161 lines
6.9 KiB
HTML
161 lines
6.9 KiB
HTML
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<html newsdate="2012-01-04" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - January 2012</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - January 2012</h1>
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<h2>Preventing 6000 mines against Free Software?</h2>
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<p>Competition authorities are investigating the sale of 6000 patents from
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Nortel, a bankrupt telecommunications equipment manufacturer, to a consortium
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of Apple, Microsoft and four other companies.</p>
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<p>FSFE considers it a serious risk to competition in the mobile technology
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space, and Free Software as a whole, if those companies acquire these patents.
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Soon after the sale, we approached EU and US competition authorities, and in
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September submitted a <a href="/activities/swpat/nortel.html">summary of our concerns</a>.</p>
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<h2>80 billion EUR for R&D: What will we get?</h2>
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<p>The European Commission has adopted a set of proposals for its next
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framework program, called Horizon 2020. This program will provide 80 billion
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EUR for research and development projects from 2014 to 2020. Prior to
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finalisation of the proposal, <a href="/news/2011/news-20111128-02.html">FSFE had
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provided input</a> to the Commission in order to make the program accessible
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for Free Software research and projects. FSFE will continue to engage with the
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European institutions in order to support the development of Horizon 2020 in
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the interest of Europe's citizens.</p>
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<h2>Free Software makes German Parliament more secure</h2>
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<p>On the request of some members of parliament, the <a
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href="http://von-notz.de/2011/12/verschluesselung-mails-an-uns-ab-jetzt-auch-verschluesselt/">
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German Bundestag's IT-department now supports GnuPG</a>, so members of
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the parliament have the option to set this up and receive encrypted and signed e-mails. The
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president of the German City Council and Munich's main mayor <!-- DE: Präsident
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des deutschen Städtetags und Münchens Oberbürgermeister --> Ude <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=871">wrote to the EU-Commissioner Neelie
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Kroes</a> that she should support Open Standards and Free Software.</p>
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<p>Those are nice examples where politicians understand the advantages of Free
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Software and also act upon this knowledge. We want more politicians with this
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knowledge. One concrete activity is our <a
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href="/activities/elections/askyourcandidates/askyourcandidates.html">"ask your
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candidates campaign"</a>, where we <a
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href="/activities/elections/askyourcandidates/example-questions.xhtml">send out
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questions</a> to the political parties before elections, and then evaluate the
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answers. This year we did so for elections in Vienna/Austria, Switzerland, and
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5 federal state elections in Germany.</p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>In the dispute between the companies AVM and Cybits the written reasoning
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of the decision of the Regional Court of Berlin <a
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href="/news/2011/news-20111201-02.html">is now available</a>. The court
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confirmed FSFE's view that users of GNU GPLed software are allowed to modify
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and install it even if it is shipped as a part of an embedded device's
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firmware.</li>
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<li>City officials in Helsinki, Finland, <a
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href="/news/2011/news-20111213-01.html">are overwhelmingly satisfied
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after trying out the Free Software office suite</a> OpenOffice.org on their
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laptops. 75% of 600 officials have been using OpenOffice.org exclusively since
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February, as part of a pilot project where the city installed the program on
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22,500 workstations.</li>
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<li><a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=509">In this
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month Fellowship interview</a> Chris talked with Paul Boddie, who has been
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working with Python since 1995, and from 2006 to 2010 was involved in
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organising the annual EuroPython conference, administering various
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conference-related tools and developing the conference website.</li>
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<li>An important decision of the Court of Justice of EU, AG's opinion in
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awaited European interoperability ruling, two software patent cases and much
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more is to be found in our <a href="/news/2011/news-20111220-01.html">legal
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news</a>.</li>
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<li>We are preparing for Document Freedom Day 2012. The <a
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href="http://documentfreedom.org">website was updated</a>, on <a
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href="https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/df-coordination">the
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mailing list we are discussing new ideas</a>, and you are welcome to
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join.</li>
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<li>From the <a href="https://planet.fsfe.org">Fellowship planet
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aggregation</a>:
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<ul>
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<li>So what might Digital Sustainability be? Read Georg Greve's <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=462"> explanation about it</a>.</li>
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<li>Want to see a quadrocopter and other pictures from the Chaos
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Communication Camp? Take a look at <a
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href="https://fl0rian.wordpress.com/2011/12/02/summer-holidays/">Florian's
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blog article</a>.</li>
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<li>What do nerds drink? Michael Stehmann answers this question in his <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=375">article about the
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"Chaosvillage" in Düsseldorf</a>.</li>
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<li>Patrik from our Swedish team writes about <a
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href="http://blog.padowi.se/2011/12/05/awk-filtering-and-counting/">awk
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filtering and counting</a>.</li>
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<li>Our translator Heiki Ojasild thinks about the question <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/repentinus/english/2011/12/09/to-translate-or-not-to-translate/">what
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to translate and what not to translate?</a></li>
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</ul></li>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get active: Support us by becoming a Fellow of FSFE!</h2>
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<p>Not everybody understands Free Software, and not everybody likes that
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FSFE works hard on <a href="/donate/letter-2011.html">promoting Free
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Software</a> to enlarge the freedom in our society. If you understand that Free
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Software is important in order to cope with the upcoming challenges for free society,
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please support us financially by <strong><a
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href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">becoming a Fellow of
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FSFE</a></strong>.</p>
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<p>Since December it is possible to donate your contribution
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<strong>yearly</strong> or <strong>monthly</strong> by <strong>credit
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card</strong>, <strong>direct debit</strong>, and other means. Every small
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donation helps us to continue to be an independent and critical voice for Free
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Software advocacy for another year.</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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