232 lines
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232 lines
12 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
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<html newsdate="2012-05-04" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - May 2012</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - May 2012</h1>
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<!-- Please do not yet translate, it will still be edited -->
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<h2>54 DFD events and FSFE handcuffed EU Commissioner</h2>
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<p>As you can read and see in <a
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href="http://documentfreedom.org/news/2012/news-20120403-01.html">this years
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report</a>, Document Freedom Day 2012 was celebrated with 54 events in 23
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countries and in 19 world languages. It was the biggest DFD in history with
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over 26 talks, over 6 awards for Open Standards, lots of other events and the
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press coverage counted almost one hundred articles. FSFE coordinated
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between all the different events, awarded several organisation, and in Germany
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mailed over 370 and called over 170 politicians about <a
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href="/freesoftware/standards/def.html">Open
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Standards</a>. Several of these politicians, from a range of political
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parties, <a href="http://documentfreedom.org/events/events.html">did activities
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for DFD</a>. FSFE also send out <a
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href="http://documentfreedom.org/handcuffs/index.html">100 information
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packages including handcuffs</a> to suggested people including several
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politicians, CEOs, and the Pope. EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes used our
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handcuffs in a public speech, which resulted in a <a
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href="http://documentfreedom.org/news/2012/news-20120420-01.html">lot of
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additional press coverage</a> including the front page of the Guardian
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Online. FSFE is eager to hear more reports of what recipients of the
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package did with the handcuffs.</p>
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<h2>May 4th: Day against DRM. Is it their "good right" to restrict us?</h2>
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<p>Last week your editor <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=929">gave an
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interview about Digital Restriction Management (DRM)</a> (German). It was
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about the questions of what DRM is, why companies introduce DRM, why you have to
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treat your customer as an enemy to make DRM work, and which other possibilities
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exist. When discussing Free Software, DRM, Antifeatures and other topics you might
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often hear from intelligent critical people that it is "the good right" of
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producers to control their products. Why do so many people think so? Would they
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also accept those restrictions in "the analogue world"? Is it the good right of a
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publisher to prohibit that you can read a book out loud, lend it friends, or sell
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it? Several times your editor abused books: last week he used three of them to
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fix his broken sofa. Would it be acceptable that the publisher or the author
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can forbid such use cases? Do more people accept such restrictions with
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software and data, and if so, why? Has the industry with the term "Digital
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Rights Management" successfully implied that they have this right, and a lot of
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people accept this?</p>
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<p>The 4th of May is the <a href="http://dayagainstdrm.org/">Day against DRM</a>.
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While DRM has largely been defeated in music, it is a growing problem in the
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area of ebooks. So it is good news that due to pressure from their readers, <a
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href="http://www.defectivebydesign.org/tor-to-drop-drm-on-ebooks">Tor/Forge
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will drop DRM from ebooks</a>. Discuss the topic with your friends or
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colleagues, e.g. send them Richard Stallman's short story <a
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href="https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html">"The Right to
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Read"</a>, and tell us your experience on <a
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href="/contact/community.html">our public discussion lists</a> or send it <a
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href="/about/people/kirschner/kirschner.html">directly to your editor</a>.</p>
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<h2>Free Software topic in the French Presidential elections</h2>
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<p>French President <a href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/sarkozy-administration-open-source-spending-grows-30-percent-annually">Nicolas Sarkozy said that 15 percent</a> of the State's IT
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budget is spent on Free Software programming, support, and maintenance. In
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future this budget will increase by 30 percent per year. He said this policy is
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"strategic for the development of the French IT sector". His challenger François
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Hollande even said this policy has to be intensified.</p>
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<p>Besides that, the French Free Software advocacy group April <a
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href="https://www.april.org/en/presidential-elections-2012-and-free-software-some-answers-some-non-answers-some-dont-answer">asked
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all of the candidates in the French presidential elections</a> about their
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positions on Free Software, <a href="/activities/swpat/swapt.html">software
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patents</a>, <a href="http://drm.info">DRM</a> and more.</p>
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<p>It is important to raise awareness for Free Software with your politicians,
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and sending them questions is a good start. FSFE is gathering all such effort
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in our <a
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href="/activities/elections/askyourcandidates/askyourcandidates.html">"Ask Your
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Candidate" campaign</a>. FSFE would like to thank <a
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href="http://april.org">April</a> for their good work in France, and
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encourages other Free Software supporters in Europe to get in contact with
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their politicians. If you have questions how to start such activities in
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your country, region, or municipality, please get in contact with us. By next month
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you will also have the political parties' replies to the questions from FSFE
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for two federal state elections in Germany.</p>
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<h2>Vendor lock-in costing Helsinki 3.4 million Euros per year?</h2>
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<p>A report on the City of Helsinki's pilot project for the use of OpenOffice
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in the public administrations leaves the public with more questions than
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answers. The city trialled the Free Software productivity suite on the laptops
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of council members for ten months in 2011. The suite enjoyed high approval
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rates among its users. When the pilot was finished, the City produced a report
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stating that the costs of migrating the entire administration to OpenOffice
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would be very high. Read more about it in the <a
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href="/news/2012/news-20120412-02.html">press release</a> and if you are
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interested in details of the City of Helsinki's OpenOffice pilot project, and
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in lessons that may be drawn from this project, we have published <a
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href="/news/2012/news-20120412-02.html">an analysis of the report</a>.</p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>"Replace 'ICT' with 'Sex'": 42 minutes before the deadline <a
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href="/freesoftware/education/education.html">our education team</a> submitted
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<a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/riepernet/?p=149">FSFE's position for a
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consultation on ICT education</a> to the UK Department of Education.
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Besides other points we highlighted the importance of "ICT education", instead
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of "ICT training".</li>
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<li>Fellowship Interview: Operating Free Software based servers and
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workstations in a pro-privacy web hosting and IT service company, advocating
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Free Software since 2001, volunteering for the Freedroidz project, and more: this
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months's <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=573">interview is
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Bernd Wurst</a>.</li>
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<li>The <a
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href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/czech-municipality-uses-open-source-nearly-everything">Czech
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municipality Grygov uses Free Software</a> for nearly everything in their
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public administration.</li>
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<li>On the 31st of March, FSFE's UK Fellows have set up a link between the Green
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Light (Manchester) and Chorlton's Big Green (Leicester) festivals. There was a
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Free Software talk and booth at both events, and a live link-up which brought
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environmentalists together via Free Software.</li>
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<li>Our <a href="/news/2012/news-20120402-01.html">web team met in Manchester
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for a web sprint</a>. A variety of international volunteers worked together
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to improve website features and infrastructure. Interested in fixing bugs, or
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implementing new functionality to improve our information about Free
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Software in web work? <a href="/contribute/web/web.html">Join our web
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team</a>!</li>
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<li>Computerworld UK published a <a
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href="http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2012/03/open-standards-licensing-apples-key-evidence/index.htm">a
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good article on software patents</a>.</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>Affiliate Userscripts to support FSFE: If you already spend money on
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Amazon or libri, you can <a
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href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/SupportPrograms">install a userscript</a>
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developed by Hannes Hauswedell and 5% of the money you spend there goes to
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FSFE to the struggle for Software Freedom! The userscripts <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/h2/userscripts/">are tested for Chromium,
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Firefox, and Iceweasel</a>.</li>
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<li>Distributed Free Software: Thomas Jensch wrote an article on <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/riepernet/?p=155">how to setup OwnCloud on
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Hiawatha</a>, and Sam Tuke also looked into <a href="
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https://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=359">setting up a local web development
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server</a>.</li>
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<li>Different experiences than Wikipedia: Hannes Hauswedell from the <a
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href="http://pdfreaders.org">PDFreaders</a> team is currently living in
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China, and <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/h2/2012/04/20/an-inside-view-on-the-great-chinese-firewall/">wrote
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about his technical experiences with the Chinese firewall</a>.</li>
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<li>After his hard disk died Patrik Willard wrote about <a
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href="http://blog.padowi.se/2012/04/22/2012w16/">git and rsync</a> and
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Isabel Drost also dedicated a <a
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href="http://blog.isabel-drost.de/index.php/archives/377/second-steps-with-git">blog
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article to git</a>. </li>
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</ul>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get Active: FRAND is FRAUD - Participate in UK consultation</h2>
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<p>Busy times in the UK. Besides the consultation on education (see above) the
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UK government is holding another one until the 4th of June about what sort of patent
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licenses an <a
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href="/project/os/def.html">Open Standard</a> should require. FSFE and our
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sister organisation the FSF published a <a
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href="/news/2012/news-20120426-01.html">joint statement</a> on the UK Open
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Standard consultation, explaining why FRAND conditions for Open Standards
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discriminate against Free Software (regular readers might realise this is an ongoing
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debate), and recommending the UK government to abolish software patents to
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prevent damage to the UK's economy. We also informed UK Free Software businesses,
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organisations, and Fellows about the consultation, <a
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href="/freesoftware/standards/uk-standards-consultation.html">prepared draft answers to
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some of the questions in the survey</a>, held a <a
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href="/news/2012/news-20120425-02.html">Summit Meeting of Open Standard
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experts</a>, and also published <a
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href="/news/2012/news-20120425-01.html">a joint statement
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together with other Open Standard groups</a>.</p>
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<p>There is a <a
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href="http://consultation.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/openstandards/how-to-respond">website
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explaining how to participate in the consultation</a>. Please do so to
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support the requirement for royalty-free licenses for Open Standards.</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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</tags>
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</html>
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