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249 lines
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249 lines
12 KiB
HTML
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<html newsdate="2013-02-04" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - February 2013</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - February 2013</h1>
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<h2>Unitary fail for our society</h2>
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<p>We want software as a tool to help society. Software patents are a threat to
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this as they add legal and financial risks to software development and
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distribution by giving the patent holders legal power to completely prohibit
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software developers from using patented ideas.</p>
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<p>In <a href="/news/2012/news-20121211-01.html">December</a> the European
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Parliament has adopted a proposal to create a patent with unitary effect for
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Europe (henceforth the "unitary patent"). In adopting the proposal, Members of the
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European Parliament (MEPs) chose to disregard intense criticism of the proposal
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from all sides of the debate. Already before the vote <a
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href="http://ipkitten.blogspot.de/2012/12/unitary-patent-deja-vu-council-debate.html">patent
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lawyers</a>, <a
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href="http://www.ip.mpg.de/en/pub/publications/opinions/unitary_patent_package.cfm">legal
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experts</a>, <a
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href="http://www.april.org/en/against-software-patents-460-companies-demand-improvement-unitary-patent-europe">SMEs</a>
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and civil society groups such as <a
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href="http://www.unitary-patent.eu/">FFII</a> as well as FSFE all voiced
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their concerns to MEPs. With the adoption, the European Parliament has given up
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part of its power to shape Europe's innovation policy. That power will instead
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fall to the European Patent Office (EPO), which has a track record of awarding
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monopoly powers on the widest possible range of subject matter.</p>
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<p>According to the European Parliament's website, "the international agreement
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creating a unified patent court will enter into force on 1 January 2014 or
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after thirteen contracting states ratify it, provided that UK, France and
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Germany are among them. With your <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">ongoing
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help</a>, FSFE will continue to inform companies and politicians about the
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danger of software patents.</p>
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<h2>Italy does not want Free Software users as teachers</h2>
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<p>Pupils, as well as teachers, must have the possibility to
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use Free Software at school. Unfortunately, many of the IT questions on the
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questionnaire used to evaluate prospective teachers in Italy focus on a
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single proprietary operating system and software exclusively available on that system.
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The practice discriminates against Free Software users wishing to become teachers.
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Our Italian team <a
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href="/news/2012/news-20121217-01.html">filed a legal complaint</a> to
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the Italian Ministry of Education about that. In association with AsSoLi, Wikimedia
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Italia, the Free Software User Group Italia, the Associazione per
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l'Informazione Geografica Libera (GFoss.it), the Italian Linux Society,
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LibreItalia and 38 other groups we explain that the country's Ministry of
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Education is putting Free Software at an unfair disadvantage.</p>
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<p>In addition to the ongoing work in Italy, FSFE's education team did more in 2012 than ever
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before to promote the use of Free Software in schools and universities. Guido
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Arnold <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/01/edu-team-2012-summary/">summarised
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the team's work</a> and its plans for 2013.</p>
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<h2>Don't look back in anger!</h2>
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<p>At least there should be no reason for FSFE's work in 2012. Read <a
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href="/news/2012/report-2012.html">our annual report</a> to
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find out what we achieved, how we did it, and what lies ahead for 2013. We thank
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all of <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">our Fellows</a>, <a
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href="/donate/thankgnus.html">donors and sponsors</a> for making our work
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possible! If you like what you read please also <a
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href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">donate as a Fellow of FSFE</a>.</p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>Open Standards: The <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/eal/2013/01/23/new-dfd-posters-arrived">2013
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DFD posters arrived</a> and volunteers all over the world, including <a
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href="http://www.softmetz.de/2013/01/20/bericht-vom-ersten-muenchner-fsfe-fellowship-treffen/">our
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new Fellowship group in Munich</a>, are starting to prepare this year's
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edition of the event. <a
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href="http://documentfreedom.org/news/2012/news-20120403-01.html">In 2012
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we had 54 events</a> in 23 countries and in 19 world languages, all of them
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about Open Standards. One of the many topics will again be web video and
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audio. We would like to raise awareness for <a
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href="http://html5video.org/wiki/HTML5_Video_Player_Comparison">HTML5 video
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players</a> like <a href="http://lwn.net/Articles/527081/">Wikipedia's new
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one</a>. If you have experience with this, please <a
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href="http://documentfreedom.org/contact.html">get in contact with
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us</a>.</li>
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<li>Fellowship interview: One of the most active DFD volunteers, Anna Morris,
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<a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/anna.morris/2013/01/15/phone-coop-pdf-bug-fixed/">tells
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us why everyone should have a Free Software buddy</a> to keep them on the
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right path when problems are abundant, be proud of them when they have
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learned something new, and help them contribute to more and better to Free
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Software. We all have something to give!</li>
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<li>FSFE helping VLC to play Blu-ray. The Video Lan Client (VLC) is the
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world's most widely used Free Software player. For a long time its
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developers have wanted to enable playing Blu-ray discs. They have asked Hadopi,
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France's copyright authority, over one year ago for legal guidance on how to
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handle the <a href="http://drm.info">digital restrictions management
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(DRM)</a>, but the copyright authority is yet to come up with an answer.
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At an event organised by the French Ministry of Economy, Karsten Gerloff
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supported the VLC developers <a
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href="http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/fsfe-frances-reading-copyright-limiting-innovation">criticising
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France's strict interpretation of copyright</a> which badly hinders
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Free Software hackers.</li>
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<li>Public Administrations: Microsoft paid HP for a study about the City of
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Munich's use of Free Software. Their result is that the Free Software
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solutions cost millions of Euros more than Microsoft's solutions. <a
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href="http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/city-munich-refutes-rumours-spread-about-costs-using-open-source">Munich
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refutes the claims</a> of the unpublished study, and several others <a
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href="http://jan.wildeboer.net/2013/01/that-hpmicrosoft-study-on-the-linux-migration-in-munich-hm/">criticised
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the study</a>. On the other hand, there are good news: in the Swiss city
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Bern, the <a
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href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/majority-bern-council-tells-swiss-city-switch-open-source">majority
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in the city council wants to switch to Free Software</a>, and the <a
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href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/basque-government-unveils-open-source-repository-facilitate-reuse">Basque
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government has started a public Free Software repository</a> to facilitate
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reuse.</li>
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<li>"Free software advocates must return to their ultimate goal of freeing
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people, not software", writes Benjamin Mako Hill in his article <a
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href="http://mako.cc/writing/hill-freedom_for_users.html">"Freedom for
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Users, Not for Software"</a>. It was published in the book <a
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href="http://www.wealthofthecommons.org/">"Wealth of the Commons: A World
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Beyond Market and State"</a>. The <a
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href="http://www.boell.de/downloads/2012-04-buch-2012-04-buch-commons.pdf">German
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version of the book (PDF)</a> also includes an article about Free Software
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in the German Foreign Office.</li>
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<li>FSFE on air: In the last weeks Torsten Grote gave a radio interview about
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distributed systems, whereas Erik Albers and Matthias Kirschner talked about
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Ubuntu Phone. Together with other interviews, they are available on the <a
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href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/Audio">Fellowship wiki's audio page</a>.</li>
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<li>From the <a href="https://planet.fsfe.org">planet aggregation</a>: </li>
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<ul>
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<li>Women in the Free Software community: "Right now, we're unfortunately
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too far from that to just ignore the whole problem and wait for it to go
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away on its own." writes Tonnerre in his article <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/tonnerre/archives/88">Gender Liberalism: what
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got us here won't get us there</a>.</li>
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<li>Hugo started the "PatentBS series". Number one covers: <a
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href="http://blog.hugoroy.eu/2012/12/24/patentbs-series-1-abolishing-software-patents-would-harm-free-software/">"Abolishing
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software patents would harm Free Software"</a>.</li>
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<li>Fellowship representative Nikos Roussos reports from a <a
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href="http://roussos.cc/2012/12/10/firefoxosappdays-hold-your-breath/">small
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hackathon at Athens Hackerspace</a>. Around 40 developers showed up,
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learning about Mozilla's new effort to liberate the mobile ecosystem
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through Open Web Apps and Firefox OS.</li>
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<li>What should you keep in mind when writing an e-mail? Matija highlighted
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some articles about <a
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href="http://matija.suklje.name/general-e-mail-netiquette">e-mail
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netiquette</a>. For <a href="/about/jobs/internship.html">FSFE
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interns</a>, we also summarised this topic some time ago in a <a href="
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https://wiki.fsfe.org/Fellows/mk/EmailGuide">brief e-mail guide</a>.</li>
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<li>Paul Boddie looks into microcontrollers. He wrote <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=111">"Why the Raspberry Pi isn't
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the new BBC Micro (and perhaps shouldn't be, either)"</a>.</li>
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<li>Michael Kesper has to use Microsoft Windows at work. He published a
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blog post on why Windows 8 <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mkesper/?p=155">is a big step
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backwards in all categories</a>. </li>
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<li>How can you embed metadata for license and attribution requirements in
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digital works, making it easier to share them? Jonas Öberg is <a
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href="http://jonasoberg.net/post/40906740451/bachelor-master-thesis-opportunity">offering
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to supervise a paid bachelor or master thesis</a> on this subject.</li>
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<li>Hannes continues sharing his Android experiences with us. Read why
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using the <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/h2/2012/11/29/tracking-memory-usage/">
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Linux kernel can be a pain</a> when you come from the BSD-world and <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/h2/2012/12/27/missing-free-android-apps-ii-e-mail/">why
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he misses a proper e-mail client</a>.</li>
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<li>Michael Clemens <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/clemens/2013/01/29/adressenmeister/">published</a>
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his first software project from 1992 written in BASIC 2.0 on his good old
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C64.</li>
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</ul>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get active: You love Free Software? Show it!</h2>
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<p>As in the previous years, for February 14th we ask you to <a
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href="/activities/ilovefs/index.html">show your love</a> to people
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involved in Free Software, and who's work you admire.</p>
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<p>For example, prepare a "love letter" telling the developers of a certain
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program, why you love what they do, send us a <a
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href="/activities/ilovefs/index.html">quote and a picture</a>,
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use one of the <a href="/activities/ilovefs/index.html">banners or
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buttons</a> made by Markus Meier on your website, blog (like <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk">your editor did</a>), profile pages, and motivate
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others to participate in the <a
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href="/activities/ilovefs/index.html">"I love Free
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Software" day</a>. Thanks to Markus and Erik we also have ilovefs posters and
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flyers available. You can pick them up at <a href="/events/events.html">FSFE
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booths</a> or order <a href="/order/promoorder.html">FSFE promotion
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material</a> (soon updated with other new material).</p>
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<p>All the <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">Fellows
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among you</a> also have the e-mail forwarding login@ilovefs.org, in addition to
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their @fsfe.org one.</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="/index.html">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="/about/contact.html#community">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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