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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - March 2012</h1>

<h2>Subway information screen: Good or bad?</h2>

<p>"7500 dead people in the last year, daily up to 100." That is what your
editor read on the subway news screen in Berlin. While discussing with <a
  href="http://documentfreedom.org/contact.en.html">DFD volunteer Julia
  Fuchs</a> what is wrong -- your editors reading skills, his basic
mathematical skills, or the news agency -- something else popped up: our <a
  href="/campaigns/android/android.html">FreeYourAndroid.org campaign</a>!
Unfortunately your editor was too slow to make a picture of that. But as the
German news agency DPA covered the <a
  href="/news/2012/news-20120228-01.html">official campaign start</a>, we had a
very good press coverage, so a lot of people read about how you can use Free
Software on mobile phones. The campaign manager Torsten Grote is currently
gathering all the press coverage, please send news and blog stories about
#FreeYourAndroid to <a
  href="mailto:press@fsfe.org">press@fsfe.org</a>.</p>

<h2>The Why in Free SoftWare!</h2>

<p>On February 14th many people in the Free Software community celebrated the
<a href="/campaigns/ilovefs/ilovefs.html">"I love Free Software day"</a>. You
can read the <a href="/news/2012/news-20120223-01.html">full report with nice
  pictures</a>. In case you sometimes feel frustrated or demotivated in future,
you can read <a href="/campaigns/ilovefs/2012/whylovefs.html"> why others love
  Free Software</a>. Here is one love declaration by Dr. Stefano Zacchiroli,
Debian Project Leader, Scientist and Free Software Developer:</p>

<blockquote><p>"I love Free Software because we depend more and more upon
  software, in every moment of our lives. It is software that handles our email
  and social network activities when we communicate; it is software that
  controls our ovens and fridges when to prepare our meals; it is software that
  drives cars and airplanes when we travel around the world; it is software
  that keeps many of us alive when we need hospital equipment or bio-medical
  devices like pacemakers. A world without Free Software means being held
  hostage by proprietary software authors that run our lives. I love Free
  Software because it can set us free."</p></blockquote>


<h2>More motivation: FOSDEM!</h2>

<p>If you still need more motivation for writing, documenting, or promoting Free
Software, you probably have not been at FOSDEM. This event is always a challenge
for FSFE's team but also one of the events which <a
  href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=263">increases our motivation</a>.
Long talks with other Free Software activists from all over the world,
answering questions about <a href="/work.html">our current work</a>
and <a href="/campaigns/campaigns.html">our campaigns</a>, making sure all
people who want <a href="/order/order.html">a FSFE T-shirt</a> get
one, coordinating work with <a
  href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/CategoryFellowshipGroup">Fellowship groups</a> all
over Europe, and having some time to socialise (=drinking Belgium beer). Beside
that in the Legal and Policy Issue DevRoom <a
  href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2012/02/fosdem-2012-panel-on-application-stores/">
  Hugo Roy participated in a panel discussion about application stores</a>, and
our sister organisation's Executive Director John Sullivan gave a talk entitled
"Is Copyleft Being Framed?", which is also discussed in the <a
  href="http://faif.us/cast/2012/feb/28/0x23/">current FaiF OggCast</a>.</p>


<h2>Comics and Free Software</h2>

<p>When you see computers attached to human brains, makerbots scanning your
body, creating perfectly fitting clothes for you (unless they are on drugs), 
you realise that Free Software will be even more important in future. At the
moment this stuff happens e.g. in <a
  href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmetropolitan">Transmetropolitan</a>,
one of your editor's favourite comics. Lots of comic-related things have happened during the last weeks:
Fellow Thomas Leske started translating the web
comic Mimi and Eunice into German, read e.g. <a
  href="http://mimiandeunice.com/2010/07/31/a-world-without-poop/">"A World
  Without Poop"</a> (<a
  href="http://mimiandeunice.minimalstaat.de/content/eine-welt-ohne-h%C3%A4ufchen">or
  the German version</a>) connected with the article <a
  href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/not-ipr.html">"Did You Say “Intellectual
  Property”? It's a Seductive Mirage" by Richard Stallman</a>; there was a good
<a href="http://my.pages.de/dsn-vn/">"Faceboogle Comic" on distributed
  systems</a>; our sister FSF is starting a <a
  href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/enter-the-restricted-boot-comic-contest-defend-user-freedom-on-tablets-and-smartphones">webcomic
  contest about Restricted Boot</a>; and at the time of writing this our
intern Erik ordered <a
  href="https://download.fsfe.org/advocacy/leaflets/fellowship-leaflet-nyr2.en.pdf">5000
  "Join the Fellowship" comic version leaflets</a>.</p>


<h2>Something completely different</h2>

<ul>

  <li>Last minute inclusion: Congratulations to <a
    href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/FellowshipElection_2012">Nikos Roussos</a> who
  is the winner of the Fellowship election 2012. The election results are
  available on <a
    href="http://www.cs.cornell.edu/w8/~andru/cgi-perl/civs/results.pl?id=E_491367a425d39945">the
    voting platform</a>, more information on this will 
  f<strong>e</strong>llow soon.</li>

  <li>"When elephants dance, the smaller wildlife gets crushed." Read our press
  release <a href="/news/2012/news-20120214.01.html">"Google/Motorola deals
    create balance of terror on software patents"</a> to find out why our
  president talks about animals.</li>

  <li>We asked you <a href="/news/2012/news-20120210-01.html">to join the
    ACTA protests</a>, like your editor several <a
    href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/fast_edi/?p=279">Fellows joined the
    protests</a>, and it was also a topic on <a
    href="https://planet.fsfe.org">FSFE's planet aggregation</a>, like Karsten's
  <a
    href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2012/03/01/acta-first-do-no-harm/">"ACTA,
    First, do no harm"</a> blog entry.</li>
  
  <li>Our Fellows continuously update the <a
    href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/WindowsTaxRefund">Windows Tax Refund wiki
    page</a>. Now it also covers the new <a
    href="http://www.techworld.com.au/article/414500/lenovo_ordered_pay_1920_making_french_laptop_buyer_pay_windows_too">decision
    by a French court</a>, according to which Lenovo has to pay €1920 for
  forcing French
  laptop buyer to pay for Windows operating system.</li>

  <li>As an organisation which <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">depends on
    donations</a> FSFE felt <a href="/news/2012/news-20120204-01.html">honored
    and happy to receive the Mozilla grant</a>.  Thanks a lot to Mozilla for
  this support.</li>
  
  <li>FSF announced they will work on <a
    href="https://www.fsf.org/news/announcing-js-labels">"JavaScript License
    Web Labels"</a>, so it will be easier for you in future to only allow Free
  Software JavaScript code running in your browser.</li>
  
  <li>A selection from the <a href="https://planet.fsfe.org">Fellowship
    planet aggregation</a>:

  <ul>

     <li>Can you imagine: being prevented from copy-pasting something from a
    webpage! <a
      href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2012/02/%E2%80%9Cunethical%E2%80%9D-html5-content-restriction-proposal-aka-drm/">
      Unethical HTML5 content-restriction proposal (aka DRM)</a>.</li>
   
    <li>Heiki is <a
      href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/repentinus/english/2012/02/13/call-for-fsfe-fellowship-quotes/">
      asking you to give him quotes</a> so our <a
      href="/contribute/web/web.html">web team</a> can use them to pimp our
    website.</li>
    
    <li>Find out what Mark Lindhout, the author of new <a
      href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/blog/2012/02/05/new-blog-theme-pome/">Fellowship
      blog theme pome,</a> suggests to do with politicians <a
      href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/marklindhout/2012/02/the-threat-of-digital-incompetence-%E2%80%94-censorship-codified-into-law/">who
      refuse to gain a basic understanding of the mechanisms they try to
      mandate</a>.</li>
    
    <li>Matija Šuklje wrote about <a
      href="http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/256">"We, the Web kids &amp;
      faith restored in our youth"</a>.</li>
      
    <li>And we have Hugo Roy's article <a
      href="http://blog.hugoroy.eu/2012/02/23/free-software-v-open-source-community/">"Free
      Software v. “Open Source” community?"</a>, which -- like all the other
    topics -- you can discuss on our <a href="/contact/community.html">public
      mailing lists</a>.</li>

  </ul>
  </li>

</ul>

<h2>Get Active: Be like the European Commission!</h2>

<p>While <a
  href="http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/public-sector/2012/01/microsoft-hustled-uk-retreat-o.html">Open
  Standards are threatened in the UK</a>, we are <a
  href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=309">working hard</a> to counter such
relapses. The latest success is that the European Commission confirmed to take
part in <a
  href="http://erikjosefsson.eu/sites/default/files/global_dfd_invite.html">the
  DFD event in Brussels</a>.</p>

<p>In this regard we ask you to be like the EC: join <a
  href="http://documentfreedom.org/2012/events/events.en.html">DFD 2012
  activities</a>. In the next days we will have the official call for
activities, but you can already <a
  href="http://documentfreedom.org/contact.en.html">write the campaign team an
  e-mail</a> to get your activity on the website. If you still need
inspirations for your own event take a look at <a
  href="http://documentfreedom.org/getinvolved.en.html">proposed
  activities</a>.</p>

<p>Thanks to all the <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">Fellows</a> and
<a href="donate/thankgnus.html">donors</a> who enable our work,<br/>
<a href="/about/people/kirschner">Matthias Kirschner </a> - <a href="/">FSFE</a></p>

<p>-- <br />
<a href="/index.html">Free Software Foundation Europe</a><br />
<a href="/news/news.rss">FSFE News</a><br />
<a href="/events/events.rss">Upcoming FSFE Events</a><br />
<a href="https://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml">Fellowship Blog Aggregation</a><br />
<a href="/contact/community.html">Free Software Discussions</a> </p>

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  <tag key="matthias-kirschner"/>
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