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News Archive for 2006

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FSFE becomes the legal guardian of the Bacula Project

21 November 2006

Kern Sibbald, the founder and lead developer of the Bacula network backup solution, assigned his copyright to FSFE. "I wanted to underline the commitment of the Bacula Project to Free Software," said Kern. "Bacula has always been a community project and we're just solidifying that for the long-term. I am very thankful that the FSFE is providing this service because it removes an important administrative burden from the project, which allows us to focus on the task of programming."  

Launching Freedom Task Force, Co-operating with gpl-violations.org

13 November 2006

"We have as a primary goal to help corporations to adhere to the licences from the onset, rather than to have to enforce violations later," explains Mr. Coughlan. "We encourage those responsible for compliance for their company to contact us, so we can work together to avoid licence compliance problems, rather than having to later solve problems that could have been avoided in the first place."  

DRM.info: Informing about the dangers of controlling private media use

03 October 2006

Early this morning, a group of contributing organisations and authors launched DRM.info, a collaborative information platform about the potential dangers of Digital Restriction Management (DRM) initiated by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). The contributing groups come from different areas, such as digital freedom, network activism, consumer rights and libraries.  

GPL Version 3, Draft #2 Published

27 July 2006

After six months of public comment, the second public discussion draft of GPLv3 is now online - responding to public input about patents, Digital Restrictions Management, and global enforceability among other things.  

Commission to Microsoft: Preventing interoperability has a price

12 July 2006

European Commission to fine Microsoft 1.5 million Euro per day retroactively from 16. December 2005, totalling 280.5 million Euro. Should Microsoft not come into compliance until the end of July 2006, the daily fines could be doubled. These fines are a reaction to Microsofts continued lack of compliance with the European Commission decision to make interoperability information available to competitors as a necessary precondition to allow fair competition. FSFE has supported the European Commission from the start of the suit in 2001.  

GPLv3 international conference details online

13 June 2006

Marking the half-way point of the year-long public consultation process for redrafting Free Software's cornerstone licence, the third international GPLv3 conference will host experts from Europe and from around the world.
The venue, in the heart of the city, is the Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona (CCCB). There, during the two days of this event, there will be presentations from experts including Richard Stallman, president of FSF, Eben Moglen, chairman of Software Freedom Law Center, Georg Greve, president of FSF Europe and Harald Welte, founder of gpl-violations.org.  

Europe to host 3rd International GPLv3 Conference: Barcelona, Spain, June 22nd & 23rd

19 May 2006

The conference will take place in Barcelona, Spain, and the exact venue will be announced soon. In January, a year-long public consultation process for updating the GNU General Public License was launched. Commonly called "the GPL", this licence is used by the majority of Free Software to detail the distribution terms of the software.  

FSFE welcomes KDE e.V. as new associate organisation

09 May 2006

The KDE e.V. - a registered non-profit organisation that represents the K Desktop Environment (KDE®) in legal and financial matters - and the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) are proud to announce their associate status, working together for the promotion and protection of Free Software on users' desktops in Europe and worldwide.  

Samba and FSFE: "Microsoft - obstacle to innovation in the digital society!"

27 April 2006

"Businesses and public authorities have to pay prices that are kept high by Microsoft's refusal to share interoperability information with its competitors, as is common practice in the industry," explains Andrew Tridgell, president and founder of the Samba Team in his presentation on behalf of Free Software Foundation Europe in European Court today.  

Microsoft: "Our software patents preclude interoperability"

27 April 2006

Carlo Piana, Free Software Foundation Europe's lawyer on the case explains: "The interventions made perfectly clear that the Blue Bubble only existed in the lawyers' pleadings. Meanwhile, Microsoft left no doubt as to the legal nature of that Bubble: a conglomerate of 46 patents that it claims it holds on ADS, whose main effect is to prevent interoperability and, eventually, competition."  

Notebook Raffle: And The Winners Are...

03 April 2006

The notebook raffle has taken place and two lucky Fellows from Italy and Netherlands won a HP Compaq Notebook, pre-installed with Debian GNU/Linux.  

FSFE to Microsoft: stop complaining, and start complying!

16 February 2006

"After several years of investigation, the original ruling in 2004, and a European Court case lasting close to two years, we now have to conclude that Microsoft never had any intention to comply with the antitrust ruling," comments Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). "We were forced to witness years of delays, stalling and playing for more time during which Microsoft has made no attempt to allow interoperability and competition with its competitors, including Free Software such as Samba."