245 行
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245 行
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<html newsdate="2012-11-04" type="newsletter">
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<title>FSFE Newsletter - November 2012</title>
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<body>
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<h1>FSFE Newsletter - November 2012</h1>
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<h2>Rooting and flashing your device does not void the warranty in EU</h2>
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<p newsteaser="yes">Most of the participants in our <a href="/campaigns/android/android.html">Free Your Android</a>
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workshops are concerned whether rooting your device (e.g. an
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Android phone) and replacing its operating system with something else voids
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your statutory warranty as consumer. We asked our legal coordinator
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Matija Šuklje and FSFE legal council Carlo Piana to analyse the problem. <a
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href="http://matija.suklje.name/rooting-and-flashing-your-device-does-not-void-the-warranty-in-eu">Their
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answer is: No.</a> "Just the fact that you modified or changed the software
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of your device, is not a sufficient reason to void your statutory warranty. As
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long as you have bought the device as a consumer in the European Union." Read throughout
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their <a
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href="http://matija.suklje.name/rooting-and-flashing-your-device-does-not-void-the-warranty-in-eu">
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analysis</a>.</p>
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<p>We hope these news will encourage people to flash their devices with Free
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Software. Next opportunity to attend on of our Free Your Android workshop is on
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the 9th of November at <a href="/events/2012/fscons-2012.html">FSCONS</a>, in
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Sweden, and on the 16th of November <a
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href="https://2012.sfscon.it/en/program">at SFSCON</a>, in Italy.</p>
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<h2>Facts about software patents by the New York Times</h2>
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<p>The New York Times published an article entitled <a
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href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/08/technology/patent-wars-among-tech-giants-can-stifle-competition.html">
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"The Patent, Used as a Sword"</a> about the patent system. Hugo Roy
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<a href="
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http://blog.hugoroy.eu/2012/10/10/some-facts-about-the-us-patent-system/">summaries
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it</a>. It is about how Apple and Google were spending more on
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patents than on research and development in 2011. Among other issues, it focuses on the number of lawsuits
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filed each year in the US, which has tripled from 1990 to 2010, and how 70% of patent
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applications are approved after the applicant altered claims.</p>
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<p>On the same topic, Karsten Gerloff <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2012/09/27/epo-debate-how-software-patents-are-delaying-the-future/">gave
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a talk about "How Software Patents Are Delaying The Future"</a>, on a
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discussion panel organised by the European Patent Office. "Currently, a lot of
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policy on patents (as well as copyright) is made on the basis of faith and
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rather dubious argument. We urgently need to move on towards evidence-based
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policy making", concludes Karsten. </p>
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<h2>Something completely different</h2>
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<ul>
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<li>FSFE will <a href="/events/2012/fscons-2012.html">have a track focused
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on general purpose computing at FSCONS</a> in Gothenburg from 9th to 11th
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November. Karsten Gerloff will talk about <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/2012/09/27/epo-debate-how-software-patents-are-delaying-the-future/">software
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patents</a>, Erik Albers about the <a
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href="/campaigns/android/android.html">Free Your Android campaign</a>, Sam
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Tuke will give a preview about a new campaign FSFE will launch soon, and your
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editor gives a general overview about general purpose computing. In other
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tracks, Otto Kekäläinen gives two talks, one about <a
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href="/news/2012/news-20121022-01.html">"Dirty tactics against LibreOffice
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in public administration and how to overcome them"</a> and another about
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"How to fix public procurement"; and Hugo Roy will present his project <a
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href="http://tos-dr.info/">"Terms of Services; Didn't Read"</a>. And there
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are <a href="https://fscons.org/2012/schedule/">other interesting talks</a>.
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</li>
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<li><a href="http://blogs.fsfe.org/fellowship-interviews/?p=628">Chris
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Woolfrey interviewed Hugo Roy</a>, FSFE's French Team coordinator and
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co-founder of <a href="http://www.libertesnumeriques.net/">the Digital Freedoms association</a>.
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He joined FSFE in 2009 as an
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intern, assisting FSFE president Karsten Gerloff. In France, Hugo is also
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active with <a href="http://www.april.org/">April</a> and <a
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href="http://www.fdn.fr/">the French Data Network</a>.</li>
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<li>Last month your editor <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=1017">visited Benjamin Mako Hill, John
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Sullivan, Richard Stallman, and the FSF office staff</a> in Boston. There was
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a lot happening at our sister organisation: They <a
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href="https://www.fsf.org/news/the-free-software-foundation-opens-nominations-for-the-15th-annual-free-software-awards">
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opened nominations</a> for the 15th Annual Free Software Awards; they <a
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href="http://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/gnus-trick-or-treat-at-windows-8-launch">crashed
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the Microsoft Windows 8 launch event</a> in New York City with a cheerful
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GNU; Libby Reinish wrote about the <a
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href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/happy-ada-lovelace-day">Ada
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Lovelace Day</a>, a day to celebrate women's contributions to science and
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technology; the LulzBot AO-100 3D Printer was <a
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href="https://www.fsf.org/news/hardware-certification-aleph-objects-lulzbot-3d-printer">
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awarded the first "Respects Your Freedom" (RYF) certification</a>; and
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Donald Robertson <a
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href="https://www.fsf.org/blogs/licensing/jeremy-allison-on-why-samba-switched-to-gplv3">published
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a presentation from Jeremy Allison</a> explaining why Samba chose the GNU
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GPL version 3.</li>
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<li><a
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href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/contribution-open-source-europes-economy-450-billion-year">
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A study from Carlo Daffara</a> concluded that Free Software is
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contributing 450 billion Euro per year to Europe's economy. You are contributing to it!</li>
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<li>The European Commission's joinup portal is <a
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href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/software/federated_forge">listing different
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national and regional Free Software repositories</a>.</li>
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<li>From our Fellowship <a href="http://planet.fsfe.org">planet aggregation</a>: </li>
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<ul>
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<li>Thomas Løcke wrote about the <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/thomaslocke/2012/10/28/mediagoblin-an-emerging-free-and-open-media-publishing-platform/">GNU
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MediaGoblin</a> crowdsourcing campaign. Its goal is to improve posting,
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sharing and commenting on media, with Free Software and with keeping more
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control of your data. <a
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href="http://oskar.twoday.net/STORIES/169431527/">Oskar Welzl also
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donated to GNU Media Goblin</a>, as he wants to have an alternative to
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Flickr and YouTube.</li>
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<li>Ana is <a
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href="http://blogs.fsfe.org/anaghz/2012/10/29/a-run-for-fs-i-destroying-the-myths-surrounding-fs/">
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destroying some myths surrounding Free Software</a>. She also wrote about
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the <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/anaghz/2012/10/04/social-media-and-the-concept-of-freedom/">
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"Social media and the concept of 'freedom'"</a> and her <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/anaghz/2012/09/26/free-sotfware-baptism-of-fire/">experiences
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from changing keyboard layouts</a> after setting up an encrypted hard
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disk. In general she concludes "My computer is working better and I am
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starting to understand software a bit better".</li>
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<li>Karl Beecher reports, that in 1974 <a
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href="http://computerfloss.com/2012/10/arthur-c-clarke-predicting-computing-in-2001-back-in-1974">Arthur
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C. Clarke predicted</a> in a video that by 2001 we will all have small
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computers that can fit on a desk in our own home, and they will even be
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inter-connected with other computers across the world. (While watching your
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editor noticed how picky he is about fan noise.)</li>
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<li>Erik explained <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/eal/2012/10/12/why-become-a-supporter-of-fsfe/">
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why you should become a supporter of FSFE</a>. Currently, we <a
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href="https://fsfe.org/support/stats">have 1233 supporters</a>, and if
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the growth continues at the same pace, we will have 5733 in a year. Thanks
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also to all of you promoting the supporter, like <a
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href="http://lionel.montrieux.eu/2012/09/26/become-a-supporter-of-fsfe/">Lionel
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Montrieux</a>, <a href="http://oskar.twoday.net/stories/156263488/">Oskar
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Wenzel</a>, and others.</li>
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<li>Interested in tablets and phones? Henri looks into how to be <a
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href="http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/tablet-productivity">productive with
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them</a>. Our Finnish Fellows describe how to <a
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href="http://seravo.fi/2012/10/trying-out-meego-offspring-mer-and-nemo-on-exopc-wetab">
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install the Meego offspring Mer and Nemo on ExoPC tablet (WeTab)</a> and
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Timo wrote about the <a
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href="http://losca.blogspot.de/2012/10/openphoenux-gta04.html">Bavarian
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phone OpenPhoenux GTA04</a> and <a
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href="http://losca.blogspot.de/2012/10/uds-gta04-hacking.html">how to
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hack on it</a>.</li>
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<li>Sam Tuke described how to install <a
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href="http://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=420"> static website generator
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webgen</a> (which we use for <a
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href="http://pdfreaders.org">pdfreaders.org</a>), and <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=428">how to install the Android
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Emulator in Fedora 17</a>, that lets you to test applications without having an
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Android phone.</li>
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<li>Do you want to know why Telepathy is awesome? Read <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/drdanz/?p=747">Daniele Domenichelli's blog
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post</a>. Also, and related to KDE, Torsten Grote <a
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href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/torsten.grote/2012/10/03/compiling-kde-kontact-from-source/">explains
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how to build Kontact on Debian Sid</a>. In fact, KDE became 16 last month.
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Congrats and thanks to all Free Software hackers in KDE! Continue being awesome.</li>
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<li>Our legal coordinator Matija is <a
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href="http://matija.suklje.name/understanding-how-python-counts">
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learning to program Python </a> and he <a
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href="http://matija.suklje.name/fsfe-legal-office-hours-in-cyberpipe">
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announced</a> to work one day a week from Cyberpipe, Slovenian's biggest
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hacklab.</li>
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</ul>
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</ul>
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<h2>Get active: Every buck, fixes a bug!</h2>
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<p>A lot of you already signed our <a
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href="/campaigns/pdfreaders/petition.html"> Petition For The Removal Of
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Proprietary Software Advertising On Public Institution Websites</a>, and now
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we ask you for your support to enhance this campaign.</p>
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<p>With the example of PDF readers we raised general awareness of proprietary
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software advertisements on public administration's websites since September
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2010. Until today our Petition was signed by 80 organisations, 58 businesses
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and 2438 individuals. We contacted 2104 public administrations, and managed to
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close 552 bugs (26%). So 552 federal government departments, municipalities,
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and other administrations removed the advertisement, or added additional
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references to Free Software PDF readers. And we will continue fixing the
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remaining bugs. Just last month <a href="/news/2012/news-20120921-01.html">
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twenty Italian civil society organisations wrote a letter</a> to the
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President of the Authority for the Protection of Personal Data, asking the
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agency to ensure that all documents published on its website can be read and
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used with Free Software programs.</p>
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<p>However, we also received a lot of feedback from the public administration
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and other institutions and political entities. One big task is to improve the
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PDF readers website, as it is one of our key tools in this campaign. With your
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donation, we will be able to implement the planned new features for the website
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until the 1st of February and after it, for its maintenance.</p>
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<p>Please donate <a
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href="http://www.ulule.com/pdfreaders/">on the
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fundraising page</a>, which uses Ulule platform, and spread the news about
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it. <strong>Update: Turn off Javascript before you follow the link to the donation page, to avoid running nonfree software</strong></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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