1. From WIPO to WIWO 2. Via Libre becoming associate organisation 3. FSFE at the LWE in Frankfurt 4. Other public appearances 5. FSFE watches the Municipality of Pavia 6. Italian system integrator, Engineering, chooses GNU GPL 7. Donations via PayPal
1. From WIPO to WIWO
Seeking to endorse the Geneva Declaration, a group of organisations declared their support in form of advocating the idea of a "World Intellectual Wealth Organisation" to take the place of WIPO. This organisation would be searching for new questions and answers, not just for more careful application of the old tool of granting limited monopolies on knowledge.
http://www.fsfeurope.org/documents/wiwo.en.html
2. Via Libre becoming associate organisation
Fundación Vía Libre, a Free Software organisation in Argentinia, became associated organisation of the FSFE. This is the latest highlight of a long and productive history of cooperation between the European and the Latin American Free Software communities.
3. FSFE at the LWE in Frankfurt
The FSFE was again present with a booth at this year's LWE in Frankfurt, Germany, where two members of Wilhelm Tux, FSFE's Swiss associate organisation, joined the booth team.
4. Other public appearances
At a conference called "E-Südtirol" in Bozen, Italy, Georg Greve spoke about "autonomy and freedom of knowledge in the information society". He also participated in several workshops at that event.
Shortly afterwards, Georg Greve attended the "Zukunftsforum IT" Conference in Berlin, which was organised by the Handelsblatt, the most influential economic newspaper in Germany, to speak about the overall vision of Free Software.
A little later, in Evora, Portugal, Georg Greve gave a short presentation and participated in a round table at the aLANtejo conference organised by students of the local university. He also took the opportunity to meet several people from the Free Software Community in Portugal, in particular from FSFE's associate organisation ANSOL and intensify the cooperation between the FSFE and the Portugese Free Software movement.
Towards the end of the month, Georg Greve gave the opening keynote for the BerLINux event in Berlin, Germany.
5. FSFE watches the Municipality of Pavia, Italy
The Municipality of Pavia announced that it will help building a new backoffice framework for the Italian local public administrations. This package will be funded by private banks, developed by an Italian company and distributed by Microsoft. The FSFE managed to get invited as observer in the technical meeting, where the specifications of the project will be defined. The Italian Chapter will follow closely the issue and inform the Italian community.
6. Italian system integrator, Engineering, chooses GNU GPL
The GNU GPL has been chosen by one of the biggest Italian system integrators, Engineering (www.eng.it), for the release of its application framework SPAGO. Engineering worked with FSFE to make sure that the license was well applied and also asked to comment on the governance of the project. Although the software falls in the Java Trap, the Italian Chapter was happy to help and hopes more companies ask FSFE to support their business.
7. Donations via PayPal
Supporting the work of FSFE has just become easier for those who prefer to donate by credit card and/or via the PayPal service. A web page where an online donation can be made is available:
http://www.fsfeurope.org/help/paypal.en.html
You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html