Legal Support Activities
As a non-profit, non-governmental organisation, Free Software
Foundation Europe works to create general understanding and
support for Free Software and Open Standards. The following
activities are concrete actions that we take in the areas of
public awareness, policy advocacy and legal support.
Since its foundation in 2001, the FSFE has been working every
single day to further Free Software in Europe and beyond. With
our concrete activities, based upon the three pillars of our work, we
focus on protecting and extending user rights. Some of our
actions run for many years, some are aimed at short-term
developments, but all are part of our mission: empower users
to control technology.
Another major part of our work consists of continuous engagement
and background work. We are present at dozens of conferences per year,
support and maintain an excellent community and
provide it with helpful resources. Furthermore, we are a
prominent contact point for all questions and enquiries around
software freedom, Open Standards, and user rights. We also provide basic education resources on Free Software legal and licensing issues.
Learn more about legal
issues in Free Software and our general approach in this
area.
-

A FSFE está rodando um projeto para facilitar o licenciamento para humanos(as) e máquinas de modo parecido. Ele resolve um aspecto fundamental que o licenciamento de Software Livre tem muito em sua fonte: que licença é um arquivo sob licença, e quem detém o direito de cópia? REUSE porê recomendações fáceis em três passos que audam usuários(as), desenvolvedores(as) e profissionais da área legal.
-

A Legal Network é um grupo neutro e apartidário de "experts" em diferentes campos do conhecimento envolvidos(as) com aspectos legais do Software Livre. Atualmente a Legal Network tam muitas centenas de participantes de diferetnes sistemas legais, arcabouços acadêmicos e filiações. O objetivo da Legal Network é promover discussão e fomentar têm a intenção de ser dinâmicas, provicativas no bom sentido (fazer as pessoas pensarem) e estarem alinhadas aos recentes desenvolvimentos tecnológicos. Desde 2007, temos conduzido o Seminário de Licenciamento e Aspectos Legais (LLW) que tem sido a mais avançada congregação de advogados(as), aficcionados(as) em tecnologia e líderes nos assuntos legais e de licenciamento referentes ao Software Livre numa atmosfera informal e confidencial.
-

A lista de correio eletrônico sobre Questões Relacionadas às Licenças é nosso grupo de voluntários(as) dedicado a prover ajuda referente a licenças e conformidade legal em Software Livre. Se você precisa de consultoria sobre o que as licenças de Software Livre você deveria usar, ou se você quer cohecer melhor sobre que direitos você tem sobre um pedaço de Software Livre, pode nos contatar.
-

A FSFE é uma organização parceira da NGI, uma coalizção de várias entidades sem fins lucrativos Europa afora. Fundada pela Comissão Europeia, NGI provê garantias a pesquisadores(as) e desenvolvedores(as) avulsos(as), bemcomo equipes que desejam trabalhar em novas ideias e tecnologias que comtribuem para o estabelecimento da Internet da Próxima Geração. A FSFE provê apoio legal para projetos que melhorem o caraer aberto, inclusivo, transparente, cooperativo, que valorize a privacidade e proteção dos dados.
More Legal Activities
-

The Fiduciary License Agreement (FLA) allows software projects to assign and consolidate copyrights to a named fiduciary, for the effective management of their copyright status by this fiduciary. This permits developers to focus on making great applications, rather than spending their time dealing with legal administration. While the FSFE no longer accepts new projects under the Fiduciary Programme, we continue to offer customisable versions of the Fiduciary License Agreement (FLA) for your use.
We are working towards a world where software does what software
users want it to do. For this, software users must be able to
participate in the development and distribution of the software.
Software patents block this goal by adding legal and financial
risks to software development and distribution and by giving the
patent holders legal power to completely prohibit software
developers from using the patented ideas.
In 2001 the European Union started investigating Microsoft's
dominant position in the market for desktop operating systems.
The FSFE played two key roles in this case. First, we represented
the interests of Free Software developers. Second, we are a
public interest organisation who cannot be bought off. Thanks to
the excellent work by all involved parties, the case has been won
in all rulings up to the European Court of Justice in 2012.
The Slovak company EURA Slovakia has been facing EUR 5600 in
fines because it did not buy and use the Microsoft Windows
operating system for submitting electronic tax reports. Slovak
tax administration gave EURA only two options: either to buy and
use Microsoft Windows or face the fines. The FSFE assisted in
this case to advocate for platform-neutral solutions for such
procedures instead. Unfortunately, the court decided against Free
Software and Open Standards, but we were able to raise awareness
about these wrongdoings in Slovakia and beyond.
Can a company modify GPL-licensed software on a third-party
device? The router manufacturer AVM accused Cybits of copyright
infringement and trademark claims because they modify the
original router firmware which is largely based on the Linux
kernel. Together with gpl-violations.org we successfully
convinced the court that the provisions in the GPL license are
binding: software under this license can be freely modified and
installed even if it is shipped as part of an embedded device's
firmware.
Since the very beginning of the standardisation process for
Microsoft's Office Open XML - OOXML (hereinafter MS-OOXML), the
FSFE has expressed serious doubts about whether MS-OOXML could be
considered as open, if even as a standard at all. The FSFE first
raised the issue in the community and led the movement against
the standardisation of MS-OOXML, following closely over the years
the relevant developments.
The June 29th 2007 release of version 3 of the GNU General Public
License (GPL) marked the end of an eighteen month public
consultation process. During this time, the FSFE worked to raise
awareness of the changes proposed for the licence, to help the
community to participate in the public consultation, and to
document the ongoing discussion to make this topic as accessible
as possible.
The AGNULA project aimed at the creation of a fully functional, entirely
Free Software GNU/Linux distribution for professional audio
users. It is a project run by key players in the audio field
with funding by the European Commission. The FSFE as a
partner of this project is taking care of the legal issues, the
long-term aspects and also making sure the Free Software
community interests are heard.