178 lines
7.7 KiB
HTML
178 lines
7.7 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
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<html newsdate="2015-03-04" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - March 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 - March 2015</h1>
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<h2>FSFE's reply to EU consultation on patents and standard</h2>
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<p>We believe that proprietary standards and software patents are barriers to
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Free Software adoption. To get rid of those barriers we have to help the public
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administration to understand this, too. That is why last month we responded to
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a consultation on the interaction of standards and patents by the European
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Commission's Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry,
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Entrepreneurship and SMEs.</p>
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<p><a href="/news/2015/news-20150218-01.html">In our response</a>, we focused
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mainly on how software patents negatively affect competition and innovation in
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the software market. We also highlighted that so-called “fair, reasonable and
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non-discriminatory” (FRAND) licensing terms are in practice a grave
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discrimination against Free Software. In many segments of the software market,
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these programs are the most significant competition to non-free offerings. So
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the FSFE recommends that standards organisations instead implement the
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successful patent licensing policies of the W3C and other bodies, and make the
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restriction-free licensing of standard-essential patents mandatory.</p>
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<p>If you want to help us to promote Open Standards, please participate in this
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year's Document Freedom Day (see this month's get active item at the end of the
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newsletter).</p>
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<h2>Free Software as integral part of Open Educational Resources</h2>
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<p>The more we see classic educational environments equipped with computers,
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the more important becomes an education system that teaches every student to be
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in control of their technology. For the FSFE, the basis for this is Free
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Software.</p>
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<p>Together with other partners in the “Bündnis Freie Bildung” (Free Education
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Alliance) we published a <a
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href="/news/2015/news-20150210-01.html">position paper about
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the creation and usage of Open Educational Resources (OER)</a>. The paper has a
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specific focus on the creation and usage of OER inside the German educational
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system. It should be mandatory to publish educational resources including
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software that has been paid with public money under free licences. Furthermore,
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the position paper demands that educational institutions should consider the
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compatibility with Free Software already during the development or extension of
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their IT infrastructures. By this it envisions to have “all educational
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resources usable without any legal or technical barriers”.</p>
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<p>If you want to know more about what happened in the education field
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connected with Free Software, read <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2015/02/free-software-in-education-news-january/">the
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January Education team report</a>.</p>
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<h2>What happened on the “I love Free Software” day?</h2>
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<p>On 14 February 2015 people all over the world showed Free Software
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contributors their appreciation. It was the fifth year we asked people to
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participate in the “I Love Free Software” day. <a
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href="/news/2015/news-20150303-01.html">This year's report shows a variety of
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love declarations that happened this day</a>, including blog posts, pictures,
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comics, poems, and an #ilovefs Android library.</p>
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<p>We want to thank everybody who motivated Free Software contributors at this
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year's “I love Free Software” day, and ask everybody to mark 14 February in
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their calendars to motivate the people who enable us to control our
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technology.</p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>Hannes Hauswedell from the German team wrote an update about the situation
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with secure texting. The last months Hannes and others wanted to improve the
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situation with Textsecure, which unfortunately did not work out until now. So
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Hannes changed his mind and is now <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/h2/2015/02/23/secure-texting-part-ii/">recommending
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kontalk</a>.</li>
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<li>Fellow Cory Doctorow wrote an article in the Guardian imagining how it
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would look like <a
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href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/feb/13/if-dishwashers-were-iphones">“If
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dishwashers were iPhones”</a>.</li>
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<li>Christian Kalkhoff <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/softmetz/?p=53">reported
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from FSFE's Munich group meeting in January</a>. To find upcoming local
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meetings close to you, please have a look at <a
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href="/events/events.html">our event page</a>.</li>
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<li>The Fellowship election for one of the seats in FSFE's General Assembly is
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running until 6 March 2015. All sustaining members should have received the
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voting instructions to decide between <a
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href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/FellowshipElection_2015">Nicolas Dietrich, Max
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Mehl, and Felix Stegerman</a>. So if you have not yet voted, do it now!</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>After there have been plenty of reports of Lenovo shipping products with a
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form of adware known as Superfish, <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=852">Paul Boddie asks what Lenovo's
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reasoning was</a>, and from whom they want their money in future.</li>
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<li>Max Mehl has been asked by a friend why he is “investing so much time in
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the FSFE instead of putting more energy in other organisations with more focus
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on privacy issues.” <a
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href="http://blog.mehl.mx/2015/in-the-end-freedom-is-what-matters/">In his blog
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post</a>, he answers that question.</li>
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<li><a
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href="http://creative-destruction.me/2015/02/26/student-papers-reda-report-amendments-birthday-and-more/">Mirko
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Böhm summarised his last weeks</a> including what he worked on with his
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students, about amendments to Julia Reda's report, software patents, and Qt
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programming.</li>
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<li>Daniel Pocock wrote about the 3rd birthday of Lumicall.</li>
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<li>Christian Kallhoff reports from <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/softmetz/?p=60">his experience to fix a bug in
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Free Software</a>.</li>
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<li>Nico Rikken wrote about <a
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href="http://nicorikken.eu/blog/software-isnt-magic/">understanding software
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and why it is not magic</a>, and about <a
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href="http://nicorikken.eu/blog/ubuntu-calling-for-freedom/">the freedom Ubuntu
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phone offers</a>.</li>
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</ul>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get active: Be a part of Document Freedom Day 2015!</h2>
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<p>Every year since 2008, people who care about a free information society
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celebrate <a href="http://documentfreedom.org">Document Freedom Day</a> to
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raise awareness of Open Standards. This year again people around the world come
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together on 25 March to talk about access to communications, run local public
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activities, and generally spread the word about Open Standards in a dozen
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different ways.</p>
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<p>We are offering promotion materials in many languages, and artwork you can
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remix, share and improve to publicise your own event. If you are running a
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local event, we may be able to offer funding of your local activities or your
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local print runs - thanks to DFD's sponsors. To get inspired, take a look at <a
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href="http://documentfreedom.org/news/2014/news-20140424-01.html">what other
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groups from Mexico to Japan did last year</a>.</p>
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<p><a href="http://documentfreedom.org/getinvolved.html">Participate in DFD
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2015!</a></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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</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="2015-03-04" />
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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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