351 lines
16 KiB
HTML
351 lines
16 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
|
||
<html newsdate="2017-01-09">
|
||
<version>1</version>
|
||
|
||
<head>
|
||
<title>
|
||
FSFE Annual Report 2016
|
||
</title>
|
||
</head>
|
||
<body microformats="h-entry">
|
||
<h1 class="p-name">FSFE Annual Report 2016</h1>
|
||
<div class="captioned">
|
||
<img src="/activities/15years/fsfe-15-badge.png" />
|
||
<p>FSFE celebrating 15 years in 2016</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
It has been a busy year for the FSFE. Upholding the principles of
|
||
Free Software and protecting citizens' from being exploited
|
||
are ongoing challenges we tackled from a variety of angles.
|
||
We (and by "we", we mean the staff and volunteers at the FSFE) pored
|
||
over hundreds of pages of policies and legislations, looking for loopholes
|
||
through which Free Software could be attacked.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>We travelled to events all over Europe, often carrying with us dozens
|
||
of heavy boxes of merchandising, to explain what Free Software is all about
|
||
as speakers and attendees. We have organised our own events too including
|
||
our first international summit.</p>
|
||
|
||
<div class="captioned">
|
||
<img src="/community/events/2016/summit/pictures/Summit_ConferenceRoom2_400.jpg" />
|
||
<p>MEP Julia Reda speaks at the FSFE Summit</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
|
||
<p>And we have dreamt up and executed campaigns to spread awareness of
|
||
the threats to Free Software and users' freedoms. This has entailed
|
||
mobilising dozens of staff members and volunteers, contacting the media,
|
||
and designing and ordering T-shirts, squishy stress balls/hearts, and balloons,
|
||
lots of balloons.</p>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<p>What follows are just a few of the highlights from 2016.</p>
|
||
|
||
<hr />
|
||
<p>Help us to grow bigger and make a difference in 2017:<a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate?referrer=an116"> https://fsfe.org/join </a></p>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<div id="toc">
|
||
|
||
<ul>
|
||
<li>
|
||
<a href="#policies">Policies and Legislation</a>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li>
|
||
<a href="#campaigns">Campaings</a>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li>
|
||
<a href="#events">Events</a>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li>
|
||
<a href="#network">Strengthening the Free Software Network</a>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li>
|
||
<a href="#2017">Coming up in 2017</a>
|
||
</li>
|
||
<li>
|
||
<a href="#tl">TL;DR</a>
|
||
</li>
|
||
</ul>
|
||
</div>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<h2 id="policies">Policies and Legislation</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>We have been carefully monitoring policies and legislation in Europe
|
||
and intervened when citizens' rights were in peril. We have formulated
|
||
several proposals to EU institutions and EU member states containing concrete
|
||
steps to <a href="/activities/radiodirective/">solve the
|
||
issues with the EU Radio Directive</a>.
|
||
</p>
|
||
<p>This Directive threatens software
|
||
freedom with its ambiguous phrasing that all but forbids users from
|
||
installing unapproved software (read "Free operating systems") on
|
||
radio-enabled devices. These devices include all modern laptops, wireless
|
||
routers and every single smartphone in existence. Over 40 European
|
||
organisations and enterprises support our concerns and demands.Max Mehl
|
||
and Polina Malaja will be doing follow-up on this with along with our volunteers
|
||
and other organisations to make sure you can still install Free Software
|
||
on those devices.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Another threat to Free Software is the EC's stance on the Digital Single
|
||
Market strategy. We have patiently explained several times why <a href="/news/2016/news-20160428-02.html">FRAND licensing</a>, the licensing
|
||
favoured by the Commission in its "ICT Standardisation Priorities for the
|
||
Digital Single Market", is incompatible with Free Software and why a more
|
||
liberal model should be used. This is still an ongoing battle.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Staying with the EC, we tried to help out on the <a href="http://k7r.eu/fossa-now-we-need-feedback-by-the-real-experts/">"Free and Open Source
|
||
Security Audit" (FOSSA)</a> project, commissioned jointly by the European
|
||
Parliament. The project should have helped evaluate the suitability of the
|
||
Free Software used in public administrations. A professional audit of Free
|
||
Software tools and frameworks would seem a good thing at first glance, an
|
||
excellent way to test run software and improve it when bugs and vulnerabilities
|
||
pop up. At the very least it would help protect citizens' data stored on
|
||
public servers.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>However, after reading the results, it was not clear the time and
|
||
money invested into the study had been well-spent. The conclusions were
|
||
sometimes vague and some parts directly wrong. Despite our best efforts,
|
||
the company employed to do the survey did not seem to know much about
|
||
Free Software at all.</p>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<p>That said, the EC and MEPs in charge of the project, were always open
|
||
to our comments and able to push for improvements, although they were bound
|
||
to a contract with consultants who were not too knowledgeable about Free
|
||
Software matters. Viewed as a pilot, it helped everybody see where the
|
||
pitfalls were. With a bigger budget and the lessons learnt, the EU is
|
||
planning to follow our advice and improve the project in future iterations.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>We even put the law to the test, and our colleague Max Mehl, the FSFE
|
||
coordinator for Germany, sent out <a href="https://blog.mehl.mx/2016/erste-testgeraete-fuer-routerfreiheit-versendet/">"alternative" routers to testers</a> so they could try them
|
||
with their Internet provider. <a href="https://wiki.fsfe.org/Activities/CompulsoryRouters/Implementation/Germany">We published the results on our Wiki</a> to help others
|
||
who are thinking of changing their devices.</p>
|
||
|
||
<hr />
|
||
<p>Join the FSFE to support our policy work in 2017: <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate?referrer=an216"> https://fsfe.org/join </a></p>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<h2 id="campaigns">Campaigns</h2>
|
||
|
||
<div class="captioned">
|
||
<img src="/contribute/promopics/ilovefs-postcard-front-thumb.png" alt="I Love Free Software" />
|
||
<p>I Love Free Software Postcard</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
|
||
<p>
|
||
But not all our campaigns have been so serious. We have also carried
|
||
out a campaign to raise awareness about Free Software amongst the general
|
||
public, and here "light-hearted" is literally the keyword. We launched
|
||
our 6th <a href="/news/2016/news-20160222-01.html">"I love FS" campaign</a> on Valentine's day.
|
||
During this campaign, we encouraged all our friends to make a display of
|
||
love towards Free Software by telling the world, online with posts to
|
||
social media, or offline, with public demonstrations of FS love.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Online, we got tweets and blog posts from users, volunteers and
|
||
sympathizers explaining what they loved most about their favourite Free
|
||
Software project. Offline, we had at least one cake baked by the WikiMedia
|
||
Foundation, gifs of people squeezing our #ilovefs stress heart, and pictures
|
||
of people from all over Europe waving our "<3 Free Software"
|
||
balloons.</p>
|
||
|
||
<div class="captioned">
|
||
<img src="graphics/news-20170109-01-social1_400.jpg" />
|
||
</div>
|
||
|
||
<p>In a similar vein, we wanted to help the general media, local newspapers, radios
|
||
and TV stations, to know more about Free Software. To this end we started
|
||
our "Meet a Free Software Hero" campaign. Part of our larger <a href="/activities/15years">15th Anniversary
|
||
celebration campaign</a>, we encouraged volunteers and media outlets to
|
||
get in touch with each other so that the "heroes" could explain
|
||
what software freedom was all about, and bust a few myths at the same time.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Thanks to the campaign, we managed to increase our profile with the
|
||
media and it has now become much more usual for journalists to get in touch
|
||
with us to comment on stories. This gives us more visibility and influence
|
||
to affect changes in favour of Free Software.</p>
|
||
|
||
<div class="captioned">
|
||
<img src="graphics/balccon_400.jpg" />
|
||
<p>FSFE booth at BalCCon 2016 (thanks to Nikola Todorovic)</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<h2>Events</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>Another way of reaching a wider audience was through events. Apart from
|
||
participating in Free Software-specific conferences like FOSDEM, LinuxCon
|
||
and different Linuxtage (we took the FSFE booth to all of these), we also
|
||
participated in the <a href="https://blog.widerstroem.com/#res:ner-page=4om/weblog/10/wear-fair-2016">Wear Fair and more</a>. This event
|
||
is Austria's largest textile fair for sustainable clothing and lifestyle,
|
||
and covers from organic food, to DIY electronic repairs. The themes of
|
||
sustainability, individual personal freedom and alternative economic
|
||
models helped our Foundation fit right in and we sold plenty of
|
||
T-shirts, bags and baby vests. We also collected contact information
|
||
of people interested in our cause.</p>
|
||
|
||
<div class="captioned">
|
||
<img src="graphics/2016-09-ffm-rotlintstrassenfest_400.jpg" />
|
||
<p>FSFE at the Rotlint street festival</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
|
||
<p>But we are prouder of the two big events we organised ourselves. In April
|
||
we held our annual <a href="/activities/ln/llw.html">Legal and Licensing Workshop</a>. This Workshop
|
||
is set up by and for members of the FSFE's Legal Network. Legal experts
|
||
from all sectors of the industry got together to discuss licenses, compliance
|
||
and what constitutes derivative work for three days in balmy Barcelona.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Speakers included Harald Welte of gpl-violations.org fame;
|
||
Miriam Ballhausen from JBB; and Eben Moglen, chairman of the Software
|
||
Freedom Law Center.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Our Legal Coordinator Polina Malaja together with our trainee Olga Gkotsopoulou
|
||
are already busy planning next year’s conference which we expect to be at
|
||
least as successful as 2016's.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Similarly exciting was our first ever <a href="/community/events/2016/summit/backsight.html">FSFE Summit</a> in September,
|
||
in which, Erik Albers, our community builder, commandeered a veritable
|
||
army of volunteers and interns to make sure that everything run smoothly
|
||
as a part of QtCon and in collaboration with Qt, KDAB, VideoLAN and our
|
||
associate organisation KDE.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Part celebration of FSFE's 15th anniversary, and everything we have achieved
|
||
over the years; part <a href="/community/events/2016/summit/frontpage">event to talk
|
||
about the non-technical aspects of Free Software</a>, we covered the topics
|
||
of Free Software in business, the public sector and as a force for
|
||
social advancement in more than 50 talks. We also had our 15th
|
||
birthday party.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Speakers included, among many others, the two prior presidents and the
|
||
one current president of the FSFE, that is, Georg Greve, Karsten Gerloff,
|
||
and Matthias Kirschner; Sonia Montegiove and Italo Vignoli, the architects
|
||
behind the migration to LibreOffice of the Italian Armed Forces; and Roberto di Cosmo,
|
||
co-founder along with Stefano "Zach" Zacchiroli of SoftwareHeritage.org.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p><a href="/news/2016/news-20160907-01.html">Julia Reda,
|
||
MEP for the Pirate Party, closed the event</a> with a keynote on copyright
|
||
reform and made the case for Free Software on machines critical in
|
||
modern democracies. She explained, for example, why using inauditable
|
||
proprietary software on voting machines was unacceptable.</p>
|
||
|
||
<div class="captioned">
|
||
<img src="/community/events/2016/summit/pictures/Summit_Booth2_400.jpeg" />
|
||
<p>Booth at the FSFE Summit</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
|
||
<h2 id="network">Strengthening the Free Software Network</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>Which brings us to the subject of how we used events to make the network
|
||
of Free Software organisations stronger. The Software Heritage mentioned
|
||
above, for example, collects programs, applications and snippets of code
|
||
distributed under free license from several sources. It aims to preserve
|
||
an encyclopedia of free code for posterity. It was clear from the start
|
||
that the FSFE and SH had a lot in common, so we supported the initiative
|
||
early on, helping them get coverage in the media and offering them a platform
|
||
to spread the word about what they do.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>We also <a href="/news/2016/news-20160817-01.html">strengthened our ties with the Document Foundation
|
||
by joining its Advisory Board</a>. At the same time, The Document Foundation
|
||
became an associated organisation of the FSFE. This means that we will
|
||
be offering advice, support and suggestions on one of the most successful
|
||
Free Software projects out there: LibreOffice and all its ecosystem. With
|
||
the Document Foundation as an associated organisation, we created official
|
||
channels for the exchange of ideas, coordinate efforts, motivate each other,
|
||
and find opportunities to work together on specific projects.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Another thing we did was to <a href="/news/2016/news-20160126-01.html">hand over
|
||
the running of the FSFE's Document Freedom Day to Document Freedom Foundation</a>. The DFD
|
||
already organises the Software Freedom Day (SFD) campaign, the Education
|
||
Freedom Day, and the Hardware Freedom Day. It seemed logical that they
|
||
also organise the Document Freedom Day. Like that they widened the range
|
||
of related events they offer, and it allows us to concentrate
|
||
on core Free Software topics.</p>
|
||
|
||
<div class="captioned">
|
||
<img src="/community/events/2016/pictures/CCC_400.jpg" />
|
||
<p>FSFE Booth at 33C3</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
|
||
<h2 id="2017">Coming up in 2017</h2>
|
||
|
||
|
||
<p>But there is still a lot of work to do and 2017 is shaping up to be
|
||
an interesting year. Although we have managed to get the ban on compulsory
|
||
routers into law, we expect that ISPs will fight back, so we will have
|
||
to be on guard for that. The threat of FRAND licensing and software
|
||
patents is never far off and we will have to continue advising lawmakers
|
||
on why these are dangerous for Free Software and the European software
|
||
industry in general. Katharina Nucon, an experienced campaign coordinator, will be helping us with this campaign.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Most of our efforts, however, will most likely be spent pushing for
|
||
getting more public institutions to publish their software under a free
|
||
license. We want public money to pay for public code, and only public code.
|
||
Software used by public institutions is acquired, deployed and/or developed
|
||
with taxpayers' money. Making it available under a Free license to all
|
||
citizens is just the right thing to do. Furthermore, we hope we will raise
|
||
awareness amongst politicians of the importance of using Free Software
|
||
when they see its advantages.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>There are several important national and regional elections scheduled
|
||
throughout Europe in 2017. Politicians are supposedly more receptive during
|
||
campaigns, so we will do our best to make candidates and parties commit
|
||
to Free Software and openness in their administrations.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>We need governments to commit to improving policies that favour Free
|
||
Software across the board. It is not admissible any more that the
|
||
administration pilfer taxpayers money on proprietary software.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>We need policies that help the European IT sector become much more competitive
|
||
and sustainable. There is no better way to achieve this than incentivising
|
||
the use and development of Free Software and Open Standards.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Finally we need better policies to help promote Free Software amongst
|
||
the general public. Every European citizen must be allowed to regain
|
||
control over the technology they use once and for all.</p>
|
||
|
||
<hr />
|
||
<p>Join the FSFE to support our work in 2017: <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate?referrer=an316"> https://fsfe.org/join </a></p>
|
||
<hr />
|
||
|
||
<div class="captioned">
|
||
<img src="/activities/15years/pictures/pmpc-group-500.JPG" />
|
||
<p>FSFE campaign team preparing to show why public money should mean public code.</p>
|
||
</div>
|
||
|
||
<h2 id="tl">TL;DR</h2>
|
||
|
||
<p>This has been a long report, but if you need a summary, here goes:</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Free Software improves everybody's life and the world. It is clear that
|
||
everybody have been handed
|
||
the short end of the IT stick for too long. SMEs need a level playing ground
|
||
to prosper and create employment. Private citizens and business owners must
|
||
be allowed to own and control the devices they pay for. Governments must be
|
||
at the service of the people, as must the software they pay for with people's
|
||
taxes. Free Software, Free Hardware and Open Standards solve all of the above.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>All of these things should be self-evident, but apparently are not.
|
||
That is why we at the FSFE do what we do. Throughout this report we have
|
||
mentioned some of the people that work to turn these things into reality. However, and
|
||
it may sound cliché, but it doesn't make it less true, without the continued
|
||
support from you, the volunteer, the fellow, the occasional donor, and the moral
|
||
supporter, none of our staff would be able to do anything. We rely heavily on you,
|
||
your activities and your donations to stay independent and fight for your rights
|
||
when they are threatened, regardless as to where the threat comes from.</p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Please help us make next year's report is as long as this one, and do
|
||
consider <a href="https://my.fsfe.org/donate?referrer=an316">joining the FSFE.</a></p>
|
||
|
||
<p>Best Regards,<br></br>
|
||
Jonas Oberg (Executive Director) and Matthias Kirschner (President)
|
||
</p>
|
||
|
||
</body>
|
||
<tags>
|
||
<tag key="annual-report"/>
|
||
<tag key="front-page"/>
|
||
</tags>
|
||
|
||
|
||
</html>
|