FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Media Contact: Free Software Foundation
Bradley M. Kuhn <pr(a)fsf.org>
Phone: +1-617-542-5942
Media Contact: Free Software Foundation Europe
Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)gnu.org>
Phone: +49-40-23809080
Professor Lawrence Lessig Awarded the 2002 FSF Award for the
Advancement of Free Software
Brussels, Belgium - Saturday, February 8, 2003 - The Free Software
Foundation (FSF) bestowed today its fifth annual FSF Award for the
Advancement of Free Software. FSF President and founder, Richard
Stallman, presented the award to Professor Lawrence Lessig for promoting
understanding of the political dimension of free software, including
the idea that "code is law". Lessig has also promoted ideas similar
to free software in other related fields.
The award ceremony was hosted at the Free and Open Source Software
Developers' Meeting (FOSDEM) in collaboration with the Free Software
Foundation Europe.
A committee of Free Software leaders selected the winner and two
other finalists from the nominations received by the public among the
thousands of mostly volunteer programmers worldwide who dedicate their
time to advancing Free Software. The selection committee included:
Enrique A. Chaparro, Frederic Couchet, Hong Feng, Miguel de Icaza, Raju
Mathur, Frederick Noronha, Jonas Oberg, Eric Raymond, Guido van Rossum,
Peter Salus, Suresh Ramasubramanian, and Larry Wall.
Lessig was chosen from three finalists for the award. The other
finalists were Bruno Haible and Theo de Raadt.
This was the fifth award of this kind. The prior winners were Larry
Wall, Miguel de Icaza, Brian Paul, and Guido van Rossum.
About Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) is a charitable
non-governmental organization 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 FSF Europe, which was founded in 2001 as the
European sister organization of the Free Software Foundation.
More information about the FSF Europe can be found at
http://www.fsfeurope.org/.
About Free Software Foundation:
The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting
computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute
computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of Free
(as in freedom) Software - particularly the GNU operating system and
its GNU/Linux variants - and Free Documentation for Free Software.
The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political
issues of freedom in the use of software. Their web site, located
at http://www.fsf.org, is an important source of information about
GNU/Linux. They are headquartered in Boston, MA, USA.
Copyright (C) 2003, Free Software Foundation Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111, USA
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is
permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
_______________________________________________
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[ for immediate release ]
FSF Europe releases Fiduciary Licence Agreement V1.0
February 4th, 2002
Essen/Hamburg
The Free Software Foundation Europe is proud to announce the first
publicly available version of its Fiduciary Licence Agreement
(FLA); an agreement that will help securing the legal stability of
Free Software by allowing the FSF Europe to act as the fiduciary
for Free Software authors and projects.
By this, the Fiduciary Licence Agreement will help retaining the
legal maintainability of Free Software, making sure that Free
Software remains legally safe to use in all areas commercial or
non-commercial.
While reducing the legal risks for authors of Free Software, it
will enable the FSF Europe to defend Free Software on behalf of the
author against abuse - even in court, if necessary.
And it will provide a solid neutral ground for projects with
parties involved that differ in their aims and policies, be they
commercial or non-commercial.
"We see an increasing amount of commercial or publicly funded
projects at the moment on national and European scale," says Georg
Greve, President of the FSF Europe. "They tend to be temporally
limited partnerships between parties that may have conflicting
interests in other fields."
Georg Greve continues: "Therefore it becomes increasingly important
to offer solutions that will allow the projects to prosper when
that time has run out; because that is usually when the life of a
Free Software project has just begun. The FLA offers such a
solution."
The first version of the Fiduciary Licence Agreement is now
available online at http://fsfeurope.org/projects/fla/
About the Free Software Foundation Europe
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) is a charitable
non-governmental organization 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 FSF Europe, which was founded in 2001 as the
European sister organization of the Free Software Foundation in the
United States.
http://fsfeurope.org
Contact
FSF Europe:
Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org>
phone: +49-40-23809080
fax: +49-40-23809081