News
News Archive for 2009
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21 December 2009
Simon Josefsson is a Fellow and GNU hacker with a special interest
in security. His contributions to the Free Software world include
such ubiquitous projects as GnuTLS and libssh2, and he was recently
presented with the Nordic Free Software Award. Stian Rødven Eide
interviewed Simon as a part of our regular Fellowship interviews,
asking him about his projects and other security matters.
16 December 2009
Free Software Foundation Europe congratulates the European Commission
on pushing Microsoft to give users greater choice between different
browsers. "The selection screen will make users aware that they can
make their own choices," says Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's President. "We
are glad that FSFE has helped the Commission to put limits to
Microsoft's desktop monopoly."
27 November 2009
The European Commission (EC) has given in to the demands of
lobbyists for Microsoft and SAP when it revised a key document on
interoperability between electronic government services. The Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE) has analysed the evolution of a new version of the
European Interoperability Framework (EIF), showing that Commission has based its
work on the input of the Business Software Alliance (BSA), a lobby group for
proprietary software vendors, and ignored the voices of a large part of the
European software industry. At the same time, remarks by the EC's Vice President
about Free Software point to a worrying lack of awareness within the
Commission.
18 November 2009
For this year's round of fund-raising, the Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE) has cooked up something special. The biggest donor
of 2009 will share a cooking session with FSFE's President and other
members of the organisation's executive team. FSFE is looking to raise
100,000 Euro during the last quarter of 2009.
09 November 2009
Starting in November 2009, Free Software Foundation
Europe (FSFE) will award three people with a Fellowship grant every month
for the coming year. Everybody who is actively working for Free Software
but cannot afford the Fellowship contribution can apply for the grant.
09 November 2009
FSFE has unleashed an advocacy push in order to prevent the
European Commission from hollowing out an important European
reference document on interoperability. A draft for a new version
of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) leaked to the
press last week.
28 October 2009
Leif-Jöran Olsson is a language technologist and XML enthusiast with a long history in the Swedish solidarity movement. I sat down for an interview with Leif-Jöran and asked him about his background, his education and the various projects he’s been involved in.
23 October 2009
Oracle should agree to put MySQL in the hands of an independent non-profit
guardian, proposes the Free Software Foundation Europe. The Free Software
community could develop MySQL to its full potential, while Oracle would not
have to worry that a competitor could take over the database project.
22 October 2009
A new set of graphics that includes banners, web 2.0 buttons and micro
buttons to advertise donations to FSFE e FSFE's Newsletter is awaiting
for you to be grabbed and spread. Whether you manage a bullettin board, a
weblog or a website feel free to copy and paste our html code into your
site. Show the web that you care about Free Software and FSFE!
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19 October 2009
Microsoft's latest operating system, Windows 7, is currently
shipping with a potentially serious defect. Ahead of the product's
global launch on Thursday, Germany's federal IT security agency
(BSI) has issued a warning [1] about a high-risk vulnerability in
the SMB2 protocol. This can be exploited over the network to shut
down a computer with a Denial of Service (DoS) attack.
08 October 2009
The European Commission yesterday announced a preliminary
agreement with Microsoft. The deal is supposed to settle an
antitrust investigation about the company's dominant position in
the web browser market. The Commission is also ready to strike
a deal on interoperability. The goal is to allow rival products
to work with Microsoft's applications on the desktop.
06 October 2009
The European Commission is on the verge of settling two antitrust
cases against Microsoft. The details of this settlement will determine
how much competition there can be in Europe's software market for
years to come.
05 October 2009
Dear Commissioner Kroes,
02 October 2009
Andreas Tolf Tolfsen is a web technologist, developer and aspiring musicologist - who works at Opera Software, and regularly fights for digital freedoms. I sat down for a Jabber session with Andreas, asking him about his work, his life and his music.
21 September 2009
The issue of Free Software has
hit the run-up to the German elections. During a campaign launched by
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) politicians from many parties
have recognised the potential of Free Software and Open Standards for Germany.
In response to questions from supporters of FSFE, they explain that Free
Software equals more competition, promotes innovation and provides cost
savings.
09 September 2009
With the German federal elections coming up on September 27 2009, FSFE calls on all
friends of freedom to ask the parties' candidates about their positions on Free
Software and Open Standards. We have set up a page about the German
Bundestagswahl to help
you ask questions, and to collect the answers.
31 August 2009
Thomas Jensch, FSFE's current intern in the Zurich office, took on the
role of coordinator for FSFE's edu-team. During his internship, one of Thomas' tasks is to
reorganise and revive FSFE's activities related to Free Software in education. He already agreed to continue
coordinating the team after the conclusion of his internship in November.
28 July 2009
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) congratulates the European
Commission on its firm stance in the antitrust investigation against
Microsoft, which has led the company to offer a settlement. For any
such settlement, getting the details right will be crucial for
competition and innovation in the web browser market.
02 July 2009
Smári McCarthy is a thoughtful anarchist and practical chaos technician - with a deep interest in Free Software and democracy. Currently serving as project manager for the Icelandic Innovation Center, Smári works on digital fabrication and peer-to-peer education, while spending his spare time breaking the fundamental assumptions of how we organise society. I sat down for an interesting interview with Smári, in which he explained his projects and how they can contribute towards a more sustainable world.
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24 June 2009
During its General Assembly in Miraflores de la Sierra, Spain, the
members of FSFE elected new coordinators for several of the
organisation's activities, including strategy, legal and executive
coordination.
20 June 2009
The 2009 general assembly marks the end of FSFEs third major
transformation process, which began at the 2007 assembly in Brussels.
This transformation included changes to
FSFE's constitution, which
were discussed during the general assembly in 2007, prepared by the
Extended Executive Committee for the 2008 assembly in Zürich and
ultimately adopted during an extraordinary assembly in October that year.
The two most important changes made were the introduction of an executive
director position, and the addition of
Fellowship representation to
FSFE's general assembly.
10 June 2009
FSFE's Spanish team is proud to invite all people interested in Free
Software to a team meeting in order to set the group's agenda for next
months. The meeting will take place alongside FSFE's 2009 General
Assembly in Residencia La
Cristalera near
Miraflores
de la Sierra, Madrid. After the meeting there will be a Social
Event with the opportunity to meet and get to know various people from
FSFE's Executive Team
and General Assembly who have come
to Miraflores
de la Sierra, Madrid, for the yearly meeting to discuss and decide
upon FSFE's strategy for the coming
year.
04 June 2009 – Georg C. F. Greve
There are a couple of “beginner’s mistakes” when
thinking about Free Software in general and its commercial application, in
particular. One is to believe there was a substantial difference in the
software referred to by the terms “Free Software” and “Open Source.” There isn’t. As far as the
actual software is concerned, both terms are as synonymous as things get in
real life, with experts debating about details around the fringes. The
differences between the terms lie in framing
and brand.
15 May 2009
FSFE was established in 2001 as a multi-cultural distributed
organisation with volunteers and staff distributed across various
European countries. Its approach is that of a result driven NGO with
emphasis on constructive dialogue for lasting political and legal
change. As an environment FSFE has grown out of the Free Software
community and is ideally suited to motivated individuals capable of
driving projects and initiatives forward.
08 May 2009
In addition to being the friendly media face of Wikipedia Finland, the team contact for Ubuntu Finland and founder of local advocacy project Vapaa Suomi (Libre Finland), Timo Jyrinki has been involved as an active developer and translator for a wide range of Free Software organisations such as FSFE, Debian, GNOME and Openmoko. He has worked on computer graphics for much of his life, with a particular interest in human-computer interaction, and spends a lot of his current time making improvements to embedded systems. Timo is also the subject of this month's Fellowship interview.
30 April 2009
Case G3/08: Referral under Art. 112(1)b) EPC by the President of the EPO (Patentability of programs for computers) to the Enlarged Board of Appeal, pending under Ref. Nº G 3/08.(PDF)
18 April 2009
In the past months, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) visibly improved the
technological infrastructure of the Fellowship. We moved the Fellows' blogging
platform to a new site, we created a Planet to aggregate the Fellows' blogs and
we provided them with an improved and functional wiki.
15 April 2009
Myriam Schweingruber is a devoted Free Software advocate with a flair for convincing people. Having worked as a translator, a school teacher and a pharmacist, Myriam is quite experienced in the art of communication, and gives a clear impression of trustworthiness. She has been especially active in the Swiss community, and helped found FSFE’s associate organisation, Whilhelm Tux, where she also served as the President. Read on for the latest instalment of our Fellowship interview series - "the smallest unit of freedom".
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14 April 2009
FSFE was established in 2001 as a multi-cultural distributed
organisation with volunteers and staff distributed across various
European countries. Its approach is that of a result driven NGO with
emphasis on constructive dialogue for lasting political and legal
change. As an environment FSFE has grown out of the Free Software
community and is ideally suited to motivated individuals capable of
driving projects and initiatives forward.
11 April 2009
The election process for the first Fellowship seat on
FSFE's General Assembly is underway now and four people have put themselves up for election by
all Fellows: Torsten Grote, Jan-Hendrik Peters, Michel Roche, and Björn
Schießle.
25 March 2009
A great global community is gathering today to celebrate the second Document Freedom Day. After a successful 2008 celebration, Document Freedom Day teams all over the world are joining efforts to raise awareness for Document Freedom and Open Standards.
23 March 2009
Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) today announces that the second European Licensing and Legal Workshop will be held at the Hotel Okura on the 23rd and the 24th of April 2009 in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. This conference will provide a forum for discussions on supply chain management, compliance procedures, licence management, community interaction, and other legal issues related to the growth of the European Free Software market.
11 March 2009
For eight years now, the Free Software Foundation Europe has been
working tirelessly for basic rights and freedoms in an increasingly
software-driven society. The 11th of March 2009 sees another major
milestone passed, with its 2^3 (eighth) birthday being celebrated by
its friends, Fellows and associates.
01 March 2009
The election for the first Fellowship seat in FSFE's
General Assembly will finish on 1 June in time for the next general
assembly, which is scheduled for 19-21 June in Miraflores de la Sierra,
Spain.
27 February 2009
Европейската фондация за Свободен Софтуер (ФССЕ) обяви че ще подкрепи
антитръстовото разследване на Европейската комисия срещу Майкрософт и официално
поиска да бъде припозната като заинтересована страна в процеса.
13 February 2009
Colin Turner is a dedicated Free Software activist and Fellowship member, working as a scientist and teacher at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. He has been advocating Free Software in schools and universities for many years and generously shared some of his experiences with us in this fourth instalment of our Fellowship interview series - "the smallest unit of freedom".
02 February 2009
The Fellowship
of the Free Software Foundation Europe is proud to announce its latest
initiative: pdfreaders.org, a site
providing information about PDF with links to Free Software PDF readers
for all major operating systems.
23 January 2009
FSFE's Freedom Task Force (FTF) is pleased to announce the release of a
guide to assist with establishing legal infrastructure for Free Software
projects.
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20 January 2009
Enrico Zini is a long time Fellow of the FSFE and a prominent Debian
developer. He has been involved in many different projects relating
to Free Software and is deeply concerned about social issues. Read on
for the fourth in our Fellowship interview series - "the smallest unit
of freedom".
20 January 2009
On the 16th of January the European Commission DG Competition reported
that it had issued a statement of objections regarding Microsoft's
tying of Internet Explorer (IE) to the Windows Operating System
product family. This action builds on a complaint originally
submitted by Opera, a European company involved in web browser
development.
Results of the translation sprint
11 January 2009
FSFE's new year translation sprint ended yesterday with a respectable
result: the numerous volunteers created 49 new translations and updated
137 documents within 28 days.
FSFE's core team expresses its appreciation towards all the volunteers
who contributed. You have helped a great deal by making information
about Free Software and FSFE's activities available in local European
languages.