145 lines
7.7 KiB
HTML
145 lines
7.7 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
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<html newsdate="2016-03-02" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - March 2016</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 2016</h1>
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<h2 id="i-love-free-software-day-2016">"I love Free Software" Day 2016</h2>
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<p>For the 6th time in a row we asked everyone to express their gratitude
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and appreciation towards Free Software contributors on Valentine's Day.
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Check out our #ilovefs 2016 report and see <a href="/news/2016/news-20160222-01.html">who got acknowledged
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this year through countless blog posts, pictures, artwork, memes, personal
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notes and many more</a>. Don't forget to mark next year's 14 February as
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"I love Free Software" Day to continue this nice tradition of acknowledging
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the people and hard work of everyone behind Free Software. We thank all
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participants who found time to say "thank you" and for making #ilovefs
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2016 such a success!</p>
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<h2 id="no-cloud-went-viral">"No cloud" went viral</h2>
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<p>Just before "I love Free Software" Day, <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/the-reddit-effect-more-orders-in-24-hours-than-usually-in-6-months/">thanks to a spontaneous Reddit post we received over 200 orders of
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our promotional material</a> in the time span of 48 hours. In comparison,
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in 2015 we had around 370 orders in total. After 24 hours we had more
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orders than usual in 6 months. The majority of orders requested "no cloud"
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material but beside that people also ordered our leaflet with basic
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information about Free Software, the GnuPG leaflet, and our F-Droid leaflet.</p>
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<h2 id="european-free-software-policy-meeting-2016">European Free Software
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Policy Meeting 2016</h2>
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<p>In the end of Janury we organised, together with Open Forum Europe,
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<a href="/news/2016/news-20160205-01.html">a
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pre-FOSDEM policy meeting in Brussels with the active Free Software
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policy groups around Europe</a>. The purpose of the meeting was to learn
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about each other's activities and exchange views, with an emphasis on public
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policy related actions. In total, 19 organisations participated in the
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meeting. In addition, Member of the European Parliament Julia Reda, and a representative of the IT department of the European Commission, Pierre Damas,
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attended the meeting to present the work of EU institutions in the field
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of Free Software.</p>
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<h2 id="from-the-community">From the community</h2>
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<ul>
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<li><p>February was dedicated to the sweet love declarations to Free
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Software in the light of #ilovefs day. Check out our #ilovefs 2016 report
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above for more detailed information about different blogposts, and get
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inspired for the next year's celebrations by following
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<a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/floriansnow/2016/02/13/make-your-own-personal-banner-for-i-love-free-software-day/">Florian Snow's idea for DIY #ilovefs banners</a>.</p></li>
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<li><p>Paul Boddie combined retrocomputing with Python programming and
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wrote how to <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=1233">make Python
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programs faster with Shedskin</a>.</p></li>
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<li><p>Marcus Moeller gave tips about <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mmoeller/2016/02/03/getting-started-with-gnu-social/">getting started with the federated social network GNU social</a>.</p></li>
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<li><p>Björn Schießle contemplated about the future of GitHub and
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<a href="http://blog.schiessle.org/2016/02/12/the-next-generation-of-code-hosting-platforms/">the next generation of code hosting platforms</a>.</p></li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="what-else-have-we-done">What else have we done?</h2>
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<ul>
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<li><p>After the adoption of the European Parliament's own-initiative
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report "Towards a Digital Single Market" which included several positive
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references to increase the use of Free Software in public sector, it
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turned out that the meaning of "free" got lost in
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translation. In particular the Italian version of the report referred to
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Free Software as "gratis" as in free beer, instead of "libre" as in freedom.
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We asked the staff of the member of the European Parliament Julia Reda
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to help us and draw attention of the authors of the report to this mistake.
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<a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/now-italian-european-parliaments-dsm-report-speaks-about-freedom-not-price/">The mistake got fixed and the Italian version of the report
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now rightfully refers to software freedom, and not the price</a>.</p></li>
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<li><p>We've simplified a lot of our internal processes: no longer it is
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necessary for someone helping us with our web pages or in other teams to
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register a guest account in our systems. Instead they will now register
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in the same system as our Fellows. It may not sound like much, but it's
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a revolution in simplification which we're very happy with! Read about
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how you too can
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<a href="/contribute/">contribute to our work</a></p></li>
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<li><p>We published a <a href="/news/2016/news-20160224-01.html">report of our work in 2015</a>. From teaching people to use encryption
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for their e-mail, to changing the direction of policy on a European level,
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FSFE worked hard in 2015 to empower users to control technology. We saw
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a lot of improvements in how we work, and we ended the year positively
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with a lot to look forward to in 2016. We want to thank everyone for
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helping us making the world a better place!</p></li>
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<li><p>As hinted at in the previous newsletter, we've teamed up with KDE,
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Qt, VideoLAN and others who are organising QtCon 2016 in Berlin 2-4
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September 2016. We'll use the opportunity to host an FSFE summit during
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QtCon, with more information forthcoming.</p></li>
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</ul>
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<h2 id="take-action">Take Action</h2>
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<p>We still have plenty of "no cloud" stickers and other informational
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material in stock! Help us to spread the word about software freedom in
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your local community by
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<a href="/contribute/spreadtheword.html">ordering our
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leaflets, stickers, postcards and posters</a>.</p>
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<h2 id="good-free-software-news">Good Free Software news</h2>
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<p>The French government is reviewing its existing Free Software support
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contract, signed in 2011, and <a href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/france-involves-public-draft-support-contract">asks Free Software communities and the
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public to help them draft their next multi-year framework contract for
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Free Software services and support.</a> Meanwhile, the French Parliament
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has <a href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/france-assembly-encourages-use-free-software">approved a first draft law for a Digital Republic, which encourages
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the use of Free Software by public administrations, and considers source
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code of software developed by or for public administrations to be public information</a>. Schools in the capital of Estonia, Tallinn, <a href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/tallinn-schools-piloting-open-source-software">are gradually moving to Free Software after the city
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administration decided to switch to Free Software</a> in January 2015. By
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September 2015 more than 4000 workstations and laptops across the 50
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schools in Tallinn are running on Free Software. In Germany, <a href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/open-source-largest-german-pension-fund">Federal Pension Insurance, which is the largest in the country, is
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increasing the use of Free Software by publishing a call for tender
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seeking assistance for its Free Software-based services</a>.</p>
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<p>Thanks to all the
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<a href="/contribute/contribute.html">volunteers</a>
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,
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<a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate">Fellows</a>
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and
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<a href="/donate/thankgnus.html">corporate donors</a>
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who enable our work,</p>
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<p>your editors Polina Malaja and Jonas Öberg <a href="/index.html">FSFE</a></p>
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</body>
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<sidebar promo="about-fsfe"/>
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<date>
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<original content="2016-03-02"/>
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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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