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<html newsdate="2013-03-04" type="newsletter"> |
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<version>1</version> |
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<head> |
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - March 2013</title> |
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</head> |
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<body> |
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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - March 2013</h1> |
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<h2>Brussels flooded with Free Software activists</h2> |
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<p>From February 1st to February 3rd thousands of people went to Brussels to |
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participate in FOSDEM -- the Free and Open Source Software Developers' European |
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Meeting. At FOSDEM you have the opportunity to meet developers and |
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contributors from nearly all major Free Software projects. FSFE is always there |
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to talk with people about ongoing developments and the needs and contributions |
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in the Free Software community. So it is a good place to exchange information, |
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talk with very interesting people, plan future activities, and meet all the |
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people you would usually just have e-mail contact with.</p> |
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<p>As in previous years, FSFE was present with a booth, answering questions |
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about current political topics and activities, distributing information material and – what every hacker needs – cool t-shirts. Fellow <a |
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href="http://creative-destruction.me/2013/02/02/fosdem13-community-legal-devrooms">Mirko |
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Böhm has written a summary about FOSDEM</a>, including tips on communication |
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for Free Software groups and projects, if we should embrace app stores and how |
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to share a trademark. Isabel Drost has <a href="http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/tag/fosdem">documented FOSDEM in 9 blog posts</a>: from |
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<a href="http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/460/fosdem-2013-01">her |
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arrival with spider robots</a>, about <a |
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href="http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/461/trademarks-and-oss">Trademarks |
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and Free Software</a>, or <a |
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href="http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/463/afero-gpl-panel-discussion-fosdem-04">the |
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panel discussion about GNU APL</a>.</p> |
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<p>We were also present with several talks: For example our Finnish team |
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coordinator <a |
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href="https://fosdem.org/2013/schedule/speaker/otto_kekalainen/">Otto |
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Kekäläinen</a> gave a talk about "Fixing public procurement", our |
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vice-president Henrik Sandklef gave a <a |
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href="http://sandklef.wordpress.com/2013/01/12/searduino-fosdem-new-gui-simulator-and-some-thoughts-on-java/">talk |
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about Searduino</a>, and Erik Albers presented our <a |
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href="/activities/android/android.html">Free Your Android campaign</a> (<a |
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href="http://video.fosdem.org/2013/lightningtalks/Phone_liberation_parties.webm">recording |
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available (webm)</a>.</p> |
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<p>As part of the FYA campaign, Several Fellows also participated in a <a |
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href="http://epfsug.eu/content/free-your-android-fsfe">meeting at the |
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European Parliament on Friday</a>. It was organised by Alexander Alvaro, |
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Vice-President of the European Parliament (EP), together with the <a |
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href="http://epfsug.eu/">European Parliament Free Software User Group |
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(EPFSUG)</a>. He wanted his EP colleagues to learn how to regain control of |
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their data and how to install a free operating system and Free Software on |
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their Android devices.</p> |
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<p>Just three weeks later, we were shocked to hear that Mr Alvaro had a car |
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accident and is still in hospital with serious injuries. FSFE wishes him a fast |
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and full recovery.</p> |
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<h2>Why we love Free Software</h2> |
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<p><a href="/news/2013/news-20130212-01.html">A lot of people followed our |
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call</a> to participate in the I love Free Software activity. The result – |
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which has been <a href="/news/2013/news-20130221-01.html">summarised in a |
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report</a> by FSFE's new interns Lucile Falgueyrac and Stepan Stehlicek – was |
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a lot of e-mails, blog posts, pictures and a comic strip. E.g., Fellow Mirko |
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Böhm explains why he loves Free Software:</p> |
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<blockquote><p>The benefits of Free Software go beyond the individual |
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contributors and the communities they form. The four freedoms laid out as the |
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foundations of Free Software are a fanfare to the ability to exercise one’s |
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free will, to freely collaborate by helping your neighbors, to achieve |
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independence from directions other people have thought up for us. The effects |
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can be seen all around us – when teaching material for schools is developed |
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collaboratively and freely shared, when government data is opened up to |
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improve the transparency of the political process, when the technical |
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foundations of the internet and the operating systems running modern |
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technology become a common good, and in many other places. People start to |
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expect similar freedoms they learned to get used to in software when engaging |
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in society. And more participation is always better.</p></blockquote> |
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<!-- Hannes asked to take this out for the moment |
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<h2>Alpha release of new PDFreaders</h2> |
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<p>Erich Turnwald-Kurtz was the lucky winner of our PDFreaders lottery. He won |
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a FSFE t-shirt and a mug, plus self made cookies from our our ex-intern and now |
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volunteer Ana Galan. Thanks to him and the other donors we received €1,332 to |
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update pdfreaders.org. Paul Hänsch has put the <a |
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href="http://alpha.pdfr.plutonium.fsfeurope.org/index/">development version |
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of pdfreaders.org online</a>. This site is supposed to automatically |
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recognise the visitor's operating system and browser, and suggest a specific |
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Free Software PDF reader for the operating system, preferably one which comes |
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with a plugin for the browser. The matching is based on User-Agent-String of |
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the browser, there is no Java Script involved (this was also a request by the |
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German agency for IT security). Please report anything you find, even the |
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obvious things on our <a href="https://trac.fsfe.org">bug tracker</a> under the |
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component: PDFreaders.org.</p> |
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--> |
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<h2>Something completely different</h2> |
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<ul> |
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<li>Our DFD team published a <a |
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href="https://download.fsfe.org/campaigns/dfd/youtube-howto-english-854x480.webm">video |
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tutorial</a>, which explains how to watch Youtube videos using HTML5. Do |
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not miss this month's "get-active" item below, which is also about Document |
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Freedom Day.</li> |
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<li>We have received a report about a <a |
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href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/WindowsTaxRefund/Croatia">successful case of Windows |
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tax refund in Croatia</a>. One has to apply for the refund within 30 |
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days of a purchase of an ASUS product and fill out a form in order to receive |
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€42 refund for Microsoft Windows 8 OEM.</li> |
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<li>LWN writes about <a href="http://lwn.net/Articles/536126">trademarks and |
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their limits</a>, the idea behind trademarks, about how effective this |
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protection is, and gives examples of bad behaviour; e.g., offering Free |
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Software with unwanted toolbars and adware.</li> |
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<li>In FSFE we receive a lot of license questions, but we have not yet |
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evaluated how many we receive through country teams, our legal teams, or over |
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the phone. <a |
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href="http://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/fsf-licensing-team-what-we-did-in-2012-why-it-matters-for-2013">Our sister organisation FSF reports</a> |
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that they have responded to and resolved over 400 reports of suspected |
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license violations and over 600 general licensing and compliance |
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questions.</li> |
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<li>Your editor has written an article for the German news site Heise titled |
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<a |
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href="http://www.heise.de/open/artikel/Die-Woche-Politik-und-Freie-Software-1794251.html">"Politics |
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and Free Software"</a>. The article covers his experience from the |
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parliament working group on interoperability, standards, and Free |
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Software.</li> |
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<li>Guido Arnold <a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/02/free-software-in-education-news-january-2013-2/">has |
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published the January update about Free Software in education</a>, covering |
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news from the community and the government as well as upcoming events.</li> |
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<li>Mirko gave a talk at Embedded World 2013 about <a |
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href="http://creative-destruction.me/2013/02/26/defensive-publications-at-embedded-world-2013/">defensive |
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publications</a>.</li> |
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<li>Besides many other positive news from Joinup about Free Software in the |
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public administration: Member of the European Parliament <a |
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href="http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/mep-authorities-should-include-freedoms-when-deciding-software">Amelia |
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Andersdotter wants public administrations to consider software freedom</a> |
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as one of the reasons to select new ICT solutions, and the <a |
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href="http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/bolzano-automates-testing-e-government-services-free-software-systems">city of Bolzano has |
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automated testing of e-government services on Free Software |
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systems</a>.</li> |
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<li>Fellow Jelle Hermsen asked for blog aggregation for our Dutch Fellows, |
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and <a href="https://planet.fsfe.org/nl/">now it is up and running</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>Anna Morris, who created the DFD video mentioned above, wrote about <a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/anna.morris/2013/02/18/guake-a-great-command-line-tool-for-dyslexics-and-beginners-in-fedora-with-autostart/"> |
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Guake: a command-line tool for "dyslexics and beginners"</a>.</li> |
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<li>You wonder why we published the DFD as ".webm"? <a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/pb/?page_id=20">Peter Bubestinger wrote a summary article</a> |
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about different video formats from a Free Software perspective, explaining |
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that digital video consists of video codec, audio codec, and container |
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format. He explains the different codecs, and why some videos do not work |
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out of the box on a Free Software Distribution.</li> |
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<li>Beside this, Peter also wrote about <a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/pb/?p=41">Tears of Steel, a movie made with Free |
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Software</a>.</li> |
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<li>From Steel to Stealth: What could the Americans and British do to put |
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the stealth back into stealth bomber? Daniel |
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Pocock explains why the US military might need the Free Software |
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lumical.</li> |
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<li><a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/marklindhout/2013/02/use-rsync-to-delete-remote-folders/">Mark Lindhout described |
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how to use RSYNC to delete remote folders</a> and after inspiration from |
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the last Fellowship meeting in Berlin he also wrote about <a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/marklindhout/2013/02/need-to-play-high-fidelity-white-noise-listen-to-devurandom-on-osx/"> |
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why and how to play high-fidelity white noise</a>.</li> |
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<li>Interested in a distributed solution for one-time-password |
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authentication on GNU/Linux operating systems? Daniel wrote about dynalogin which is providing this.</li> |
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<li><a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/thomaslocke/2013/02/10/using-the-ada-web-server-aws-part-1">Thomas Løcke |
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describes how to use the Ada Web Server</a> and,</li> |
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<li><a |
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href="http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/inspiration-for-fbp-ui/">Henri Bergius is thinking about |
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the flow-based programming user interface</a>.</li> |
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</ul> |
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</ul> |
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<h2>Get active: Organise an event for Document Freedom Day 2013</h2> |
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<p>Help us to introduce more people to Open Standards – participate in <a |
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href="http://documentfreedom.org">Document Freedom Day 2013</a> on March |
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27th! Local teams can now <a |
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href="http://www.documentfreedom.org/registerevent.html">promote their |
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events</a> on DocumentFreedom.org, and have them marked on the <a |
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href="http://www.documentfreedom.org/events/events.html">global campaign |
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map</a>.</p> |
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<p>In 2012 groups of volunteers ran 54 events in 23 different countries. If you |
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want to get some inspiration for your event, take a look at our <a |
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href="http://www.documentfreedom.org/getinvolved.html">activity packages</a> |
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or the <a |
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href="http://www.documentfreedom.org/news/2012/news-20120403-01.html">DFD |
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report from 2012</a>. Help us to make this year's DFD the most successful |
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yet!</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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<tag key="newsletter"/> |
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</tags> |
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</html> |
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