Newsletter FSF Europe, Mars 2013.

FSFE Newsletter - March 2013

== Brussels flooded with Free Software activists ==

>From February 1st to February 3rd thousands of people went to Brussels
to participate in FOSDEM -- the Free and Open Source Software
Developers' European Meeting. At FOSDEM you have the opportunity to meet
developers and contributors from nearly all major Free Software
projects. FSFE is always there to talk with people about ongoing
developments and the needs and contributions in the Free Software
community. So it is a good place to exchange information, talk with very
interesting people, plan future activities, and meet all the people you
would usually just have e-mail contact with.

As in previous years, FSFE was present with a booth, answering questions
about current political topics and activities, distributing information
material and – what every hacker needs – cool t-shirts. Fellow Mirko
Böhm has written a summary about FOSDEM[2], including tips on
communication for Free Software groups and projects, if we should
embrace app stores and how to share a trademark. Isabel Drost has
documented FOSDEM in 9 blog posts[3]: from her arrival with spider
robots[4], about Trademarks and Free Software[5], or the panel
discussion about GNU APL[6].

2. http://creative-destruction.me/2013/02/02/fosdem13-community-legal-
devrooms
3. http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/tag/fosdem
4. http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/460/fosdem-2013-01
5. http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/461/trademarks-and-oss
6. http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/463/afero-gpl-panel-
discussion-fosdem-04

We were also present with several talks: For example our Finnish team
coordinator Otto Kekäläinen[7]gave a talk about "Fixing public
procurement", our vice-president Henrik Sandklef gave a talk about
Searduino[8], and Erik Albers presented our Free Your Android
campaign[9]( recording available (webm)[10].

7. https://fosdem.org/2013/schedule/speaker/otto_kekalainen/
8. http://sandklef.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/searduino-fosdem-new-gui-
simulator-and-some-thoughts-on-java/
9. http://fsfe.org/campaigns/android/android.fr.html
10. http://video.fosdem.org/2013/lightningtalks/Phone_liberation_
parties.webm

As part of the FYA campaign, Several Fellows also participated in a
meeting at the European Parliament on Friday[11]. It was organised by
Alexander Alvaro, Vice-President of the European Parliament (EP),
together with the European Parliament Free Software User Group
(EPFSUG)[12]. He wanted his EP colleagues to learn how to regain control
of their data and how to install a free operating system and Free
Software on their Android devices.

11. http://epfsug.eu/content/free-your-android-fsfe
12. http://epfsug.eu/

Just three weeks later, we were shocked to hear that Mr Alvaro had a car
accident and is still in hospital with serious injuries. FSFE wishes him
a fast and full recovery.

== Why we love Free Software ==

A lot of people followed our call[13]to participate in the I love Free
Software activity. The result – which has been summarised in a
report[14]by FSFE's new interns Lucile Falgueyrac and Stepan Stehlicekwas a lot of e-mails, blog posts, pictures and a comic strip. E.g.,
Fellow Mirko Böhm explains why he loves Free Software:

13. http://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130212-01.fr.html
14. http://fsfe.org/news/2013/news-20130221-01.fr.html

The benefits of Free Software go beyond the individual contributors and
the communities they form. The four freedoms laid out as the foundations
of Free Software are a fanfare to the ability to exercise one’s free
will, to freely collaborate by helping your neighbors, to achieve
independence from directions other people have thought up for us. The
effects can be seen all around us – when teaching material for schools
is developed collaboratively and freely shared, when government data is
opened up to improve the transparency of the political process, when the
technical foundations of the internet and the operating systems running
modern technology become a common good, and in many other places. People
start to expect similar freedoms they learned to get used to in software
when engaging in society. And more participation is always better.

== Something completely different ==

- Our DFD team published a video tutorial[15], which explains how to
  watch Youtube videos using HTML5. Do not miss this month's "get-
  active" item below, which is also about Document Freedom Day.
- We have received a report about a successful case of Windows tax
  refund in Croatia[16]. One has to apply for the refund within 30 days
  of a purchase of an ASUS product and fill out a form in order to
  receive €42 refund for Microsoft Windows 8 OEM.
- LWN writes about trademarks and their limits[17], the idea behind
  trademarks, about how effective this protection is, and gives examples
  of bad behaviour; e.g., offering Free Software with unwanted toolbars
  and adware.
- In FSFE we receive a lot of license questions, but we have not yet
  evaluated how many we receive through country teams, our legal teams,
  or over the phone. Our sister organisation FSF reports[18]that they
  have responded to and resolved over 400 reports of suspected license
  violations and over 600 general licensing and compliance questions.
- Your editor has written an article for the German news site Heise
  titled"Politics and Free Software"[19]. The article covers his
  experience from the parliament working group on interoperability,
  standards, and Free Software.
- Guido Arnold has published the January update about Free Software in
  education[20], covering news from the community and the government as
  well as upcoming events.
- Mirko gave a talk at Embedded World 2013 about defensive
  publications[21].
- Besides many other positive news from Joinup about Free Software in
  the public administration: Member of the European Parliament Amelia
  Andersdotter wants public administrations to consider software
  freedom[22]as one of the reasons to select new ICT solutions, and the
  city of Bolzano has automated testing of e-government services on Free
  Software systems[23].
- Fellow Jelle Hermsen asked for blog aggregation for our Dutch Fellows,
  and now it is up and running[24].
- From the planet aggregation[25]:
  - Anna Morris, who created the DFD video mentioned above, wrote about
    Guake: a command-line tool for "dyslexics and beginners"[26].
  - You wonder why we published the DFD as ".webm"? Peter Bubestinger
    wrote a summary article[27]about different video formats from a Free
    Software perspective, explaining that digital video consists of video
    codec, audio codec, and container format. He explains the different
    codecs, and why some videos do not work out of the box on a Free
    Software Distribution.
  - Beside this, Peter also wrote about Tears of Steel, a movie made with
    Free Software[28].
  - From Steel to Stealth: What could the Americans and British do to put
    the stealth back into stealth bomber? Daniel Pocock explains why the
    US military might need the Free Software lumical[29].
  - Mark Lindhout described how to use RSYNC to delete remote
    folders[30]and after inspiration from the last Fellowship meeting in
    Berlin he also wrote about why and how to play high-fidelity white
    noise[31].
  - Interested in a distributed solution for one-time-password
    authentication on GNU/Linux operating systems? Daniel wrote about
    dynalogin[32]which is providing this.
  - Thomas Løcke describes how to use the Ada Web Server[33]and,
  - Henri Bergius is thinking about the flow-based programming user
    interface[34].

15. http://download.fsfe.org/campaigns/dfd/youtube-howto-english-
854x480.webm
16. https://wiki.fsfe.org/WindowsTaxRefund/Croatia
17. http://lwn.net/Articles/536126
18. http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/fsf-licensing-team-what-we-
did-in-2012-why-it-matters-for-2013
19. http://www.heise.de/open/artikel/Die-Woche-Politik-und-Freie-
Software-1794251.html
20. http://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/02/free-software-in-education-
news-january-2013-2/
21. http://creative-destruction.me/2013/02/26/defensive-publications-
at-embedded-world-2013/
22. http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/mep-authorities-should-include-
freedoms-when-deciding-software
23. http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/bolzano-automates-testing-e-
government-services-free-software-systems
24. http://planet.fsfe.org/nl/
25. http://planet.fsfe.org
26. http://blogs.fsfe.org/anna.morris/2013/02/18/guake-a-great-
command-line-tool-for-dyslexics-and-beginners-in-fedora-with-autostart/
27. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pb/?page_id=20
28. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pb/?p=41
29. http://danielpocock.com/us-military-may-need-lumicall
30. http://blogs.fsfe.org/marklindhout/2013/02/use-rsync-to-delete-
remote-folders/
31. http://blogs.fsfe.org/marklindhout/2013/02/need-to-play-high-
fidelity-white-noise-listen-to-devurandom-on-osx/
32. http://danielpocock.com/dynalogin-1.0.0-released
33. http://blogs.fsfe.org/thomaslocke/2013/02/10/using-the-ada-web-
server-aws-part-1
34. http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/inspiration-for-fbp-ui/

== Get active: Organise an event for Document Freedom Day 2013 ==

Help us to introduce more people to Open Standards – participate in
Document Freedom Day 2013[35]on March 27th! Local teams can now promote
their events[36]on DocumentFreedom.org, and have them marked on the
global campaign map[37].

35. http://documentfreedom.org
36. http://www.documentfreedom.org/registerevent.html
37. http://www.documentfreedom.org/events/events.html

In 2012 groups of volunteers ran 54 events in 23 different countries. If
you want to get some inspiration for your event, take a look at our
activity packages[38]or the DFD report from 2012[39]. Help us to make
this year's DFD the most successful yet!

38. http://www.documentfreedom.org/getinvolved.html
39. http://www.documentfreedom.org/news/2012/news-20120403-01.html

Thanks to all the Fellows and donors who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner- FSFE

 

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