= FSFE Newsletter – January 2015 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201501.es.html ]
== A revolution ==
The Earth has once again completed a full, customarily counted
revolution. Here at FSFE we have been busy throughout 2014, working hard
to ensure that users remain in control of their devices and that Free
Software may once compete on a level playing field for public tenders.
More information, including the extent of our limited success and our
future prospects, on both these issues and our other frontiers may be
found in our annual report for 2014[1], penned by our President Karsten
Gerloff[2].
In addition to providing a comprehensive overview of our activities in
2014, Karsten finishes the report with a sneak peek of the challenges we
are going to face and overcome in revolution 2015. For instance, we
intend to build on the success of the Free Software Pact[3] to spread
awareness about Free Software among both the elected representatives of
the European citizenry and the unelected bureaucrats of the executive
branch.
We also intend to invest more in our local volunteers and Fellowship
groups. We are hopeful that not only will we reach a wider audience and
have a greater impact with increased local participation, but this will
also be much more fun for everyone involved.
== Fellowship elections ==
FSFE has a bit less than 1500 Fellows[4] or sustaining members. In
addition to receiving certain benefits[5] useful for digital activists,
all of them have a say in the governance of the FSFE. This right is
exercised by electing[6] representatives to the General Assembly, the
highest decision-making body of FSFE. Your temporary editor will have
served his term as a Fellowship Representative by this spring, and hence
a new Representative will be elected by the orderly Fellows from
February 20th to March 6th 2015, 12pm.
Your outgoing Representative would like to take this opportunity to
invite all our Fellows to partake in the elections. The General Assembly
is responsible for making all strategic decisions for FSFE, and all
Fellows, whether true idealists or business-minded pragmatists, have the
same right to affect our future growth and direction, so please do so.
== EU: the good and the bad ==
On December 17, 2014, the European Parliament adopted the EU budget for
2015. We are very happy to report that thanks to the efforts of MEPs
Julia Reda (Pirates) and Max Andersson (Greens), the Parliament has
allocated up to a million euros to audit Free Software used by the
European Parliament and Commission. We hope that the institutions
concerned will closely work with upstream developers to best benefit the
public. We also welcome further allocations[7] that aim to allow equal
participation in the digital society.
Unfortunately, we must still call upon EU institutions to make use of
Open Standards and Free Software, as a recent study prepared for the
Greens/EFA has found[8] that the EU Parliament falls woefully short of
its democratic obligations to ensure transparency and openness. Among
other shortcomings the parliamentarians lack access to a standards-
compliant e-mail solution.
== Something completely different ==
- From the planet aggregation: Paul Boddie writes about the ‘ unplanned
obsolescence[9] ’ of early Fairphone devices, justifiedly arguing that
Fairphone's decision to overlook or deprioritize hardware support for
Free Software was unwise considering the abundance of information
available on the lack of hardware support for Free Software.
- Otto Kekäläinen writes[10] about password management while recognizing
that people are not storage media. Otto's piece is an excellent read
when taken with a pinch of salt.
- Nico Rikken contemplates the right to make bad choices in his piece ‘
Optional rights[11] ’.
2015 will bring a new etiquette to our Fellowship Planet. A proposed
draft will be presented to the Fellows for consultation at the earliest
convenience.
== Get active: spread free software ==
The gift giving season has just ended. No doubt you have a friend or
relative unfortunate enough to have been given a computer bundled with
non-free software as a gift. Help them install a free GNU/Linux
distribution or Replicant[12].
Thanks to all the volunteers[13], Fellows[14] and corporate donors[15]
who enable our work,
Heiki Ojasild[16]
Fellowship Representative, FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20141218-02.es.html
2. https://fsfe.org/about/gerloff/index.es.html
3. http://freesoftwarepact.eu/
4. https://fsfe.org/fellowship/index.es.html
5. https://fsfe.org/fellowship/about/fellowship.es.html#youget
6. https://fsfe.org/about/legal/constitution.es.html#id-fellowship-seats
7. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20141219-01.es.html
8. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20141212-01.es.html
9. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=802
10. http://seravo.fi/2014/password-hygiene-every-mans-responsibility
11. http://nicorikken.eu/blog/optional-rights/
12. http://www.replicant.us/
13. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.es.html
14. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
15. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.es.html
16. https://fsfe.org/about/ojasild/index.es.html
= FSFE Newsletter – December 2014 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201412.es.html ]
== More demand from the EU institutions ==
The new European Commission is currently setting the direction of its
policy making for the coming five years. The FSFE is in frequent contact
with Commission staff, who currently see open doors for Free Software in
Brussels. We want to make sure to use this momentum to push for changes
on software procurement, standardisation, and device sovereignty. So our
president Karsten Gerloff participated in several meetings.
In November the European Parliament (EP) organised a conference to
inform members of the parliament about the IT services available to
them. It featured a panel discussion led by Adina Valean, the new EP
Vice President in charge of ICT, with a contribution from Giancarlo
Villela, the director of the EP’s IT department. After the panel
discussion, Karsten got the chance to contribute a few brief remarks
about the EU institution’s live streams, DebianParl, and vendor lock-
in[1].
In the beginning of December Karsten was again at the Parliament, this
time at a workshop on “Open Standards for ICT procurement”[2]. The real
value of those events, as so often, was in the people who are there. The
workshop provided an opportunity for the small community pushing Free
Software and Open Standards in procurement to meet and share updates. So
in the future we can push together with them for positive changes.
== There is no cloud just other people’s computers ==
Another event Karsten participated in was the presentation of the report
on “cloud” computing and interoperability by the Brussels-based lobby
organisation ECIS’s. Karsten documented the meeting in his blog post
“Some common-sense recommendations on cloudy computing”[3].
Just a few days later our new “there is no cloud just other people’s
computers”-stickers arrived in our office[4]. We received lots of
positive feedback about the stickers, and now added them to our promo
packs[5]. We are planning to have some more merchandise with this slogan
ready for our booth at FOSDEM from 31 January to 1 February 2015 in
Brussels.
== Progress with “email self-defence” leaflets ==
Beside the new stickers, you can now also order new leaflets, to promote
our sister organisation’s “email self-defence guide”. Originally we
produced this leaflet in German for the annual Berlin “freedom not fear”
demonstration in September. Afterwards volunteers all over Germany
ordered[6] and distributed them. For example, one cinema gave out a
leaflet for everybody who bought a ticket for the Snowden documentary
“Citizienfour”. Meanwhile we had to reorder the German version for a
third time and since the end of November we have been sending out the
English version to Free Software supporters throughout Europe.
In the next weeks our translators[7] and designers[8] will finalise a
Chinese, Dutch, French, Greek, Italian, and a Spanish version. For 2015
we want to enable local Free Software supporters to distribute this and
other leaflets at libraries, universities, schools, cinemas, companies,
restaurants and cafes, shops and in other places.
== FSFE’s translators: they are just awesome ==
This brings us to a badly needed thank you note. During the last 12
months we published the newsletter monthly. Two of the editions were
written by our volunteer Heiki ”Repentinus” Ojasild, so your editor
could enjoy his vacation. Our newsletter was available in 6 languages on
average (lowest 4 languages highest 9 languages). We had newsletters in
Albanian, Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, Italian, Portuguese,
Romanian, Serbian, and Spanish.
Your editor is proud to work in a team with such dedicated volunteers.
They translate the newsletter, the leaflets mentioned above, plus other
FSFE news. They enable more people around the world to read about Free
Software in their mother tongue, and are therefore a crucial part of the
FSFE. So your editor would like to deeply thank our growing translators
team[9] for this important work.
== Something completely different ==
- The year is almost over, and it is reporting season. Our president
published a sneak preview of things we achieved in 2014[10] covering
our work on: public procurement, the Free Software pact, compulsory
routers, improving information material, informing about “trusted
computing” and “Secure Boot”, organising Document Freedom Day,
answering legal questions, as well as our participation events such as
workshops, panel discussions, or organising booths.
- In the last newsletter we asked you to help the FixMyDocuments
campaign. With the support they received, they have now compiled a
list of over 15,000 editable documents from the European institutions
not available in the Open Document Format[11].
- WhatsApp adopted a secure end-to-end encryption method developed for
the Free Software app TextSecure. Torsten Grote takes a look at what
that means for Free Software[12].
- Local events: FSFE had a booth at T-Dose in the Netherlands[13]. Our
Dutch Fellows organised the booth together, Kevin Keijzer gave a talk
about “Discrimination of Free Software (users) in education”, Maurice
Verheesen spoke about “Digital Sovereignty For Europe”, and Felix
Stegerman talked about the opportunities and dangers of the “Internet
of Things”[14]. Beside that, our Berlin group organised a booth at the
FiFFkon[15] at the Technical University Berlin.
- Guido Arnold published a summary of what happened in education
throughout Europe during October[16].
- The French Fellow Alexandre Keledjian published F-Droid-Web, a simple
and lightweight web interface to F-Droid server[17]. It provides an
easy way to add a new software repository to your mobile using qr-
codes, and to browse the F-Droid catalogue by name, category, summary,
license type, and description.
- From the planet aggregation[18]:
- Mirko Böhm, FSFE Fellow and KDE community member, wrote about why
you should support FSFE’s work[19], which in his words is: to
protect, explain, and organise the freedoms to use, study, share,
and improve software.
- Daniel Pocock questions if Amnesty is giving spy victims a false
sense of security[20]. In his post he provides a letter template
to sent to Amnesty.
- “EOMA68” is an open electronic interface standard, designed to
support the development of small computing devices. Nico Rikken
wrote why EOMA68 will advance both Free Software and free
hardware[21].
- Mario Fux explains how you can contribute as a non-developer to
KDE[22].
- Beside that we had some technical HowTos on the planet, including:
Kevin Keijzer who reports from his experience trying to install
Ubuntu without proprietary software[23].
- Hannes Hauswedell who wrote about how to encrypt cron’s daily mail
on FreeBSD[24]. His HowTo pertains to FreeBSD in particular, but
he is “sure all you GNUsers out there will figure out the
necessary changes”.
- Mirko Böhm who describes how to configure a gaming mouse on
GNU/Linux in a way that you can work and play at the machine[25].
- And Max Mehl who is now running his own Git (a decentralised
version control system) instance which also includes a script to
delete all meta data from PDF files in a directory[26].
== Get active: Get a smartcard and support us ==
Next year, we will push harder than ever to weave software freedom into
the fabric of our society. To enable us to intensify our work with the
European Commission, to let more people know about Free Software, and to
continue our other work we still need €190,000 for 2015[27].
As an individual the best way to support the FSFE’s work financially is
to become a Fellow (a sustaining member of the FSFE)[28]. All Fellowship
contributions directly benefit our work towards a free society.
Fellows receive a state-of-the-art Fellowship smartcard which, together
with the free GnuPG encryption software and a card reader, can be used
to sign and encrypt e-mails, to securely log into a computer from a
potentially insecure machine using SSH, or to store the user’s hard disk
encryption keys. Since the encryption key is stored on the card itself,
it is almost impossible to steal.
Thanks to all the volunteers[29], Fellows[30] and corporate donors[31]
who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/11/19/free-software-for-the-european-pa…
2. http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/12/04/workshop-on-open-standards-for-ict…
3. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/11/14/some-common-sense-recommendations…
4. https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/new-stickers-and-leaflets-no-cloud-and-e-mail-sel…
5. https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.html#promo-material
6. https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.es.html#promo-material
7. https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators.es.html
8. https://fsfe.org/contribute/designers/designers.es.html
9. https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators.es.html
10. http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/12/01/preview-what-fsfe-did-in-2014/
11. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/110097
12. http://blog.grobox.de/2014/whatsapp-end-to-end-encryption-federation/
13. https://blogs.fsfe.org/flx/2014/11/11/t-dose-2/
14. https://blogs.fsfe.org/flx/2014/11/09/my-t-dose-talk-the-internet-of-things…
15. https://blogs.fsfe.org/majestyx/2014/11/12/fiffkon-2014-leak/
16. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/11/free-software-in-education-news-octobe…
17. https://github.com/dervishe-/f-droid-web/wiki
18. http://planet.fsfe.org
19. http://creative-destruction.me/2014/12/04/fsfe-needs-your-support-for-2015/
20. http://danielpocock.com/amnesty-detekt-false-sense-of-security
21. http://nicorikken.eu/blog/why-eoma68-will-advance-both-free-software-and-fr…
22. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mario/?p=257
23. https://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2014/11/16/installing-ubuntu-with…
24. https://blogs.fsfe.org/h2/2014/11/04/encrypting-crons-daily-mail/
25. http://creative-destruction.me/2014/11/13/configure-your-gaming-mouse-on-li…
26. http://blog.mehl.mx/2014/sharing-is-caring-my-git-instance/
27. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20141203-01.es.html
28. https://fsfe.org/join/join.es.html
29. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.es.html
30. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
31. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.es.html
= FSFE Newsletter – November 2014 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201411.es.html ]
== Munich: facts harder than fiction ==
The city of Munich runs Free Software on more than 15.000 workplace
computers and has saved over 11.000.000€ in return[1]. During the
migration to Free Software, they consolidated their heterogeneous IT in
51 places with 1000 IT employees and 22 IT departments. Despite these
challenges most users are happy with the migration and say they do not
want to switch back[2] (in German). And all of this happened in the
front-yard of Microsoft's German headquarters.
If you do not like the success of Free Software in Munich, what could
you do? You could play on emotions and spread rumours that the Munich IT
people are not taking the demands of regular users nor the executive
into account. Of course, you have to stay vague, hoping to bring out a
few of those voices that are always unhappy - but this is an easy way of
discrediting the progress already made. This is what happened in the
last months in Munich with remarks by the new mayor Dieter Reiter (SPD,
Social Democrats) and his vice Josef Schmid (CSU, Christian Democrats).
Some commentators have speculated about a connection to the fact that
Microsoft is now moving its headquarter from Unterschleissheim to
Munich, and Reiter claiming that he helped with this deal[3] (in
German). As Microsoft was the biggest tax payer in Unterschleissheim[4]
(in German), Munich will financially benefit by this move.
But they seem to have underestimated the success of Free Software in
Munich. IT experts from their own political parties raised their voice
to correct them[5] and others have uncovered their misleading
statements[6]. Thus, the comments by the mayors represent only
individual opinions. Munich's political support for GNU/Linux is strong,
and the money the city saves and will continue to save by using
GNU/Linux, LibreOffice/OpenOffice, and the Desktop from KDE counts
profoundly. If Free Software can even survive a smear campaign by the
mayors it shows that it is there to stay. Dear Free Software community:
/be proud and spread the word!/ But do not rest, the next attack will be
more subtle.
== EU wide Open Standards policy ==
But the answer to the inquiry includes another crucial point: the
problem with document formats. The Munich IT managers noted that, at the
beginning of their migration, the German federal states and the federal
government highlighted the importance of Free Software and Open
Standards, but afterwards never consequently went this path.
In Germany, the lack of a clear Open Standard Policy is a major blocker
for public administrations to use Free Software. In recent years, other
European Countries such as Great Britain, France, Italy, and Sweden have
done more to promote Free Software and Open Standards.
On the European level, the former Munich mayor asked the European
Commission to implement two measures to enable participation with Free
Software in EU projects[7]: First to have all document templates which
are available in Microsoft Office formats, also in Open Document Text
(ODT) format. Second that all presenter notebooks in the EU institutions
also have a program installed which can handle Open Document
Presentation (ODP) files. This was in 2011 and the European bodies have
neglected implementing Open Standard policies for a long time.
== Open Standard compliance checks ==
When intuitions decide on Open Standards policies, this is just the
first step. It is important to check this decision and to remind them
about it. In 2010 as a Document Freedom Day activity our Fellows in
Cologne and Bonn checked the German federal administrations after a
decision that they have to be able to receive, edit, and send back
ODF[8]. The FSFE found out that only 2 of 87 departments are conforming
to federal open document regulations. This highlights the importance of
being persistent and monitoring the implementation of such policies.
Check out this month's “Get active” item with a specific suggestion how
you can help with that within a few minutes.
== Something completely different ==
- We are currently looking for interns again, especially in preparation
of Document Freedom Day[9] but we also have general internship
positions open from early January[10]. When Max Mehl saw the news item
he published a summary about his internship with FSFE[11].
- Together with the Italian consumer association ADUC, and the Italian
group ILS, we asked[12] regulators to take concrete steps to protect
Italians from being forced to pay for software they do not want or
need.
- Local activities: Our Vienna group had their most active and
successful Autumn ever. Franz documented how they participated in the
three big events Software Freedom Day, the biggest German speaking
animal rights conference, and the Game City fair 2013[13]. Christian
Kalkhoff from our Munich group gave a presentation about the groups
activities at the GNU Hackers Meeting 2014. The video is now
online[14]. If you want to help with the organisation of the
LibreOffice conference 2015, Carsten Agger is still looking for
assistance, as our Aarhus group will help at the event[15].
- Spoiler alert: The last edition of the education news also mentions
the focus of the upcoming Document Freedom Day 2015[16].
- Public administrations: The German town of Gummersbach announced that
this summer it has completed its switch to GNU/Linux PCs[17],
England's Healthwatch switches to Free Software CiviCRM[18], and a
Free Software solution developed for the government of South Tyrol
(Italy) to automatically test government websites and services is now
also being used to probe sites of the region's tourism sector[19].
- Our sister organisation invites Free Software enthusiasts to the libre
planet conference 2015[20] in the US. Furthermore the nomination for
the 17th annual Free Software Awards is open[21], and you can send
your nominations before Sunday 16 November.
- Matthew Garret wrote a blog post on why he joined FSF's board[22]. But
some of the comments he received are really offensive, and your editor
hopes that Matthew can just ignore them. Related to this, your editor
recommends you reading the article “On the sickness of our
community”[23] by Jonathan Corbet. As always, if you have comments
about it send them to our discussion lists[24].
- From the planet aggregation[25]:
- Computers are entering the fashion field from multiple directions.
Current FSFE intern Michele Marrali wrote about MeshCon 2014, a
conference that connects fashion designer and technology
experts[26].
- André Ockers reports that the Dutch public broadcaster NOS moves
away from open standards[27]
- Matija Šuklje made his first commit to KDE and writes about FSFE's
Fiduciary Licence Agreement[28]
- Daniel Pocock reports positive results from Outreach Program for
Women[29]
- Hugo Roy explains how he wrote a new defensive publication for
ownCloud's file syncing encryption[30].
== Get active: Fix my document - ODF in EU bodies ==
The EU institutions still have a lot to do to remove barriers for Free
Software users. Together with Open Forum Europe (OFE) your editor had a
meeting with the IT responsible of the Commission, the Council, and the
Parliament about that. We discussed our letter on video format[31] and
the campaign “FixMyDocuments.eu”. This campaign was started by OFE to
help EU institutions to implement their decision to support Open
Document Formats[32] FSFE's volunteers already translated the website in
more languages, but now it is time for all of you to act.
We would like you to /find EU institutions who offer non-free formats/
on their website, without also publishing those documents in ODT, and
then submit them[33].
Furthermore OFE encourages and will support anyone who wants to use the
platform to cover other administrations.
Thanks to all the volunteers[34], Fellows[35] and corporate donors[36]
who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/106341
2. http://www.computerwoche.de/a/wohin-steuert-linux-in-muenchen,3043464,2
3. http://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2013-11/reiter-muenchen-spd/komplett…
4. http://www.merkur-online.de/lokales/muenchen-lk-nord/unterschleissheim-umzu…
5. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/munich-city-council-shields…
6. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20141016-01.es.html
7. https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/prasident-des-deutschen-stadtetags-an-europaische…
8. https://fsfe.org/news/2010/news-20100803-01.es.html
9. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20141017-01.es.html
10. https://fsfe.org/contribute/internship.es.html
11. http://blog.mehl.mx/2014/my-internship-at-fsfe/
12. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20141017-02.es.html
13. https://blogs.fsfe.org/franz.gratzer/2014/10/23/three-autumn-events-2014/
14. http://audio-video.gnu.org/video/ghm2014/2014-08--kalkhoff--fsfe--ghm.webm
15. https://blogs.fsfe.org/agger/2014/10/22/announcing-the-libreoffice-conferen…
16. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/10/free-software-in-education-news-%E2%80…
17. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/105069
18. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/104519
19. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/tyrol-government-shares-tes…
20. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/registration-opens-for-libreplanet-2015
21. https://www.fsf.org/news/the-free-software-foundation-opens-nominations-for…
22. http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/33455.html
23. http://lwn.net/Articles/615192/
24. https://fsfe.org/contact/community.es.html
25. http://planet.fsfe.org
26. https://blogs.fsfe.org/puster/2014/10/14/meshcon-2014/
27. https://blogs.fsfe.org/ao/2014/10/28/dutch-public-broadcaster-moves-away-fr…
28. http://matija.suklje.name/my-very-first-commit-to-kde
29. http://danielpocock.com/positive-results-from-opw-2013
30. http://hroy.eu/posts/owncloud-encryption-defpub/
31. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20140326-02.es.html
32. http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/informatics/oss_tech/pdf/2011-07-25_ares.pdf
33. http://fixmydocuments.eu/?page_id=9
34. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.es.html
35. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
36. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.es.html
= Boletín de la FSFE – Octubre de 2014 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201410.es.html ]
== La justicia italiana apoya la separación de software y hardware ==
Al comprar un portátil, puede ser complicado evitar pagar por una
licencia de Microsoft dado que muchos portátiles vienen con una licencia
incluida. Este "impuesto Windows” ha incrementado artificialmente los
precios del hardware para los usuarios de Software Libre que no quieren
usar sistemas operativos de Microsoft. Nosotros, como usuarios de
Software Libre, queremos apoyar el desarrollo de Software Libre en lugar
de software privativo como Microsoft Windows.
Desde 2008 mantenemos una página wiki con recomendaciones para
consumidores que desean evitar financiar el desarrollo de software
privativo[1], y durante una década hemos hablado con políticos y
organizaciones de defensa de los consumidores sobre este particular. No
obstante, el pogreso en la materia es pequeño y llevará años cambiar
esta situación en Europa. Para semejantes metas a largo plazo, alcanzar
objetivos intermedios es importante. El mes pasado obtuvimos una
victoria de ese tipo.
El Tribunal Supremo de Italia estableció[2] que un comprador de portátil
tenía derecho a recibir la devolución del precio de la licencia de
Microsoft Windows que ha sido obligado a comprar con su ordenador. Los
jueces criticaron agudamente la práctica de vender PCs únicamente junto
con un sistema operativo privativo como una "política comercial de
distribución forzosa". El tribunal consideró esta práctica como "de
tendencia monopolística". También resaltó que la práctica de unión de
hardware y licencia significa que los usuarios finales son obligados a
usar aplicaciones privativas adicionales debido a cuestiones de
compatibilidad e interoperabilidad, tanto si desean esos programas como
si no.
Ahora las autoridades italianas tienen que hacer de esta normativa un
beneficio real para los consumidores, asegurando que los compradores de
ordenadores puedan elegir su dispositivo con el sistema operativo que
deseen, e incluso ninguno. Posteriormente esperamos convencer a otros
países en Europa a seguir el ejemplo establecido por Italia, o que
encontremos una solución de ámbito europeo al problema.
== Administraciones públicas europeas que usan Software Libre ==
Con frecuencia existe una tendencia en los medios y también en nosotros
a concentrarse en las malas noticias sobre el uso del Software Libre en
la administración pública. En esta edición, nos concentraremos por el
contrario en buenos ejemplos del mes anterior. Hay buenas noticias
respecto al uso de Software Libre en paquetes ofimáticos: El
Bundesrechenzentrum de Austria, el centro de computación propiedad del
gobierno federal, alaba el amplio rango de uso en aplicaciones de Apache
OpenOffice[3]. Aprecian que la “solución puede adaptarse a las
necesidades de los centros de datos, integrarse en sus aplicaciones
especializadas y también permite la creación y envío de documentos de
forma automática y semiautomática. OpenOffice es la suite ofimática
estándar en el centro de computación desde 2008, instalada en 12.000 PCs
en toda la organización.” Aún más, las administraciones públicas de las
ciudades italianas Todi y Terni están cambiando a LibreOffice[4]. Siguen
el ejemplo de la provincia italiana de Perugia, usando LibreOffice en
todos sus 1.200 PCs y de la Autoridad Sanitaria Local de Perugia, que ha
instalado el paquete ofimático en 600 PCs.
La administración pública francesa está usando un paquete ofimático de
Software Libre en 500.000 ordenadores de escritorio[5]. Aúnque han dicho
que cambiar a Software Libre fue duro, han sido capaces de gestionar los
problemas. El éxito del proyecto se debe parcialmente a dos contratos
que los ministerios tienen con proveedores de servicios TIC. Los
contratos supondrán el soporte a 260 aplicaciones de Software Libre, y
el equipo de soporte asegura que los parches realizados por los
ministerios se contribuirán también a los proyectos de software libre
originales.
Los Verdes en Sajonia/Alemania urgen al gobierno del Estado Federal a
realizar un estudio de viabilidad para la migración a Software Libre[6].
“El grupo político, ellos mismos usuarios de software libre desde
diciembre de 2011, dicen que los costes en TI más bajos y las ventajas
en seguridad TI deberían guiar a las administraciones públicas" hacia el
uso del Software Libre. Argumenta que la dependencia del software
privativo “da a las grandes corporaciones acceso e influencia sobre los
flujos de trabajo internos oficiales, así como sobre comunicación
sensible y datos de los ciudadanos del Estado.”
== Algo completamente diferente ==
- Incluso sin el impuesto Windows mencionado previamente, todavía tienes
que ver si el ordenador que deseas comprar funciona con Software
Libre. Para mejorar la información sobre el hardware compatible, la
FSF y Debian ahora cooperan para expandir y mejorar la base de datos
de hardware h-node[7] para ayudar a los usuarios a conocer y compartir
información sobre ordenadores que funcionan con sistemas operativos de
Software Libre.
- En nuestra lista de correo pública en inglés está teniendo lugar
actualmente una discusión sobre buenas metáforas para el Software
libre. Hugo Roy inició el hilo[8] con algunos ejemplos. Alessandro
Rubini hizo algunas comentarios críticas, argumentando contra las
metáforas mencionadas[9]. Él argumenta que si necesitamos una metáfora
para explicar el Software Libre a la gente, necesitamos permanecer en
el campo de la información, del conocimiento que puede difundirse sin
coste. En un envío reciente Guido Arnold informó de buenas
experiencias usando las recetas como analogía con los niños[10].
- En el Día del Software Libre de este año, se implicaron varios grupos
locales de la FSFE: Edgar Hoffmann organizó un stand informativo en
frente del Ayuntamiento de Offenburg, y una mini-conferencia-
comunitaria con charlas y nuestro cuestionario sobre Software Libre
durante la tarde[11] (en alemán, pero con muchas fotografías). Dominic
Hopf, nuestro coordinador de Hamburgo, dio una charla en el evento SFD
en Kiel sobre F-Droid[12], mientras que Torsten Grote introdujo a la
gente a F-Droid en el evento SFD de Berlin. También estuvo presente en
este evento Nermin Canik de Estambul y vuestro editor para hablar con
la gente sobre libertad de software. Más aún, Michael Stehmann dio una
charla sobre Software Libre y privacidad en el evento SFD en
Colonia[13] (en alemán).
- Del 13 al 15 de Octubre la FSFE tendrá un stand en la Linuxcon en
Düsseldorf. Como muchos activistas del Software Libre ya estarán con
anterioridad, nuestro grupo Fellowship de Düsseldorf invita a todos
los colaboradores del Software Libre a un "brunch" el 10 de octubre de
2014 que da comienzo a las 11:00 am en bistro "Schwesterherz"[14],
Bilker Allee 66, 40219 Düsseldorf. Por lo tanto, una jornada muy
activa para nuesro grupo local allí, tras participar en una
cryptoparty para el Comisionado para la Protección de Datos y la
Libertad de Información[15] (en alemán) y organizar un stand en el
festival de la calle Zackk[16] (en alemán).
- Guido Arnold resumió el resultado del taller de la FSFE en Essen, en
el cual discutimos las mejores prácticas para realizar trabajo de
promoción a nivel local[17].
- El desarrollador de Software Libre Matthew Garret está “firmemente
convencido de que el Software Libre que no hace nada para respetar o
empoderar a los usuarios es una absoluta pérdida de tiempo”. En su
blog[18] argumenta que necesitamos diseñar software desde la base de
forma que esas libertades proporcionen beneficios reales e inmediatos
a nuestros usuarios. En su opinión, cualquier otra cosa es un fallo.
- Del planeta de blogs[19]:
- Guido Arnold informa de los talleres Teckids en la FrOSCon9. Más
de 60 niños de 9 a 13 años participaron en tres talleres
diferentes sobre robots, juegos en python y Blender[20].
- Max Mehl explica cómo usar OpenStreetMap de manera predeterminada
en los contactos de Thunderbird[21] y cómo acceder a los
cumpleaños de los contactos de OwnCloud a través de un calendario
CalDAV[22].
- Henri Bergius informa del estado del entorno de desarrollo
NoFlo[23], un interfaz de usuario para programación basada en
flujo.
- Hay algunos pasos que puedes dar para evitar tener que tratar con
los ficheros de Microsoft Office. Sin embargo, en algunos casos te
verás obligado a tratar con ellos. Kevin Keijzer documentó cómo
sacar el máximo provecho a los ficheros de Microsoft Office como
usuario de Software Libre[24].
- Nuestro becario actual Michele Marrali escribió un artículo de
blog sobre cómo las patentes, el copyright y las marcas
comerciales pueden usarse para promocionar la libertad en los
projectos Hardware[25].
== Implícate: Envía tu opinión sobre el Manifiesto de Datos de Usuario ==
La versión 2 del Manifiesto de Datos de Usuario[26] se ha publicado. La
intención de este manifiesto es definir los derechos fundamentales de
los usuarios sobre sus propios datos en la era de Internet: a controlar
el acceso a sus datos (y metadatos), a conocer cómo y dónde se almacenan
los datos y a ser libre para elegir una plataforma. ¡Algunos proyectos
ya están trabajando en apoyar el manifiesto para conceder esos derechos
a sus usuarios! Por el momento, la versión 2 está publicada como un
borrador en un wiki que admite comentarios públicos[27].
Pedimos a todos los partidarios del Software Libre que opinen sobre el
manifiesto, para que pueda ser mejorado, y podamos, si queremos,
apoyarlo como FSFE. Por favor danos tu opinión, discute el manifiesto en
nuestras listas de discusión[28], y pide la opinión de otras
organizaciones de Software Libre así como si lo apoyarían en su forma
actual.
Gracias a todos los voluntarios[29], Fellows[30] y donantes
corporativos[31] que hacen posible nuestro trabajo,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1. https://wiki.fsfe.org/WindowsTaxRefund
2. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20140912-01.es.html
3. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/103311
4. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/104084
5. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/103567
6. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/103307
7. https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-and-debian-join-forces-to-help-free-software-u…
8. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2014-September/010265.html
9. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2014-September/010295.html
10. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/discussion/2014-October/010296.html
11. https://blogs.fsfe.org/fast_edi/?p=476
12. http://blog.dmaphy.de/2014/09/software-liberty-is-like-security-in-it.html
13. https://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=1258
14. http://www.bistro-schwesterherz.de/
15. https://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=1227
16. https://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=1247
17. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/09/how-to-advocate-for-free-software-in-l…
18. http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/32686.html
19. http://planet.fsfe.org
20. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/09/teckids-workshops-at-froscon9-robots-p…
21. http://blog.mehl.mx/2014/setting-openstreetmap-as-default-in-thunderbird-co…
22. http://blog.mehl.mx/2014/birthday-calendar-with-owncloud-via-caldav/
23. http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/flowhub-kickstarter-delivery/
24. https://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2014/09/12/ooxml/
25. http://blogs.fsfe.org/puster/2014/09/08/freedom-and-openness-in-hardware/
26. https://userdatamanifesto.org/2.0/
27. http://udm.branchable.com/index.en.html
28. https://fsfe.org/contact/community.es.html
29. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.es.html
30. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
31. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.es.html
= Hoja informativa de la FSFE - septiembre 2014 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201409.es.html ]
== Una Introducción al Software Libre y a la liberación del cyberespacio ==
Las libertades de expresión, prensa, reunión, asociación, y la
privacidad son condiciones fundamentales de una Sociedad Libre. Si
faltara una de ellas, sería difícil mantener las restantes. Como
sociedad, es importante defender estas libertades, especialmente a
partir de cambios fundamentales como el introducido por la ubicuidad de
los ordenadores. Tales cambios pueden amenazar las viejas libertades y
pueden crear la necesidad de otras nuevas. Así que ahora la libertad del
software es crucial para distribuir y equilibrar el poder en la
sociedad. La FSFE está convencida de que una sociedad libre necesita las
libertades que sólo el Software Libre puede ofrecer. Por eso defendemos
el Software Libre.
En el año 2010, escribimos el artículo "La Democracia necesita Software
Libre"[1], explicando el significado de dicho mensaje a los políticos
asistentes la ceremonia en la que se entregó a la FSFE la medalla de
Theodor-Heuss. Gracias al equipo de traductores de la FSFE, el artículo
está disponible en 15 idiomas, y se comparte ampliamente.
Desde el mes pasado, se encuentra, también, disponible el mensaje sobre
la importancia del Software Libre en un corto vídeo TEDx "Introducción
al Software Libre y la liberación del ciberespacio"[2] por Richard
Stallman. Es una buena forma de concienciar a otros sobre la importancia
del Software Libre. Necesitamos que muchas personas entiendan la
relación de Software Libre y la sociedad libre, como nos lo demuestra,
una vez más los siguientes ejemplos.
== Eslovaquia sigue obligando a los usuarios a utilizar software no libre ==
En 2012 -- gracias a nuestro antiguo becario Martin Husovec -- la FSFE
pudo participar en un caso contra la Agencia Tributaria Eslovaca[3]
junto con el European Information Society Institute (EISi). Como escribe
en su blog el actual becario de la FSFE Matej Gera[4] aún subsiste el
problema de la obligación de usar software no libre por imposición de
las autoridades eslovacas: De acuerdo con la nueva legislación de
Eslovaquia, la persona que posea y quiera vender tierras de labor,
primero ha de hacer una oferta en la página web del Ministerio de
Agricultura. Y para poder subir una oferta a dicha página del
Ministerio, se necesita software adicional. El software en cuestión es
propietario y solo disponible para Microsoft Windows, y es la única
forma -- pues no hay formulario en papel. Si de todas formas intentara
vender la tierra, infringiría la ley.
Esta práctica no sólo es inaceptable para los usuarios del Software
Libre, sino también ilegal en la misma Eslovaquia. Existe desde 2008,
una regulación vinculante que prohíbe a las autoridades públicas que
requieran a los usuarios el uso de un sistema operativo concreto. Pero
la página web del Ministerio claramente no cumple esta orden. Ahora, la
organización eslovaca sin ánimo de lucro EISi ha enviado un escrito al
Ministerio de Agricultura, pidiendo la terminación de esta práctica. Si
para octubre no cumplen con la norma y no proporcionan una solución
interoperativa, EISi recurrirá a los tribunales para proteger los
derechos de los usuarios de software eslovacos.
== Obligados por los proveedores de Servicios de Internet a usar determinado hardware ==
En la sociedad actual, no debería de plantearse si quiera, la
posibilidad de elegir libremente los dispositivos técnicos que usamos en
nuestros hogares, al igual que elegimos el mobiliario o los libros de
las estanterías. Pero además de las autoridades que nos obligan a
utilizar software no libre, actualmente la FSFE ha de luchar contra
ciertas empresas que quieren obligarnos a usar ciertos ordenadores en
nuestra casa. En este caso incluso uno de los más importantes
ordenadores: el router, que ha de actuar como guardián entre nuestra red
privada y el Internet público.
En Alemania, los proveedores de servicios de Internet (ISPs) obligan a
sus clientes a utilizar hardware muy concreto para conectarse a
internet. Por lo que, los usuarios de dispositivos alternativos, no son
capaces de conectarse a Internet por los ISPs. Junto a otros miembros de
la comunidad del Software Libre, nuestro equipo alemán escribió varios
comentarios sobre este caso y nos pusimos en contacto con agencias
gubernamentales, corporaciones, y otras organizaciones para tratar el
tema de los routers obligatorios.
Como este asunto ha sido cubierto en alemán y principalmente en
Alemania, Max Mehl miembro alemán del equipo resume este caso[5] y
escribe una cronología de los actos más importantes que han llevado a la
situación actual[6]. Esperamos que con esta información podamos apoyar a
otros activistas del Software Libre del mundo, que pudieran encontrarse
con un problema parecido.
== Algo completamente distinto ==
- En los últimos meses la FSFE en dos ocasiones ha recibido cobertura
televisiva. La primera, cuando nuestro coordinador legal Matija Šuklje
fue entrevistado por la RTV eslovena para mostrar los nuevos desafíos
a los que se enfrenta el Comisionado de Información de Eslovenia en
relacción con la computación en la nube. Aunque tradujeron la FSFE
como la "Fundación para la programación sin restricciones", ha sido la
primera vez que la FSFE ha aparecido en la televisión eslovena. La
siguiente, cuando nuestro coordinador austriaco Peter Bubestinger
estuvo en Ciudad de México en un seminario sobre archivos, en el que
presentó los casos de uso de formatos de archivo y almacenamiento de
larga duración implementados en el Software Libre. Se tradujo al
castellano todo el seminario en directo y transmitido por Televisión
Educativa, canal educativo a nivel nacional. También subieron los
vídeos a youtube. Se puede encontrar la entrevista a Peter[7] a las
3h50m.
- Guido Arnold publicó un artículo sobre educación[8] incluyendo un
concurso de hacking para encontrar una falla en la seguridad de
Moodle, activistas de Software libre visitaron colegios en Eslovaquia,
y otras noticias relacionadas con la educación.
- Colaboradores y miembros de la comunidad GNU han descubierto detalles
sobre un programa de vigilancia de los gobiernos de cinco países
denominado HACIENDA[9]. Estos mismos hackers ya han elaborado una
contramedida en Software Libre para contarrestar el programa.
- Equipado con software libre GNU de radio, un grupo de científicos
libres ha contactado, controlado, y está intentando recuperar un
satélite de 1970 y devolverlo a una órbita cercana a la tierra. La
historia subyacente[10] demuestra la importancia de desarrollar,
mantener, y promover el Software Libre.
- De lo subido a planet[11]:
- Hugo Roy echa un vistazo a lo que se ha presentado en el Tribunal
Europeo de Justicia "derecho a ser olvidado"[12]. Como le pareció
difícil de leer, escribió una versión alternativa de la directiva.
En otro post explica por qué ha ayudado a Pablo Joubert
desarrollador de ingeniería de búsqueda de Softwae Libre a
publicar una defensa[13] sobre los motores de búsqueda que hacen
uso de tablas distribuidas Hash.
- Nuestra antigua becaria Lucile Falgueyrac escribe por qué TTIP[14]
CETA conlleva una serie de razones de enfado por parte de los
defensores del Software Libre[15]. Argumenta que ahora, es un buen
momento para enviar un gran mensaje a la Comisión Europea,
gobiernos y estados sobre que blanquear la política no es la forma
legítima de legislar, y nunca debe serlo.
- Nuestro actual becario Bela Seeger puso en el blog un post sobre
el mensaje Off-The-Record (OTR)[16], aclarando el significado y
los tecnicismos del mensaje "off-the-record" (OTR) y dando ideas
sobre la posibilidad de implementarlo en otros dispositivos. (Ya
se habrá percatado en esta edición, !que tanto los actuales, como
los antiguos becarios son bastante activos!)
- Nuestros Fellows han participado en muchos actos. Nikos Roussos
escribe su versión personal de la Conferencia de Colaboradores de
Fedora 2014[17]. Menciona también la clave del proyecto de laptop
Novena, que está resumido en LWN[18]. Mario Fux y Mirko Böhm
informan sobre el encuentro de KDE en Randa, con unos 50
activistas del Software Libre mejorando KDE. Para tener alguna
idea del encuentro, Mirko colgó un corto vídeo del encuentro en
Suiza[19].
- André Ockers, que está actualmente actualizando y traduciendo casi
todos los materiales de la FSFE en danés, comenzó a
blogearlos[20]. Escribe en inglés, danés, alemán, y francés.
- Kevin Keijzer, también de los Países Bajos, nos da una visión
detallada del Software Libre que está utilizando[21].
- Daniel Pocock da una actualización de WebRTC, explicando qué hace
y que no[22].
- Matija informa sobre su experimento en música libre[23],
destacando sus artistas favoritos que usan licencias licencias
Creative Commons para su música.
== Actívese: Corra la voz en el Día del Software Libre ==
El 20 de septiembre de 2014, la gente en todo el mundo celebra el
Software Libre. Los organizadores del Día Internacional del Software
Libre anuncian que está abierto el registro de actos. Proporcionan una
guía de inicio[24] con consejos y sugerencias para organizar su propio
equipo de actos SFD. Si organiza un acto, o simplemente desea distribuir
información sobre Software Libre en el Día del Software Libre también
puede:
- pedirnos material impreso[25]
- repartir la guía de defensa del correo electrónico de la FSF[26] que
se encuentra disponible en 11 lenguas. (Para la protesta "Libertad sin
Miedo" nuestro grupo Fellowship de Berlín entregó unos cientos de
folletos impresos de la versión alemana, que también puede pedirnos.)
- comparte el video de Richard Stallman[27], o el artículo citado
above[28] para explicar a sus amigos el Software Libre.
Gracias a todos los voluntarios[29], Fellows[30] y corporaciones
donantes[31] que hacen posible nuestro trabajo,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1. https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/society/democracy.es.html
2. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/20140407-geneva-tedx-talk-free-software-free-…
3. https://fsfe.org/campaigns/eura-slovakia/eura.es.html
4. http://blogs.fsfe.org/gera/2014/08/18/interesting-new-development-in-slovak…
5. https://fsfe.org/activities/routers/routers.es.html
6. https://fsfe.org/activities/routers/timeline.es.html
7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggCvJ0dzqx4
8. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/08/free-software-in-education-news-july/
9. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/gnu-hackers-discover-hacienda-governmen…
10. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/free-software-in-space-gnu-radio-and-th…
11. http://planet.fsfe.org
12. https://hroy.eu/posts/whats-in-C-131_12/
13. http://hroy.eu/posts/intro-defpubs/
14. https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2014/08/11/ttip-policy-laundering-a-few-…
15. https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2014/08/11/ttip-policy-laundering-a-few-…
16. https://blogs.fsfe.org/seeger/2014/08/04/off-the-record-otr-messaging/
17. http://www.roussos.cc/2014/08/13/fedora-flock-2014/
18. http://lwn.net/Articles/608426/
19. http://creative-destruction.me/2014/08/28/the-kde-randa-video/
20. https://blogs.fsfe.org/ao/
21. https://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2014/08/06/a-quick-overview-of-th…
22. http://danielpocock.com/webrtc-what-works-what-doesnt
23. http://matija.suklje.name/the-jamendo-experiment-week-1
24. http://wiki.softwarefreedomday.org/StartGuide
25. https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.es.html#promo-material
26. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/volunteers-translate-email-self-defense…
27. https://www.fsf.org/blogs/rms/20140407-geneva-tedx-talk-free-software-free-…
28. https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/society/democracy.es.html
29. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.es.html
30. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
31. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.es.html
= FSFE Newsletter – August 2014 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201408.es.html ]
== Privilege and Power ==
In the olden days a common citizen of a republic going about their
everyday business was quite, shall we say, free. While tending to their
chores they would occasionally need a new tool or some advice, but the
old Latin proverb /scientia potentia est/ dictated the limits of their
freedom to be the limits of their knowledge: if they needed a new tool
and lacked the knowledge to make it, they became dependent on the
toolmaker only to obtain the tool.
In the brave new world it is different: not only do we depend on the
toolmaker when we wish to obtain a new tool, but oft we remain dependent
on them forever after. In the olden days a hammer could be used both to
put stakes in the ground (or vampires) and nail planks atop the
vampire's coffin. Today, the customer buying a general purpose tool has
to pay twice for it: once to put stakes in the vampire and then again to
nail planks atop its coffin.
This is great if you happen to be one of the few toolmakers: not only
are they one of the few privileged to be in control of their own
property, but they have also stripped the rest of us of our rights and
have the power to command our tools and hence have the power over us.
Unfortunately, the privilege blinds them to the situation's
revoltingness.
Times have not been kind and, in addition to the revolting consequences
of failed regulations and cold, unjust, profit-oriented business logic,
we have been treated with a revelation after a revelation of agencies
and offices founded to protect us, and subsequently given an impossible
mission, preying on us. These developments, while despicable, can at
least be rationally understood.
However, it cannot be rationally comprehended why our /democratically
elected representatives/ would seek to entrench these unfortunate
encroaches on our rights, on their own rights. Yet many of them do: the
European Commission is refusing to break Microsoft's stranglehold on the
EU[1] and, as an even more deeply unsettling development, the
Communications Committee of the UK parliament's House of Lords has
proposed to end anonymity on the Internet[2].
If the danger to privacy and freedom were not so grave, the latter's
technical ineptitude and arguments utterly unsuitable to the birthplace
of liberalism would be highly amusing. Yet the danger posed by people
who have been corrupted by power or greed is real and our resolve to
confront that danger with more decentralization, security, privacy, and
anonymity must become ever greater.
== We are all Targets ==
According to new revelations[3] from early July pretty much anyone in
the technological community is a target for surveillance. Among other
activities we have been, or will be picked out, for visiting the Tor
website[4], reading the Linux Journal[5], connecting to Mixminion
anonymous remailer service[6], and downloading Tails[7], a privacy-
sensitive GNU/Linux distribution. These sobering facts ought to be
remembered every hour, every day. In the end our greatest weapon is
developing and promoting projects that will one day land people
interested in them on that very same list.
== Something Completely Different ==
- FSFE will have a booth at FrOSCon[8], where our Vice President
Matthias Kirschner[9] will also give a talk[10] on the demise of the
general purpose computer.
- Our President Karsten Gerloff[11] writes about evaluating Free
Software for procurement[12].
- Hugo Roy[13], our Deputy Legal Coordinator writes about defensive
publications and his work for the Open Invention network[14] at his
blog.
- Matthias writes at his Fellowship blog about the invisible tasks[15]
that are being attended to by Reinhard Müller[16], our Financial
Officer.
- Guido Arnold, our Education Team Coordinator, has finished composing
his collection of Free Software in Education News for June[17].
- From the planet aggregation:[18] Kevin Keijzer writes about
receiving TV using a DVB-T USB dongle[19]. For our more
adventurous readers we suggest tuning the receiver to 1090 MHz and
obtaining an overview of the local civilian air air traffic as
reported by ADS-B transmitters on the aircraft.
- Sergey Matveev reports on the GoVPN daemon[20] he wrote in the Go
programming language.
-
== Get Active! ==
1. Use and spread the word about GnuPG[21], Off-the-Record
messaging[22], Tor[23], cryptsetup[24], HTTPS Everywhere[25], Privacy
Badger[26] and other privacy-enhancing Free Software.
2. If you can write code and understand a bit of computer science, find
a cool privacy-or-anonymity-enhancing concept in a scientific journal
and make it come alive.
We thank all our volunteers[27], Fellows[28], and donors[29] who make
our efforts possible,
Heiki Ojasild[30] – FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20140708-01.es.html
2. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201415/ldselect/ldcomuni/37/3704…
3. http://www.wired.com/2014/07/nsa-targets-users-of-privacy-services/
4. https://www.torproject.org/
5. http://www.linuxjournal.com/
6. http://mixminion.net/
7. https://tails.boum.org/
8. https://www.froscon.de/en/home/
9. https://fsfe.org/about/kirschner/kirschner.es.html
10. http://programm.froscon.de/2014/events/1321.html
11. https://fsfe.org/about/gerloff/gerloff.es.html
12. http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/07/03/evaluating-free-software-for-procu…
13. https://fsfe.org/about/roy/roy.es.html
14. http://hroy.eu/posts/intro-defpubs/
15. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/an-invisible-part-of-the-free-software-foundation-…
16. https://wiki.fsfe.org/Fellows/reinhard
17. http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/07/free-software-in-education-news-june/
18. http://planet.fsfe.org/
19. http://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2014/07/17/watching-dvb-t-without-…
20. http://blogs.fsfe.org/stargrave/archives/122
21. https://www.gnupg.org/
22. https://otr.cypherpunks.ca/
23. https://www.torproject.org/
24. https://code.google.com/p/cryptsetup/
25. https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
26. https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
27. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.es.html
28. https://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
29. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.es.html
30. https://fsfe.org/about/ojasild/ojasild.es.html
= FSFE Newsletter – July 2014 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201407.es.html ]
== Privacy café: e-mail encryption as the main course! ==
Imagine you take some friends to a café, but instead of hot and cold
beverages, the menu features information on measures of ensuring digital
privacy. Like "https everywhere" as a starter, "GnuPG e-mail encryption"
for the main course, and "tosdr.org" (information about terms of
services) as dessert. Such cafés already exist in the Netherlands. At
the German speaking FSFE meeting in Essen, Felix Stegerman, our Deputy
Coordinator Netherlands, presented his plans to set up more privacy
cafés and why he thinks it is the right time and a good opportunity for
Free Software to do so in other places as well.
The reason is that most of the people that go to a privacy café are
already aware of issues around privacy and freedom. But it gives local
volunteers a good opportunity to talk about Free Software, and the
importance of using Free Software for privacy issues. For example, by
asking the participants "who controls the software?" Read Felix's blog
post for more details about the cafés and future plans[1].
== E-mail self-defence goes multilingual ==
Good information material about encryption and Free Software is crucial
for the privacy cafés just mentioned. Fortunately, our sister
organisation, the FSF, published the e-mail self-defence guide[2] and
volunteers translated the guide and the infographic in 6 other
languages: English, German, Brazilian Portuguese, French, Russian,
Turkish, and Japanese. This guide explains the installation of the
necessary programs for e-mail encryption under GNU/Linux, MacOS, and
Microsoft Windows as well as the key generation, the web of trust and
the usage of those programs. All you need is a computer with an Internet
connection, an email account, and about half an hour. For information
how you can help to spread information about e-mail self-defence, see
this edition's "get active" section.
== What to use instead of WhatsApp and Threema? ==
"How can I encrypt my e-mail" was one of the most common questions we
received in the last months. Thanks to the e-mail self-defence guide we
now have a good answer. Another questions about encryption and privacy
we were asked frequently was: "is there a secure and free WhatsApp
alternative?"
WhatsApp is a messaging program for mobiles that allows you to send
(text) messages free-of-charge. After WhatsApp's recent acquisition by
Facebook and in the face of the NSA revelations, many WhatsApp users are
looking for secure and trustworthy alternatives.
Because this effects so many people, we at the Free Software Foundation
Europe would like to be able to promote an alternative that respects
your freedom and privacy. Therefore we decided to do some research and
to hold a workshop on WhatsApp alternatives during our latest FSFE team
meeting in Essen. Hannes Hauswedell and Torsten Grote summarised the
results[3].
== Something completely different ==
- Local group activities: FSFE had professional outdoor booths at the
vegan summer festival in Vienna[4], as well as at Corso Leopold in
Munich[5]. At the Free Software meeting in Athens FSFE's our local
group discussed how to build your own home server. Nikos Roussos
documented how to setup a home server with Fedora and Beagle Bone
Black[6]. Our local group in Frankfurt focused on crypto topics[7],
and Hugo Roy, coordinator of local group in Paris, gave a talk at the
local Ubuntu party[8].
- "Free Software needs a strong community. If we fail to attract
everyone willing to work for Free Software, we’re shooting ourselves
in the foot." wrote Karsten Gerloff in his blog post "Four social
rules for a 'No Asshole Zone'"[9]. Our local group coordinators have a
similar discussion, and started with a code of conduct for FSFE's
discussions[10]. We are interested in your feedback on the pad.
- The Free Software community now has 33 supporters in the European
Parliament. All of them signed the Free Software pact for the European
elections[11], and we are sure there will be times in which we will
remind them of the promise they have given, and ask them to support
our cause.
- Our president Karsten Gerloff was delivering a keynote at the European
Christian Internet Conference[12]. Afterwards he was asked by a pastor
to comment on a draft strategy to move the churches in his region
towards Free Software, which Karsten did[13].
- From 7 to 8 June 2014 Fundația Ceata, an associated organisation of
FSFE, organised the second Coliberator conference in Bucharest. At the
first edition FSFE president Karsten Gerloff gave the keynote, and at
this edition it was the Richard Stallman, president of FSF. The first
batch of talks are already published on the conference's website[14].
- Guido Arnold provides the news from Free Software in education - May
2014[15].
- Public administration: Joinup reports that the complexity of
proprietary software licences is encouraging the uptake of Free
Software in the Greater London Authority[16], that the Extremadura
health care has switched to Free Software[17], and that the German
city of Leipzig already migrated 2792 of the city's 4300 workstations
to the Free Software office suites Apache OpenOffice and
LibreOffice[18]. They expect "that in the first five years the
anticipated savings will be swallowed by the exit costs associated
with the proprietary software used by the city."
- From the planet aggregation[19]:
- More female speakers at the conference and ATMs running GNU/Linux.
Torsten was giving a talk about Free Your Android at FISL in
Brazil[20].
- Under the slogan "your data at the intelligence services" the
German Humanistische Union organised a "blog parade", asking
organisations to participate with a blog post. Erik Albers wrote a
post "Protection against surveillance through encryption with Free
Software" (in German)[21].
- The Randa Meetings, a collection of sprints that make KDE software
better needs your help for this year's edition. Mario Fux asks
everyone to spread the word, help, donate and/or support them[22].
- Hugo Roy lists some "awesome tools" he uses but are little
known[23].
- Bdale Garbee wrote about TeleGPS, an easy-to-use tracking-only
board providing GPS location[24].
- Photography: Hannes started to publish a photo of the month[25],
edited with the Free Software Darktable, and Paul Boddie explains
how he was tuning digiKam’s picture previews[26].
- Björn Schießle describes how to integrate the todo list software
"ToDo.txt" into Claws Mail[27].
- Former FSFE employee Sam Tuke explains how to backup multiple
e-mail accounts automatically on GNU/Linux[28].
== Get active: Spread the e-mail self-defence guide! ==
The FSF's e-mail self-defence guide[29] and the corresponding
infographic[30] is good material to explain e-mail encryption to wider
audience. For some time now FSFE ships Free Software information
materials to activists[31]. Beside general information about Free
Software, Open Standards, Digital Restrictions Management, or F-Droid,
we would like to distribute the infographic in future.
Before we print a larger amount and ship it to our local groups[32] and
other activists around Europe, we would like you to test the
infographics with friends, family and colleagues. Try to find out if
they have problems understanding some parts and use our public
discussion lists[33], so that we--together with our sister organisation
--can modify them if necessary.
Thanks to all the volunteers[34], Fellows[35] and corporate donors[36]
who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <https://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <https://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
1. https://blogs.fsfe.org/flx/2014/07/01/workshop-on-privacy-and-free-software/
2. https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/
3. http://freedom-blog.net/2014/06/what-to-use-instead-of-whatsapp-and-threema/
4. https://blogs.fsfe.org/franz.gratzer/2014/06/11/booth-on-the-vegan-summer-f…
5. http://www.softmetz.de/2014/06/14/freie-software-offene-standards-und-freie…
6. http://www.roussos.cc/2014/06/23/fedora-beaglebone-black/
7. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/06/report-from-fellowship-meeting-in-fran…
8. https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2014/05/talk-about-the-fsfe-ubuntu-party-2014/
9. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/06/06/four-social-rules-for-a-no-asshol…
10. https://public.pad.fsfe.org/p/CodeOfConduct
11. https://fsfe.org/news/2014/news-20140528-01.html
12. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/06/30/talking-to-the-church-about-free-…
13. https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2014/06/30/free-software-in-the-church-from-…
14. http://coliberator.ro/
15. https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/06/free-software-in-education-news-may/
16. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/london-complex-proprietary-…
17. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/extremadura-health-care-has…
18. https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/leipzig-switching-open-sour…
19. http://planet.fsfe.org
20. http://blog.grobox.de/2014/liberte-seu-android-at-fisl15/
21. https://blogs.fsfe.org/eal/2014/06/20/verschluesselung-mit-freier-software/
22. http://www.kde.org/fundraisers/randameetings2014/index.php
23. http://hroy.eu/tips/awesome-tools/
24. http://www.gag.com/bdale/blog/posts/TeleGPS_v1.0.html
25. https://blogs.fsfe.org/h2/2014/07/01/photo-of-the-month-2014-07/
26. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=784
27. http://blog.schiessle.org/2014/06/10/combine-claws-mail-with-todo-txt/
28. http://samtuke.com/2014/06/backup-multiple-email-accounts-automatically-on-…
29. https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/
30. https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/en/infographic.html
31. https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.es.html#promo-material
32. https://fsfe.org/about/localteams.es.html
33. https://fsfe.org/contact/community.es.html
34. https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.es.html
35. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
36. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.es.html