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									<title>FSFE Newsletter - May 2015</title>

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									<h1 class="p-name">FSFE Newsletter - May 2015</h1>


								<h2>A secret Free Software action plan by the European Commission</h2>


								<p>The European Commission has published a new version of its

								strategy for the internal use of Free Software. The FSFE provided input to the

								Commission during the update phase and while the strategy is broadly similar to

								the previous version, <a href="/news/2015/news-20150401-01.html">there are some

								improvements</a>.</p>


								<p>Unlike previous versions, this time the strategy is accompanied by an action

								plan aimed at putting it into practice. However, the action plan is not public,

								so it is not possible to assess the Commission's progress towards its own

								goals. We would welcome it, if the Commission would soon publish its action

								plan.</p>


								<h2>Interpretation of law restricting Free Software in Switzerland</h2>


								<p>FSFE's goal is that software which is developed with tax money has to be

								released as Free Software. By doing so the public administration would

								strengthen and stimulate a fair IT market.</p>


								<p>In Switzerland, there is currently uncertainty regarding the development and

								release of Free Software by public contractors. The trigger for this was the

								development and release of the software “OpenJusticia” by the Swiss Federal

								Supreme Court. The federal council now wants to examine whether the publication

								of Free Software by the federal administration can be allowed explicitly. <a

								href="/news/2015/news-20150306-01.html">The FSFE demands a clarification</a>,

								so that publicly-financed software can be legally and unambiguously released as

								Free Software.</p>


								<h2>Worldwide 63 events about Open Standards</h2>


								<p>This year again volunteers around the world, accompanied by international

								organisations as well as politicians and public services joined our demand for

								document freedom. The global Document Freedom Day had 63 local events in 31

								countries on 4 continents. <a

								href="http://documentfreedom.org/news/2015/news-20150408-01.html">Read our 2015

								report</a> to learn about political activities, new cartoons and illustrations,

								and have a look at pictures from the events including tasty DFD cakes.</p>


								<h2>Something completely different</h2>


								<ul>


								<li>We published <a href="/news/2015/news-20150414-01.html">a statement on the

								changed relations between the FSFE and Kern Sibbald</a>. If you are a developer

								who has contributed to Bacula, we recommend that you look at what Fiduciary

								Licence Agreements or copyright assignments you have agreed to, and make sure

								that you fully understand how this termination affect you. If you are not sure,

								you are welcome to email us and we will do our best to assist you. Please take

								a look at <a href="/activities/ftf/faq-bacula.html">our FAQ on this issue

								first</a>.</li>


								<li>On 6 May 2015 the FSF is organising the International Day Against DRM. You

								can still <a href="/contribute/spreadtheword.html#drm-leaflet">print out some

								DRM leaflets</a>, distribute them during the day, and talk with your friends

								and colleagues about the harm of digital restriction measures. <a

								href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/watch-your-freedom-because-apples-not">Previously

								the FSF highlighted the problems with the new Apple products</a> concerning

								proprietary software and Digital Restrictions Management technologies

								distributed with its products and services.</li>


								<li><a

								href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/german-greens-want-increased-support-open-source">The

								German Greens want</a> the Government to increase the support for Free

								Software. FSFE has helped them with a enquiry in parliament about the move to

								non-free software in the German Foreign Office. You can <a

								href="/news/2015/news-20150401-02.html">help us to evaluate the Governments

								answers</a> (in German).</li>


								<li>Guido Arnold gave a talk about FSFE's education team at the Chemnitzer

								Linuxtage. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyDi6pkc6l8">video

								“Advantages and barriers of Free Software in education” is now online</a> (you

								can for example use youtube-dl to download it).</li>


								<li>From the <a href="https://planet.fsfe.org">planet aggregation</a>:</li>


								<ul>


								<li>Paul Boddie wrote a detailed blog post <a

								href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=908">why Open Hardware and Free

								Software is not just for the geeks</a>.</li>


								<li>Franz Gratzer published an <a

								href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/franz.gratzer/2015/03/28/open-letter-to-everymothercounts-org-apple-advertisement/">open

								letter to everymothercounts.org about their Apple advertisement</a>.</li>


								<li>Mirko Böhm summarised his experiences about <a

								href="http://creative-destruction.me/2015/04/04/parsing-emacs-orgmode-files-eu-patent-debate-and-vacation/">parsing

								Emacs OrgMode files, the EU patent debate, and his vacation</a>.</li>


								<li><a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/ruphy/2015/04/back-on-the-web/">Riccardo

								(ruphy) Iaconelli announced, that he is back blogging</a>, after he has done

								research at CERN and launched WikiFM.</li>


								<li>And your editor explained <a

								href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/sharing-multiple-links-on-android/">how to share

								multiple links on Android</a>.</li>


								</ul>

								</ul>


								<h2>Get active: Check the remaining advertisement for non-free software</h2>


								<p>We currently wrap-up the PDFreaders campaign, and we need your help to

								measure our success.</p>


								<p>Started in 2009 FSFE’s goal with the campaign was to get rid of

								advertisement for proprietary PDF readers. We focused on the websites of public

								administrations, and many people helped us gather contact details for over 2000

								public websites which advertised non-free software. Many people helped us to

								contact the public administrations, governments were made aware of it and

								published guidelines. Until now we know that 772 of the 2110 bugs were fixed,

								which is a 36% success rate.</p>


								<p>But for most countries we did not check the status for several months now.

								That is why we need your help to make one final round. We are looking for

								volunteers who can help us by checking websites in their native language, <a

								href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/final-pdfreaders-advertisement-squashing/">following

								the step-by-step guide at the end of your editor's blog post</a>.</p>


								<p>Thanks to all the <a href="/contribute/contribute.html">volunteers</a>, <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">Fellows</a> and

								<a href="/donate/thankgnus.html">corporate donors</a> who enable our work,<br/>

								<a href="/about/people/kirschner">Matthias Kirschner </a> - <a href="/index.html">FSFE</a></p>

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