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179 lines
8.4 KiB
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - July 2015</title> |
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<h1 class="p-name">FSFE Newsletter - July 2015</h1> |
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<h2>FSFE pokes the European Commission on its transparency commitment</h2> |
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<p>While looking into the Digital Single Market (DSM) package, |
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our president Karsten Gerloff noticed that the EU Commissioner Günther |
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Oettinger neglected to publish his recent meetings with lobbyists. So Karsten |
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reminded the Commission about their transparency commitment. Meanwhile |
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Oettinger's Head of Cabinet, Michael Hager, explained that a long-term sickness |
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leave in the cabinet has led to a delay in publishing the meetings, and they |
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updated the lists of meetings.</p> |
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<p>But it turned out <a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2015/06/24/lots-of-attention-for-oettingers-transparency-problem/">Karsten |
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was not the only one interested in Oettinger's meetings</a>. A few days after |
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Karsten's reminder the Spiegel and other media published news stories about it. |
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According to Spiegel Online’s figures, 90% of the Commissioner’s meetings were |
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with corporate representatives, business organisations, consultancies and law |
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firms. Only 3% of his meetings were with NGOs. Of the top ten organisations |
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he’s meeting with, seven are telecoms companies, most of whom are staunchly |
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opposed to net neutrality.</p> |
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<p>Without the EU's transparency commitment, it would have been almost |
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impossible to research this. This shows how important such transparency |
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commitments are and it shows how important it is that organisations and |
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individuals actually monitor such publications. Furthermore we hope that from |
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now on Oettinger better balances his meetings, so he hears different sides of |
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an issue, and can make an informed decision.</p> |
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<h2>TiSA: intransparent treaty might prevent digital sovereignty</h2> |
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<p>Nowadays countries start to demand the source code for software they |
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procure. If they sign the currently negotiated Trade in Services Agreement |
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(TiSA) they might be forbidden to continue doing so.</p> |
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<p>End of May, a draft of TiSA (Trade in Services Agreement) was leaked. TiSA |
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is yet another international agreement, like the Trans-Atlantic Trade and |
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Investment Partnership (TTIP), or the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). It is apparently negotiated by 51 countries |
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including the EU. In the section <a href="https://netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/TISA-Annex-on-Electronic-Commerce.pdf">“Transfer |
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or Access to Source Code”</a> the leaked version prevents countries to give |
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priority to Free Software:</p> |
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<blockquote><ol> |
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<li><p>No Party may require the transfer of, or access to, source code of |
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software owned by a person of another Party, as a condition of providing |
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services related to such software in its territory.</p></li> |
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<li><p>For purposes of this Article, software subject to paragraph 1 is limited |
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to mass-market software, and does not include software used for critical |
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infrastructure.</p></li> |
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</ol></blockquote> |
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<p>We believe that a trade agreement should not force signatory countries to |
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give up control over their IT infrastructure for decades to come. On the |
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contrary, |
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companies should provide the source code if the public administrations |
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demands it, as well as the corresponding rights to use the software for any |
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purpose, to share the software with others, as well as to adapt the software |
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for their own needs without anyone else's permission.</p> |
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<h2>Something completely different</h2> |
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<ul> |
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<li>Copyright directive: In an important step towards modernising the EU's |
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copyright laws, the Legal Affairs committee of the European Parliament adopted |
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a report on the Copyright Directive by MEP Julia Reda. FSFE, which <a |
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href="/news/2015/news-20150605-02.html">provided |
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input to the MEPs</a> of the Legal Affairs committee ahead of the vote, <a |
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href="/news/2015/news-20150616-01.html">views the adopted report as largely |
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positive</a>. The European Parliament is scheduled to hold a plenary vote on 9 |
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July 2015 on the subject.</li> |
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<li>Education: The German state of Saxony-Anhalt is forcing their pupils to use |
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a variety of Microsoft services by making it mandatory for every public school. |
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The plan was arranged by the Minister of Finance without knowledge of neither |
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the data protection officer, nor the ministry of education. Erik Albers <a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/eal/2015/06/03/sachsen-anhalt-verkauft-seine-schulen-an-microsoft/">wrote |
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about that</a> (in German) and afterwards Fellows in Saxony <a |
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href="https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/vorvertrag-partnerschaft-des-landes-sachsen-anhalt-und-der-microsoft-deutschland-gmbh-kuendigen">filed |
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a petition against this procedure</a>, which everybody – also outside |
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Saxony-Anhalt – can sign and promote.</li> |
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<li>FSFE Internal: About two years ago, Karsten Gerloff decided that he would |
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eventually move on from his role as FSFE’s president. FSFE has been preparing |
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the leadership transition ever since. <a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2015/06/18/farewell-for-now/">As he wrote |
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in his blog post</a> June was the last month for him actively handling |
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operations at FSFE. Karsten currently takes two months of parental leave, and |
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at FSFE’s General Assembly in September, FSFE's General Assembly will elect his |
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successor.</li> |
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<li>Events: Our active volunteer Guido Arnold <a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2015/06/free-software-in-education-keynote-at-dorscluc/">was |
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giving a keynote “Free Software in Education”</a> at the 22nd DORS/CLUC in |
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Zagreb, and Franz Gratzer reports from <a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/franz.gratzer/2015/06/11/fsfe-fellowship-and-freie-it-at-veganmania-in-vienna-2015/">the |
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FSFE's booth at Veganmania</a>. This vegan festival in Vienna lasted for four |
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days, with 70 organisations and companies having booths there.</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>In his series <a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/jens.lechtenboerger/2015/06/09/three-steps-towards-more-privacy-on-the-net/">“Three |
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steps towards more privacy on the Net”</a> Jens Lechtenbörger explains <a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/jens.lechtenboerger/2015/06/09/firefox-with-tororbot-on-android/">how |
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to setup Firefox with Tor/Orbot on Android</a>.</li> |
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<li>Imagine you want to install GNU/Linux on ~10 old computers, and all you |
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have is a slow 10kb/s internet connection. Max Mehl faced this problem and |
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wrote <a |
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href="http://blog.mehl.mx/2015/splitdl-downloading-huge-files-from-slow-and-unstable-internet-connections/">“splitDL”, |
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a small Bash script which splits huge files into several smaller ones and |
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downloads them</a>.</li> |
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<li>Timo Jyrinki takes a <a |
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href="http://losca.blogspot.de/2015/06/quick-look-dell-xps-13-developer.html">look |
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at the Dell XPS 13 Developer Edition (2015) which is shipped with Ubuntu 14.04 |
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LTS</a>.</li> |
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<li>Daniel Pocock documents how to use Blender for video editing with the included non-linear video editing |
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system.</li> |
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<li>And Erik Albers writes <a |
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/eal/2015/05/21/how-i-learned-to-love-the-nasa/">how |
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he learned to love the NASA</a>.</li> |
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</ul> |
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</ul> |
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<h2>Get active: Tell us about active groups in Europe</h2> |
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<p>There are many groups in Europe who do advocacy and lobby work for software |
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freedom. Some have done this work for many years, some just started doing it. |
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Unfortunately often they do not know from each other's existence, and therefore |
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cannot benefit from a knowledge exchange.</p> |
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<p>We want to make sure the FSFE does not overlook other Free Software |
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activities in Europe, so we can learn from each other and improve our way of |
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empowering more users to control their technology. That is why this month we |
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ask you <a |
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href="https://public.pad.fsfe.org/p/GroupsForSoftwareFreedomInEurope">to tell |
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us about the active groups working for software freedom in Europe</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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