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
_______________________________________________
Press-release-sv mailing list
Press-release-sv(a)fsfeurope.org
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Hi guys,
Just some information before the fact. This will be released later
tonight or tomorrow morning when there will also be information on
http://fsfeurope.org/ftf
Jonas
FSFE and Harald Welte Join Forces To Launch Freedom Task Force
FTF to educate programmers and corporations on how to avoid
licensing problems, as well as enforce Free Software licenses
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) announced today the launch
of the Freedom Task Force, thanks to a grant of EUR 30.000 from
Stichting NLnet. The organisation, working closely with Harald Welte
of GPL-violations.org, seeks to help programmers properly set up and
organize projects legally, as well as edudate companies to understand
how the GPL works. As needed, the purpose of the group will also
include enforcement in the case of license 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 licenses 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 background as well
as volunteers, working together to provide organized and coordinated
responses to individual cases where there may be misunderstandings
about what a license requires or violation of its terms. FSFE has
hired Mr Shane Coughlan to serve as FTF Coordinator.
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
license violation."
Harald Welte, the first person who enforced the GNU GPL in court will
be working closely with the FTF: "My gpl-violations.org [1] work has
shown how much the community needs a more focussed approach to deal
with these violations. While there was good contact with FSFE, we
recognized the need to work more closely together, in a more
coordinated way, sharing our information and resources to best protect
the rights of Free Software developers."
"We have as a primary goal to to help corporations to adhere to the
licenses 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 license compliance problems, rather than having to later solve
problems that could have been avoided in the first place."
Stichting NLnet 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://gpl-violations.org
[2] http://www.nlnet.nl
Dear FSFE Teams,
many of you have discussed and raised the need for more Free Software
legal presence in Europe, or either spoke themselves or heard others
speak about this issue in one of our many presentations; and recent
news show that the urgency for this is increasing steadily.
When checking my personal archive, I found the first occurence to the
idea of establishing a "Freedom Task Force" in my 19 July 2004
presentation at the Free Software Summer Academy in Caceres,
Extremadura, Spain.
But while we're asking everyone to keep this to themselves for the
next two weeks, we want to let you know in advance that there are very
exciting times ahead:
Within the next weeks, the Freedom Task Force will be operational in
FSFE's new offices in Zürich, coordinated by Shane Coughlan, who was
hired as Freedom Task Force Coordinator.
** About the office:
The FSFE offices, which we've started setting up October 2006, are
located at
Free Software Foundation Europe
Sumatrastrasse 25
8006 Zürich
Switzerland
http://map.search.ch/8006-zuerich/sumatrastr.-25
right next the central train station in Zürich, 15 minutes by train
From one of Europe's most central airports. FSFE has a professional
30sqm office and the premises come with a meeting room for up to 10-12
people that FSFE shares with other tenants of the building to hold
mini conferences and larger meetings.
These facilities will be the home of the Freedom Task Force, but will
also be used for (and are available to) FSFE Team meetings and
projects for which group work in the same location is useful or
necessary.
So if you want to come to Zürich, organise a small workshop here, or
meet with others to work on some project, you're welcome to do so,
just get in touch with <zrh(a)office.fsfeurope.org> to coordinate the
best time and check the availability.
** About the FTF:
The Freedom Task Force will deal with three core areas of activities:
Building of Free Software legal competency in Europe, Fiduciary
activities for Free Software projects, and enforcement of Free
Software licenses, in particular GNU GPL. The main work will be done
in volunteer groups, focussed on technology, law, and answering
outside requests, coordinated by Shane Coughlan, who will be working
full-time with FSFE to take care of these activities.
Furthermore it should be noted that the FTF does not seek to replace
existing activities, it seeks to work with them, strengthen them, and
help increase their coordination -- so Shane Coughlan will among
others work closely with Harald Welte of gpl-enforcements.org. Both
will share information freely and support each other.
While the buildup is proceeding as planned, there is still quite a bit
of work to do, and Shane Coughlan and myself are quite busy finishing
the last details and coordinating the last issues before the FTF goes
officially online, which is planned for 13 November 2006, if we can
keep the timing.
But before that, we plan to introduce Shane and the FTF to the Fellows
of FSFE at the first international meeting of the Fellowship of FSFE,
in Bolzano, Southern Tyrol, Italy on 11 November 2006. [1]
The Fellowship of FSFE is seminal for FSFE in various ways. It allowed
us to consider starting this initiative, and it will be seminal for
its continuing success, so we would like to surprise our Fellows with
the announcement, and give them the best first hand opportunity to
learn all about the Freedom Task Force and get to know its
coordinator.
If you are interested in this particular activity of FSFE, the best
thing to do would be to come to Bolzano. [1] If you cannot do that, or
wish to help with the technical setup of the facilities, feel free to
get in touch with ftf-team(a)fsfeurope.org -- but please understand that
there may be some delay in answers while Shane is scrambling to keep
up with all the various things necessary to get things running.
We know that you will feel anxious to share this information with
others and would like to let them know about this activity, but in
order to not spoil the surprise for the Fellows, and to give the FTF
the best start possible, we ask you to please not speak about this
before the official announcement has gone out.
Best regards,
Georg
[1] http://fsfe.org/events/first_international_annual_meeting_of_the_fellows_of…
--
Georg C. F. Greve <greve(a)fsfeurope.org>
Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org)
Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org)
What everyone should know about DRM (http://DRM.info)
Hej!
Jag är en kille på 16 år. Jag är intresserad av programering och har lätt
för att lära. Jag skulle bli glad om ni skulle kunna rekomendera några
länkar så att jag kan komma igång med programering och utveckling av
programvara.
Jag har läst lite om GNU-project och försökt ladda hem program att
installera och använda för att utveckla egna program men jag har fortfarande
inte lyckats :(
Har hållit på i två dagar nu men har funderat i år på detta, det skulle
underlätta mycket om jag fick en hint om var jag kan börja.
Tack på förhand!
//George Albert
_________________________________________________________________
Lyssna obegränsat på musik! http://www.msn.se/music