196 lines
8.7 KiB
HTML
196 lines
8.7 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
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<html newsdate="2012-08-04" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - August 2012</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - August 2012</h1>
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<!-- WHY HOW WHAT -->
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<h2>Helping the European Parliament to release its own Free Software</h2>
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<p>For the first time, the European Parliament (EP) is about to release one of
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its own programs as a Free Software. The program in question is called AT4AM,
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short for "Automatic Tool for Amendments". The Parliament is making laws, and
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AT4AM automates a lot of the formalities associated with the legislative
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process.</p>
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<p>Karsten Gerloff and Carlo Piana were invited to give talks at the event to
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discuss the right license under which to publish AT4AM, and to explain the
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political dimension of Free Software.</p>
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<p>Do you want to know why the FSFE suggested the EP to license their software under
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GNU AGPL version 3, and what else our president has on his wishlist for the EP?
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Then read <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2012/07/18/helping-the-european-parliament-to-release-its-own-free-software/">his
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report</a>!</p>
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<h2>Protect Free Software licenses from bankruptcy</h2>
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<p>When the companies or authors that license Free Software enter bankruptcy,
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there is a risk that granted Free Software licenses will face legal challenges
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in some jurisdictions. The FSFE is trying to prevent this situation in Germany. We started talking about this during a meeting with the German Minister of Justice, who we could have meet thanks to <a href="/news/2010/news-20100510-01.html">receiving the
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Theodor Heuss Medal</a>. Now the ifrOSS supported by the FSFE
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suggests the German Ministry of Justice to <a
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href="/news/2012/news-20120730-01.html">include a specific Free Software clause
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in the German Insolvency Code</a>. The clause ensures that Free Software
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licenses would not be negatively affected by a bankruptcy of a licensing rights
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holder. It makes it clear that any offer to grant a Free Software license made
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before the licensor's bankruptcy can be accepted by anyone even after the
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bankruptcy proceedings started.</p>
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<p>If Free Software face similar problems in your jurisdiction, please <a
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href="/contact/contact.html">contact us</a> or take similar steps.</p>
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<h2>The Fellowship: One to rule them all</h2>
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<p>In the Lord of the Rings, Gollum does not want to share the ring. He is such
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an egoist. But Barbara "swimmi" Roth and Martin "gollo" Gollowitzer, both
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Fellows of the FSFE are used to share (as well as use, study, and improve).</p>
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<p>After <a href="https://xkcd.com/364/">signing their public keys with the
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highest trust level</a>, they now finally decided to swim into the harbour of
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marriage. It is the first marriage your editor knows about, where both were
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Fellows <strong>before</strong> their marriage. The FSFE wishes them all the best
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for their future and is looking forward to see a lot of <a href="http://media.macno.org/u/macno/m/i-am-a-fork/">"forks"</a>, so we have more Free Software activists. May many <a
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href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">fellow <!-- pun intended --> this
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example</a>!</p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>From August 21st to 26th Free Software will be one major theme at Campus
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Party in Berlin. Your editor helped to find some interesting speakers for the
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event. Well, <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=961">see yourself</a>.</li>
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<li>La Quadrature Du Net published a video tutorial how to call a Member of
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the European Parliament (MEP). You can apply <a
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href="https://www.laquadrature.net/node/5880">their instructions</a> to our
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<a href="/campaigns/askyourcandidates/askyourcandidates.html">Ask You Candidates
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campaign</a> and talk with politicians about general Free Software
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topics, <a href="/campaigns/campaigns.html">our campaigns</a>, or other
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issues.</li>
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<li>How, exactly, can you have a successful project with collaborators? Can
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we quantitatively analyse past projects to figure out what works, instead of
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just using our best guesses? <a
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href="http://www.dwheeler.com/blog/2012/07/08/#internet-success">David A.
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Wheeler reviewed a book</a> which analyses how to be successful
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with Free Software.</li>
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<li>You want to have a small low cost Free Software PC? Take a look <a
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href="http://raymii.org/cms/p_Small_Linux_PCs_overview">at this
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overview</a> and decide what is best for you.</li>
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<li>Digital Restriction Managmenet: Our sister, the FSF <a
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href="http://www.defectivebydesign.org/node/2241">finished an update
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of the "Guide to DRM-free Living"</a> with dozens of new places to get
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ebooks, movies, and music without DRM.</li>
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<li>A selection from the <a href="https://planet.fsfe.org">Fellowship blog
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aggregation</a>:</li>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/groups/Berlin">Berlin Fellowship
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group</a> coordinator Alexander Kahl wrote about why <a href="
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http://paralambda.org/2012/07/06/git-evolution-of-a-topic-branch-and-how-to-review-it/">
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git kicks ass</a> and <a
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href="http://paralambda.org/2012/07/02/using-gnu-emacs-as-a-terminal-emulator/">how
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to use GNU Emacs as a terminal emulator</a>. </li>
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<li>What is going on in Norway, and what is the role of Free Software
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competence centres? Paul Boddie <a href="
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http://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=88">takes a look</a> at the Norwegian
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government's recent withdrawal of all financial support for the Norwegian
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Free Software Competence Center.</li>
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<li>Hugo Roy explains how to <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2012/07/tweet-bang-how-to-share-a-link-quickly-on-twitter-using-duckduckgo/">microblog
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links quickly with duckduckgo</a>.</li>
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<li><a
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href="http://losca.blogspot.de/2012/07/where-computing-takes-you.html">
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Timo Jyrinki tells a story</a> how sometimes computing brings you to the
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closet.</li>
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<li><a href="/contribute/internship.html">Our interns</a> were attending
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Richard Stallman's talk in Dresden. Anatolii Doludenko published <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/tolld/2012/07/12/fsfe-in-dresden-during-rms-talk/">
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some pictures in his blog</a>.</li>
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<li>From the Nokia 770 to the N800 to the N810 to the N900 to the N9. What is
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next? Read Henri Bergius' <a
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href="http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/meego-diaspora/">dreams of the MeeGo
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diaspora</a>.</li>
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<li>Our former president Georg Greve <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=529">gives an update and overview about
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the Free Software groupware Kolab 3.0</a>,</li>
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<li>and finally our vice president is <a
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href="https://sandklef.wordpress.com/2012/07/21/searduino-needs-a-gui/">
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looking for someone who can write a GUI front-end to Searduino</a>. Can
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you? If not, but you want to help Free Software, continue reading our this
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month's get active item.</li>
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</ul>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get Active: Help us with Android installation parties!</h2>
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<p>Torsten Grote, who started our <a href="http://FreeYourAndroid.org">Free
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Your Android</a> campaign, wrote down what he is <a href="
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http://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/2012/07/18/what-i-am-missing-in-cyanogenmod-9/">missing
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in CyanogenMod 9</a>. In good Free Software fashion he created feature
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requests for a configurable power control widget, an ssh daemon, direct in-app
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shortcuts, or native OpenVPN support in CyanogenMod’s issue tracker.</p>
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<p>We want to help as many people as possible to regain control of their
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Android devices and their data in general. One important step in this process
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is helping people to install Free Software on their phones and tablets. So on Software
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Freedom Day (15th September) the FSFE wants to have public Free Your Android
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installation parties.</p>
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<p>If you can organise such a workshop, <a
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href="mailto:android@lists.fsfe.org">please let us know</a>! If you still
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need help on how to do so, we will try to help you having a successful event.
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E.g. on August 26th we will have a workshop in Berlin for people who plan to
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give such workshops in the future, be it at Software Freedom Day, at a
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conference or another occaison.</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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<tag key="matthias-kirschner"/>
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</tags>
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</html>
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