"Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom!"
Fellowship programme of FSFE launched to defend freedom in the digital age.
"We stand up to protect our freedom to shape and participate in a digital society that respects liberty and privacy." With this slogan, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) started its fellowship program at the FOSDEM fair for Free Software last weekend in Brussels.
The resistance against software patents has shown that it is possible to change things, but it has also shown that we need to do more. While we were and still are defending ourselves against software patents, other issues -- old and new -- could not be addressed as they should have been.
"Global players aiming to spread their monopolies and business-models are excerting influence on many levels through technology, legislation and money.", Stefano Maffulli, Italian representative of FSFE says and concludes: "If our freedom is to be preserved, we need more shoulders to support the work and more people to raise their voice."
Fellowship comes at EUR 120,- (EUR 60,-) per year. All Fellows receive a login on the Fellowship portal, a site to meet, communicate and cooperate. Fellows can write blogs, share experience in forums and remain informed about the latest news. Through this approach, it is possible to bridge initiatives and people to stand united and raise our collective voice. In addition, all fellows receive an email alias @fsfe.org, a visible sign of their connection to the Free Software Foundation Europe.
As a practical feature to strengthen their privacy and security, all Fellows receive a unique, personalised OpenPGP compliant SmartCard programmed and handled by Werner Koch, author of GnuPG and Head of Office of the FSFE. With this SmartCard, all Fellows can communicate securely and privately through digital signatures and encryption. In addition, this protects your logins and data on disk, among other things.
"This card is a a state-of-the-art hardware token for many different applications, such as encrypting your email. Through this card, we put the power of protecting data and privacy into the hands of all our Fellows. We seek to make this power available to all, raising awareness for privacy and security issues", Werner Koch explains.
"In the past years, we have worked to the peak of our abilities and beyond. We have seen that we can make progress, but also we had to realise that the battle has only just begun. Defending our collective freedom is something we need to do together. Consider this your call to arms," says Georg Greve.
Please join the Fellowship at http://www.fsfe.org/
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a charitable non-governmental organisation 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 FSFE. The FSFE was founded in 2001 as the European sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation in the United States.
Further information: http://www.fsfeurope.org
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