155 line
6.8 KiB
HTML
155 line
6.8 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
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<html newsdate="2015-05-04" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - May 2015</title>
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</head>
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<body microformats="h-entry">
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<h1 class="p-name">FSFE Newsletter - May 2015</h1>
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<h2>A secret Free Software action plan by the European Commission</h2>
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<p>The European Commission has published a new version of its
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strategy for the internal use of Free Software. The FSFE provided input to the
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Commission during the update phase and while the strategy is broadly similar to
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the previous version, <a href="/news/2015/news-20150401-01.html">there are some
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improvements</a>.</p>
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<p>Unlike previous versions, this time the strategy is accompanied by an action
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plan aimed at putting it into practice. However, the action plan is not public,
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so it is not possible to assess the Commission's progress towards its own
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goals. We would welcome it, if the Commission would soon publish its action
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plan.</p>
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<h2>Interpretation of law restricting Free Software in Switzerland</h2>
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<p>FSFE's goal is that software which is developed with tax money has to be
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released as Free Software. By doing so the public administration would
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strengthen and stimulate a fair IT market.</p>
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<p>In Switzerland, there is currently uncertainty regarding the development and
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release of Free Software by public contractors. The trigger for this was the
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development and release of the software “OpenJusticia” by the Swiss Federal
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Supreme Court. The federal council now wants to examine whether the publication
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of Free Software by the federal administration can be allowed explicitly. <a
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href="/news/2015/news-20150306-01.html">The FSFE demands a clarification</a>,
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so that publicly-financed software can be legally and unambiguously released as
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Free Software.</p>
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<h2>Worldwide 63 events about Open Standards</h2>
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<p>This year again volunteers around the world, accompanied by international
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organisations as well as politicians and public services joined our demand for
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document freedom. The global Document Freedom Day had 63 local events in 31
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countries on 4 continents. <a
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href="http://documentfreedom.org/news/2015/news-20150408-01.html">Read our 2015
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report</a> to learn about political activities, new cartoons and illustrations,
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and have a look at pictures from the events including tasty DFD cakes.</p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>We published <a href="/news/2015/news-20150414-01.html">a statement on the
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changed relations between the FSFE and Kern Sibbald</a>. If you are a developer
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who has contributed to Bacula, we recommend that you look at what Fiduciary
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Licence Agreements or copyright assignments you have agreed to, and make sure
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that you fully understand how this termination affect you. If you are not sure,
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you are welcome to email us and we will do our best to assist you. Please take
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a look at <a href="/activities/ftf/faq-bacula.html">our FAQ on this issue
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first</a>.</li>
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<li>On 6 May 2015 the FSF is organising the International Day Against DRM. You
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can still <a href="/contribute/spreadtheword.html#drm-leaflet">print out some
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DRM leaflets</a>, distribute them during the day, and talk with your friends
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and colleagues about the harm of digital restriction measures. <a
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href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/watch-your-freedom-because-apples-not">Previously
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the FSF highlighted the problems with the new Apple products</a> concerning
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proprietary software and Digital Restrictions Management technologies
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distributed with its products and services.</li>
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<li><a
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href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/german-greens-want-increased-support-open-source">The
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German Greens want</a> the Government to increase the support for Free
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Software. FSFE has helped them with a enquiry in parliament about the move to
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non-free software in the German Foreign Office. You can <a
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href="/news/2015/news-20150401-02.html">help us to evaluate the Governments
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answers</a> (in German).</li>
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<li>Guido Arnold gave a talk about FSFE's education team at the Chemnitzer
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Linuxtage. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyDi6pkc6l8">video
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“Advantages and barriers of Free Software in education” is now online</a> (you
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can for example use youtube-dl to download it).</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>Paul Boddie wrote a detailed blog post <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=908">why Open Hardware and Free
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Software is not just for the geeks</a>.</li>
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<li>Franz Gratzer published an <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/franz.gratzer/2015/03/28/open-letter-to-everymothercounts-org-apple-advertisement/">open
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letter to everymothercounts.org about their Apple advertisement</a>.</li>
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<li>Mirko Böhm summarised his experiences about <a
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href="http://creative-destruction.me/2015/04/04/parsing-emacs-orgmode-files-eu-patent-debate-and-vacation/">parsing
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Emacs OrgMode files, the EU patent debate, and his vacation</a>.</li>
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<li><a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/ruphy/2015/04/back-on-the-web/">Riccardo
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(ruphy) Iaconelli announced, that he is back blogging</a>, after he has done
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research at CERN and launched WikiFM.</li>
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<li>And your editor explained <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/sharing-multiple-links-on-android/">how to share
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multiple links on Android</a>.</li>
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</ul>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get active: Check the remaining advertisement for non-free software</h2>
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<p>We currently wrap-up the PDFreaders campaign, and we need your help to
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measure our success.</p>
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<p>Started in 2009 FSFE’s goal with the campaign was to get rid of
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advertisement for proprietary PDF readers. We focused on the websites of public
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administrations, and many people helped us gather contact details for over 2000
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public websites which advertised non-free software. Many people helped us to
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contact the public administrations, governments were made aware of it and
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published guidelines. Until now we know that 772 of the 2110 bugs were fixed,
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which is a 36% success rate.</p>
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<p>But for most countries we did not check the status for several months now.
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That is why we need your help to make one final round. We are looking for
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volunteers who can help us by checking websites in their native language, <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/final-pdfreaders-advertisement-squashing/">following
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the step-by-step guide at the end of your editor's blog post</a>.</p>
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<p>Thanks to all the <a href="/contribute/contribute.html">volunteers</a>, <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">Fellows</a> and
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<a href="/donate/thankgnus.html">corporate 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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<!--/e-content-->
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</body>
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<sidebar promo="about-fsfe" />
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<author id="kirschner" />
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<date>
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<original content="2015-05-04" />
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</date>
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<followup>donate</followup>
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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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