be read. At least publicising this picture makes it less
likely that someone else will think it necessary to also do a printing.)
FWIW, I put these four links in a blog entry too:
http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/ooxml_alread…
--
Ciarán O'Riordan (+32 477 36 44 19) \ Support Free Software and GNU/Linux
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ Join FSFE's Fellowship:
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ http://www.fsfe.org
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/02/14/business/EU-FIN-EU-Music-Royaltie…
As European Commissioner for Internal Market, McCreevy wants to extend
copyright from 50 years to 95 years. His reason? People are now living
longer.
You couldn't make it up. He says he wants to ensure that teen artists can
rely on their work providing them a pension.
Trying to cast this as supporting the little guy, he says that it will
support session musicians who played backing music.
He also talks about increasing the taxes on blank media. This is something
I think we could agree to. There's lots of room for arguing about the
numbers and how to distribute the collected taxes, but as systems go, this
one doesn't harm people's rights to help themselves or to help others.
This is probably related to the EC's public consultation on "Creative
Content Online", which has a deadline of Feb 29th:
http://ec.europa.eu/avpolicy/other_actions/content_online/index_en.htm
I'm going to look into that early next week and will discuss it here. It
might be something worth drafting an IFSO response to.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan (+32 477 36 44 19) \ Support Free Software and GNU/Linux
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ Join FSFE's Fellowship:
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ http://www.fsfe.org
January has been a month full of activity both on the grassroots community
level and in broad topics like Free Software legal infrastructure. The local
Fellowship groups in Berlin and Duesseldorf are very active, and Duesseldorf's
Fellowship is planning to expand to nearby cities in the coming months.
Meanwhile, FSFE and gpl-violations.org have been deepening their partnership
to ensure fair use of Free Software licences in the European area.
This is a great time to get more involved with FSFE and the Fellowship,
especially if you are interested in fostering local activities for like-minded
Free Software enthusiasts or new members of our community. You can find
tips on getting active here: http://fsfeurope.org/contribute.
Shane, FSFE Zurich office
1. GPL-violations.org and FSFE's Freedom Task Force plan future interaction
2. NLnet continues to support FSFE's Freedom Task Force
3. Berlin Fellowship meeting and talk
4. Duesseldorf Fellowship meeting and planning future events
5. FSFE meeting in Göteborg, Sweden
6. SELF Open Documentary Contest
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
7. Richard Stallman Speech about Free Software Philosophy and History in Berlin, 2008-02-18
8. Preparation for FOSDEM, Brussels, 2008-02-23 and 2008-02-24
9. "Standards and the Future of the Internet" Conference, Geneva, 2008-02-26
10. Secure shell speech at Duesseldorf Fellowship, Duesseldorf, 2008-02-27
1. GPL-violations.org and FSFE's Freedom Task Force plan future interaction
On the 31st of January representatives from gpl-violations.org and FSFE's FTF
met in Berlin to discuss the future of licence compliance in the European area.
Harald Welte and Armijn Hemel discussed the perspective of the successful
gpl-violations.org project, while Shane Coughlan represented FSFE. Dr. Till
Jaeger attended one of the sessions and brought his considerable legal knowledge
to the conversation. GPL-violations.org and FSFE's FTF have agreed to work
closely together to ensure fair use, understanding and responsibility in the
use of Free Software licences.
http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2008/02/02/#20080202-gplviolations-meeti…
2. NLnet continues to support FSFE's Freedom Task Force
The initial phase of the FTF was possible thanks to support by the Netherlands
based philantropic organisation NLnet foundation. Today the FTF's legal and
technical networks cover sixteen European countries, have over seventy members
and include contacts from the USA, Canada, Australia, South Korea and Taiwan.
The FTF delivers training courses in Switzerland in cooperation with Digicomp,
in Sweden with Internet Academy and in The Netherlands with ATComputing. Now,
after just over twelve months of continual growth, NLnet is providing a second
round of financial support to this innovative legal project.
http://fsfeurope.org/news/2008/news-20080118-01.en.html
3. Berlin Fellowship meeting and talk
The Berlin Fellowship Group met at the Newthinking Store as usual and featured
a talk from Hannes Hauswedell about the free BSD operating systems. Discussion
centred around BSD variants as alternative Free operating systems, description
of the various BSD variants and the policies that the BSD projects have
regarding Free Software adoption.
If you would like to join in the fun, please note that the Berlin Fellowship
meets every second Thursday in the month at the Newthinking Store,
Tucholskystr. 48 in 10117 Berlin.
4. Duesseldorf Fellowship meeting and planning future events
The Duesseldorf Fellowship met as usual and discussed future plans. This
included a highly interesting and constructive discussion about having a booth
at the Labour's Day 1. May at Duesseldorf. The Fellowship will share their
booth with other organisations. Chaosdorf e.V. (the local CCC group,
http://www.chaosdorf.de) may attend. The Fellowship also planned meetings
in other cities like Cologne and Roermond/NL to intensify the contact to other
Fellows.
Get in contact with the Duesseldorf Fellowship: rk(a)office.fsfeurope.org
5. FSFE meeting in Göteborg, Sweden
The Swedish team of the FSFE organised a small meeting for those
interested in the FSFE activities on the 28th of january. Some of the
issues discussed focused around publishing the videos recorded during
FSCONS in december, and generally around video editing and mastering.
6. SELF Open Documentary Contest
The SELF (Science, Education and Learning in Freedom) project has
announced a SELF Open Documentary Contest where individuals and
companies are invited to "create a documentary about the creation of
free knowledge and education in the digital era". The contest runs
until the end of may 2008, and the winners will be presented during a
SELF conference in Spain in july 2008.
http://www.selfproject.eu/contest
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
7. Richard Stallman Speech about Free Software Philosophy and History in Berlin, 2008-02-18
On Monday 18. February at 19:00 Richard M. Stallman, founder of the GNU project
and the FSF, will give a speech at the mediacentre - Atrium, Johannisstrasse 20,
in 10117 Berlin-Mitte. He will talk about the history and philosophy of Free
Software. The Berlin Fellowship group will have a small booth there and inform
visitors about the local groupd and FSFE's work in Germany and Europe. Admission
starts at 18:30. The entrance fee is 5 EUR.
8. Preparation for FOSDEM, Brussels, 2008-02-23 and 2008-02-24
Many in FSFE are getting ready for FSFE's 7th trip to FOSDEM. Like previous
years, FSFE has been given a large stall just inside the main entrance.
FOSDEM is one of the year's two largest Free Software events where FSFE's
members, friends, and employees can meet each other and the free software
community. It's also an opportunity to buy t-shirts and other FSFE
material, and to join the Fellowship of FSFE - which we launched at FOSDEM
2005.
If you're at the event or nearby, drop in an say hi! FOSDEM is very much a
community focussed event, with no entrance fee, but you can donate if you
like.
http://fosdem.org/2008/
9. "Standards and the Future of the Internet" Conference, Geneva, 2008-02-26
Shane Coughlan, the coordinator of FSFE's Freedom Task Force, will host a
breakout session discussing licensing issues at the "Standards and the Future
of the Internet" Conference being held in Geneva, Switzerland, during the 26th
and 27th of February. The conference will be hosted at the International
Conference Centre and confirmed speakers include Vint Cerf, Carlo Piana,
Thomas Vinje and Jeremy Allison.
10. Secure shell speech at Duesseldorf Fellowship, Duesseldorf, 2008-02-27
Patrick Haehnel will hold a talk at the Duesseldorf Fellowship on the 27th of
February. The title of his speech is "Forget the Swiss Army Knife! - Secure
Shell - tips'n'tricks."
You can find a full list of forthcoming events here:
http://fsfeurope.org/events/events.html
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters here:
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.
Sep 27th will be the 25th anniversary of the initial announcement of GNU:
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/initial-announcement.html
The 15th and 20th anniversaries were marked by RMS publishing an essay:
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/15-years-of-free-software.htmlhttp://www.gnu.org/philosophy/use-free-software.html
But there should really be more fuss for the quarter-century anniversary.
I'm kinda short on ideas, but some obvious ones are:
* Compile a book on the history of GNU and software freedom (focussing on
1983 to 1998)
* Compile info for July to start pitching to the tech magazines to make the
GNU anniversary their cover story for September
* A general free software event (we actually haven't done this before - not
with multiple speakers at least)
* An awareness campaign, with a booklet, press releases, and letters to
software companies asking them to sign something (anti-swpat?)
I was reminded by this by Bruce Perens' 10 look back at the Open Source
marketing campaign:
http://perens.com/works/articles/State8Feb2008/
1998, unfortunately, turn into the start of a "let's stop talking about
freedom" era. So maybe we should use GNU's 25th birthday to start a "Time
to talk about Free Software again" era.
Ideas sought.
--
Ciarán O'Riordan (+32 477 36 44 19) \ Support Free Software and GNU/Linux
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \ Join FSFE's Fellowship:
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \ http://www.fsfe.org
While not exclusively a Free Software issue, we should certainly
endorse open standards. A campaign for "Document Freedom" has been
launched:
http://www.documentfreedom.org/
Malcolm
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