FSFE becomes the legal guardian of the Bacula Project
The Bacula Project has became the first signatory of the Fiduciary
licence Agreement (FLA), a copyright assignment that allows FSFE
to become the legal guardian of projects.
Kern Sibbald, the founder and lead developer of the Bacula network
backup solution, assigned his copyright to FSFE. "I wanted to
underline the commitment of the Bacula Project to Free Software," said
Kern. "Bacula has always been a community project and we're just
solidifying that for the long-term. I am very thankful that the FSFE
is providing this service because it removes an important administrative
burden from the project, which allows us to focus on the task of
programming."
The Bacula Project will be protected by FSFEs Freedom Task Force
(FTF). Shane Coughlan, FTF Coordinator, explains "The FTF is
committed to making projects more secure. The Fiduciary licence
Agreement is one part of this. We want to allow developers to focus
on their core work. That's why we are taking care of the legal side
of things while Kern continues making a fantastic network backup
system."
"We are delighted to help Bacula accomplish its full potential. The
Free Software ecosystem is maturing rapidly these days and the Freedom
Task Force with its Fiduciary Licence Agreement, licensing education,
licensing advice and enforcement services is an important part in
this," explains FSFE president Georg Greve. He adds: "We very much
thank Stichting NLnet for doing their part in making this possible,
and hope that others will step up to likewise support this effort."
Shane Coughlan summarises "our mission is to help individuals,
projects and businesses who develop and use Free Software. The Bacula
assignment is the first step in our larger fiduciary programme. We
are looking forward to welcoming other projects on board."
The Freedom Task Force can be found at http://www.fsfeurope.org/ftf
The Freedom Task Force can be emailed at ftf(a)roundup.fsfeurope.org
About the Bacula Project:
Bacula is a set of computer programs that permit people to manage backup,
recovery, and verification of computer data across a network of computers
of different kinds. The Bacula Project is managed and coordinated by Kern
Sibbald.
Further information: http://bacula.org
Contact:
Free Software Foundation Europe
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73
Shane Coughlan, FTF Co-ordinator, FSFE extension: 408
Joachim Jakobs, Media Relations, FSFE extension: 404
mobile: +49-179-6919565
If you want to subscribe to this mailing list you can do so at
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/press-release
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation
in the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, 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.
Further information: http://fsfeurope.org
Get active, protect your freedom by joining the Fellowship of FSFE at
http://www.fsfe.org/join
1. DRM.info platform launched
2. Introducing Shane M. Coughlan and Maria Luisa Carli
3. FSFE helped liberating Italian ZIP code database
4. FSFE at LWE fairs in Utrecht (Netherlands) and London (UK)
5. FSFE Swedish Team at the Internet Days in Stockholm (Sweden)
1. DRM.info platform launched
Digital Restrictions Management (DRM) technology affect all users of
digital technology. At the same time, there is an almost total lack of
critical dialog. To address this issue, FSFE has contacted multiple
organisations from various areas, such as consumer rights, libraries,
digital rights and Creative Commons, and jointly started the DRM.info
platform to provide the critical view that is currently missing.
Accompanying the launch, FSFE organised protests in various cities,
including Zürich and Gothenburg, to inform people about the problem
that in order for DRM to work, they need to be at least partially
disowned of the devices they bought, surrendering control over them to
third parties.
The platform, which also contains pictures from the protests, can be
found online at
http://DRM.info/
Please help FSFE and its collaborators on DRM.info to spread the
information, link to DRM.info and point others to it!
2. Introducing Shane M. Coughlan and Maria Luisa Carli
Shane Martin Coughlan has started to work for FSFE full time as a
project coordinator. Shane was born in Dublin City and moved to England
for higher education. He graduated 2003 in Birmingham with an MA in
International Studies (Globalisation and Governance). He joined FSFE
because he believes ICT needs to be available to society at large, and
he thinks FSFE is in an excellent position to work towards this goal.
Maria Luisa Carli works as an intern for FSFE from October 2006 to June
2007. Marilu was born in Foligno, Italy. She gradueted 2004 in businness
law and did an MBA at University of Perugia. Marilu joined to FSFE
because she was impressed by the enthusiasm that drives the
organization and by the international and motivated team.
Both work together with FSFE president Georg Greve in FSFE's new
office in Zürich, Switzerland, which has been set up as the third
operational base after Düsseldorf and Gothenburg.
3. FSFE helps liberating Italian ZIP code database
As soon as the ZIP codes have been updated by the private company
Poste Italiane, the official list of codes distributed as compressed
text file has disappeared from the websites of Poste Italiane and of
the Ministry of Communication. Such text file was used to develop
Free Software useful in many commercial environments. Poste Italiane
made available the ZIP codes only with proprietary software and
proprietary formats (even encrypted) running only on one operating
system or via a web search form.
As ZIP codes are public data under Italian laws, FSFE's Italian Team
helped the developers of Free Software providing legal expertise and
protection to rebuild the list of codes using a crawler. FSFE also
promoted an open letter to the Minister of Communication asking to
release the list of ZIP codes as before.
http://www.italy.fsfeurope.org/it/projects/cap/
4. FSFE at LWE fairs in Utrecht (Netherlands) and London (UK)
During the 2006 LWE in Utrecht, FSFE president Georg Greve presented
the strategic value of Free Software in business as part of a Free
Software masterclass in collaboration with Harald Welte. The show also
served to present and promote to the public the "Scientific Education
and Learning in Freedom" (SELF) project.
FSFE's Gareth Bowker and Rainer Kersten were in London, manning a
booth at the LinuxWorld Expo on 25-26th of October. The show itself
was very successful, raising a significant amount of awareness about
the work FSFE do in Europe - as well as outfitting the UK masses in
FSFE's latest fashions! Thanks must also go to Richard Smedley and
Simon Morris for helping out on the booth.
5. FSFE Swedish Team at the Internet Days in Stockholm (Sweden)
During the last week of October, the Swedish II Foundation held their
annual Internet Days in Stockholm, where the FSFE participated with
its Swedish team. Besides having a booth with information about our
activities, FSFE vice president Jonas Öberg also participated in a
panel debate on open document formats.
The Swedish Team of the FSFE was also there as one of the recipients
of the II Foundation stipends that are given out during the Internet
Days each year. The stipend was given to the Swedish Team to complement
the activities of the SELF project in Sweden, in particular to work
with schools in Sweden to give educations based on SELF material and
make more material from SELF available in Swedish.
Henrik Sandklef from the FSFE also received a stipend from the II
Foundation. His work will focus on translations of manuals and other
documents for GnuPG into Swedish.
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
FSFE Launching Freedom Task Force, Co-operating with gpl-violations.org
FTF to educate programmers and corporations on how to avoid
licensing problems, as well as enforce Free Software licences
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) announced today the launch
of the Freedom Task Force, [1] thanks to a grant of EUR 30.000 from
Stichting NLnet. The organisation, working closely with Harald Welte
of gpl-violations.org [2], seeks to help programmers properly set up
and organise projects legally, as well as educate companies to
understand how the GPL works. As needed, the purpose of the group
will also include enforcement in the case of licence violations. FTF
is located in FSFE's offices in Zurich, Switzerland.
"Free Software itself has become commercial mainstream, but knowledge
about Free Software and in particular its licences is often lagging
behind," explains Georg Greve, FSFE's president. "With large companies
like SUN embracing Free Software at the heart of their business, the
software ecosystem is transforming in ways that underline the
requirement for services like the FTF."
FTF will include experts with technical and legal backgrounds as well
as volunteers, working together to provide organised and co-ordinated
responses to individual cases where there may be misunderstandings
about what a licence requires or a violation of its terms. FSFE has
hired Mr. Shane Coughlan to serve as FTF Co-ordinator.
Shane Coughlan on the other tasks of the FTF: "We seek to give
commercial and non-commercial Free Software developers the maximum
support possible with our fiduciary activities. By helping them bundle
their legal interests, we are able to safeguard the legal status of a
project while it can focus on technological and managerial issues. For
projects that FSFE has accepted into its fiduciary program, FSFE will
also be in a position to defend their interests in the eventuality of
licence violation."
Harald Welte, the first person who enforced the GNU GPL in court, will
be working closely with the FTF: "My gpl-violations.org work has shown
how much the community needs a more focussed approach to deal with
these violations. While there was good contact with FSFE in the past,
we will now be working closely together, sharing our information and
resources to best protect the rights of Free Software developers."
"We have as a primary goal to help corporations to adhere to the
licences from the onset, rather than to have to enforce violations
later," explains Mr. Coughlan. "We encourage those responsible for
compliance for their company to contact us, so we can work together to
avoid licence compliance problems, rather than having to later solve
problems that could have been avoided in the first place."
Stichting NLnet [3] Chairman Teus Hagen expressed pleasure at the
launch of FTF: "We are very happy to support the launch of the FTF
because in our view this is a timely and necessary step to consolidate
Free Software. We ourselves at times felt the need for a reliable
partner to handle these issues, and in our experience the FSFE is such
a partner. We hope that many others will contribute to and support
this effort, and see the FTF as an important step in the maturing of
Free Software."
[1] http://fsfeurope.org/ftf
[2] http://gpl-violations.org
[3] http://www.nlnet.nl
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation
in the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, 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.
Further information: http://fsfeurope.org
About gpl-violations.org:
In the past 30 months, gpl-violations.org has helped uncover and
negotiate more than 100 GPL violations and has obtained numerous
out-of-court settlement agreements. The gpl-violations.org project
is a not-for-profit effort to bring commercial users and vendors of
Free Software into compliance with the licence conditions as set
forth by the original authors. The project was founded and is
managed by Mr. Harald Welte, a Linux Kernel developer and Free
Software enthusiast.
For more information on the project, its mission, milestones and
goals, please see http://gpl-violations.org
Contact:
Free Software Foundation Europe
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73
Shane Coughlan, FTF Co-ordinator, FSFE extension: 408
Joachim Jakobs, Media Relations, FSFE extension: 404
mobile: +49-179-6919565