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<html newsdate="2009-10-12" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - September 2009</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - September 2009</h1>
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<p>The Software Freedom Day is one of the main events in the Free Software
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community in September, and it is an event we never miss: this year FSFE
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celebrated in Leipzig, Vienna and Hamburg with the help of our Fellows.
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Thanks to them, the campaign "Ask your candidate about Free Software!" for
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the German elections became a great success.</p>
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<p>FSFE's president commented on the possible settlement in the Microsoft
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"browser case"; we started using Identi.ca as a micro-blogging platform
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and we also took on board two new interns. Read on to get to know them!</p>
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<p align="right"><a href="mailto:poderi@fsfe.org">Giacomo Poderi</a></p>
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<h3>Table of Contents</h3>
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<ol>
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<li><a href="#1" name="TOC1">FSFE to EC: Don't waste an opportunity with a hasty deal </a></li>
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<li><a href="#2" name="TOC2">The Fellowship interviews: Andreas Tolf Tolfsen</a></li>
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<li><a href="#3" name="TOC3">The Second Fellowship Jabber meeting, 22 September</a></li>
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<li><a href="#4" name="TOC4">Celebrating the Software Freedom Day, 19 September</a></li>
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<li><a href="#5" name="TOC5">FSFE uses Free Software micro-blogging on Identi.ca</a></li>
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<li><a href="#6" name="TOC6">Welcome to Hugo Roy and Lena Simon: new Berlin interns</a></li>
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<strong>In the spotlight</strong>
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<li><a href="#7" name="TOC7">Free Software hits German election campaigns</a></li>
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<strong>It happened in the past</strong>
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<li><a href="#8" name="TOC8">European Union versus Microsoft: A victory for Free Software</a></li>
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<strong>Upcoming events</strong>
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<li><a href="#9" name="TOC9">Commercial packages: a new way to support FSFE</a></li>
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</ol>
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<p></p>
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<h3><a name="1"/>FSFE to EC: Don't waste an opportunity with a hasty deal</h3>
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<p>Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's president, commented on recent news that European
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Commissioner for Antitrust Neelie Kroes, is working to close all the major
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cases on her desk before the end of her mandate in November. Two of these
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cases concern Microsoft's anti-competitive behaviour in the browser
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market, and the company's practice of preventing others from
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interoperating with many of its desktop applications. Karsten's article
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highlights why Microsoft's offer for a settlement is too weak, lists what
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Free Software needs from any settlement, and asks Commissioner Kroes not
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to waste the opportunity to establish real competition in the European IT
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market with a hasty deal.</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/?p=263">https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/?p=263</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h3><a name="2"/>The Fellowship interviews: Andreas Tolf Tolfsen</h3>
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<p>Andreas Tolf Tolfsen is the Fellow interviewed by Stian Rødven Eide this
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September. Andreas is a web technologist, developer and aspiring
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musicologist. He works at Opera Software, and regularly fights for
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digital freedoms. In the interview, Andreas tells us a lot about HTML5,
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Electronic Frontier Norway and music.</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/andreas-tolf-tolfsen/">https://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/andreas-tolf-tolfsen/</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h3><a name="3"/>The Second Fellowship Jabber meeting, 22 September</h3>
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<p>On the 22 September, from 19:00 until 20:30 we held a new jabber meeting,
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to repeat the positive experience of the one organised during the
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Fellowship election. Many Fellows showed up in our virtual room:
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conference.jabber.fsfe.org, and asked questions to Matthias Kirschner,
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Fellowship coordinator, and Torsten Grote, Fellowship representative at
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the GA. The main topics of the meeting were the role of the FSFE's GA
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and the procedure to take part in it. Free Software in Education was
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also discussed as an interesting topic for the next Fellowship Jabber
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meeting. More information about the next meeting will be published soon!</p>
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<h3><a name="4"/>Celebrating the Software Freedom Day, 19 September</h3>
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<p>For five years, the Software Freedom Day (SFD) has been the perfect
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chance for 'hacktivists' to gather together in different place around
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the world to celebrate Free Software and its principles. More than 500
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teams worldwide registered for the event and celebrated on Saturday 19
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September SFD 2009. FSFE's local Fellowship groups participated in the
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events in Vienna and Leipzig, and we manned a booth at the SFD in
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Hamburg.</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=354">https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=354</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gollo/2009/09/23/software-freedom-party-in-vienna/">https://blogs.fsfe.org/gollo/2009/09/23/software-freedom-party-in-vienna/</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://softwarefreedomday.org/">http://softwarefreedomday.org/</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h3><a name="5"/>FSFE uses Free Software micro-blogging on Identi.ca</h3>
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<p>Many key people in our organisation have started using the Free Software
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micro-blogging service Identi.ca to share status updates and interesting
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links. On Identi.ca it exists now a group "fsfe" which it is possible to
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subscribe to if you would like to stay informed on our activities.
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We also started adopting some common tags such as #fellowship,
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#pdfreaders and #dfd which we encourage you to use. Matthias Kirschner,
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Fellowship coordinator, published a post on his blog discussing
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our use of Identi.ca</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=327">https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=327</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://identi.ca/group/fsfe">http://identi.ca/group/fsfe</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h3><a name="6"/>Welcome to Hugo Roy and Lena Simon: new Berlin interns</h3>
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<p>Starting from the 1 September, FSFE took on board two new, young and
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motivated interns: Hugo Roy and Lena Simon. Hugo is from France and will
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work with us until May 2010, focusing on policy and legal aspects. Lena
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is from Germany, and will stay with us for one month to help in the
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setting of the new Berlin office. She also provided valuable help during
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the campain "Ask your candidate about Free Software!". We are happy to
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have them with us and we are sure they will add value to our work.
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Welcome Hugo and Lena!</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/">https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/lsimon/">https://blogs.fsfe.org/lsimon/</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h2>In the spotlight</h2>
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<h3><a name="7"/>Free Software hits German election campaigns</h3>
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<p>Ahead of the German elections 2009, FSFE's German chapter with the help
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of many Fellows and volunteers brought the issue of Free Software in the
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political debate. The campaign "Ask your candidate about Free Software!"
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questioned politicians of different parties about their visions on Free
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Software principles, Open Standards and their diffusion. Matthias
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Kirschner said: "We want politicians to get in contact with these
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topics, and to motivate people from the Free Software community to start
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a dialogue with their politicians."</p>
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<p>During the political campaign, the questions prepared by the Fellows and
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other volunteers were forwarded to representatives of various political
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parties. We collected their answers in the Fellowship wiki, ordered and
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summarised them. With the help and coordination of Matthias and Lena the
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project collected 26 answers (to 35 forwarded questions), and a lot of
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media coverage during and after the German elections. FSFE's associate
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organisation ANSOL ran a similar campaign in Portugal, where national
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elections took place at the same time. We exchanged links and looked to
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each other for inspiration.</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="/activities/elections/askyourcandidates/200909-germany-bundestagswahl.html">https://fsfe.org/activities/elections/askyourcandidates/200909-germany-bundestagswahl.html</a></li>
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</ul>
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<p>Relevant links:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="/news/2009/news-20090921-01.html">https://fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20090921-01.html</a></li>
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<li><a href="/news/2009/news-20090908-01.html">https://fsfe.org/news/2009/news-20090908-01.html</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/Bundestagswahl2009">https://wiki.fsfe.org/Bundestagswahl2009</a></li>
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<li><a href="http://ansol.org/politica/legislativas2009">http://ansol.org/politica/legislativas2009</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h2>It happened in the past</h2>
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<h3><a name="8"/>European Union versus Microsoft: A victory for Free Software</h3>
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<p>In September 2007, the European Union versus Microsoft antitrust case
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was finally closed. The European Court of First Instance found Microsoft
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guilty of deliberate obstruction of interoperability and upheld the
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obligation for Microsoft to share its protocol information. This
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information has now been published and is being used by the developers
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of Samba and many other projects. FSFE and the Samba team participated in
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the case as an interested third party. Our work was crucial in bringing
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about such a decisive victory. Today, the judgement in the case serves
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as a landmark for the fight against monopolies in the software market.</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q4/000187.html">Press Release</a></li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Upcoming events</h2>
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<h3><a name="9"/>Commercial packages: a new way to support FSFE</h3>
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<p>In order to make it easier for companies who care about Free
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Software to support our work, we have assembled a set of
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commercial packages offerings services related to Free Software.
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They include services such as a Free Software Hotline,
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personalized workshops, bi-monthly update calls, annual
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networking dinners and more. More detailed information about
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these packages will be published soon on our website. Keep an eye on:</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="/news/">https://fsfe.org/news/</a></li>
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</ul>
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<p></p>
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<p>You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on</p>
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<a href="/news/newsletter.html">https://fsfe.org/news/newsletter.html</a>
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<p>You can join the Fellowship and find how to support us on</p>
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<a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">https://my.fsfe.org/donate</a>
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<a href="/contribute/contribute.html">https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.html</a>
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<p>You can order our merchandise at</p>
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<a href="/order/order.html">https://fsfe.org/order/order.html</a>
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</body>
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</html>
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