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<title>FSFE Newsletter - August 2013</title>
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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - August 2013</h1>
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<h2>Proprietary companies ask European Commission to restrict business models</h2>
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<p>Because Android is Free Software and gratis, the non-free software
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competition cannot compete with it, therefore the market has less alternatives,
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thus the consumer suffers from this lack of competition. In a nutshell that is
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the argumentation of the so-called "Fair Search" coalition. Essentially they
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are asking the European Commission to favour a restrictive business model over
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a liberal one, which is exactly the opposite of what competition regulators
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should do in order to achieve a fair market.</p>
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<p>Asking the European Commission to cripple Free Software in order to allow
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proprietary vendors to sell their locked-down systems is absurd. Therefore the
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<a href="/news/2013/news-20130729-01.html">FSFE has written a letter to the
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European Commission's competition authorities to refute the claims</a>, and
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make it clear that Free Software is critical for a competitive IT market. In
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our letter we ask the European Commission to dismiss the "FairSearch"
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coalition's unfounded claims regarding predatory pricing, and not make them
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part of whatever steps it decides to take. For further information: our legal
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council <a href="http://piana.eu/android">Carlo Piana wrote a background
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article about this case</a>.</p>
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<h2>Election software: source code available but not Free Software</h2>
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<p>Estonia has used Internet voting for general elections since 2005. Local
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activists have recently managed to convince Estonia's National Electoral Committee (NEC) to release source code for
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some of the software under a non-free licence, but this licence does not permit
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distribution of derivative works or commercial use and therefore is non-free.
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Besides "[i]mportant system components remain completely unknown to the general
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public. One of those components is the client side voting application that must
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be loaded and executed on the voter's computer," said Heiki Ojasild, Fellowship
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representative in the FSFE's General Assembly in <a
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href="/news/2013/news-20130730-01.html">our press release</a> accompanying
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our <a href="/ee/i-voting/2013-07-26_Open_Letter_to_NEC.html">open letter to
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NEC regarding the country's Internet
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voting system</a>.</p>
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<p>Similar in Norway: Paul Boddie reports about the <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=291">Norwegian voting and the
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illusion of "Open Source"</a>, where the published software covers only
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"testing, reviewing or evaluating the code", restricts commercial purposes, and
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for a lot of things you need a "written approval" from the vendors.</p>
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<h2>NSA leaks motivates Free Software activists</h2>
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<p newsteaser="yes">For almost two decades the Free Software Foundations have been working for a
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society where the power over technology is distributed. We work
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for a world in which nobody can prevent others from learning how computers
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work. A world in which programmers can work with each other instead against
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each other. Nobody should be forced to use a certain kind of software without
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being able to adjust it to her own needs instead of adjusting herself to the
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software. Everybody should be able to audit software, to understand what a
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program does exactly and what happens to your data.</p>
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<p>The Free Software movement wrote a lot of software which respects your
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privacy, including encryption and anonymisation software. The FSFE pushed for
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Open Standards to prevent monopolies by enabling different software to work
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with each other. We promote decentralised systems, so there is no single point
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in our infrastructure which has too much power and which enables you to store
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the data in a trusted enviroment.</p>
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<p>It seems the NSA leaks of the last weeks have strengthened the Free Software
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community's will to continue fighting for our freedoms in a digital society.
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More people are listening to Free Software programmers and activists, more
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people demand Free Software solutions, more people are using Free Software to
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protect their privacy, and more people appreciate Free Software developer's
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work. E.g. <a href="https://lwn.net/Articles/559124">Eva Galperin from EFF
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said in her keynote at KDE's conference akademy</a>: "Help us Free Software,
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you are our last and only hope". She asked Free Software developers to build
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new products, and "save us"! And as you will see below, the Free Software
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movement will continue to do so.</p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>Privacy is a fundamental human right, and is central to maintaining
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democratic societies. The FSFE joined more than 100 other organisations in <a
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href="https://necessaryandproportionate.org/">demanding that states respect
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human rights, and bring their surveillance apparatus under democratic
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control.</a> More than one year in the making, the demands are now more
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relevant than ever. The FSFE also <a
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href="http://www.stopsurveillance.org/?page_id=20">signed an Open Letter
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to stop surveillance</a>, which calls for twelve political steps including
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the development and promotion of Free Software for digital self-defence.</li>
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<li>The FSFE <a href="/news/2013/news-20130712-01.html">commented on leaked
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documents</a> which show how Microsoft is actively cooperating with the
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NSA.</li>
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<li>Together with the Open Rights Group we sent an <a
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href="/activities/os/transparency-letter.html">open letter on transparency
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to Martin Schulz, President of the European Parliament</a>. Mr Schulz has
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recently been asked to produce a study on transparency within the Parliament.
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In our letter we are offering Mr Schulz our help in this effort and suggest
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several questions, e.g. if the Parliament would be obliged to publish the
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source code of the software it uses.</li>
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<li>News about Free Software in education are back: <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/07/free-software-in-education-news-aprilmayjune-2013/">Guido
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Arnold summarised what happened in the education sector</a> during April,
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May, and June. He also <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/06/1347/">summarised the relevant
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parts</a> of the UNESO conference World Summit on an Information Society
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(WSIS+10).</li>
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<li>Ubuntu is aiming to raise $32 million in crowdfunding to produce Ubuntu
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Edge, a mobile computer that can dual-boot between Android and Ubuntu
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GNU/Linux. <a href="/about/fsfnetwork.html">Our sister organisation</a> the
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FSF is asking the crucial question: <a
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href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/will-ubuntu-edge-commit-to-using-only-free-software">Will
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Ubuntu Edge commit to using only Free Software?</a>. Paul Boddie, Fellow
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and maintainer of <a href="http://wiki.fsfe.org">Fellowship wiki</a>, looked
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into the question if <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=366">Ubuntu
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Edge is making things even harder for open hardware?</a></li>
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<li>Besides <a
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href="https://www.defectivebydesign.org/new-internationalist-drm-free-label-guide-additions">our
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sister organisation reports that the New Internationalist adopted the
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DRM-free label</a> and over 50 others were added to the DRM-free
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Guide.</li>
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<li>From the public administrations: Students and teachers at <a
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href="http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/open-source-tablets-and-pcs-schools-brussels-region">
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160 high schools in the Brussels Region have started to use Free
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Software</a> like LibreOffice or Mozilla Thunderbird on PCs and tablets.
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Joinup reports that <a
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href="http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/extensive-open-source-use-frances-ministry-agriculture">
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France's ministry of Agriculture extensively uses Free Software</a>: For
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instance in 2012 it spent 174,000 euro on support for Free Software.
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Additionally news from France: Lucile wrote about the <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2013/06/28/zombie-free-software-provision-update/">Zombie
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Free Software provision</a> -- a Free Software law for France's higher
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education -- and how to contact politicians.</li>
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<li>For those amongst you giving talks at conferences: LWN now offers a handy
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<a href="https://lwn.net/Calendar/Monthly/cfp/2013-08/">calendar for call for
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papers</a>.</li>
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<li>From the <a href="http://planet.fsfe.org">planet aggregation</a>: </li>
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<ul>
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<li>Former FSFE president Georg Greve wrote a tetralogy about the Post
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PRISM society. He <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=553">puts
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together what actually has been proven so far</a>, <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=568">what that means for
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society</a>, <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=573">what the
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implications for businesses around the world are</a>, and <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/greve/?p=586">takes a look at
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governments</a>. He argues that any government should be able to answer
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the following question: What is your policy on a sovereign software supply
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and digital infrastructure? If that question cannot be answered, he
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suggests it is time to get to work. And soon.</li>
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<li>FSFE's president Karsten Gerloff wrote <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2013/07/01/some-things-you-can-do-to-secure-your-communications/">about
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what you can do to secure your communications</a>, e.g. participating in
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politics,</li>
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<li>Werner Koch, author of GnuPG and FSFE GA member wrote about <a
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href="http://rem.eifzilla.de/archives/2013/07/16/gpg4win-and-the-feds">
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Gpg4win and the feds</a>, commenting on a CT article which mentions
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GnuPG and claims that only a self compiled version is trustworthy.</li>
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<li>and Kevin Keijzer <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2013/06/29/more-work-to-maintain-my-privacy/">documented
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how he maintains his online privacy</a>.</li>
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<li>Anonymisation hobbyist Jens Lechtenboerger <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/jens.lechtenboerger/2013/07/19/how-i-select-tor-guard-nodes-under-global-surveillance/">explains
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how he selects Tor guard nodes under global surveillance</a>, and also
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publishing code how he analysed the situation.</li>
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<li>A proposal for a new encrypted mobile messaging app called Hemlis
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received $125,000 in crowdfunding. It is good to see ambitious new software
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projects get support from the community when they are Free Software. Sam
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Tuke checks if <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=564">this is
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really the case with Hemlis</a>.</li>
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<li>Viktor Horvath <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/viktor/archives/62">published the video from
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his talk at FOSDEM about SlapOS</a> a decentralised Free Software
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plattform.</li>
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<li>Lucile wrote about <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2013/07/19/clear-answers-demanded">
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several examples of interesting uses of transparency policies</a>,
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related to Free Software especially for France.</li>
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<li>Should a person be bound by terms of use and contracts where that
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person has been effectively coerced into accepting them? Other
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questions about IT in universities are asked by Paul Boddie in <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=197">"Students: Beware of the
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Academic Cloud!"</a></li>
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<li>News from Martin Gollowitzer's <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gollo/2013/07/06/tracking-for-freedom-cycling-with-the-pros/">"Tracking
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for Freedom"</a> project: he is now cycling with the pros.</li>
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<li>Mirko Böhm reports from his travel to <a
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href="http://creative-destruction.me/2013/07/10/kde-akademy-and-qt-contributor-summit-in-bilbao-spain/">Akademy
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and the Qt contributor summit</a>. Together with Armijn Hemel he started
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a process to <a
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href="http://creative-destruction.me/2013/07/16/qt-project-and-defensive-publications/">
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make defensive publications a routine part of the Qt release
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process</a>,</li>
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<li>and Free Software activities in Munich have intensified. Christian
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Kalkhoff and the Munich group now bought a pavilion to <a
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href="http://www.softmetz.de/2013/07/16/bericht-vom-treffen-der-muenchner-fsfe-fellows-im-juli/">
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be present at more and more public events (German)</a>.</li>
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</ul>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get active: Help with Crypto parties!</h2>
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<p>Crypto parties are getting more popular. They also attract funding from
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non-free software companies. One company <a
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href="http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/hacker-lehnen-teletrustt-sponsoring-fuer-cryptopartys-ab-a-912190.html">
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offered money to crypto party organisers if they also mention non-free
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software (German)</a>. Good that a lot of FSFE's volunteers already support
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the organisers to help people install encryption software, and educate
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participants about Free Software.</p>
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<p>In the Free Software community a lot of us understand how end-to-end
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encryption works. At the moment a lot of people new to Free Software want to
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use it themselves. If you have some time, either help some friends, colleagues,
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or search for local crypto parties and show others how to use GnuPG for e-mail
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encryption, OTR for encrypted chats, TOR to anonymise your online behaviour or
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programs like Jitsi to have encrypted audio and video communications.</p>
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<p>Thanks to all the <a href="http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join">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/kirschner">Matthias Kirschner </a> - <a href="http://www.fsfe.org">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="http://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>newsletter</tag>
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<tag>Matthias Kirschner</tag>
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</tags>
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<timestamp>$Date: 2011-06-06 12:32:19 +0200 (Mon, 06 Jun 2011) $ $Author: mk $</timestamp>
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