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372 lines
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<html newsdate="2016-02-24">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE's work in 2015</title>
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</head>
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<body microformats="h-entry">
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<h1 class="p-name">FSFE's work in 2015</h1>
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<p newsteaser="yes">
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From teaching people to use encryption for their e-mail, to changing
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the direction of policy on a European level, the Free Software
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Foundation Europe worked hard in 2015 to empower users to control
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technology. With welcome help from our donors and contributors, we
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set out with ambitious goals for the year. We saw a lot of
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improvements in how we work, and we ended the year positively with a
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lot to look forward to in 2016. Please enjoy this story of (some!) of
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our work over the year, and thank you for helping us make the world a
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better place!</p>
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<blockquote><p>Free software and FSFE is to me: sharing, learning,
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being independent of monopolies, producing things together, passion
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and freedom! Since I've been a Fellow, I am finding new friends who
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help me in Free Software and other topics, teaching new things every
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day even though we are kilometres away. It is magnificent to be in a
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community that continually supports my Free Software passion and motivation!
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</p>
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<cite>– Nermin Canik</cite></blockquote>
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<div id="toc">
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#telling-the-world-about-free-software">Telling the world about Free Software</a></li>
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<li><a href="#changing-the-rules">Changing the rules</a></li>
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<li><a href="#our-free-software-legal-work">Our Free Software legal work</a></li>
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<li><a href="#fsfes-finances">FSFE's finances</a></li>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="#where-fsfes-funds-come-from">Where FSFE's funds come from</a></li>
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<li><a href="#how-we-spend-the-money">How we spend the money</a></li>
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</ul>
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<li><a href="#whats-ahead-in-2016">What's ahead in 2016</a></li>
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</ul>
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</div>
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<h2 id="telling-the-world-about-free-software">Telling the world about
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Free Software</h2>
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<p>We want to help individuals and organisations to understand how Free
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Software contributes to freedom, transparency, and self-determination.
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One of the ways to do this is through participation at local and
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regional events around Europe, often organised or supported by our
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local Fellows and teams. In 2015, we had booths at many events
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including FOSDEM (Belgium), T-Dose (Netherlands), FiFFkon (Germany),
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RMLL/LSM (France), Veganmania (Austria), Euskal Encounter (Spain),
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32C3 (Germany), Linuxtage (Austria), Chaos Cologne Conference
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(Germany), Linuxwochen (Austria), FrOSCon (Germany), DebConf (Germany)
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and OpenTech Summit (Germany).
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</p>
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<div class="captioned">
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<img src="graphics/v2015martin.jpg"/>
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<p>The FSFE's Fellowship group in Vienna exhibiting at Veganmania.</p>
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</div>
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<p>Our Fellowship group Rhein/Main also
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presented Free Software and the FSFE with a booth at an event
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organised by the Green Party Hesse. Thanks to our local fellows,
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information about Free Software also reached many at conferences where
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we did not have any formal presence with a booth. Furthermore we gave
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talks and presentations at many more conferences and events.</p>
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<p>We increased translations of our information materials. Our flyer
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about Free Software-based encryption technologies was printed in no
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less than nine different languages (German, Greek, English, Spanish,
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French, Dutch, Polish, Albanian and Turkish) and was offered for
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download in a further two (Chinese and Italian). You can help us
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distribute those leaflets and others by <a
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href="http://fsfe.org/promo">ordering them on our website</a>. Aside
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from our flyers, our monthly newsletter was also prepared and sent out
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on average in seven different languages.</p>
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<div class="captioned">
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<img src="/contribute/promopics/fdroid-flyer_thumb.png"/>
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<p>One of the flyers we use to <a
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href="https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.en.html">spread the
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word</a> about Free Software.</p>
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</div>
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<p>The <a href="http://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150303-01.en.html">fifth
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I Love Free Software Day</a> was another
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successful appreciation day, not only for the FSFE, but for Free
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Software contributors everywhere. Individual Free Software fans from
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all over the world spread loving messages online through thank-you
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letters and poems, as well as sharing pictures and collecting
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donations to support Free Software groups. Organisations like the EFF,
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the Document Foundation, Wikimedia, Framasoft and the German Green
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Party participated in this global celebration.</p>
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<div class="captioned">
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<img src="/campaigns/ilovefs/whylovefs/photos/gallery/ilovefs-gallery-thumb-25.jpg"/>
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<p>Cryptie expressing her love for Chatsecure during I Love Free
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Software Day.</p>
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</div>
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<h2 id="changing-the-rules">Changing the rules</h2>
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<p>FSFE wants to enhance users' rights by abolishing barriers to Free
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Software adoption. Following our <a
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href="http://fsfe.org/activities/policy/eu/policy-goals.en.html">policy
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goals for the period of 2014-2019</a>
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we are involved in the policy work on both national and the EU
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level.</p>
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<p>
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In the end of 2014, <a
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href="https://fsfe.org/activities/policy/eu/20141215.FSFE.EC_OSS_Strategy.en.html">FSFE provided input to the European Commission's (EC) internal strategy for the use of Free Software</a>.
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In April 2015, the European Commission published a new version of
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their <a
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href="http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/informatics/oss_tech/strategy/strategy_en.htm">"Open Source
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Strategy"</a>
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which included several improvements in comparison to its former
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version. For example, it included a more determined attitude to Free
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Software and a clearer approach to Open Standards which include
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promotion of the use of products supporting open technical
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specifications which can be freely adopted, implemented and
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extended.</p>
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<p>FSFE also replied to the European Commission's public consultation on
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patents and standards in February 2015, and on public procurement and
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respect for intellectual property rights in July 2015.</p>
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<div class="captioned">
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<img src="graphics/dfd-venezuela-merida-05.jpg"/>
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<p>Part of the Document Freedom Day team in Mérida, Venezuela.
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<i>Licensed under a <a
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href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">Creative Commons
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Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License</a></i>.
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</p>
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</div>
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<p>In March 2015, as a part of Document Freedom Day 2015,
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<a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2015/03/26/909/">FSFE together
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with Greens/EFA, organised the seminar presenting the study “Ensuring
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utmost transparency - Free Software and Open Standards under the Rules
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of Procedure of the European
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Parliament”</a>, to
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reinstate the importance of Free Software and Open Standards for
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transparency within the EU. The participation in such events is
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intended to raise awareness amongst EU officials about Free Software
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and Open Standards and their reliance on proprietary document
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formats. Awareness of vendor lock-in in the EU institutions is
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slowly growing, but the concrete steps to overcome this problem are
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absent. However participation in such events was a good opportunity
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to reinstate our main position amongst EU officials themselves and who
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will, in the end, make the relevant decisions.</p>
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<p>With several other organisations such as April, EDRi, OFE, and OSB
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Alliance, we at the same time issued
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<a href="https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150325-01.en.html">a joint
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statement to call on the European Commission to ensure all interactions
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with the public can be performed entirely using Open Standards</a>.
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This addressed the current alarming situation of EU institutions imposing
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proprietary software from particular vendors onto citizens in order to
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effectively communicate with them. </p>
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<p>In this light 2015 was also the year when we closed our six-year-long
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<a href="https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/pdfreaders.en.html">PDFreaders
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campaign after convincing 1125 public administrations to
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remove advertisement for proprietary software from their
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websites</a>. It is one of our the most successful campaigns to
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date and we are happy to see the public sector moving to the right
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direction of not forcing visitors of their website to use proprietary
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sofware. Despite this, more work needs to be conducted in order to
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bring and uphold the necessary change. </p>
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<p>To further strengthen users' rights, together with many other
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organisations we issued a statement in May 2015 asking the European
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Commission to put in place safeguards allowing anyone the
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<a href="https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150506-01.en.html">right to
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tinker</a> with
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their own devices. In a similar way, during 2015, we also helped end
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compulsory routers in Germany with a law which ensures users have the
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freedom to choose their own Free Software router. This should set an
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example across Europe, and we support similar legislation wherever
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needed.</p>
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<div class="captioned">
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<img src="graphics/router.jpg"/>
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<p>One of the routers worked on as part of our campaign on compulsory
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routers. <i>Image by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid. Licensed under a <a
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href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/">Creative Commons
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Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 License</a></i>.
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</p>
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</div>
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<p>Since May 2015, European policy is heavily focused on the <b>Digital
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Single Market strategy (DSM)</b> which involves several important
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political and legislative changes in the areas important to our policy
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work, in order to ensure "efficiency, trust and security in digital
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services" in the EU.
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<a href="https://fsfe.org/activities/policy/eu/digital-single-market-comments.en.html">Our evaluation of the Digital Single Market
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Strategy for the European Commission</a>
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was well received and we expect the Commission to follow our
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recommendations while pursuing the legislative initiatives within
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DSM. </p>
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<p>We also closely followed the own-initiative report of the European
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Parliament "Towards a digital single market" which was based on the
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Commission's Digital Single Market strategy. We informed members of
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the European Parliament about existing problems for Free Software in
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standardisation, and proposed possible solutions according to our
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evaluation of the DSM. The final adopted version of the Report
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included several positive references to Free Software and we were
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happy to see the Parliament supporting our points to increase the use
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of Free Software in public sector.</p>
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<p>Another important area for Free Software has been the on-going
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<b>copyright reform in the EU</b>. Throghout 2015, we evaluated the
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European Parliament's own-iniative report on on the implementation of
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Directive 2001/29/EC (InfoSoc Directive) both on
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<a href="https://fsfe.org/activities/policy/eu/20150605-Comments-On-Reda-Report.en.html">the draft report</a>
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and then on <a
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href="https://fsfe.org/activities/policy/eu/20150918-Assessment-Of-The-Report-On-InfoSoc.en.html">the
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final adopted version</a>.
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The final version included a few positive improvements for Free
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Software, e.g. better protection for public domain and explicit
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protection of private copying against technological measures. We hope
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in 2016 the European Commission will take Parliament's
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non-binding recommendations into consideration and use the opportunity
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to adapt copyright law to the needs of digital environment.</p>
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<h2 id="our-free-software-legal-work">Our Free Software legal
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work</h2>
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<p>One of FSFE's biggest networks we facilitate is our legal
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network, which in 2015 grew to more than 380 members, both legal
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professionals and technologists with deep knowledge and understanding
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of free software licensing. The legal network is unique in that it's
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not built on representation from businesses or organisations, but on
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individuals and trust between the individuals and our legal team, a
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format we're actively looking to replicate in other areas, to
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similarly advance the dialogue and understanding of free software.</p>
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<p>Our legal team continued to answer legal enquiries throughout the
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year, primarily from members of the Free Software community, and
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organised our network's annual Legal & Licensing Workshop again. In
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the end of 2015, the special interest group (SIG) focusing on
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trademarks in Free Software released a
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<a href="http://fossmarks.org/">A practical guide to understanding
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trademarks in the context of Free and Open Source Software
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projects</a>. It's been encouraging for
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us to see over the year individuals coming into the network and
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learning about the benefit of copyleft and how both businesses and
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other organisations work successfully with copyleft and free software
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in general in their work.</p>
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<p>In the beginning of 2015, a part of our work also focused on Bacula,
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for which the FSFE held rights due to its use of our Fiduciary License
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Agreement (FLA). FSFE's main interest has been on keeping Bacula Free
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Software. With this in mind we agreed to conditionally retransfer
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some of the rights held by FSFE and in a
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<a href="https://fsfe.org/news/2015/news-20150817-01.en.html">new
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agreement</a> between Kern Sibbald, Bacula Systems and FSFE, we agreed the
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Bacula Community edition should continue to be released as Free
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Software, and the FSFE will have the right to take back the
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exclusive right to the code in question this should ever change.</p>
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<h2 id="fsfes-finances">FSFE's finances</h2>
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<p>With an annual budget of now over €400,000 per year, which is close
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to four times as much as we had the same time ten years ago. The
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organisation, as well as its financial resources, continue to grow,
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mostly due to a continuous increase in individual donors and our
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sustaining members, the Fellows.</p>
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<h3 id="where-fsfes-funds-come-from">Where FSFE's funds come from</h3>
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<p>
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In 2015, the FSFE received €441,963 in income. About 40% of this is
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from Fellowship contributions (up from 35% in 2014) and a further 35%
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in unrestricted donations (meaning this money isn't connected to
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any one specific activity we do). 18% of our income came from sponsors
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of specific activities (the Free Software Legal & Licensing Workshop,
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and Document Freedom Day) and 7% from sale of merchandise at booths
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and through our web orders.
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</p>
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<p>
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The FSFE <a
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href="https://fsfe.org/about/transparency-commitment.html">has a transparency
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commitment</a> to
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list our donors which contribute more than 10% of our annual budget.
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For 2015, our only donor contributing more than this was Google, with
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a donation representing 14% of the annual income for the
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organisation.</p>
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<p>82% of FSFE's income is unrestricted, while 18% are tied to specific
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purposes -- mostly the sponsoring mentioned above. The Fellowship
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contributions continue to be important for our work and we see a
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gradual shift towards an increase of Fellowship contributions (up by
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9% from 2014 to 2015, and an average per donation of 124€ to 126€)
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which are the bedrock of FSFE's financial independence.</p>
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<h3 id="how-we-spend-the-money">How we spend the money</h3>
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<p>No matter how you look at the money the organisation spend, the
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largest amount of it will be staff salaries, including funding for
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trainees and interns which work for a few months upwards of a year
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with the FSFE to learn about Free Software and contribute to our work.
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The FSFE's team of experienced and dedicated staff contribute greatly
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to the success of the organisation, and also contribute to
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facilitating the volunteer work hundreds of our Fellows and
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community members engage in. The total spending in 2015 amounted to
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€431,216 whereof 63% was spend on personnel costs.</p>
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<p>Of the other cost centres, we spent 15% on administration (office
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costs, internal coordination, technical infrastructure, bank fees, and
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everything we need to keep the organisation running and
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fulfilling its legal obligations).</p>
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<p>If looking at our policy, public awareness, legal work and merchandise
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(purchase and shipping), the distribution between them was with 48% of
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the funding going to legal work, 28% on public awareness, 24% on
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merchandise and almost no money on policy! The latter is due to most
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of our costs for working on policy come from staff time, not on travel
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or materials needing to be produced. It was slightly higher in 2014,
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but overall, our investment in policy is an investment in staff
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time.</p>
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<p>Regarding staff time, the highest portion of our work time goes to
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public awareness (32% of working time across the organisation). A
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further 24% is spent on legal work, 10% on policy work and 3% on
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merchandise. The remaining 31% is administrative work, which include
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everything from internal administration and meetings to reading and
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responding to emails and is the number most difficult to
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measure, since a large part of what can be seen as
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administrative (reading and writing emails) can also be seen as
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supporting one of our other work areas, such as public awareness.</p>
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<h2 id="whats-ahead-in-2016">What's ahead in 2016</h2>
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<p>For 2016, our focus is on pushing our demand for <b>all publicly funded
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software to be published as Free Software</b>, and for <b>everyone's
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right to experiment with their own hard- and software</b>. We will also
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work to provide training for our volunteers and initiate coordination
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between Free Software groups active on policy issues in the EU. It's
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an exciting year ahead for Free Software, and we hope that you will
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<a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">join
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us</a> on the way!</p>
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<p>Sincerely,<br />
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Jonas Öberg<br />
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Executive Director
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</p>
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<p>
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Matthias Kirschner<br />
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President
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</p>
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</body>
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<tags>
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<tag key="annualreport"/>
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<tag key="front-page"/>
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</tags>
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<author id="oberg" />
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</html>
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