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<html newsdate="2012-03-04" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - March 2012</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - March 2012</h1>
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<h2>Subway information screen: Good or bad?</h2>
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<p>"7500 dead people in the last year, daily up to 100." That is what your
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editor read on the subway news screen in Berlin. While discussing with <a
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href="http://documentfreedom.org/contact.en.html">DFD volunteer Julia
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Fuchs</a> what is wrong -- your editors reading skills, his basic
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mathematical skills, or the news agency -- something else popped up: our <a
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href="/activities/android/android.html">FreeYourAndroid.org campaign</a>!
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Unfortunately your editor was too slow to make a picture of that. But as the
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German news agency DPA covered the <a
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href="/news/2012/news-20120228-01.html">official campaign start</a>, we had a
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very good press coverage, so a lot of people read about how you can use Free
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Software on mobile phones. The campaign manager Torsten Grote is currently
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gathering all the press coverage, please send news and blog stories about
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#FreeYourAndroid to <a
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href="mailto:press@fsfe.org">press@fsfe.org</a>.</p>
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<h2>The Why in Free SoftWare!</h2>
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<p>On February 14th many people in the Free Software community celebrated the
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<a href="/activities/ilovefs/">"I love Free Software day"</a>. You
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can read the <a href="/news/2012/news-20120223-01.html">full report with nice
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pictures</a>. In case you sometimes feel frustrated or demotivated in future,
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you can read <a href="/activities/ilovefs/index.html"> why others love
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Free Software</a>. Here is one love declaration by Dr. Stefano Zacchiroli,
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Debian Project Leader, Scientist and Free Software Developer:</p>
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<blockquote><p>"I love Free Software because we depend more and more upon
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software, in every moment of our lives. It is software that handles our email
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and social network activities when we communicate; it is software that
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controls our ovens and fridges when to prepare our meals; it is software that
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drives cars and airplanes when we travel around the world; it is software
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that keeps many of us alive when we need hospital equipment or bio-medical
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devices like pacemakers. A world without Free Software means being held
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hostage by proprietary software authors that run our lives. I love Free
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Software because it can set us free."</p></blockquote>
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<h2>More motivation: FOSDEM!</h2>
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<p>If you still need more motivation for writing, documenting, or promoting Free
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Software, you probably have not been at FOSDEM. This event is always a challenge
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for FSFE's team but also one of the events which <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=263">increases our motivation</a>.
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Long talks with other Free Software activists from all over the world,
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answering questions about <a href="/activities/activities.html">our current work</a>
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and <a href="/activities/activities.html">our campaigns</a>, making sure all
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people who want <a href="/order/order.html">a FSFE T-shirt</a> get
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one, coordinating work with <a
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href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/CategoryFellowshipGroup">Fellowship groups</a> all
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over Europe, and having some time to socialise (=drinking Belgium beer). Beside
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that in the Legal and Policy Issue DevRoom <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2012/02/fosdem-2012-panel-on-application-stores/">
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Hugo Roy participated in a panel discussion about application stores</a>, and
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our sister organisation's Executive Director John Sullivan gave a talk entitled
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"Is Copyleft Being Framed?", which is also discussed in the <a
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href="http://faif.us/cast/2012/feb/28/0x23/">current FaiF OggCast</a>.</p>
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<h2>Comics and Free Software</h2>
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<p>When you see computers attached to human brains, makerbots scanning your
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body, creating perfectly fitting clothes for you (unless they are on drugs),
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you realise that Free Software will be even more important in future. At the
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moment this stuff happens e.g. in <a
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href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmetropolitan">Transmetropolitan</a>,
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one of your editor's favourite comics. Lots of comic-related things have happened during the last weeks:
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Fellow Thomas Leske started translating the web
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comic Mimi and Eunice into German, read e.g. <a
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href="http://mimiandeunice.com/2010/07/31/a-world-without-poop/">"A World
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Without Poop"</a> (<a
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href="http://mimiandeunice.minimalstaat.de/content/eine-welt-ohne-h%C3%A4ufchen">or
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the German version</a>) connected with the article <a
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href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html">"Did You Say “Intellectual
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Property”? It's a Seductive Mirage" by Richard Stallman</a>; there was a good
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<a href="http://my.pages.de/dsn-vn/">"Faceboogle Comic" on distributed
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systems</a>; our sister FSF is starting a <a
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href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/enter-the-restricted-boot-comic-contest-defend-user-freedom-on-tablets-and-smartphones">webcomic
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contest about Restricted Boot</a>; and at the time of writing this our
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intern Erik ordered <a
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href="https://download.fsfe.org/advocacy/leaflets/fellowship-leaflet-nyr2.en.pdf">5000
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"Join the Fellowship" comic version leaflets</a>.</p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>Last minute inclusion: Congratulations to <a
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href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/FellowshipElection_2012">Nikos Roussos</a> who
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is the winner of the Fellowship election 2012. The election results are
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available on <a
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href="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/w8/~andru/cgi-perl/civs/results.pl?id=E_491367a425d39945">the
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voting platform</a>, more information on this will
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f<strong>e</strong>llow soon.</li>
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<li>"When elephants dance, the smaller wildlife gets crushed." Read our press
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release <a href="/news/2012/news-20120214-01.html">"Google/Motorola deals
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create balance of terror on software patents"</a> to find out why our
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president talks about animals.</li>
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<li>We asked you <a href="/news/2012/news-20120210-01.html">to join the
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ACTA protests</a>, like your editor several <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/fast_edi/?p=279">Fellows joined the
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protests</a>, and it was also a topic on <a
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href="https://planet.fsfe.org">FSFE's planet aggregation</a>, like Karsten's
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<a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2012/03/01/acta-first-do-no-harm/">"ACTA,
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First, do no harm"</a> blog entry.</li>
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<li>Our Fellows continuously update the <a
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href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/WindowsTaxRefund">Windows Tax Refund wiki
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page</a>. Now it also covers the new <a
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href="http://www.techworld.com.au/article/414500/lenovo_ordered_pay_1920_making_french_laptop_buyer_pay_windows_too">decision
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by a French court</a>, according to which Lenovo has to pay €1920 for
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forcing French
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laptop buyer to pay for Windows operating system.</li>
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<li>As an organisation which <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">depends on
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donations</a> FSFE felt <a href="/news/2012/news-20120204-01.html">honored
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and happy to receive the Mozilla grant</a>. Thanks a lot to Mozilla for
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this support.</li>
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<li>FSF announced they will work on <a
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href="https://www.fsf.org/news/announcing-js-labels">"JavaScript License
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Web Labels"</a>, so it will be easier for you in future to only allow Free
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Software JavaScript code running in your browser.</li>
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<li>A selection from the <a href="https://planet.fsfe.org">Fellowship
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planet aggregation</a>:
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<ul>
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<li>Can you imagine: being prevented from copy-pasting something from a
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webpage! <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2012/02/%E2%80%9Cunethical%E2%80%9D-html5-content-restriction-proposal-aka-drm/">
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Unethical HTML5 content-restriction proposal (aka DRM)</a>.</li>
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<li>Heiki is <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/repentinus/english/2012/02/13/call-for-fsfe-fellowship-quotes/">
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asking you to give him quotes</a> so our <a
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href="/contribute/web/web.html">web team</a> can use them to pimp our
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website.</li>
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<li>Find out what Mark Lindhout, the author of new <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/blog/2012/02/05/new-blog-theme-pome/">Fellowship
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blog theme pome,</a> suggests to do with politicians <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/marklindhout/2012/02/the-threat-of-digital-incompetence-%E2%80%94-censorship-codified-into-law/">who
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refuse to gain a basic understanding of the mechanisms they try to
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mandate</a>.</li>
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<li>Matija Šuklje wrote about <a
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href="http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/256">"We, the Web kids &
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faith restored in our youth"</a>.</li>
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<li>And we have Hugo Roy's article <a
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href="http://blog.hugoroy.eu/2012/02/23/free-software-v-open-source-community/">"Free
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Software v. “Open Source” community?"</a>, which -- like all the other
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topics -- you can discuss on our <a href="/contact/community.html">public
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mailing lists</a>.</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get Active: Be like the European Commission!</h2>
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<p>While <a
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href="http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/public-sector/2012/01/microsoft-hustled-uk-retreat-o.html">Open
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Standards are threatened in the UK</a>, we are <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=309">working hard</a> to counter such
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relapses. The latest success is that the European Commission confirmed to take
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part in <a
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href="http://erikjosefsson.eu/sites/default/files/global_dfd_invite.html">the
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DFD event in Brussels</a>.</p>
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<p>In this regard we ask you to be like the EC: join <a
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href="http://documentfreedom.org/2012/events/events.en.html">DFD 2012
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activities</a>. In the next days we will have the official call for
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activities, but you can already <a
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href="http://documentfreedom.org/contact.en.html">write the campaign team an
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e-mail</a> to get your activity on the website. If you still need
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inspirations for your own event take a look at <a
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href="http://documentfreedom.org/getinvolved.en.html">proposed
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activities</a>.</p>
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<p>Thanks to all the <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">Fellows</a> and
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<a href="donate/thankgnus.html">donors</a> who enable our work,<br/>
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<a href="/about/people/kirschner">Matthias Kirschner </a> - <a href="/">FSFE</a></p>
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<p>-- <br />
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<a href="/index.html">Free Software Foundation Europe</a><br />
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<a href="/news/news.rss">FSFE News</a><br />
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<a href="/events/events.rss">Upcoming FSFE Events</a><br />
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<a href="https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml">Fellowship Blog Aggregation</a><br />
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<a href="/contact/community.html">Free Software Discussions</a> </p>
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</body>
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<tags>
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<tag key="newsletter"/>
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</tags>
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</html>
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