125 lines
7.1 KiB
HTML
125 lines
7.1 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
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<html newsdate="2011-02-04" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - February 2011</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - February 2011</h1>
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<h2>Drop a container to free web videos</h2>
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<p>
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Videos on the internet often prove to be literal nuisance to Free Software users. Several websites required the non-free flash video plugin to view videos. Perhaps also your friends were wondering why you are not able to watch youtube videos within your web browser, and thought you are a freak when you started downloading videos with <a href="http://rg3.github.com/youtube-dl/">youtube-dl</a>. With <a href="http://www.gnu.org/software/gnash/">gnash</a> and other programs which are able to play flash video directly the situation improved. But flash is still a pain annoying both for Free Software users and developers.
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</p>
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<p>
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Developing HTML5 turned out to be a chance to purge this problem. It enables the user to play audio and video directly in your web browser. But there was disagreement which video container format should be used: H.264, <a href="http://www.webmproject.org/">WebM</a> or <a href="http://www.theora.org/">Ogg Theora</a>? MPEG LA organisation requires developers who implement H.264 to agree to a patent license which is incompatible with Free Software. So we might have ended up depending on non-free software again to watch web videos.
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</p>
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<p>
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But now <a href="http://blog.chromium.org/2011/01/html-video-codec-support-in-chrome.html">Google</a>
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announced to suspend support for patent-encumbered codec H.264 and support free codecs only instead. Being the biggest provider of web videos Google's decision is a huge step to dispose of non-free video software. Our sister organisation FSF issued a <a href="http://www.fsf.org/news/supporting-webm">press release on this topic</a> and I (Matthias) was <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=719">interviewed by Dradio Wissen</a> about it (in German).
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</p>
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<p>
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Now time has come to help adopt WebM as free video format: get in contact with website operators and ask them to distribute videos in the WebM format to get rid of H.264.
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</p>
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<h2>New clothes for FSFE</h2>
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<p>
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For many people their first contact with FSFE is via website. After months of work by <a href="/contribute/web/web.html">FSFE's Web Team</a> a new website design has been launched including a fresh look, improved infrastructure, and new features. Here is a list of our new features:
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="webcal://fsfe.org/events/events.en.ics">iCal feed</a> of FSFE events and
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activities</li>
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<li><a href="/news/newsletter.html">Option to subscribe to FSFE newsletters</a> in multiple languages</li>
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<li>Tagging of news and events, allowing dynamic generation of information feeds
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for specific topics (useful for country pages, and topic homepages such as
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"EU News"); <a href="/contribute/web/tagging.html">documentation added</a></li>
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<li>Improved <a href="/contact/local.html">country teams contact
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page</a>, including more information and links to team member profiles</li>
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<li>Improved <a href="/about/team.html">people page</a> with
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avatars of team members</li>
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<li>New meta-data storage and display system for
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<a href="/freesoftware/standards/eifv2.html">published articles</a> which
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consistently presents important article information</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>We have written to German competition authorities in order to share our concern about the sale of Novell's patents to a consortium called CPTN made up of Microsoft, Oracle, Apple and EMC. Read the details in <a href="/news/2011/news-20110113-02.html">our press release</a> and
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<a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2011/01/12/why-were-concerned-about-the-sale-of-novells-patents/">Karsten's blog article</a>.</li>
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<li>Fellowship Election for GA seat: In February Fellows may choose their candidate for the Fellowship seat in FSFE's General Assembly. <a href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/election11">Check out the candidates </a> and choose your candidate. If you are not a Fellow yet <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">join now</a>, and you can pick your choice, too. </li>
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<li>Fellowship interview: Political veteran <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=233">Anne Østergaard discusses</a> new ways to influence European legislation, the scale of Free Software support in developing countries, and the importance of local culture in community campaigning.</li>
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<li>There is a lot of <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=399">good things to read</a>.
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Patents are definetely not something you'll enjoy. If this warning doesn't
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keep you from reading them, Matija wrote a blog article
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<a href="http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/220">"Reading patents made easier?"</a>.</li>
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<li>Do you want some fries together with FSFE? Like every year we will have a strong
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booth presence at <a href="http://www.fosdem.org/2011/">FOSDEM</a> with several
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volunteers, project coordinators, our president and vice-president. We are
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looking forward to having discussions at our booth after <a href="http://www.fosdem.org/2011/schedule/event/powerfreedomsoftware">Karsten's</a> and
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<a href="http://www.fosdem.org/2011/schedule/event/nonfreeadvertisement">my presentation</a> as
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well as while eating fries, or having a beer with you.</li>
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<li>Links on Free Software and Law; FTF team member Matija started publishing
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legal news on Free Software: <a href="http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/214">Free Software & law related links</a> (<a href="http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/218">part 2</a>).</li>
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<li>You can do a lot of (nice ;) ) things with handcuffs: Richard wrote about <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/practical.html">practical advantages</a> of not being handcuffed in your daily life.</li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get active - Join the Web Team</h2>
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<p>
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FSFE's Web Team needs help! We need new ideas and suggestions as well as
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developers,
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<a href="/contribute/designers/designers.html">designers</a>, and
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<a href="/contribute/translators/translators.html">translators</a> to
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improve fsfe.org even further.
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</p>
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<ul>
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<li>Sign up to the <a href="https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/web">Web Team's
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mailing-list</a> to read discussion about current and future changes, and submit
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your own queries and comments </li>
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<li>Submit bugs with the website to the <a href="https://trac.fsfe.org/fsfe-web">Web issue
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tracker</a> (you can create a new account, and remember your usename will
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end in -guest) </li>
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<li>Ask questions in real time in the Web Team's IRC channel:
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<a href="irc://irc.freenode.net/fsfe-web">#fsfe-web</a> on freenode</li>
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</ul>
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<p>Regards,<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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