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232 lines
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<html newsdate="2013-11-04" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - November 2013</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - November 2013</h1>
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<h2>The good experimentation platforms</h2>
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<p>At the first glance some devices might look like crap. Why should anyone buy
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them? Some people laughed at your editor when he bought his <a
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href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openmoko#Neo_FreeRunner">Open Moko Neo
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Freerunner</a>. You could buy cheaper devices with a faster CPU, more RAM, more
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disk space, nicer casing, better network connection, better microphone and
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speakers at that time.</p>
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<p>But devices like the OpenMoko are important for each one of us even if we
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are not buying them ourselves. They are crucial because they are hardware
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experimentation platforms which help programmers to learn how exactly
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computers work -- what the code is really doing -- and therefore enables them to
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write better software for all of us.</p>
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<p>Paul Boddie <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=452">wrote about one
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of those devices: the Ben NanoNote</a>. This device is completely supported
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by Free Software drivers within the upstream Linux kernel distribution. It does
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not rely on any proprietary software, including firmware blobs, for
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installation or running the device. The "Ben" encourages experimentation: you
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can re-flash the bootloader and the operating system with own images, and you
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can install programs of your choice.</p>
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<h2>The bad restrictions</h2>
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<p>The knowledge we, as a community, gain from those devices helps us to
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counterbalance IT manufacturers who use many different restrictions with
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different technology to take away control from us. On several
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devices the manufacturers decide which software we can install or remove from
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our computers, they do not want us to learn how the software works, and they do
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not want us to change the software. They decide how we can watch DVDs, which
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SIM cards providers we can use in our computers, and they want to be able to
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remotely delete our data including books, music, or movies.</p>
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<p>The questions is: do we let them do this? Do we accept those restrictions?
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And if we do not, what else do we need to counterbalance those
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developments?</p>
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<h2>The pretty local meetings</h2>
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<p>In FSFE we believe that a crucial part in this challenge are local meetings.
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We have to connect people opposing those restrictions and help each other how
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to explain the topics to other people. As mentioned in the <a
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href="/news/nl/nl-201310.html">last edition</a> we held the <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/eal/2013/10/08/fsfes-first-european-coordinators-meeting">first
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meeting for coordinators of FSFE's local Fellowship groups</a>. Afterwards
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the group started to summarise <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2013/10/some-nice-tips-for-fsfe-local-meetings-organisers/">
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tips for FSFE local meetings organisers</a>, and Lucile Falgueyrac
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summarised <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2013/10/14/tips-for-afk-meeting-moderation/">good
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practices for meeting moderation</a>.</p>
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<p>Beside the coordinators meeting, FSFE held its annual general assembly in
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Vienna. Jonas Öberg reflected <a
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href="http://jonasoberg.net/post/64107423387/reflections-of-fsfe-ga-mission-impact">how
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we worked on our mission impact</a> and Hugo Roy <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2013/10/2013-ga-in-vienna-day-2">wrote
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about the second day with the formalities</a>, including reelection of Karsten
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Gerloff as President and Reinhard Müller as Financial Officer. After 2 good
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years Henrik Sandklef stepped down as Vice President, and your editor was
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elected to take over that position.</p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>Our Vienna group brought Free Software to a wider public. They organised
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<a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/franz.gratzer/2013/10/03/fsfe-booth-on-game-city-fair-2013-in-vienna/">an
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information booth at the Game City Fair 2013</a>, receiving a lot of questions
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about Valve's steam box. If you want to understand more about this, read <a
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href="https://lwn.net/Articles/567112/">LWN's article "Why Steam on Linux
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matters for non-gamers"</a>.</li>
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<li>Guido Arnold <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/10/fellowship-meetings-rhinemain-an-experiment/">
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explains the new concept for local meetings in the Rhine/Main area</a>, and
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we have a new local FSFE group in Linz (Austria) which <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/jzarl/2013/10/07/inoffizieller-bericht-zum-grundungstreffen-der-fellowship-gruppe-linz/">published
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their second report (German)</a>. So if you are interested in political,
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social, economic, or legal questions around Free Software, <a
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href="/events/events.html">join the groups</a> and try out
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the tips from above.</li>
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<li>Our sister organisation, the FSF, held a <a
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href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/global-celebration-for-the-gnu-systems-30th-anniversary">global
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celebration for the GNU system's 30th anniversary</a>, and <a href="https://www.fsf.org/news/free-software-foundation-opens-nominations-for-the-16th-annual-free-software-awards">ask you
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to nominate individuals and projects for for the 16th Annual Free Software
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Awards</a> until Wednesday, 6 November 2013.</li>
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<li>As usual you will find news about Free Software in education in <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/10/free-software-in-education-news-september/">the
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monthly education team update</a>.</li>
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<li>The <a
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href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/jamaica-ministry-health-adopts-gnu-health">Jamaica
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Ministry of Health adopted GNU Health</a>, and the <a
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href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/german-development-ministry-recommends-open-source-smes">German
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development ministry recommends Free Software to small and medium
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enterprises</a>, as they say it opens up business opportunities for IT
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entrepreneurs and offers long-term resources for local ICT processes and
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innovations.</li>
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<li>Our friends at the EFF wrote about how the freedom to learn the workings
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of a program is prevented in the UK in the article: <a
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href="https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/speculation-trumps-academic-freedom-uk-court-censors-security-researchers-reverse">"Speculation
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Trumps Academic Freedom: UK Court Censors Security Researchers for Reverse
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Engineering Publicly Available Software"</a>.</li>
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<li>And if you have not yet read Ron Amadeo's article <a
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href="http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/">"Google's
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iron grip on Android"</a>, you should do so and discuss it on <a
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href="https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/android">our mailing list</a>.
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The article explains current developments in Android such as possible new
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dependencies on non-free software.</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>Hugo Roy asks himself <a
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href="http://hroy.eu/posts/facebook_open-source_company/">why Facebook
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should be considered an "Open Source company"</a>, explains <a
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href="http://hroy.eu/posts/setup_mozilla-sync/">how to set up Firefox
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sync</a> and documented some of your editor's favourite hacks, like <a
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href="http://hroy.eu/tips/vim/email-delete-til-signature/">how to delete
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text from the current position to your e-mail signature</a> and <a
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href="http://hroy.eu/tips/vim/itsalltext/">how to work effectively with
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text input fields in your browser</a>.</li>
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<li>Otto Kekäläinen <a
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href="http://seravo.fi/2013/past-present-future-valo-cd">wrote about the
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past and present of the VALO-CD</a>, a project making it as easy as possible
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for any average home of office user to start using Free Software, and the
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possible future which might be the LibreKey.</li>
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<li>What makes Open Data succeed, and how does it fail? Carsten Agger, our
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local group coordinator for Aahrus/Denmark, <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/agger/2013/10/05/open-data-how-to-make-it-succeed-how-to-make-it-fail/">
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provides a transcript from his talk about these questions</a>.</li>
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<li>Jonas Öberg <a
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href="http://jonasoberg.net/post/63665105097/with-fuelingthefuture-the-linux-foundation-asks">remembers
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how he started with Free Software</a>.</li>
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<li>Daniel Pocock wrote about Debian's outreach program for women and the GSoC 2013 projects.</li>
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<li>Nikos Roussos participated at the <a
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href="http://www.roussos.cc/2013/10/30/mozilla-growing-community-and-reps">Mozilla
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Summit</a> and explains <a
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href="http://www.roussos.cc/2013/10/20/kickstarting-a-static-website-emberjs-handlebarsjs">how
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to kickstart a static website with ember.js and handlebars.js</a>.</li>
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<li>If you want to set up a pirate box, <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/t.kandler/2013/09/27/piratebox-some-tipps/">Thomas
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Kandler explains this in his article</a>.</li>
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<li>Our new intern Max Mehl looked into <a
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href="http://blog.max-mehl.com/2013/organising-micro-task-emails-in-thunderbird/">organising
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micro task emails in Thunderbird</a>, </li>
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<li>and Lucile Falgueyrac summarised <a href="
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https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2013/10/23/pre-printing-work/">how to
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do pre-printing work</a>.</li>
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<li>Beside the planet covered topics like <a
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href="http://commonsmachinery.se/2013/10/implementing-user-friendly-default-settings/">implementing
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user-friendly default settings</a>, <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=644">fixing Fedora 19's "unlockable
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lockscreen" bug</a>, and an <a
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href="http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/noflo-update/">update from the NoFlo
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world</a>.</li>
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</ul>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get active: They don't want you to - but what do you want?</h2>
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<p>As explained above we do not want people to accept all the restrictions on
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our devices. To gain more transparency we want an easy way to inform a wider
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audience about those restrictions, and especially give younger people a way to
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show that they do not agree with it. On the 4th of November we go live with <a
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href="http://theydontwantyou.to">TheyDontWantYou.To</a> and together with our
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partner organisations we start distributing short microblog messages,
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highlighting different restrictions using the #theydontwantyouto hashtag.</p>
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<p>Help us to distribute the messages, send the messages to your friends, write
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about them in your blog, <a
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href="/contribute/spreadtheword.html#tdwyt">use our stickers
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</a> to raise awareness, and to let us know about restrictions you encounter in
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your daily life.</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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