1. Henrik Sandklef becomes a member of the FSFE association
2. Fellowship a big success
3. Karsten Gerloff begins internship with FSFE
4. Freedom Party in Berlin
5. Free Software Workshop in Damascus
6. Conference on Free Software in Istanbul
7. Free Software Conference in Sarajevo
8. Linuxforum in Copenhagen
9. Microsoft trial getting increased public attention
10. Georg Greve visits FSF in Boston
1. Henrik Sandklef becomes a member of the FSFE association
Henrik Sandklef, who has been a member of the Swedish FSFE team for
several years, has now become an official member of the association.
This will strengthen the FSFE in Sweden politically and operationally.
http://www.fsfeurope.org/about/members.en.html
2. Fellowship a big success
The Fellowship of FSFE, officially announced on 28 February 2005, has
already become a huge success. More than 300 people already registered
within the first month, and more than 180 of them have activated their
@fsfe.org email address, blogging on https://www.fsfe.org, and are
looking forward to their personalised crypto cards, which are being
prepared right now. If you have not yet signed up to protect your
freedom, please do!
https://www.fsfe.org/
3. Karsten Gerloff begins internship with FSFE
After the experience with FSFE's first intern Matthias Kirschner was
so positive, FSFE is more than happy to have found Karsten Gerloff to
continue this work. Karsten is studying Applied Cultural Sciences at
the University of Lüneburg and is working closely with Georg Greve in
Hamburg. The focus of his activities is the Fellowship. If you want to
know how he is doing, you can check out his blog.
https://www.fsfe.org/Members/gerloff/blog/
4. Freedom Party in Berlin
At the Freedom Party in Berlin, Fellows and interested users got
together to celebrate the launch of the Fellowship. At the invitation
of the FSFE and the Newthinking Network, about eighty guests exchanged
inside knowledge on Free Software, watched a demonstration of the
cryptocard, and had a good time.
https://www.fsfe.org/news/party2
5. Free Software Workshop in Damascus
Karin Kosina and Jonas Öberg gave talks at the Free Software Workshop
in Damascus, Syria. Karin spoke about the economic aspects of Free
Software and Jonas talked about formal education on Free Software on
a university level. This was an interesting opportunity to get into
contact with the Free Software community in the Middle East, and we
are happy to see the the global Free Software network getting stronger
all the time.
6. Conference on Free Software in Istanbul
A conference on Free Software was held at Istanbul Bilgi University,
having the focus on the opportunities Free Software offers for the
Turkish economy. Georg Greve and Matthias Kirschner had very
interesting discussions with local Free Software activists and Georg
Greve spoke on commercial, practical and sociological aspects of Free
Software and the GNU Project.
7. Free Software Conference in Sarajevo
Alessandro Rubini has been at the Engineering Faculty in Sarajevo,
Bosnia, where he held a conference about "Free Software in a Free
Society". During his staying at the University, in an activity
sponsored by "Fondazione Willy Brandt", based in Rome, he managed
to build the initial ties with relevant user-group members and some
faculty staff that may help in setting up a local FSFE chapter in the
future.
8. Linuxforum in Copenhagen
LinuxForum 2005 was held in Copenhagen, Denmark. The FSF Europe was
represented by Henrik Sandklef, together with the Danish organisation
IT-Politisk Forening that is working for information freedom in
Denmark.
9. Microsoft trial getting increased public attention
After it became apparent that Microsoft continued trying to drag its
feet on the December 2004 decision of the European Court, FSFE and the
Samba Team have now decided to take the initiative and present the
European Commission with the exact terms to set for Microsoft in order
to implement the EC antitrust decision. This created a very strong and
positive media echo for Free Software in many major publications, such
as the Wall Street Journal.
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2005q1/000097.html
10. Georg Greve visits FSF in Boston
March was also the month during which Georg Greve took the time to
visit FSFE's sister organisation, the Free Software Foundation in the
United States and spend some time with its employees and directors.
He also participated again in FSF's yearly Associate Member Meeting,
where he kept the people supporting FSF in the United States informed
about what is going on in Europe.
You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
Open letter to Mr Provoost of the European Information &
Communications Technology Industry Association (EICTA)
which combines 32 national ICT/CE associations
from 24 European countries with 48 direct company
members. EICTA altogether represents more than 10.000
enterprises in Europe with more than 2 million employees and
revenues of over 200 billion. The Association supports the
monopolisation of software ideas heavily. Mr Provoost is
president of Eicta and represents Philips Consumer Electronics
as Senior Vice President and Chief Executive Officer.
Dear Mr. Provoost,
The European Council and European Commission are pushing for the
introduction of software patents in Europe to such an extent and in such
ways that they raise justified doubts in the democratic roots of Europe.
Your association, the European Information & Communications Technology
Industry Association (EICTA) has strongly supported this agenda in the
past. In the discussion, you raised the argument that "We must be
allowed to protect out innovations."
This statement we fully agree with. However, if you believe that
software patents help protect innovation, it seems you were being
misinformed, as the role of software patents is not to protect, but to
prevent innovation. Bill Gates pointed this out in an internal Microsoft
memo in 1991:
"If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of
today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry
would be at a complete stand-still today."
He said this because he understood that patents on software inevitably
are monopolies on abstract logic and ideas.
If Pythagoras was to come up with his theorem today, in a software
patent regime he would clearly be entitled to get a monopoly on
it. Pythagoras could then arbitrarily select the conditions under
which others could make use of or build upon his idea.
Software usually embodies literally thousands of abstract ideas. Under
a software patent regime, each of these could be turned into a
monopoly and would constitute a no-go zone for competitors. That is why
Bill Gates also said:
"A future start-up with no patents of its own will be forced to pay
whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be
high: Established companies have an interest in excluding future
competitors."
In other words: software patents are an anti-competitive tool that
serves to raise the burden on innovation. The height of that barrier
is flexible and can easily be raised to trip established companies,
such as Philips, and innovative newcomers alike.
In previous letters we have explained how software patents cost jobs
and economic power in Europe. Today we would like to inform you how
they pose a threat to the International Financial Reporting Standards
(IFRS) [1] as all the ideas used in these standards will be implemented
in software and would therefore be patentable. This will affect all
European companies as the IFRS rules have been mandatory to all listed
companies in the European Union since 2002.
If you check the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) database, you
will find that there are already hundreds of patents on software ideas
concerning expressions like "account" or "financial report". One of
them protects a system "for financial planning and advice" [2]. That
particular patent is held by American Express Financial Corporation
(Amex) - a company which we know better for its credit cards than its
innovative software.
After establishing a legal basis for software patents in Europe, Amex
might arbitrarily choose to determine which software company is
allowed to implement the IFRS or similar standards.
This of course assumes that none of Amex' competitors has an interest
in blocking such development and uses their patent on another
necessary idea to stop the development. But even if no one does: As all
systems have many components in common and the number of methods to
make computer systems secure is limited, any such software would
always be less secure in a software patent regime.
People in Europe often seem to look to the United States for economic
advice. This time, the CEO of Computer Associates, John Swainson, has
made the message remarkably clear: Europe should not introduce
software patents. [3]
Copyright provides a very efficient protection for computer software,
but in order for Copyright to protect your innovation, you first need
to have an innovation. That is why we hope EICTA will stand up and
oppose software patents because: "We must be allowed to innovate."
Yours sincerely,
Georg Greve
President
Free Software Foundation Europe
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ifrs
[2]
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=/ne…'accounting+standards'&OS=%22accounting+standards%22&RS=%22accounting+standards%22
[3] http://www.ftd.de/tm/it/1110009214683.html?nv=sl
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) 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
for these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and
giving people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are
central issues of the FSFE. The FSFE was founded in 2001 as the
European sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation in the
United States.
Further information: http://www.fsfeurope.org
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and the Samba Team have
presented terms explaining how Microsoft could be brought into
compliance with the decision of the European Court of First Instance
of December 2004.
"In order to write interoperable software, developers use so-called
Interface Definition Language Files (IDL). These are currently held
secret by Microsoft, so no one else can write interoperable software.
In order to comply with its obligations, Microsoft should have to make
these available, along with a description of the encryption methods
they have employed, under a license enabling them to be implemented in
Free Software. This is the only way to make sure the Samba Team is
given a real chance to compete and interoperate with Microsoft," Georg
Greve, president of FSFE explains. He continues: "Given past
experiences, we also recommend to the Commission that it set a strict
delivery date for these specifications."
Last December, the European Court decided that Microsoft should not be
granted more time to expand its monopoly by withholding
interoperability information from competitors, requesting that the
antitrust decision of the European Commission be put into immediate
effect.
"Microsoft can no longer hide behind bland statements such as 'we will
comply', FSFE attorney Carlo Piana pointed out. "Now it is time to see
how committed they are to compliance. Our proposal is very balanced
and does not request more than the Samba Team could achieve by
'network analysis', but it forces the disclosure of the protocols in a
timely manner. We have asked the Commission to submit our proposal to
a reliable independent expert".
In the recent proposal from the FSFE [1], Samba developer Jeremy Allison
pointed out that : "IDL definitions are purely a way to describe an
interface - they describe a protocol." In order to develop
interoperable products is it necessary to have access to these
specifications. "It is similar to needing to know the grammar and
spelling rules in order to write in a language", Allison concludes.
Regarding encryption, Allison says: "Encryption of network traffic is
a well established practice and is not a Microsoft innovation. But to
successfully interoperate it is necessary to know what kind of
encryption is used, under what circumstances, and with what kind of
keys."
Regarding any compensation Microsoft feels it is entitled to, Carlo
Piana said: "The information we request is not secret because it is
valuable, it is valuable because it is secret. Additionally, we are
convinced that Microsoft has been over-compensated many times by its
monopoly position. Their extraordinary large operating profit
demonstrates that. Such profits have been made possible because of the
effects of and technological lock-ins and tying together of clients
and servers."
The only reasonable compensation that would not entirely defeat the
purpose of the European Commission decision would be a one-off fee for
obtaining a copy of the protocol documentation. A reasonable benchmark
for this fee might be the cost developers pay to get access to the
Microsoft Developers Network (MSDN), which contains much similar
information.
As with the MSDN terms and conditions, it would not be unreasonable to
also charge developers for updated and revised versions of the
protocol documents. However, these would have to be supplied in a
complete and timely fashion, the FSFE and the Samba Team emphasized.
"The Free Software world has once again shown how it is capable of
providing high-quality work even under adverse circumstances," Georg
Greve summarizes. "With the input of FSFE and the Samba Team to the
European Commission, they now hold in their hands what is needed to
make their decision have consequences. Taking into account how
Microsoft struggled to 'comply' with the decision, however, we
recommend that they constantly monitor Microsoft's behaviour."
Background: The FSFE has been involved as third party in the
original investigation and also the European Court case. It was
originally admitted to the court to defend the interests of the
Samba Team and is now permitted to bring up any aspect relevant to
Free Software. The Samba Team and FSFE worked as one team during the
entire proceedings and Samba representative Jeremy Allison spoke on
behalf of FSFE at the European Court.
[1] http://www.avvocatinteam.com/repository/request.tar.gz
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) 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
for these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and
giving people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are
central issues of the FSFE. The FSFE was founded in 2001 as the
European sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation in the
United States.
Further information: http://www.fsfeurope.org