= Web Search By The People, For The People: YaCy 1.0 =
The YaCy project is releasing version 1.0 of its peer-to-peer Free
Software search engine. The software takes a radically new approach to
search. YaCy does not use a central server. Instead, its search results
come from a network of currently over 600 independent peers. In such a
distributed network, no single entity decides what gets listed, or in
which order results appear.
The YaCy search engine runs on each user's own computer. Search terms
are encrypted before they leave the user and the user's computer.
Different from conventional search engines, YaCy is designed to protect
users' privacy. A user's computer creates its individual search indexes
and rankings, so that results better match what the user is looking for
over time. YaCy also makes it easy to create a customised search portal
with a few clicks.
"Most of what we do on the Internet involves search. It's the vital link
between us and the information we're looking for. For such an essential
function, we cannot rely on a few large companies, and compromise our
privacy in the process," says Michael Christen, YaCy's project leader.
"YaCy's free search is the vital link between free users and free
information. YaCy hands control over search back to us, the users."
Each YaCy user is part of a large search network. YaCy is already in use
on websites such as sciencenet.kit.edu, yacy.geocaching-portal.com, or
fsfe.org, to provide a site-wide search function that respect users'
privacy. It contains a peer-to-peer network protocol to exchange search
indexes with other YaCy search engines.
"We are moving away from the idea that services need to be centrally
controlled. Instead, we are realising how important it is to be
independent, and to create infrastructure that doesn't have a single
point of failure," says Karsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software
Foundation Europe. "In the future world of distributed, peer-to-peer
systems, Free Software search engines like YaCy are a vital building
block."
Everyone can try out the search engine at http://search.yacy.net. Users
can become part of YaCy's network by installing the software on their
own computers. YaCy is Free Software, so anyone can use, study, share
and improve it. It is currently available for GNU/Linux, Windows and
MacOS. The project is also looking for developers and other
contributors.
= Links: =
YaCy homepage: http://yacy.net
YaCy search portal: http://search.yacy.net/
How to contribute: http://yacy.net/en/Join.html
Free Software Foundation Europe: http://fsfe.org
= Contacts =
Michael Christen
YaCy Project Leader
Tel. +49 177 6424235
Email: mc(a)yacy.net
Karsten Gerloff
President, Free Software Foundation Europe
Tel. +49 176 9690 4298
Email: gerloff(a)fsfeurope.org
== 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.
http://fsfe.org/
= Swedish activist receives Nordic Free Software Award 2011 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20111114-01.en.html ]
Erik Josefsson is the winner of the Nordic Free Software Award 2011.
With the award, the Swedish Foundation for Free Culture and Free
Software (FFKP) honours Josefsson for his achievements as a campaigner
for freedom in the information society.
"We are proud to honour Erik for the tremendously important work he has
done over the past ten years", says FFKP [1] Executive Director Jonas
Öberg. "Erik has an exceptional ability to understand and explain the
link between policy and technology. We are hugely grateful for his work.
He is an inspiration to all of us."
From a career as a professional double-bass player, Josefsson gradually
moved to full-time activism for freedom in the information society. He
founded the Swedish Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure
(FFII Sweden) in 2004. Listed among Sweden's 30 most influential people
during the European debate about software patents in 2005, Josefsson is
among Europe's foremost defenders of software freedom.
As an activist in Brussels, Josefsson was instrumental in getting the
European Parliament to reject the Software Patent Directive in 2005.
More recently, he prevented the EU from passing a law to cut off
people's Internet access without due process, and is currently
campaigning against ACTA. [1]
Josefsson currently works as an adviser on Internet policies for the
Green/EFA Group in the European Parliament. He is busy building tools
such as ParlTrack [2] that make the Parliament's processes transparent
to citizens. "This information holds real power", says Henrik Sandklef,
Vice President of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). [3]
"Understanding how the Parliament works is very important for the Free
Software movement. Erik does a great job of explaining software freedom
to politicians, and helping freedom campaigners to understand Europe's
power structure."
Every year since 2007, FFKP [4] has used the Nordic Free Software Award
to honour people, projects and organisations in the Nordic countries
that have made a prominent contribution to the advancement of Free
Software. Previous winners of the award are Bjarní Runar Einarsson
(2010), Simon Josefsson and Daniel Stenberg (2009), Mats Östling (2008),
and the Skolelinux project (2007).
1. http://en.act-on-acta.eu/
2. http://parltrack.euwiki.org/
3. http://fsfe.org
4. http://ffkp.se
== Press contact ==
Jonas Öberg
Executive Director, FFKP
Email: jonas(a)ffkp.se
Phone: +46 31 780 21 61
== 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.
http://fsfe.org/
= Court rejects AVM´s claims opposing third party modifications of GPL software =
On November 8th the Regional Court of Berlin issued its decision in the
previously reported case AVM Computersysteme Vertriebs GmbH (AVM) v.
Cybits AG (Cybits). In this case, AVM was essentially trying to stop
Cybits from modifying GNU GPL licensed Free Software inside of their AVM
Fritz!Box products. Yesterday, the court dismissed this principal claim.
Thus, it also confirmed that users of embedded devices with
pre-installed Free Software have the legal freedom to make, install, run
and distribute modifications to this Free Software. The Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE) and gpl-violations.org, both welcome this
decision.
Although the written reasoning of the decision is not available yet, it
is clear that the court rejected AVM's claims according to which no
third party shall be permitted to alter their products' firmware, even
if the GNU GPL components are concerned. Thus, Cybits or anyone else may
perform such modifications. Furthermore, under the judgement, Cybits is
not prohibited from distributing its software that assists users in
making and installing modifications to GNU GPL licensed software (Linux
kernel used in the Fritz!Box device).
"I am extremely pleased that the court turned down any request by AVM to
control any modification to the GNU GPL licensed components of the
Fritz!Box firmware. Enabling and encouraging everyone to innovate based
on existing software and products is a key aspect of the Free Software
movement.", says Harald Welte, founder of gpl-violations.org and third
party intervener on behalf of Cybits in the dispute.
On the other hand, the court upheld an auxiliary claim raised by AVM. In
its ruling, it enjoins Cybits from distributing the software only in
case it causes the web interface to display a wrong status of the
internet connection and web filtering software. "But this is a side
issue, the important part is: Free Software gives everybody the right to
use, study, share, and improve it. Nobody should be allowed to prevent
others from executing those rights", says Matthias Kirschner, FSFE's
German coordinator.
The decision can be appealed by either party within one month.
FSFE and gpl-violations.org are committed to encouraging the use of Free
Software by companies and developers by making licensing and compliance
as easy as possible. Generally it is considerably easier to comply with
Free Software licenses than with EULAs and other license agreements for
non-Free software. Often it is only necessary to add a copy of the GNU
GPL license text to documentation, and add an offer to provide the
software source code (see FSFE's compliance tips
https://fsfe.org/projects/ftf/useful-tips-for-vendors.en.html ).
- Detailed background information
http://fsfe.org/projects/ftf/avm-gpl-violation.en.html
- Previous news on this case:
- 2011-06-20 - AVM violating license of the Linux kernel
http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20110620-01.en.html
- 2011-06-22 - FSFE on AVM vs Cybits: A small computer is still a
computer http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20110622-01.en.html
- LWN article: "ELCE11: Till Jaeger on AVM vs.
Cybits https://lwn.net/Articles/465070/
== Press contacts ==
Matthias Kirschner <mk at fsfe.org>, Free Software Foundation Europe
Linienstraße 141, 10115 Berlin
Phone: +49-30-275 95 290 Mobile: +49-1577-178 000 3
== gpl-violations.org ==
The gpl-violations.org project is taking legal and other means to
make sure commercial users of Free Software are adhering to the GNU
General Public License. gpl-violations.org has enforced the GNU GPL
in hundreds of cases, most of them amicably and out of court.
However, if neccessary, legal means such as warning notices,
preliminary injunctions and civil copyright lawsuits are used in
order to ensure companies are following-up with their obligations
under the GNU GPL.
gpl-violations.org was started by Free Software developer Harald
Welte, who has received multiple awards in recognition of his legal
efforts on enforcing the GNU GPL.
== 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.
http://fsfe.org/
Please accept our apologies. The correct link for reference [1] is:
http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/documenten-en-publicaties/kamerstukke…
> = Dutch government hands over education's keys to Microsoft =
>
> [Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20111107-01.en.html ]
>
> The Dutch government wants to tie the country's schools to a single
> software vendor for years to come. Dutch students using Free Software or
> devices without Silverlight-support will find themselves locked out of
> schools' online systems due to the use of proprietary technology and
> closed standards. Marja Bijsterveldt, the secretary of education,
> recently said that she is unwilling to enforce the Dutch government's
> own Open Standards policy on educational institutions[1]. Instead, the
> government will accept long-term vendor lock-in of educational
> institutions.
[...]
> 1. http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/documenten-en-publicaties/kamerstukke…
= Dutch government hands over education's keys to Microsoft =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20111107-01.en.html ]
The Dutch government wants to tie the country's schools to a single
software vendor for years to come. Dutch students using Free Software or
devices without Silverlight-support will find themselves locked out of
schools' online systems due to the use of proprietary technology and
closed standards. Marja Bijsterveldt, the secretary of education,
recently said that she is unwilling to enforce the Dutch government's
own Open Standards policy on educational institutions[1]. Instead, the
government will accept long-term vendor lock-in of educational
institutions.
For Free Software advocate Jan Stedehouder this emphasizes the need for
a stronger and more robust Open Standards policy framework. Therefore
Stedeholder initiated the Dutch campaign to make the use of Open
Standards mandatory in the public sector and to ensure vendor-
independent access to all online service of publicly funded
organisations.
The organisations and individuals supporting the campaign demand:
- to strengthen the Dutch action plan "Netherlands Open in Connection"
by making the use of Open Standards truly mandatory for all publicly-
funded institutions
- to make vendor-independent access to all online services and
information mandatory for all publicly-funded institutions, in this
case, educational institutions;
- to promote innovative education in IT-skills by broadening the
educational program with vendor-independent skill-sets.
"The policy framework approved by the Dutch Parliament in 2007 was an
important, internationally acclaimed achievement", says Stedehouder.
"But political barriers have meant that this policy hasn't been
implemented. As a result, students, future knowledge workers, are still
locked in proprietary technology."
Stedehouder highlights that students who complain about being locked out
of their school's system are being advised to buy the proprietary
Microsoft Windows operating system. "This behaviour is not only
unacceptable but also illegal. Our campaign aims at passing new
legislation to ensure the mandatory use of Open Standards in education,
to make sure that students have access to the free technology they
deserve", says Stedeholder.
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) supports the Dutch
campaign[2] which is gaining traction and has received endorsements by
NLLGG[3], LPI Netherlands[4], NLUUG[5] and HCC[6], and almost 900
individuals. The Dutch parliament shares the disappointment with the way
the Open Standards policy framework is implemented in education. Mark
Lamers, coordinator for FSFE Netherlands, says: "Now it is time to act
for everybody who is in favour of a free competition in the software
market, and of course all Free Software advocates: Support this
campaign!"
"Though this problem is all too common around the world, the Dutch
government's stance is particularly disappointing", says Karsten
Gerloff, president of FSFE. "The Netherlands have some of the most
progressive policies on Free Software and Open Standards in the world.
But the education ministry utterly fails to implement them. I can well
understand that Dutch parliamentarians are dissatisfied and want to push
for a more robust policy."
*** More background information and up to date information on this topic
are available on"Unlocking education, for growth without limits":
http://fsfe.org/campaigns/nledu/nledu.en.html ***
1. http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/bestanden/documenten-en-publicaties/kamerstukke…
2. http://www.janstedehouder.nl/category/petitie-ictovergewicht-onderwijs/
3. http://www.nllgg.nl/
4. http://www.lpice.eu/nl/home/persberichten/steunbetuiging-en-oproep-voor-act…
5. https://www.nluug.nl/
6. http://www.hcc.nl/
== Press contact ==
Matthias Kirschner, Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE)
Linienstraße 141, 10115 Berlin
Phone: +49-30-275 95 290
Mobile: +49-1577-178 000 3
Jan Stedehouder <jan(a)stedehouder.org>
Mobile: +31-644357105
== 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.
http://fsfe.org/
= FSFE Newsletter - November 2011 =
[Read Online : http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201111.en.html ]
== WWW would have been better if it was patented ==
How long should copyright last? Should living beings or software be
patentable? The World Intellectual Property Organisation deals with this
sort of questions. Since 2004, we are involved in the WIPO to make sure
they do not harm Free Software. Our most important demand is that when
it comes to copyright and patents, the benefits should be weighed
against the costs.
The new Director General Francis Gurry's said that the World Wide Web
would have been better if it was patented. This shows us that the
current trend is in the opposite direction. Read more about this in
Karsten's article WIPO sliding back into the Dark Ages?[1], our WIPO
dossier[2], and support the Geneva Declaration[3].
1.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2011/10/24/wipo-sliding-back-into-the-dark-ag…
2. http://fsfe.org/projects/wipo/wipo.de.html
3. http://fsfe.org/projects/wipo/wiwo.de.html
== Daily business - step by step ==
Why do FSFE so frequently give interviews and talks, and travel to
promote FSFE issues? Our mission is to promote freedom in emerging
digital society. So as you can see on our events page[4]it is part of
our daily business to travel around, give talks, interviews, and
organise events. Paul Boddie improved our Fellowship event
calendar[5]which now integrates GriCal. This way you can subscribe to
the calendar. If you are already subscribed to the the event's RSS feed
<http://fsfe.org/events/events.de.rss>or the Ical feed[6]you can skip
the next paragraph.
4. http://fsfe.org/events/events.de.html
5. http://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=54
6. webcal://fsfe.org/events/events.en.ics
So for example in October Karsten and Matija gave talks at LinuxCon
Europe in Prague, Sam gave a speech at the DIY Feminist Festival in
Manchester[7], our UK team had a booth at FLOSS UK Unconference 2011 in
Manchester, your editor gave a talk about "10 misunderstandings about
Free Software (or are they lies?)" at the technical university in
Berlin, our Austrian coordinator Peter Bubestinger gave a talk "Free
Software and Open Formats: virtual immortality and independence for
digital archives" at the National Library in Vienna, and our French
coordinator Hugo Roy organised a talk on "A Free Digital Society" by
Richard Stallman[8].
7. http://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=215
8.
http://www.libertesnumeriques.net/evenements/stallman-19octobre2011?lang=en
On the interview front: Karsten gave a radio interview about our work at
WIPO[9], Hugo an interview to the French GNU Linux Magazine Essentiel,
your editor to the German newspaper TAZ about Secure boot[10].
9.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2011/10/24/wipo-sliding-back-into-the-dark-ag…
10. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=845
== Something completely different ==
- Rikard Fröberg works at The Society for Free Culture and
Software[11], and contributes this year to the FSCONS[12]organisation
and thereby supporting our Free Software in Politics track[13]. In the
October Fellowship Interview[14]he considers the importance of having
an active and engaged community of users.
- Free Software from a human rights angle. Instead of just saying good-
bye after the end of his internship, Diego wrote us a nice article as
a gift:"Free Software social networks for social change"[15].
- A selection of interesting blog entries from our planet
aggregation[16]:Denmark - Portugal 4:5. The regular qualification for
the EURO2012 in Free Software are over. Which country has good Free
Software and Open Standard practices? Guido Arnold looked at this[17].
(Even though they were not able to win against Belgium, your editor is
happy that Germany qualified. It is difficult to compete against teams
with such good players as FOSDEM[18].)
- New government in Denmark, read what new opportunities Fellow Carsten
Agger sees[19].
- Converting letters into e-mails? Working on our PDFreaders
campaign[20], Sam received letters from public administrations and had
to forward them to our mailing list. So he took this opportunity to
write about Easy OCR on GNU/Linux with gImageReader"[21].
- The first 100 customers matter! Writes Georg Greve in his article
about an Open climate for entrepreneurs in Europe[22]. Read more about
Research and Development programmes, Silicon Valley, and software
patents.
- UnRAR in freedom: Thanks to The Unarchiver initiative, we are now able
to extract recent rar files completely with Free Software[23].
- When is a bug report useful?[24]Read the article, and file about to
this month newsletter.
- KDE became 15 Years in October. Paul Adams wondered how that does
look like[25].
11. https://ffkp.se/
12. http://fscons.org/
13. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=840
14. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=446
15.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/diegojavier/2011/10/10/free-software-social-networks-…
16. http://planet.fsfe.org
17.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2011/10/euro2012-in-free-software-regular-quali…
18. http://www.fosdem.org
19.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/agger/2011/10/01/denmark-new-government-new-opportun…
20. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/pdfreaders.de.html
21. http://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=227
22. http://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=455
23. http://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/2011/10/14/unrar-in-freedom/
24. http://blogs.fsfe.org/myriam/2011/10/when-is-a-bug-report-useful
25. http://blogs.fsfe.org/padams/?p=251
-
== Get Active: Document Freedom Day - Let's get ready to rumble ==
Coordination for next years Document Freedom Day[26]is starting. Your
editor is responsible for next years international coordination, and
shamelessly asks you to join the team, subscribe to our mailinglist[27],
give input about the last year, help with campaign planing, taking care
of coordination events in a certain country, taking care with the
communication with partners, help with the organisation of events for
next year, help with setting up the new website, writting texts,
translate them, help with designing t-shirts and other promotion
materials, or if you do not have time, make a donation[28]to support us
in this activity.
26. http://documentfreedom.org
27. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/df-coordination
28. http://fsfe.org/donate/donate.en.html
Thanks to all the Fellows[29]and donors[30]who enable our work,
29. http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join
30. donate/thankgnus.de.html
Matthias Kirschner- FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <http://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <http://fsfe.org/news/news.de.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <http://fsfe.org/events/events.de.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <http://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <http://fsfe.org/contact/community.de.html>
= FSFE Newsletter - September 2011 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201109.en.html ]
== New Intern surrounded by 800 geeks? ==
The first day in a new organisation always is quite intensive, many new
people, procedures, so much information. Our new intern Eszter Bako[1]it
was even more intense. She spent her first day with FSFE at the Desktop
Summit, surrounded by nearly 800 people talking about strange things
such as KDE, Gnome, Qt, GTK, Plasma, Git, QML, D-Bus, or about how to
build a toaster[2]. For beginners the Free Software community can give a
strange impression.
1. http://blogs.fsfe.org/eszter/
2. https://www.desktopsummit.org/program/sessions/complexity-everyday-technolo…
Good thing that she wasn't on her own. Our experienced intern Natalia
Evdokimova, who organised our booth at the event, safely guided her
through the day. Beside that there were many other FSFE activists: Our
president Karsten gave a talk about"Free desktops for Europe's public
sector"[3]and founding member Bernhard talked about"Daily Melee: paid
people within Free Software initiatives - How they tick, how to keep
them and the art of behaving if you are one"[4]. Like you can see on our
blog aggregation[5]there were a lot of other Fellows present, including
our former president Georg Greve.
3. https://www.desktopsummit.org/program/sessions/free-desktops-europes-public…
4. https://www.desktopsummit.org/program/sessions/daily-melee-paid-people-with…
5. http://planet.fsfe.org
Beside Eszter joining and Natalia leaving as intern, there are more
changes within our team: Nicolas Jean's[6]internship has now ended. He
was one of the most active people in the web team, and we are happy that
he will remain in our volunteers team as FSFE's webmaster. Diego Naranjo
Barroso[7]and Alessandro Polvani[8]started their internships. Diego
already contacted the Spanish Institutions[9]for our PDFreaders
campaign, and Alessandro will do the follow-up in Italy.
6. http://blogs.fsfe.org/nicoulas
7. http://blogs.fsfe.org/diegojavier/
8. http://blogs.fsfe.org/alessandro.polvani/
9. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/buglist.en.html#ES
== Digits to remember: 22-10-11 and 11-11-11 ==
The Nordic Free Software Award is given to people, projects or
organisations in the Nordic countries that have made a prominent
contribution to the advancement of Free Software. Henrik Sandklef, our
vice-president, asks you[10]to submit nominations by email until October
22nd.
10. https://sandklef.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/nomination-period-open-for-nordic…
The award will be announced during the Free Society Conference and
Nordic Summit (FSCONS)[11]in Gothenburg, Sweden which will take place
from Friday November 11th through Sunday November 13th. The conference
is organised by FSFE's Swedish team, and your editor is responsible for
FSFE's"Free Software in Politics" track[12]there. We are looking forward
to see you there. (Fellows will get a discount of 10 EUR on the standard
rate).
11. http://fscons.org/
12. http://fscons.org/schedule/
== Something completely different ==
- The importance of promoting Free Software, spreading Free Software in
schools, and what role the computer sciences can play in relating the
messages of Free Software to other institutions and disciplines: Read
the latest Fellowship interview[13], in which our fellow Richard
Shipman shares his thoughts on these topics.
- On Saturday 13th August Free Software activists came to FSFE’s PDF
Readers Sprint in Manchester and found 59 previously unreported
adverts for proprietary PDF readers, all of them on UK Council
websites. Check out the report about the event done by Sam Tuke[14]and
Chris Woolfrey[15]from our UK team.
- Computer Aided Design (CAD) software is critically important to a
variety of industries and professions. It is also notorious for being
poorly catered for by Free Software applications. Sam wrote a brief
summary of the current situation.[16]
- Support Ogg Vorbis by helping our sister FSF to reach 5.000 signatures
for their petition[17], asking for This American Life in Ogg Vorbis.
Also concerning Ogg, FSFE's UK team had a booth at the
OggCamp2011[18].
- R-DIY Feminism Festival: FSFE will be represented at the DIY Feminism
Festival[19]in Manchester on September 3 and 4, holding events,
including talks on Free Software philosophy, Free Software and women,
and an Open Street Map workshop.
- Summer time was blogging time, so here some articles from the planet
aggregation[20]:
- With our new intern Diego J. Naranjo Barroso's help Matija prepared
the Free Software and law related links covering links about the the
patents war, Google acquiring Motorola Mobility, and other stories
in 1.8.-14.8.[21]and 15.8.-21.8.[22].
- Timo Jyrinki writes about Free Software on mobile phones[23]and the
MeeGo Summit Finland[24]including lots of pictures from the
event[25].
- Freedom Box: Read about the progress and technical details of the
Freedom Box[26], in Bdale Garbee's report from DebConf11 in Banja
Luka. If you are in the UK at the time, you can attend Sam's talk on
Freedom Boxes[27]in Manchester on 20 September 2011 at 19:00.
- Interested in processing images from the command line? Swedish Team
member Patrik Willard writes about how to do that[28]for the FSCONS
preperations.
- Chris Woolfrey, who is doing the Fellowship interviews[29]started
blogging. His latest article is about the question, if all the data
on your work computer count as company data"[30].
13. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=378
14. http://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=191
15. http://blogs.fsfe.org/chriswoolfrey/2011/08/15/pdf-readers-campaign-hits-th…
16. http://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=169
17. http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/tal-ogg-petition
18. http://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=194
19. http://diyfeminism.com/events-andworkshops/
20. http://planet.fsfe.org
21. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/254
22. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/255
23. http://losca.blogspot.com/2011/08/meego-ce-and-freesmartphoneorg.html
24. http://losca.blogspot.com/2011/04/meego-summit-fi-starts-tomorrow.html
25. http://losca.blogspot.com/2011/04/meego-summit-fi-days-1-2.html
26. http://www.gag.com/bdale/blog/posts/FreedomBox_in_Banja_Luka.html
27. http://fsfe.org/news/news.en.html
28. http://blog.padowi.se/2011/08/28/2011w34/
29. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/
30. http://blogs.fsfe.org/chriswoolfrey/2011/08/18/should-all-the-data-on-your-…
== Get Active: Software Freedom Day ==
September 17th is Software Freedom Day[31](SFD), a worldwide celebration
of Free Software. Its goal is educational, teaching people why Free
Software is the best choice when it comes to using Software. Organised
and coordinated by the Software Freedom International, SFD invites
everyone to participate and take action on a local level. Our Fellowship
group[32]in Vienna for example invits you to a Software Freedom Party.
The evening will be opened by a talk about legal aspects in Free
Software, held by FSFE's new legal coordinator Matija Šuklje. The
groups in Bonn[33], Hamburg[34], and Manchester[35]also have plans.
31. http://softwarefreedomday.org/
32. http://wiki.fsfe.org/CategoryFellowshipGroup
33. http://wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Bonn
34. http://wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Hamburg
35. http://wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Manchester
Contact existing groups to participate in events, or organise your own
SFD activity!
Regards,
Matthias Kirschner- FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <http://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <http://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <http://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <http://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <http://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
Distributors lose their rights when they violate GPLv2, but the Free
Software Foundation is more forgiving in its license enforcement to
encourage continued participation in the free software community.
GPLv3 has improved termination provisions to codify this approach,
giving developers one more reason to upgrade.
Thanks to Android's commercial success, the kernel Linux, which is
released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2, is
being distributed more than ever before. Whenever someone distributes
GPL-covered software, they must follow a few conditions set forth in
the license. These conditions try to give anyone who receives the
software both the legal permission and the practical tools necessary
to change and share the software themselves if they wish.
Not all of the companies that distribute Android heed these
conditions. We've witnessed an uptick in GPL violation
reports--some convincing, others incomplete or
misinformed--against these vendors. We generally can't pursue
these violations directly, because only copyright holders can enforce
free software licenses in most countries, and few Android devices use
FSF-copyrighted code. However, people still seek out our opinions
about the relevant parts of the GPL, and that discussion has recently
turned to GPLv2's termination provisions. Section 4 of the license
says, "You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the
Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt
otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is
void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this
License."
When we enforce the license of FSF-copyrighted software, we give
violators back the rights they had after they come into compliance.
In our experience, developers of Linux are happy to do the same.
Unfortunately, even if we assume they all would restore these rights,
it would be extremely difficult to have them all formally do so; there
are simply too many copyright holders involved, some of whom haven't
worked on the project in years or even decades.
When we wrote GPLv2 in 1991, we didn't imagine that a free software
project might have hundreds of copyright holders, making it so
difficult to get a violator's rights restored. We want it to be easy
for a former violator to know that they're still allowed to change and
share the software; if they stop distribution because of legal
uncertainty, fewer people will have free software in the long run.
Hence, we created new termination provisions for GPLv3, in section 8
(see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html#section8>). These
terms offer violators a simple method to earn back the rights they
had. Parties who violate the license have their rights restored
provisionally as soon as they come back into compliance, and
permanently if no copyright holders terminate those rights within
sixty days of the last violation. Furthermore, first-time violators
will have their rights restored permanently if they come into
compliance within thirty days of receiving such notice.
GPLv3's approach has several advantages over GPLv2's. By having the
license grant forgiveness by default, instead of terminating rights
permanently, it better matches our community's expectations and normal
compliance strategy. It will be easier for violators to get their
rights restored by any copyright holders who do terminate rights,
because the notice will establish a clear way for the violator to get
in touch. Finally, GPLv3's termination provisions don't sacrifice
anything we need: the license's conditions still do their best to
protect software freedom, and copyright holders will still be able to
legally enforce the license against parties that don't comply.
This is just one of many reasons why GPLv3 is better than GPLv2. This
change has already given some companies the reassuring nudge they
needed to start distributing GPL-covered software, and we expect to
see more of that in the future. When we give distributors a chance to
rejoin the free software community and fix any mistakes they might
make--in stark contrast to most proprietary software licenses--we get
both compliance and more allies. GPLv3 improves on earlier versions
of the license by codifying that enforcement strategy. For this
reason and others, we urge developers who are releasing projects under
GPLv2 to upgrade to GPLv3. Companies that sell products that use
Android can help out by encouraging the developers of Linux to make
the switch to GPLv3.
To learn more about GPLv3's benefits, read our Quick Guide to GPLv3 at
<http://www.gnu.org/licenses/quick-guide-gplv3.html>.
_______________________________________________
FSF And GNU Press mailing list <info-press(a)fsf.org>
http://lists.fsf.org/mailman/listinfo/info-press
= FSFE Newsletter - August 2011 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201108.en.html ]
== Inside stories by a critical thinker ==
"If people do not understand why their computing is related to their
freedom, it’s because nobody explained them properly" (Bernhard
Reiter)
Bernhard Reiter is one of FSFE's founders and architect of the original
German team. He participated in setting up three important Free Software
organisations: FreeGIS.org, FFII, and FossGIS. Besides that, he is
founder and Executive Director of Intevation GmbH, a company with
exclusively Free Software products and services since 1999.
Interesting stories about setting up FSFE, challenges for Free Software,
and more are covered in this month's Fellowship interview[1].
1. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=341
== Become a Critical Thinker: Get Rid of "Intellectual Property" ==
A lot of people talk about "intellectual property". When using this
term, they usually mix different things like copyright, patents,
trademarks, also right to a name, utility patents, business models, or
even geographical indications. If you want to think critically and
clearly about challenges in the digital age, you should separate those
different issues.
If you really need a term to cover all that, you should use one which is
not that much biased. There are some suggestions in the articles
mentioned below, like the term "Limited Intellectual Monopolies".
But in 90% cases there is actually only one monopoly concerned.
Discussions will be much more productive if everybody knows what you are
talking about. So, if someone says "we need more protection of
"intellectual property", ask them what that means, perhaps it means they
want to have software patents. If someone says "we need to limit the
scope of "intellectual property", you should ask if they want to
restrain copyright, patents or even abolish trademarks.
You can read more about this in Richard Stallman's article"Did You Say
'Intellectual Property'? It's a Seductive Mirage"[2], Georg
Greve's"Fighting intellectual poverty (Who owns and controls the
information societies?)"[3], and your editor's interview with Dradio
Wissen[4](in German).
2. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.en.html
3. http://fsfe.org/projects/wsis/issues.en.html
4. http://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=810
== Support FSFE in critical thinking ==
For FSFE it is important that all of you support us. This way our work
does not depend on single donors, and we can continue to think and
communicate critical to promote software freedom.
It is now possible to donate us monthly and yearly[5]by*credit card*and
in Germany also by*direct debit*. Beside that, in the Netherlands
donations to FSFE can now be deducted from income tax (before it was
only possible in Germany and Switzerland). If we get more than 20 new
donors, your editor promises that he will not write the word "critical"
in the next newsletter.
5. http://fsfe.org/donate/donate.en.html
== Something completely different ==
- Richard Stallman wrote an article"Resist the Temptations of the
Cloud!"[6]( German version[7]) in the German Magazine "Spiegel".
- PDFreaders.org[8]. It is boring to follow up bugs, but it does not
take a lot of time and has a good effect. In Italy volunteers again
managed to close 13 bugs last month. Your editor gave two talks in
Brazil about the PDFreaders campaign[9]to motivate people to fix bugs
in Latin America, and our UK coordinator Sam Tuke is organising a
PDFreaders bug hunt in Manchester. If you live around, join other Free
Software advocates on Saturday, August 13, between 15.00-17.30 at
MadLab hackerspace[10]to find and remove UK Government adverts for
non-Free PDF Readers. Cake and Pizza provided!
- New German Free Software Business Association: Lisog (124 members) and
LIVE Linux-Verband (103 members) now merged into the Open Source
Business Alliance (OSBA)[11](German).
- FSFE will take part at the Desktop Summit, a joint conference
organised by the GNOME and KDE communities in Berlin, Germany, 6 - 12
August 2011 at the Humboldt University. Our president Karsten Gerloff
will give a talk on"Free desktops for Europe's public sector"[12]and
Bernhard Reiter will talk about"Daily Melee: paid people within Free
Software initiatives - How they tick, how to keep them and the art of
behaving if you are one"[13]. (All events are available on our event
page[14]and in the Fellowship calendar[15].
- From the planet aggregation[16]:
- CERN launched its Open Hardware License 1.1 and Open Hardware
Repository. IBM promised to give its Lotus Symphony source code to the
Apache Foundation, and W3C wants to invalidate Apple's Widget software
patents. Read the legal news from 27.6.-3.7.[17] 4.7.-10.7.[18], and
11.7.-18.7.[19].
- Brian Gough has announced the GNU Hackers meeting[20]which will take
place on 25. August – 28. August in Paris. There are about 45 GNU
maintainers and contributors registered so far and speakers include
Jim Meyering, Stefano Zacchiroli, and Jim Blandy.
- Why are students developing Free Software for the public sector? Read
in Guido Arnold's weblog[21]how students get involved in Free
Software.
6. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,775218,00.html
7. http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/0,1518,774766,00.html
8. http://pdfreaders.org
9. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/pdfreaders.en.html
10.
http://madlab.org.uk/content/stamp-out-the-ads-free-software-pdf-reader-spr…
11. http://www.linux-verband.de/news/detail/opensource/pressemitteilung/
12.
https://www.desktopsummit.org/program/sessions/free-desktops-europes-public…
13.
https://www.desktopsummit.org/program/sessions/daily-melee-paid-people-with…
14. http://fsfe.org/events/events.en.html
15. http://wiki.fsfe.org/FellowshipEvents
16. http://planet.fsfe.org
17. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/250
18. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/251
19. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/252
20.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/bjg/2011/07/gnu-hackers-meeting-in-paris-25-28-august…
21.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2011/07/students-developing-free-software-for-t…
== Get active: Read and distribute "crime story" ==
"When patents attack"[22]is a good story from investigative journalists
on software patents, which reads like a crime story. Your editor
recommends you to read it so you have good arguments in future. If you
like it, distribute the article among your colleagues and friends.
22. http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/07/22/138576167/when-patents-attack
Regards,
Matthias Kirschner- FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <http://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <http://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <http://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <http://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <http://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>
= FSFE Newsletter - July 2011 =
[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201107.en.html ]
== Attack on Free Software and the GNU GPL ==
Imagine that you've just bought a computer with pre-installed Free
Software. After some time you decide to install additional software made
by someone else. The vendor that sold you your computer, however, does
not approve, and decides to sue the people who made the additional
software that you installed. Sounds like purchasing a computer from that
vendor was not such a great idea!
At the moment something very similar is happening in in Germany[1], in
an important GNU GPL violation case that the FSFE and gpl-
violations.org[2]are participating. Germany company AVM maintains in
court that others should not be allowed to modify the software that
comes pre-installed on their commercial computers and devices. It turns
out, though, that this pre-installed software includes the Linux kernel,
a piece of software distributed under the GNU GPL which guarantees
exactly this freedom to users.
1. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20110620-01.en.html
2. http://www.gpl-violations.org
Through their actions, AVM is attacking the very foundations of Free
Software: they want to take away freedom from others. It will directly
contravene the legal rights of the original software authors[3], who
decided that software freedom and cooperation is more important to them
than receiving license fees. If AVM is successful in court it will be a
disastrous move for the freedom of software on embedded devices, mobile
phones, network hardware and other Free Software based products.
3.
http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2011/06/24/#20110624-avm_cybits_gpl_fud
The judge did not make a decision during the June 21 court hearing, and
participants in the case may still file further written pleas. On
September 27 the court is set to either make a direct ruling on the case
or choose to begin hearing evidence. The FSFE and gpl-violations.org
have published a detailed report about the case[4], and will continue to
monitor the situation in defence of freedom for software users.
4. http://fsfe.org/projects/ftf/avm-gpl-violation.en.html
== FSFE Internal: An era ends - others start ==
Usually you don't hear about the people who work behind the scenes for
the FSFE. Most of us are volunteers, and press and publicity work is
handled by people like FSFE president Karsten Gerloff[5], or your humble
editor. But without those volunteers who donate their spare time to
promote software freedom the FSFE would not be what it is today. (Thank
you!)
5. http://fsfe.org/about/gerloff/gerloff.en.html
At the FSFE's June 11 General Assembly, which took place in Ljubljana,
Slovenia, FSFE's members[6]elected Henrik Sandklef[7]to be the
organisation's Vice President. A computer scientist and GNU Hacker from
Gothenburg, Sweden, Henrik has been active with the FSFE since 2005. He
takes over from Fernanda Weiden, who held the volunteer position for the
past two years. The General Assembly also confirmed Karsten Gerloff as
FSFE's President and Reinhard Müller as Finanical Officer.
6. http://fsfe.org/about/members.en.html
7. http://sandklef.com/hesa
While a new officer term cycle began, another era ended as Bernhard
Reiter, FSFE co-founder, completed ten years as German coordinator and
Deputy. He is the first FSFE representative to continuously hold
positions within the organisation for such a long time, and is the only
person to have participated in every FSFE annual General Assembly to
date. Bernhard will remain active within the FSFE but has handed the
official post of Deputy German Coordinator to Torsten Grote[8].
8. http://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/
== The European Commission’s locked-in syndrome ==
It's official: The European Commission will migrate to Microsoft Windows
7 without considering alternative solutions. In a reply to questions
asked by MEP Bart Staes (Greens/EFA), the European Commission confirmed
that it has awarded contracts for the 'upgrade' to Microsoft and
reseller Fujitsu-Siemens on behalf of 55 other European institutions and
the Commission itself. As Karsten explains in his blog article on the
issue[9], this move will drive the Comission into even greater
dependence on Microsoft.
9.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2011/06/06/the-european-commissions-locked-in…
== And now for something completely different ==
- Do you want your (future) children to work with Free Software in
school? Read the new Fellowship Interview with Guido Arnold[10]. Guido
is coordinating the FSFE's education team. He gives insights into the
team's latest efforts at increasing the use of Free Software in
education.
- One IP address for everything: FSFE celebrated World IPv6 Day[11].
Almost all of our servers are now reachable via IPv6.
- Have you ever seen three FSF presidents in one place? The famous
picture captures Richard Stallman (FSF US), Nagarjuna G (FSF India)
and Karsten Gerloff (FSFE)[12]together.
- From the planet aggregation[13]:
- Do you need Free Software law related links[14]? Matija Šuklje and
Natalia Evdokimova published a June 2001 edition of their Free
Software law resource list.
- How do you organise a cool Free Software event, like FSCONS[15], using
only command line tools? Read the blog articles from Patrik
Willard[16], FSFE's new Deputy coordinator of Sweden.
- Football is still a topic on our blog aggregation: Lena Simon writes
about football and football for men[17]and Guido writes about the EURO
2012 in Free Software[18], an alternative for those not interested in
traditional football.
- Greek Fellow Kostas Boukouvalas writes about Thessaloniki’s
GNU/Linux Lab[19]
- Michael Stehmann reports about the Düsseldorf Fellowship meeting[20],
including the Open Music Contest
10. http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=321
11. http://fsfe.org/news/2011/news-20110608-01.en.html
12.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2011/06/30/free-software-summit-improvised/
13. http://planet.fsfe.org
14. http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/249
15. http://fscons.org
16. http://blog.padowi.se/
17.
http://www.stud.uni-potsdam.de/~leena/2011/06/fusball-und-mannerfusball-gle…
18.
http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2011/06/euro-2012-in-free-software-qualificatio…
19. http://blogs.fsfe.org/boukouvalas/?p=360
20. http://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=260
== Get active: Become an FSFE booth volunteer in Strasbourg ==
The FSFE will participate in the RMLL, one of France's biggest Free
Software events, from July 9 to 14. In addition to having an information
booth, the FSFE will also deliver presentations on Free Software:
Karsten will talk about Centralised Internet Services and Problems of
Power (13.07., 15:20), France Coordinator Hugo Roy[21]will talk about
the battle fought by Free Software for HTML5 online videos, and several
other speakers have been invited to talk on topics concerning
decentralisation of the Internet.
21. http://fsfe.org/about/roy/roy.en.html
Like every booth and event we participate with, please contact today to
volunteer if you are able. Help us to inform our audiences about Free
Software!
Best regards and see you next time,
Matthias Kirschner- FSFE
--
Free Software Foundation Europe <http://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <http://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <http://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <http://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <http://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>