1. Celebrating the 20th newsletter 2. Georg Greve at LACFREE in Recife in Brazil 3. Henrik Sandklef at Chalmers University in Gothenburg 4. Karsten Gerloff at the 22nd CCC in Berlin 5. Voicing security concerns against personal pressure 6. Free Software energy in Northern Ireland
1. Celebrating the 20th newsletter
This is the 20th edition of the Free Software Foundation Europe's monthly newsletter. Written by the FSFE team for the community, the newsletter has become an important means to inform interested people about FSFE's activities. Thanks to the excellent work of the FSFE translators team, the newsletter is available in at least 4 languages every month, most of the time even 5 or 6 languages.
2. Georg Greve at LACFREE in Recife, Brazil
While Brazil generally has a reputation as one of the leading Free Software nations, the Brazilian Northeast has had very little activity in this area. That is why UNESCO supported the Latin American and Caribbean Conference on Free Software Development and Usage (LACFREE) in Recife, the capital of Pernambuco, a city with social inequality statistics comparable to Namibia. FSFE's president Georg Greve participated in no less than four workshops: one about the Free Software Foundations and our international network, one about Free Software in Education and Culture, one about Legal issues of Free Software and one about Free Software and eGovernance, totalling in no less than four speeches and 12 hours of panel time in just three days. Additionally, he gave interviews for a state newspaper and a community radio.
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/lacfree_2005
3. Henrik Sandklef at Chalmers University in Gothenburg
Henrik Sandklef held a presentation at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. The topic he talked about included the concept of Free Software, the Free Software Foundations, the GNU project, and current threats to software freedom like IPRED or DRM.
4. Karsten Gerloff at the 22nd CCC in Berlin
At the Chaos Computer Club's 22nd Chaos Communication Congress in Berlin, Germany, Karsten Gerloff gave a talk on Free Software, Access to Knowledge and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). At the center of the talk was the importance of Access to Knowledge for culture and development.
5. Voicing security concerns against personal pressure
Thomas Maus, a German IT security consultant, gave a talk at the Chaos Communication Congress in which he raised concerns about electronic health file systems as planned in Germany and possibly other countries. Last year he did a talk about examining one test system finding major security problems. Subsequently there have been various attempts to suppress his questions. The 2005 talk included some details how this was done. While the problems of the planned health system are a scandal in itself, this is also a major example that legislation forbidding reverse engineering or examining digital restriction systems can be and will be used to make it practially impossible for a public to inspect and criticise large and vital computer systems. Single experts like Mr. Maus can be pressured too easily. This is why the FSFE supported him and made it possible that this information is public now.
One of our press release is available in German:
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release-de/2005q4/000081.html
You will find the two talks online at (in German):
http://events.ccc.de/congress/2005/fahrplan/events/546.en.html
The one from 2004 had not been available for almost a year.
6. Free Software energy in Northern Ireland
There has been a recent flurry of interest in Free Software in Northern Ireland, both within industry associations and GNU/Linux users. During December, Ciaran O'Riordan was in contact with many individuals and organisations, and took part in a Free Software workshop in Newry. Lack of central communication points was highlighted as a core problem, so, to assist coordination of Free Software activities, FSFE is pleased to announce the launch of the fsfe-ni mailing list:
http://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-ni
You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html