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312 lines
13 KiB
312 lines
13 KiB
Summary:
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Please highlight uniqueness and universal value of proposed documentary heritage.
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"UNESCO has always supported the extension and dissemination of human knowledge
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and recognizes that, in the domain of software, Free Software disseminates human
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knowledge in a way proprietary software cannot do. UNESCO recognizes also that
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the development of Free Software encourages solidarity, collaboration and
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voluntary community work amongst programmers and computer users." (Abdul Waheed
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Khan, UNESCO Communication and information department, [0])
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Free software is a matter of the users' freedom to run, copy, distribute, study,
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change and improve the software.
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More precisely, it refers to four kinds of freedom, for the users of the
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software:
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* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
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* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs
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(freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
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* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
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(freedom 2).
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* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the
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public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the
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source code is a precondition for this.
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"To serve humanity with software, software should be free, because software
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belong to human knowledge. Proprietary software do not belong to human
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knowledge." (R. Stallman, Free Software Foundation leader)
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Free software vehicles ethics: freedom, equality, fraternity, transparency.
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Freedom to copy, to study, to modify and to redistribute software or
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documentations. Equality, the same rights for every user, without any
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discrimination. Fraternity, because it deals with share and mutual assistance.
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Transparency, because it's deeply rooted in the Free Software development model.
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Free software has also social implications. It's about mutual help and knowledge
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sharing, and it gives tools available to everybody. Nobody tries to take your
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freedom away. Among its consequences, it allows developing countries to
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develop faster, and acts for defense of cultures and ease of access (eg
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multilingual support).
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Technically, Free software has proved itself: stability, performances, etc.
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Access to the source code and peer review is also essential for security and
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continuity. The better example is that Free Software makes Internet go round
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(web, mail, domain name, etc). With Free software, you benefit from work already
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done, not reinventing or reselling the wheel everytime.
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Moreover, free software gives independence, from governments, from companies,
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from political groups, etc. And better, an economical independence: it isn't
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plagued by compulsory profit.
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In fact, Free software is already patrimony of mankind, in the common sense. It's
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got numerous supports from governments, associations, companies, more and more
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users, and from the UNESCO (eg Free software portal [1]). We hope UNESCO'll
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register it in the Memory of the World program.
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[0] https://fsfe.org/activities/mankind/lsm2002/UnescoAnswer.pdf
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[1] http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_freesoft
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1. Identity and Location
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1.1 Name of documentary heritage
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Free software
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1.2 Country
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Worldwide
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1.3 State, province or region
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N/A
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1.4 Address
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N/A
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1.5 Name of organisation or institution (if appropriate)
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N/A
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2. Legal Information
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2.1 Owner (name and contact details)
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Copyright owned by software author(s), but the four freedoms are given to
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everybody, without any discrimination.
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2.2 Custodian (name and contact details)
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Software author(s).
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Foundations like Free Software Foundations [2], or project-related foundations
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like Apache Software Foundation [3], GNOME Foundation [4] or KDE League [5].
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[2] FSF http://www.fsf.org
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FSF Europe https://fsfe.org
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FSF India http://gnu.org.in/
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FSF China http://www.rons.net.cn/english/Links/fsf-china/
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[3] http://www.apache.org/
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[4] http://foundation.gnome.org/
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[5] http://www.kdeleague.org/
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2.3 Legal status (if different from 2.1)
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(a) category of ownership
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Cf 2.1
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(b) details of legal and administrative provisions for the preservation of the
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documentary heritage
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Some free licenses have been developed to protect free software, like the GNU
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General Public License [6], the GNU Lesser General Public License [7], the BSD
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license [8], etc.
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Some foundations like Free Software Foundations [2], or project-related
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foundations like Apache Software Foundation [3], GNOME Foundation [4] or KDE
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League [5] protect free software.
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Many users group and associations act locally to support free software.
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All of them communicate and fight against threats like software patents,
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dangerous laws or law propositions (DMCA, EUCD, CBDTPA, etc) and digital rights
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management [9].
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[6] http://www.fsf.org/licenses/gpl.html
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[7] http://www.fsf.org/licenses/lgpl.html
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[8] http://www.xfree86.org/3.3.6/COPYRIGHT2.html#5
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[9] https://fsfe.org/activities/mankind/links.en.html
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(c) accessibility
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Everybody can copy, modify and redistribute Free Software, so they are available
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by many media (Internet, CD-ROM, etc).
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(d) copyright status
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Copyright owned by software author(s) (people, foundations, firms, associations, etc)
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2.4 Responsible administration
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(a) details should be given of the mechanism or organisation already
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established, or to be established, to ensure the proper management of the
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documentary heritage
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Due to the nature of the free software, there is no central organisation
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responsible for, just software authors taking care of their software, and
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foundations, associations and organisations to federate the free software
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community.
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3. Identification
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3.1 Description and inventory
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Free software is a software giving four kinds of freedom to its users:
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* The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
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* The freedom to study how the program works, and adapt it to your needs
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(freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
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* The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor
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(freedom 2).
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* The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the
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public, so that the whole community benefits. (freedom 3). Access to the
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source code is a precondition for this.
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The inventory is huge and difficult, since there are tens of thousands of free
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software projects. Below are the most important lists of free software.
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[10] http://www.gnu.org/directory/
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[11] http://savannah.gnu.org
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[12] http://www.tuxfamily.org/
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[13] http://www.freshmeat.net/ (not all projects are free software)
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[14] http://www.sourceforge.net/ (not all projects are free software)
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[15] http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_freesoft/
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3.2 Bibliographic/Registration details
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The FSF websites [2] are probably the best place to learn more about free
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software, software licenses, free software community, history or philosophy.
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3.3 Visual documentation, if appropriate (for example, photographs or a video of
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the documentary heritage)
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N/A
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3.4 History
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The UNESCO Free software portal has a short page [16] about free software
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history. The creation of the FSF and of the GNU project have played a great
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role in the free software revolution. Details can be found on the FSF pages [2]
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and on the GNU project page [17].
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[16] http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_freesoft/open_history.shtml
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[17] http://www.gnu.org
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3.5 Bibliography: Please indicate up to three published sources describing the
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proposed documentary heritage
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About free software definition, philosophy and catalog,
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http://www.fsf.org
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Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman
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Author: Richard M. Stallman
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Introduction: Lawrence Lessig
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Editor: Joshua Gay
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ISBN 1-882114-98-1
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Publication Date: October 2002
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Many scientific papers on MIT Free/Open source research community
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http://opensource.mit.edu
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3.6 Names, qualifications and contact details of up to three independent people
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or organisations with expert knowledge about the values and provenance of the
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documentary heritage
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- Philippe Aigrain, Head of Sector "Software Technologies" European Commission
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Philippe.Aigrain@cec.eu.int
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- Juan Carlos Gentile from Uruguay, www.hipatia.info admin
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jucar@hipatia.info
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- Free Software Foundation http://www.fsf.org
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Free Software Foundation Voice: +1-617-542-5942
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59 Temple Place - Suite 330 Fax: +1-617-542-2652
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Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA E-Mail: gnu@gnu.org
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4. Assessment against the Selection Criteria
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4.1 Assessment of the documentary heritage against each criterion described in
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Annex 2.
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Criterion 1-Influence:
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About 60% of the webservers using Apache [18], most famous software for mail
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servers (Sendmail, Postfix, etc) and domain-name servers (Bind), not a week
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without an announcement by some government about a move to free software.
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GNU/Linux system became really famous, enough to be used, developed and
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supported by big companies like IBM or HP, governments like China or non
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governmental organisation like UNESCO.
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[18] http://www.netcraft.com/survey/
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Criterion 2-Time:
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Twenty years ago, free software was unknown and a new philosophy.
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Announce of the GNU project September 27, 1983
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http://www.fsf.org/gnu/initial-announcement.html
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FSF creation, 1984
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http://www.fsf.org
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First version of Linux kernel (0.0.1) august 1, 1991
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http://www.kernel.org/
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Overview of the GNU project
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http://www.fsf.org/gnu/gnu-history.html
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Free software history on the UNESCO portal
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http://www.unesco.org/webworld/portal_freesoft/open_history.shtml
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Criterion 3-Place:
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Worldwide, sign of universality.
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Criterion 4-People:
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Hundred thousands of people have been and are developing free software, on each
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continent, working during free time or work time.
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Criterion 5-Subject/Theme:
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At the same time, a philosophy in the software domain, a software development
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method and software available for everybody without discrimination.
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Criterion 6-Form and Style:
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N/A
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Criterion 7-Social Value:
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Free software has also social implications. It's about mutual help and knowledge
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sharing, and it gives tools available to everybody. Nobody tries to take your
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freedom away. Among its consequences, it allows developing countries to
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develop faster, and acts for defense of cultures and ease of access (eg
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multilingual support).
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Secondary Criterion 1-Integrity:
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Free software is threatened by excessive appropriation of the public domain
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of ideas, by technology excessively restricting access to information, by
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hostile acts from holders of dominant positions in some industries, and by
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legislation that has been designed without taking into account the value and
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power of free cooperation. For instance, such threats include patentability
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of software ideas, copyright protection legislation such as the DMCA or the
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EUCD, technology deployments such as Digital Rights Management systems and
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associated technology (TCPA) or legislation (CBDTPA).
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Secondary Criterion 2-Rarity:
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N/A
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4.2 Contextual assessment including an assessment of the importance of a series
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of documents, the importance of a series of documents in a particular setting,
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and the assessment against other documentary heritage.
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"UNESCO has always supported the extension and dissemination of human knowledge
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and recognizes that, in the domain of software, Free Software disseminates human
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knowledge in a way proprietary software cannot do. UNESCO recognizes also that
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the development of Free Software encourages solidarity, collaboration and
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voluntary community work amongst programmers and computer users." (Abdul Waheed
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Khan, UNESCO Communication and information department)
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4.3 an evaluation of the authenticity
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N/A
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4.4 an assessment of rarity (if appropriate)
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N/A
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5. Management plan - see below Annex 1.
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The UNESCO free software portal or the FSF free software directory for example
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are already maintaining catalogs of free software (just name lists, not full
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software source mirroring).
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On the legal aspects, free software organisations protects free software and
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enforces free software licenses.
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6. Consultation
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6.1 Details of consultation about the nomination with the
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(a) Owner
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See (b).
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(b) Custodian
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FSF Europe and other Free Software associations set up a working group to
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discuss with the UNESCO about Free Software and its protection and recognition
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(https://fsfe.org/activities/mankind/).
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(c) relevant Regional or National Memory of the World Committee (if appropriate)
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Contact by email and phone with A. Abid
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7. Nominator
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7.1 Name
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Free Software Foundation Europe
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7.2 Relationship to documentary heritage
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The FSF Europe actively supports development of Free Software and provides a
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competence center for politicians, lawyers and journalists in order to secure
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the legal, political and social future of Free Software.
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7.3 Contact person (if appropriate)
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Benoît Sibaud
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7.4 Contact details
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Email: bsibaud@april.org
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Mail: Benoît Sibaud
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20 rue Jean-Baptiste Potin
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F-92130 Issy les Moulineaux
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France
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