165 lines
8.2 KiB
HTML
165 lines
8.2 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
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<html newsdate="2011-07-04" type="newsletter">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - July 2011</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - July 2011</h1>
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<h2>Attack on Free Software and the GNU GPL</h2>
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<p>Imagine that you've just bought a computer with pre-installed Free Software. After
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some time you decide to install additional software made by someone
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else. The vendor that sold you your computer, however, does not approve, and decides to sue the people who made the additional software
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that you installed. Sounds like purchasing a computer from that vendor was not such a great idea!</p>
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<p>At the moment something very similar is happening in <a
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href="/news/2011/news-20110620-01.en.html"> in Germany</a>, in an important
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GNU GPL violation case that the FSFE and <a
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href="http://www.gpl-violations.org">gpl-violations.org</a> are
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participating. Germany company AVM maintains in court that others should not be allowed
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to modify the software that comes pre-installed on their commercial computers and devices. It turns out, though, that this pre-installed software includes the Linux kernel, a piece of software distributed under the GNU GPL which guarantees exactly this freedom to users.</p>
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<p>Through their actions, AVM is attacking the very foundations of Free Software: they
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want to take away freedom from others. It will directly <a
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href="http://laforge.gnumonks.org/weblog/2011/06/24/#20110624-avm_cybits_gpl_fud">
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contravene the legal rights of the original software authors</a>, who decided that software freedom and cooperation is more
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important to them than receiving license fees. If AVM is
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successful in court it will be a disastrous move for the freedom of software on embedded
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devices, mobile phones, network hardware and other Free
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Software based products.</p>
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<p>The judge did not make a decision during the June 21 court hearing, and participants in the case may still file further written pleas. On September 27 the court is set to either make a direct ruling on the case or choose to begin hearing evidence. The FSFE and gpl-violations.org have published a <a
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href="/activities/avm-gpl-violation/avm-gpl-violation.html">detailed report about
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the case</a>, and will continue to monitor the situation in defence of freedom for software users.</p>
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<h2>FSFE Internal: An era ends - others start</h2>
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<p>Usually you don't hear about the people who work behind the scenes for the
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FSFE. Most of us are volunteers, and press and publicity
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work is handled by people like FSFE president <a
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href="/about/people/gerloff/gerloff.html">Karsten Gerloff</a>, or your humble editor. But
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without those volunteers who donate their spare time to promote software freedom the FSFE would not be what it is today. (Thank you!)</p>
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<p>At the FSFE's June 11 General Assembly, which took place in Ljubljana, Slovenia, <a href="/about/team.html">FSFE's members</a> elected <a
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href="http://sandklef.com/hesa">Henrik Sandklef</a> to be the organisation's Vice President.
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A computer scientist and GNU Hacker from Gothenburg, Sweden, Henrik has
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been active with the FSFE since 2005. He takes over from Fernanda Weiden,
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who held the volunteer position for the past two years. The General
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Assembly also confirmed Karsten Gerloff as FSFE's President and
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Reinhard Müller as Finanical Officer.</p>
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<p>While a new officer term cycle began, another era ended as Bernhard Reiter, FSFE co-founder, completed ten years as German coordinator and Deputy. He is the
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first FSFE representative to continuously hold positions within the organisation for such a long time, and is the only person to have participated in every
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FSFE annual General Assembly to date. Bernhard will remain active within the FSFE but has handed the official post of Deputy German Coordinator
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to <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/">Torsten Grote</a>.</p>
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<h2>The European Commission’s locked-in syndrome</h2>
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<p>It's official: The European Commission will migrate to Microsoft
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Windows 7 without considering alternative solutions. In a reply to
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questions asked by MEP Bart Staes (Greens/EFA), the European Commission
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confirmed that it has awarded contracts for the 'upgrade' to Microsoft
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and reseller Fujitsu-Siemens on behalf of 55 other European institutions
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and the Commission itself. As Karsten explains in his <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2011/06/06/the-european-commissions-locked-in-syndrome/">
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blog article on the issue</a>, this move will drive the Comission into even greater
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dependence on Microsoft.</p>
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<h2>And now for something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>Do you want your (future) children to work with Free Software in
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school? Read the new <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=321">Fellowship
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Interview with Guido Arnold</a>. Guido is coordinating the FSFE's education
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team. He gives insights into the team's latest efforts at increasing
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the use of Free Software in education.</li>
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<li>One IP address for everything: FSFE <a
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href="/news/2011/news-20110608-01.html">celebrated World IPv6
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Day</a>. Almost all of our servers are now reachable via IPv6.</li>
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<li>Have you ever seen three FSF presidents in one place? The
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famous picture <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2011/06/30/free-software-summit-improvised/">captures Richard Stallman (FSF US), Nagarjuna G (FSF India) and Karsten Gerloff
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(FSFE)</a> together.</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>Do you need <a
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href="http://matija.suklje.name/?q=node/249">Free Software law
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related links</a>? Matija Šuklje and Natalia
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Evdokimova published a June 2011 edition of their Free Software law resource list. </li>
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<li>How do you organise a cool Free Software event, like <a
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href="http://fscons.org">FSCONS</a>, using only command line tools? Read
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the <a href="http://blog.padowi.se/">blog articles from Patrik
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Willard</a>, FSFE's new Deputy coordinator of Sweden.
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</li>
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<li>Football is still a topic on our blog aggregation: <a
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href="http://www.stud.uni-potsdam.de/~leena/2011/06/fusball-und-mannerfusball-gleichermasen-ernst-nehmen/">
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Lena Simon writes about football and football for men</a> and <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2011/06/euro-2012-in-free-software-qualification-results-june-7-2011/">Guido
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writes about the EURO 2012 in Free Software</a>, an
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alternative for those not interested in traditional
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football.</li>
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<li>Greek Fellow Kostas Boukouvalas <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/boukouvalas/?p=360">writes about
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Thessaloniki’s GNU/Linux Lab</a></li>
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<li>Michael Stehmann <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/stehmann/?p=260">reports about the
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Düsseldorf Fellowship meeting</a>, including the Open Music Contest</li>
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</ul>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get active: Become an FSFE booth volunteer in Strasbourg</h2>
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<p>The FSFE will participate in the RMLL, one of France's biggest Free Software events, from July 9 to 14. In addition to having an information booth, the FSFE will also deliver presentations on Free Software: Karsten will talk about Centralised Internet Services and
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Problems of Power (13.07., 15:20), France Coordinator <a
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href="/about/people/roy/roy.html">Hugo Roy</a> will talk about the battle fought by
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Free Software for HTML5 online videos, and several other speakers have been invited to talk on topics concerning decentralisation of the Internet.</p>
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<p>Like every booth and event we participate with, please contact today to volunteer if you are able. Help us to inform our audiences about Free Software!</p>
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<p>Best regards and see you next time,<br/>
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<a href="/about/people/kirschner">Matthias Kirschner </a> - <a href="/">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="https://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 key="newsletter"/>
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<tag key="matthias-kirschner"/>
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</tags>
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</html>
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