176 lines
8.5 KiB
HTML
176 lines
8.5 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
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<html newsdate="2015-08-04" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - August 2015</title>
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</head>
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<body microformats="h-entry">
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<h1 class="p-name">FSFE Newsletter - August 2015</h1>
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<h2>Reply to EU consultation on copyright, patents, and trade secrets</h2>
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<p nesteaser="yes">Earlier this month, FSFE answered to the “Consultation on
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the respect of intellectual property in public procurement procedures”,
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initiated by the European Commission. According to Commission the initial
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purpose of the consultation was to “gather evidence, opinions and feedback
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regarding the respect of intellectual property rights and trade secrets in
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public procurement procedures”, and assess whether there is a need for a guide
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for public authorities in this regard.</p>
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<p>In our answer, we restate several issues that need to be addressed in the
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overall topic of the consultation. For example on software patents we explained
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that it is impossible to procure software that is not violating any patents,
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and that the rights of copyright holders should not be devalued by third
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parties’ patents. In addition, FSFE argued that every publicly funded software
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should be published and distributed as Free Software by default, so that
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everyone can use the software for their own purposes and provide better
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services for public authorities in return.</p>
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<p>Our current trainee Polina Malaja summarised our answers and wrote about the
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consultation in her <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/polina/2015/07/24/fsfe-answers-to-the-consultation-on-copyright-patents-and-trade-secrets-in-public-procurement/">blogpost</a>,
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and made our answers available in <a
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href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/Free_Software_in_public_procurement">FSFE's
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wiki</a>.</p>
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<h2>How to deal with firmware restrictions</h2>
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<p>FSFE's goal is to ensure that the owners of IT devices are always in full
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and sole control of them. During the last years this fundamental principle is
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being challenged by such developments as <a
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href="/freesoftware/secure-boot.html">UEFI
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“Secure Boot”</a>, or the proprietary BIOS. This is low-level software that
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runs when you turn on your computer. It initialises the hardware and may be
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designed to restrict users to install software which is not “authorised” by the
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manufacturer. This development was also a topic in <a
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href="https://dot.kde.org/2015/07/25/akademy-talks-day-1">your editor's
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keynote</a> at this year's Akademy in A Coruña/Spain, that gives an insight on
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how to resolve these manufactured restrictions.</p>
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<p>One of the ways to counter those developments is alternative boot firmware.
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There are several ways to have the built-in proprietary firmware replaced with
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free analogues. Our fellow Kevin Keijzer explains in detail how to <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2015/06/08/setting-up-a-beaglebone-black-to-flash-coreboot/">"set
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up a beaglebone black to flash Coreboot"</a>, and how to <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2015/06/06/libreboot-x200-raspberry-pi/">"flash
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Libreboot on an Lenovo X200 with a Raspberry Pi"</a>. Another fellow André
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Ockers explains in his blogpost how he got a <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/ao/2015/05/29/how-i-got-a-thinkpad-t60p-coreboot-gnu-linux-libre-trisquel-laptop/">Thinkpad
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T60p with Trisquel and Libreboot</a>.</p>
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<p>Beside working on free alternative boot firmware, we also have to look
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further into the future. We have to think about how to extend the ideas of Free
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Software to hardware. Richard Stallman wrote about this in his article <a
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href="http://www.wired.com/2015/03/need-free-digital-hardware-designs/">"Why
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we need free digital hardware designs"</a>.</p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>On July 24-26, FSFE held its European Coordinators Meeting 2015 (ECM15) in
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Essen. Amongst many topics our coordinators discussed strategy, a proposal to
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restructure FSFE's community and communication, as well as our press and
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campaign work. For more information please <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/eal/2015/07/30/european-coordinators-meeting-2015/">read
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Erik Albers's blogpost</a>.</li>
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<li>FSFE's education team <a
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href="/freesoftware/education/education.html">updated their
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website</a>. Have a look at it, give us feedback, or even better: join our
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education team to promote the use of Free Software in schools and
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universities.</li>
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<li>Your editor, Matthias Kirschner, was interviewed before Akademy. The
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interview is available on <a
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href="https://dot.kde.org/2015/07/15/akademy-2015-keynote-matthias-kirschner">KDE's
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website</a>. It covers questions about your editor's first GNU/Linux
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distribution, why he studied politics and management, how he got involved in
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FSFE, how Free Software is linked to the progress of society, as well as his
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involvement in wild first aid seminars. (Victorhck <a
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href="https://victorhckinthefreeworld.wordpress.com/2015/07/18/entrevista-a-matthias-kirschner-vicepresidente-de-la-fsfe-que-dara-una-charla-en-akademy/">translated
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the interview into Spanish</a>.)</li>
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<li>The European Commission <a
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href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/144375">published the legislation editor
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LEOS as Free Software</a>. It can be used to draft and automatically process
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legal texts. Currently the software supports legal texts issued by the EC, yet
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can be extended to support other legislative processes.</li>
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<li>Two good developments in France: On one hand the French government has
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published <a href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/144729">templates</a> to be
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used by procurement officers when requesting free software-based ICT solutions.
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The templates include Free Software procurement clauses that prompt developers
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to organise contributing code. On the other hand, France wants its public
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administration to prioritise ODF over Microsoft OOXML format (see <a
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href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/07/22/french_government_computer_agency_recommends_giving_microsoft_le_boot/">an
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article in the Register</a>).</li>
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<li>On 3 October 2015 the FSF celebrates its 30th birthday in Boston. That is a
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reason to celebrate. As their sister organisation, we invite you to <a
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href="http://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-invites-the-free-software-community-to-its-30th-birthday-party-on-october-3rd-2015">organise
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small birthday parties</a> around Europe, too. Let us know if you plan
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something, so we promote the celebration.</li>
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<li>From the <a href="https://planet.fsfe.org">planet aggregation</a>:</li>
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<ul>
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<li>Riccardo Iaconelli wrote about <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/ruphy/2015/07/announcing-wikifm/">WikiFM</a>, a
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KDE project which aims to bring free and open knowledge to the world, in the
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form of textbooks and course notes. It is aimed at students, researchers and
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continuous learners, with manuals and content ranging from basic calculus to
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“Designing with QML” (already used by High Energy Physics Software
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Foundation).</li>
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<li>Daniel Pocock explains howto
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record live events with your mobile phone and a lapel microphone.</li>
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<li>Guido Arnold reported on <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2015/07/galicia-introducing-over-50-000-students-to-free-software/">Galicia
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introducing over 50 000 students to free software</a>, and a <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2015/07/we-dont-use-free-software-we-want-something-that-just-works/">school
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in Spain switching to using Ubuntu/Linux</a> for its desktop PCs in class rooms
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and offices.</li>
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</ul>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get active: Contribute to our static website generator</h2>
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<p>Since 2002 FSFE is using a static website generator for our web presence.
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The first version was written by Jonas Öberg, who is now FSFE's Executive
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Director. Last month we introduced an updated version to the test instance of
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our website. In his blog post, FSFE's webmaster Paul Hänsch <a
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href="http://blog.plutz.net/The_FSFE_org_buildscript.html">summarises its new
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features, and limitations</a>. So if you are interested to improve FSFE's web
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presence on a technical level, read this and get in contact with our web
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team.</p>
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<p>Thanks to all the <a href="/contribute/contribute.html">volunteers</a>, <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">Fellows</a> and
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<a href="/donate/thankgnus.html">corporate donors</a> who enable our work,<br/>
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<a href="/about/people/kirschner">Matthias Kirschner </a> - <a href="/index.html">FSFE</a></p>
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<!--/e-content-->
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</body>
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<sidebar promo="about-fsfe" />
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<author id="kirschner" />
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<date>
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<original content="2015-08-04" />
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</date>
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<followup>donate</followup>
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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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mode: xml ***
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