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204 lines
9.5 KiB
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<html newsdate="2012-04-04" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - April 2012</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - April 2012</h1>
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<!-- WHY HOW WHAT -->
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<h2>Let us end all Free Software "projects" quickly!</h2>
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<p>A "project" is always temporary, in the narrow sense of the
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term. Some Free Software people use "project" to refer to long lasting
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initiatives instead. Your editor also did this, until Bernhard Reiter
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convinced him to use different terms for people, the result they create, and
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temporary concerted actions. After several people in FSFE encouraged Bernhard
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to write down his thoughts, he now published <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/bernhard/2012/03/lets-end-all-free-software-projects-quickly/">an
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article arguing</a>: By adopting the more widespread use of the term project,
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Free Software initiatives will be more successful. "Free Software is here to
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stay, prepare your mind for this situation.", writes Bernhard.</p>
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<h2>Corporate perk or monopolist bribery?</h2>
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<p>Staff in the European Parliament are facing a challenge to their ethics.
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A company is offering all of them a gift which could compromise their
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independence. The company in question is Microsoft, and the gift is a bunch of
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proprietary programs. Through the Parliament's administration, Microsoft is
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offering staff (though probably not MEPs) gratis licenses to Microsoft
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Office, Project, and Visio. This happens under the so-called "Home Use
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Program".</p>
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<p>The staff is working on regulations that also effect Microsoft, who is now
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making a gift to them. Staff is usually the one who does all the legwork. They are the
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one who control access to our MEPs. FSFE asks the MEPs to tell their staff, and
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the staff in their groups, not to accept Microsoft's gift. On the contrary,
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they should push the administration into making Free Software tools available
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that staffers can use to do their work, and urge the Parliament itself to
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migrate to Free Software. Karsten Gerloff <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2012/03/23/corporate-perk-or-monopolist-bribery/">wrote
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about this in his blog</a> and will closeley monitor how the MEPs and
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their staff in the European Parliament will react. We will keep you posted.</p>
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<h2>Help for FSFE from Greece</h2>
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<p>The election period for this year's Fellowship GA seat has ended on February
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29th. To summarise the <a href="/news/2012/news-20120303-01.html">detailed
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election results</a>: Our new Fellowship representative is Nikos Roussos from
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Greece. He will meet with <a href="/about/team.html">other members of FSFE's
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general assembly</a> in Lisboa at the end of April, to work on strategic
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questions for the coming years. Thanks to Albert Dengg and Gert Seidl who also
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stood for the Fellowship GA seat, and who want to continue their great work for
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FSFE in their area.</p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>Digital Restriction Management: In his article <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=325">"Like candy from a baby: PS
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Vita takes freedom from new generation"</a>, Sam takes the Sony PS Vita, as
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an example how owners of devices are restricted in what they can do with
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their computers.</li>
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<li>Guido Günther joined the Debian Project while completing his degree in
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physics at the University of Konstanz. He helped with development of Debian
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for new processor architectures, and co-initiated Debian’s Groupware
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Meetings. He also enjoys contributing to the GNOME project, and advanced Free
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Software virtualisation technologies. <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=547">Read more in the
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last Fellowship interview</a>.</li>
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<li><a href="/activities/elections/askyourcandidates/askyourcandidates.html">Ask Your
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Candidates:</a> in Germany, we asked the <a
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href="/activities/elections/askyourcandidates/example-questions.html">usual set of
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questions</a> and <a href="/news/2012/news-20120322-01.html">published the
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analysis</a>. Compared with the positive replies in the <a
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href="/news/2012/news-20120322-01.html">Berlin election</a>, the Saarland
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election was a disappointment. Our press release also <a
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href="http://netzpolitik.org/2012/saarlandische-piraten-abhangigkeit-und-restriktive-lizenzen-sind-gutes-recht">resulted
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in discussions</a> if it is "the good right" of companies to restrict the
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users.</li>
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<li>Fellow Anna Morris was interviewed by the BBC <a
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href="https://download.fsfe.org/audio/20120320-bbc5-interview-anna-morris.ogg">(Audio,
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starting at 17:13)</a> about a conference that she is organising in London
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for women in Free Software. In just a few minutes she discusses what Free
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Software is, what it is like being a woman in the Free Software movement, and
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how she first got involved.</li>
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<li>FSFE's volunteers and staff have been quite busy with <a
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href="http://documentfreedom.org">Document Freedom Day</a> in the last
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weeks. We will send out <a
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href="/news/2012/news-20120321-01.html">the handcuffs</a> and write a report what
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happend all over the world. In the preperation we have <a
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href="/freesoftware/standards/minimalisticstandards.html">published an article by FSFE
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co-founder Bernhard Reiter</a>. He discusses what makes a good data format,
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and argues that Open Standards are good, but that we need to push further
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still. His central question to data formats is "Can we make it simpler?" The
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article is in German, and we are looking for <a
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href="/contribute/translators/translators.html">translations</a>.</li>
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<li>FSF <a
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href="https://www.fsf.org/news/2011-free-software-awards-announced">
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announced the Free Software Awards</a>. Big thanks from FSFE to Free
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Software hacker Yukihiro Matsumoto and <a href="http://health.gnu.org/">GNU
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Health</a>.</li>
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<li><a
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href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/all-icelands-public-administrations-moving-towards-open-source">Iceland
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launched a project</a> to encourage migration of the public administration
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to Free Software. Your editor is already looking forward to a report about
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this at <a href="http://fscons.org">FSCONS</a> in Gothenburg.</li>
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<li>A selection from the <a href="https://planet.fsfe.org">Fellowship planet
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aggregation</a>:
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<ul>
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<li>Free Software, nothing for marketing? And which is the most powerful
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brand in Free Software? Timo Jyrinki writes about <a
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href="http://losca.blogspot.de/2012/03/on-brands-marketing-and-technical.html">
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brands, marketing and technical details</a>.</li>
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<li>Hugo Roy is <a
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href="http://blog.hugoroy.eu/2012/03/28/cyberlawconf-avec-lawrence-lessig/">organising
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an event at Sciences Po on 6th April</a> (in French). Beside others
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Lawrence Lessig, author of "Code and other laws of Cyberspace" will talk
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about "The Character of Cyberlaw Battles".</li>
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<li>Birgit Hüsken explains <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/birgit.huesken/?p=122">how to knit the
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Fellowship plussy</a>.</li>
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<li>Fellow Number 1, Mario Fux, <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mario/?p=179">wants to set up a local
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association</a> in Randa, Switzerland to keep the local Free Software
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activities running.</li>
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<li>And Mirko Böhm writes about about <a
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href="http://www.agile-workers.com/web/2012/03/managing-trust-in-mixed-commercial-and-volunteer-open-source-communities/">managing
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trust in mixed commercial and volunteer Free Software communities</a>.
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</li>
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</ul>
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</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get Active: Leaflets to free others mobile!</h2>
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<p>Our <a href="/activities/android/android.html">Free Your Android</a>
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campaign, got a lot of attention. Beside preparing his exams, Torsten Grote
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gave interviews for the German newspaper <a
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href="https://www.taz.de/Kampagne-fuer-offene-Mobilsysteme/!90036/">"Die
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Tageszeitung"</a>, <a
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href="http://on3.de/element/13543/freie-software-fuer-android-handys-weg-mit-den-fesseln#/element/13543/freie-software-fuer-android-handys-weg-mit-den-fesseln">radio
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interviews</a>, and held a first installation party for <a
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href="http://foebud.de">FoeBud e.V.</a>. Also at <a
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href="http://blog.romal.de/2012/03/fsfe-cebit-stand-uberlebt.html">our booth
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at Cebit</a>, <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/birgit.huesken/?p=105">Chemnitzer Linux-Tage</a>,
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as well as <a
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href="http://blog.schiessle.org/2012/03/26/ruckblick-auf-den-augsburger-linux-infotag-2012/">Augsburger
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Linuxinfotage</a> a lot of people showed interest in this campaign. We would
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like to get more people involved in this campaign. We ask you to promote the
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campaign with leaflets and posters in your local Free Software user group, your
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hackerspace, company, university, school, or your favourite bar. Please write
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an e-mail with a postal address to <a
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href="mailto:contact@fsfe.org">contact@fsfe.org</a>, and we
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send you some leaflets and posters to promote it.</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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