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228 lines
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
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<html newsdate="2014-10-06" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - October 2014</title>
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</head>
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<body microformats="h-entry">
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<h1 class="p-name">FSFE Newsletter – October 2014</h1>
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<h2>Italian Court supports unbundling of software and hardware</h2>
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<p>When buying a laptop, it can be difficult to avoid paying for a Microsoft
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Windows licence since many laptops come bundled with one. This “Windows Tax”
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has artificially increased hardware prices for Free Software users who do not
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want to use Microsoft's operating system. We as Free Software users want to
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support the development of Free Software instead of non-free software like
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Microsoft Windows.</p>
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<p>Since 2008 we maintain <a href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/WindowsTaxRefund">a
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wiki page with advice for consumers who want to avoid funding the development
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of non-free software</a>, and for over a decade we talked with politicians and
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consumer protection organisations about this topic. Nonetheless, there is only
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slow progress on the subject, and it will take years to change this situation
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in Europe. For such long term goals, reaching intermediate goals is important.
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Last month we had such a victory.</p>
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<p><a href="/news/2014/news-20140912-01.html">Italy's High Court ruled</a> that
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a laptop buyer was entitled to receive a refund for the price of the Microsoft
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Windows licence he was forced to purchase with his computer. The judges sharply
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criticised the practice of selling PCs only together with a non-free operating
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system as “a commercial policy of forced distribution”. The court considered
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this practice as “monopolistic in tendency”. It also highlighted that the
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practice of bundling means that end users are forced to use additional non-free
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applications due to compatibility and interoperability issues, whether they
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want these programs or not.</p>
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<p>Now the Italian authorities have to turn this ruling into a real win for
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consumers, by ensuring that computer buyers can choose their device with any
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operating system they want, or none. Afterwards we hope that we can convince
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other countries in Europe to follow the example set by Italy, or that we find a
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European-wide solution to the problem.</p>
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<h2>European public administrations using Free Software</h2>
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<p>Often there is a tendency in the media and also from us to
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concentrate on the bad news about Free Software usage in the public
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administration. In this edition, we will concentrate on good examples from last
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month instead. So there is good news concerning Free Software office suites:
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Austria's Bundesrechenzentrum, the federal government-owned
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computing centre, <a href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/103311">praises the
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wide range of application uses of Apache OpenOffice</a>. They appreciate that
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the “solution can be adapted to the data centre's needs, integrated in its
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specialist applications and also allows documents to be created and submitted
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automatically and semi-automatically. OpenOffice is the standard office suite
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at the computing centre since 2008, installed on 12000 PCs across the
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organisation.” Furthermore, the public administrations of the Italian
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cities <a href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/104084">Todi and Terni
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are switching to LibreOffice</a>. They follow the example of the Italian
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province of Perugia, using LibreOffice on all of its 1200 PCs and the Perugia
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Local Health Authority, which installed the office suite on 600 PCs.</p>
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<p><a href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/103567">The French public
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administration is using a Free Software office suite on 500,000 desktops</a>.
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Although they said switching to Free Software was hard, they were able to
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handle the problems. The project's success is partly due to two contracts the
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ministries have with ICT service providers. The contracts entail support for 260
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Free Software applications, and the support team ensures that patches made for
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the ministries are contributed back to the software projects.</p>
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<p>The Greens in Saxony/Germany <a
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href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/node/103307">urge the federal state
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government to do a feasibility study on migrating to Free Software</a>. “The
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political group, free software users themselves since December 2011, say that
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lower IT costs and advantages in IT security should drive public
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administrations” to use Free Software. They argue that the dependency on
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proprietary software “gives large corporations access to and influence on
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official internal workflows, as well as sensitive communication and data of the
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state's citizens.”</p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>Even without the Windows tax mentioned above, you still have to find out if
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the computer you want to buy works with Free Software. To improve the
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information which hardware is compatible, the <a
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href="https://www.fsf.org/news/fsf-and-debian-join-forces-to-help-free-software-users-find-the-hardware-they-need">FSF
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and Debian now cooperate to expand and enhance the hardware database h-node</a>
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to help users learn and share information about computers that work with Free
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Software operating systems.</li>
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<li>On our English public mailinglist a discussion about good metaphors for
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Free Software is currently taking place. <a
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href="https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2014-September/010265.html">Hugo
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Roy started the thread</a> with some examples. Alessandro Rubini had some <a
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href="https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2014-September/010295.html">critical
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remarks, arguing against the metaphors mentioned</a>. He argues that if we need
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a metaphor to explain Free Software to people, we need to remain in the field
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of information, of knowledge that can be spread at no cost. In a recent post
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Guido Arnold reported good experiences with <a
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href="https://lists.fsfe.org/pipermail/discussion/2014-October/010296.html">using
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the recipe analogy with children</a>.</li>
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<li>On this year's Software Freedom Day several local FSFE groups were
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involved: Edgar Hoffmann organised an <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/fast_edi/?p=476">info booth in front of the
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Offenburg town hall, and a mini-community-conference with talks and our Free
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Software quiz in the evening</a> (in German, but with lots of pictures).
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Dominic Hopf, our Hamburg coordinator, gave a <a
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href="http://blog.dmaphy.de/2014/09/software-liberty-is-like-security-in-it.html">talk
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at SFD event in Kiel about F-Droid</a>, while Torsten Grote introduced people
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to F-Droid at the Berlin SFD event. Also present at this event were Nermin
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Canik from Istanbul and your editor to talk with people about software freedom.
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Moreover, Michael Stehmann gave a <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=1258">talk about Free Software and
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privacy at the SFD event in Cologne</a> (in German).</li>
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<li>From 13 to 15 October the FSFE will have a booth at Linuxcon in Düsseldorf.
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As many Free Software activists will already be around before, our Düsseldorf
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Fellowship group invites all Free Software supporters to brunch on 12 October
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2014 starting from 11:00 am at bistro <a
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href="http://www.bistro-schwesterherz.de/">"Schwesterherz"</a>,
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Bilker Allee 66, 40219 Düsseldorf. Thus, a very active time for our local group
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there, after participating at a cryptoparty for the <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=1227">Commissioner for Data Protection
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and Freedom of Information</a> (in German) and <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=1247">organising a booth at Zackk
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street festival</a> (in German).</li>
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<li>Guido Arnold summarised the outcome of FSFE's work shop in Essen, in which
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we discussed <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/09/how-to-advocate-for-free-software-in-local-politics/">best
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practices for doing advocacy work on a local level</a>.</li>
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<li>The Free Software developer Matthew Garret is “solidly convinced that Free
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Software that does nothing to respect or empower users is an absolute waste of
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time”. In <a href="http://mjg59.dreamwidth.org/32686.html">his blog</a> he
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argues that we need to design software from the ground up in such a way that
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those freedoms provide immediate and real benefits to our users. In his
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opinion, anything else is a failure.</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>Guido Arnold reports from the Teckids workshops at FrOSCon9. More than 60
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children from 9 to 13 participated in three different workshops about <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2014/09/teckids-workshops-at-froscon9-robots-python-games-and-blender/">robots,
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python games and Blender</a>.</li>
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<li>Max Mehl explains <a
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href="http://blog.mehl.mx/2014/setting-openstreetmap-as-default-in-thunderbird-contacts/">how
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to use Openstreetmap as default in Thunderbird’s contacts</a> and <a
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href="http://blog.mehl.mx/2014/birthday-calendar-with-owncloud-via-caldav/">how
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to access ownCloud contacts' birthdays via CalDAV calendar</a>.</li>
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<li>Henri Bergius reports from the <a
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href="http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/flowhub-kickstarter-delivery/">status of the
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NoFlo development environment</a>, a user interface for Flow-Based
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programming.</li>
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<li>There are some steps you can take in order to avoid having to deal with
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Microsoft Office files. However, in some cases you will be forced to deal with
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them. Kevin Keijzer documented <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/the_unconventional/2014/09/12/ooxml/">how to make
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the best out of Microsoft Office files as Free Software user</a>.</li>
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<li>Our current intern Michele Marrali wrote a blog post on <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/puster/2014/09/08/freedom-and-openness-in-hardware/">how
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patents, copyright and trademarks can be used to promote freedom in Hardware
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projects</a>.</li>
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</ul>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get active: Give feedback about the User Data Manifesto</h2>
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<p>Version 2 of <a href="https://userdatamanifesto.org/2.0/">the User Data
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Manifesto</a> has been released. The aim of this manifesto is to define the
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fundamental rights for users on their own data in the Internet age: to control
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access to their data (and metadata), to know how and where the data is stored
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and to be free to choose a platform. Some projects are already working towards
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supporting the manifesto to give their users these rights! At the moment,
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version 2 <a href="http://udm.branchable.com/index.en.html">is published as a
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draft on a wiki allowing public comments</a>.</p>
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<p>We ask all Free Software supporters to give feedback on the manifesto, so it
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can be further improved upon, and we can decide whether we want to support it
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as FSFE. Please give feedback yourself, discuss the manifesto <a
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href="/contact/community.html">on our discussion lists</a>, and ask other Free
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Software organisations for feedback and if they would support it in this form,
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too.</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="/">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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<h3>FSFE News</h3>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="/news/">Press Releases</a></li>
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<li><a href="/news/newsletter.html">Newsletters Archive</a></li>
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<li><a href="/events/">Upcoming Events</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://planet.fsfe.org/">Planet Blogs</a></li>
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<li><a href="/contact/community.html">Free Software Discussions</a></li>
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</ul>
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--></sidebar>
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<author id="kirschner" />
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<date>
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<original content="2014-10-06" />
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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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