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-
- <html newsdate="2016-07-12" type="newsletter">
- <head>
- <title>FSFE Newsletter - July 2016</title>
- </head>
- <body class="newsletter article" microformats="h-entry" id="nl-201607">
- <h1 class="p-name">FSFE Newsletter - July 2016</h1>
-
- <h2 id="eif-v.-3-the-eu-hampers-its-own-goal-to-promote-better-interoperability-with-harmful-licensing-terms">EIF v. 3:
- the EU hampers its own goal to promote better interoperability with harmful licensing terms</h2>
-
- <p newsteaser="yes">The FSFE provided the European Commission with <a href="https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160624-01.en.html">our
- input in regard to the ongoing revision of the European Interoperability
- Framework</a> (EIF). The EIF aims to promote enhanced interoperability in
- the EU public sector, and is currently going through its third revision
- since 2004. Whilst <a href="https://ec.europa.eu/eusurvey/files/57b2ecd5-effa-4594-9ef2-47e7ecc67047">the draft version</a> gives preference to Open Standards in delivering public services, it also
- promotes harmful FRAND (so-called "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory")
- licensing terms for standards. In practice, these are
- <a href="https://fsfe.org/activities/os/why-frand-is-bad-for-free-software.en.html">highly anti-competitive and unfit</a>
- not only for Free Software but for the whole software sector in general.
- In addition, the draft also ignores the proven relationship between
- interoperability and Free Software: many national frameworks explicitly
- <a href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/Migrated/EU%20Policies%20overview%3A%20Free%20Software%20and%20Open%20Standards">require
- their national services to be based on Free Software</a>. We
- <a href="https://fsfe.org/activities/os/eif-v3.en.html">asked the European
- Commission to address these and other shortcomings and ensure interoperability
- in an efficient way.</a></p>
-
- <h2 id="fsfe-summit---registration-open-and-how-to-attend">FSFE summit - Registration open and how to attend</h2>
-
- <p>From September 2nd to 4th we will be holding the first ever FSFE summit.
- This is <a href="https://fsfe.org/community/events/2016/summit/frontpage">the
- main event to bring together FSFE members and supporters from all over Europe</a>.
- In the last weeks our amazing team behind the FSFE summit invested their
- online time, coffee breaks and even their daydreams to offer you an event
- that is worthy of your visit and worthy of being the official celebration of
- 15 years of FSFE. The event is pan-European, organised for the community,
- includes old stagers and newcomers, and takes place in the heart of Berlin.
- Every day there is a new theme, built on talks about technology,
- freedom and society. And last but not least, there will be social events in the evening
- that give the opportunity to meet up, share ideas and plan new activities.</p>
-
- <p><a href="https://fsfe.org/community/events/2016/summit/attendance">Registration for the first FSFE summit is now officially open</a>. Additionally,
- on the very same page you find valuable information about the questions
- you might have about attendance. Better be quick as tickets will be "sold out"
- soon!</p>
-
- <p>Please be aware that our summit team is still working hard to shape an
- inspiring and balanced community program for you and it will be finally
- announced in the next weeks.</p>
-
- <h2 id="from-the-community">From the community</h2>
-
- <ul>
- <li><p>Given the latest news about implemented encryption in popular chat
- applications, <a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/h2/2016/05/31/why-privacy-is-more-than-crypto/">Hannes Hauswedell
- discusses the important aspects of privacy in communication</a>, and gives
- some examples of current applications and ongoing projects that respect
- privacy on different levels. Beyond encryption, says Hannes, our privacy is
- in need of Free Software, device integrity and federated networks.
- <a href="https://framablog.org/2016/06/27/le-chiffrement-ne-suffira-pas/">Framasoft has translated this blogpost into French</a>.</p></li>
-
- <li><p>Björn Schießle blogs about the
- <a href="http://blog.schiessle.org/2016/07/04/history-and-future-of-cloud-federation/">History
- and Future of Cloud Federation</a> where he explains the concept of server-to-server
- sharing in Owncloud/Nextcloud and its development to a "federated cloud ID",
- which looks similar to an email address. Like email, "federated cloud" refers
- to a user on a specific server.</p></li>
-
- <li><p>GA member Torsten Grote
- <a href="https://blog.grobox.de/2016/the-proprietarization-of-android-google-play-services-and-apps/">writes
- about the ongoing proprietarisation of Android</a> and how this effectively
- cripples other versions of Android and makes them increasingly useless.
- Torsten also argues that even crippled Android versions are still an important
- fundament for communities to increase the people's freedom.</p></li>
-
- <li><p>Daniel Pocock writes about <a href="https://danielpocock.com/webrtc-sip-xmpp-projects-gsoc-2016">WebRTC
- and communications projects as part of Google Summer of Code, under the
- umbrella of the Debian Project</a>. His overview includes WebRTC plugins
- for popular CMS and web frameworks, truly peer-to-peer alternatives, and the GNU/Linux Desktop Telepathy framework.</p></li>
-
- <li><p>Erik Albers writes how EU ministers recently missed the chance to
- set Free Software as an integral part of their Open Access strategy and
- why <a href="http://blog.3rik.cc/2016/06/there-is-no-open-science-without-the-use-of-open-standards-and-free-software/">there
- is no Open Science without the use of open standards and Free Software</a>.</p></li>
-
- <li><p>Björn Schießle writes about
- <a href="http://blog.schiessle.org/2016/06/15/freedom-for-whom/">Freedom for whom</a>
- where he shares his thoughts about the harm which the Contributor License Agreement
- (CLA) causes to Free Software communities and how businesses and communities can
- benefit from developing complete Free Software solutions.</p></li>
- </ul>
-
- <h2 id="what-else-have-we-done">What else have we done?</h2>
-
- <ul>
- <li><p>Erik Albers, head of the Team summit, blogged on several occasions
- this month to share the ongoing process of organising the first ever
- FSFE summit. He shared insights about the
- <a href="http://blog.3rik.cc/2016/05/fsfe-summit-about-logo-and-pr/">PR/Logo</a>,
- <a href="http://blog.3rik.cc/2016/06/fsfesummit-some-updates-and-introducing-our-committee/">the summit committee</a>
- and <a href="http://blog.3rik.cc/2016/07/fsfesummit-registration-open/">the
- registration and the team behind it</a>.</p></li>
-
- <li><p>FSFE supported the creation of the
- <a href="https://fsfe.org/news/2016/news-20160630-01">Software Heritage
- initiative, an archive of Free Software code</a>. It collects programs,
- applications and snippets of code distributed under free licenses from a
- wide variety of active and defunct sources with the aim of protecting code
- from sinking into oblivion.</p></li>
-
- <li><p>We once had the idea of creating national chapters of the
- FSFE, but it turned out to be unnecessary. Matthias Kirschner now states that
- the <a href="https://k7r.eu/fsfe-chapter-germany-ev-officially-dissolved/">FSFE
- Chapter Germany e.V. has been officially dissolved</a>.</p></li>
-
- <li><p>The FSFE sent its concerns to the Vice President of the Digital
- Single Market Andrus Ansip, the Commissioners Elżbieta Bieńkowska, Günther
- Oettinger, and Margrethe Vestager in regard to
- <a href="https://fsfe.org/activities/os/why-frand-is-bad-for-free-software.en.html">harmful
- FRAND licensing terms</a> in the EU's standardisation plans.</p></li>
-
- <li><p>We joined the initiative "transparent civil society" that is now
- reflected in a new section in our <a href="https://fsfe.org/about/about.en.html">About Page</a>.
- <a href="https://fsfe.org/about/transparency-commitment.en.html">Our Transparency Commitment</a>
- lists all information necessary to be part of the initiative.</p></li>
-
- <li><p>FSFE Austria represented the FSFE with a booth at <a href="https://blog.widerstroem.com/weblog/6/veganmania-2016-in-wien">Veganmania 2016 in Vienna</a> (DE),
- at <a href="https://blog.widerstroem.com/weblog/7/fair-planet-2016-in-linz">Fair
- Planet 2016 in Linz</a> (DE) and at <a href="https://blog.widerstroem.com/weblog/8/linuxwochen-linz-2016">Linuxwochen
- Linz 2016</a>.</p></li>
-
- <li><p>FSFE's vice president, Alessandro Rubini, helped to organise the
- Italian Free Software Conference Confsl 2016 and
- <a href="http://blogs.fsfe.org/rubini/2016/06/29/confsl-2016-the-italian-free-software-conference/">represented
- FSFE in a dedicated session</a>.</p></li>
-
- <li><p>FSFE group Munich represented the FSFE with a
- <a href="https://www.softmetz.de/2016/06/13/erster-corso-leopold-2016-die-fsfe-war-dabei/">
- booth at the first Corso Leopold 2016</a> (DE).</p></li>
-
- <li><p>The "FreieSoftwareOG" represented the FSFE with a<a href="http://blogs.fsfe.org/fast_edi/?p=502"> booth in Offenburg</a> (DE).</p></li>
- </ul>
-
- <h2 id="take-action">Take action!</h2>
-
- <p><a href="https://fsfe.org/community/events/2016/summit/attendance">Get
- your ticket for the first FSFE summit from 2nd to 4th of September now</a>!</p>
-
- <p>Also, <a href="https://fsfe.org/community/events/2016/summit/frontpage#spreadtheword">help
- us to spread the word</a> in your favorite mailing list, your blog, your
- social media channels or share the news with your neighbours.</p>
-
- <h2 id="good-free-software-news">Good Free Software News</h2>
-
- <p>April updates us on their campaign regarding the French Digital Republic
- Bill wherein the <a href="https://www.april.org/en/progress-report-aprils-campaign-around-french-digital-republic-bill">French
- parliament has given priority to Free Software</a>. Whilst general legal
- framework in France is only taking baby steps in promotion of Free Software,
- by the end of 2018, almost <a href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/%E2%80%98open-source-values-match-municipal-public-services%E2%80%99">70%
- of all workstations in the French town of Fontaine will run GNU/Linux</a>.
- Bulgaria, on the other hand has currently become the leading example in
- Free Software policies by <a href="https://thepolicy.us/bulgaria-got-a-law-requiring-open-source-98bf626cf70a#.nfmord3u7">adopting
- a law that requires all software written for the government to be Free
- Software and to be developed as such in a public repository</a>. Andalusia
- is keeping up with the trend and has announced that <a href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/andalusia-renews-funds-key-open-source-projects">funding two
- of the region's key Free Software projects, GECOS and Guadalinux will continue</a>.
- Colleges in Europe are
- <a href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/european-colleges-share-smes-open-source-training">creating
- courses to train students to help companies choose and use Free Software cloud services</a>.</p>
-
- <p>Thanks to all the <a href="https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute.en.html">volunteers</a>,
- <a href="http://fellowship.fsfe.org/join">Fellows</a> and
- <a href="https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html">corporate donors</a>
- who enable our work,</p>
-
- <p>your editors Cellini, Polina and Erik, <a href="https://fsfe.org">FSFE</a></p>
- </body>
- <sidebar promo="about-fsfe"/>
- <date>
- <original content="2018-07"/>
- </date>
- <followup>donate</followup>
- <tags>
- <tag>newsletter</tag>
- </tags>
- </html>
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