News
News Archive for 2013
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13 December 2013
As a reader of our website, you are aware of the
importance of Free Software for a free society. The FSFE has been fighting
for Free Software since 2001. Since then, we have made a big difference by
exercising political pressure, helping Free Software developers with legal
expertise, and building public awareness for software freedom. To continue
this important work, we need a total budget of 390,000 Euro for 2014. We are
currently still 160,000 short of this goal.
14 November 2013
For a long time, cars were a symbol of freedom and independence. No
longer. In its Zoe electric car, car maker Renault apparently has the
ability to remotely prevent the battery from charging. And that’s more
chilling than it may sound.
07 November 2013
Rockstar, a consortium of companies formed to collect certain patents put on sale in the dissolution procedure of Nortel, has sued Google and other companies over seven of those patents.
04 November 2013
Today FSFE launches a new campaign to make young people aware of the digital restrictions that they tolerate. Microblogging and guerilla stickering form core components of this fresh strategy for engaging youth in fighting for digital freedom.
27 September 2013
It was 30 years ago that Richard Stallman announced the GNU project. An initiative that started with a
programmer's frustration over a broken printer driver has changed our society.
The idea of software that everyone can use, study, share and improve has proven
very powerful indeed.
20 September 2013
We need computers we can trust. The recent
news about planet-wide surveillance make clear how important
computer systems are for our society. Control of these computer
systems needs to be in the hands of their users.
31 July 2013
Privacy is a fundamental human right, and is central to maintaining
democratic societies. FSFE joins more than 100 other organisations in
demanding that states respect human rights, and bring their
surveillance apparatus under democratic control. We have signed the International
Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications
Surveillance. These principles are an important contribution to
the discussion about how to provide security in a free society. More
than one year in the making, they are now more relevant than ever.
30 July 2013
FSFE has sent an open letter to Estonia's National Electoral Committee (NEC) regarding the country's Internet voting system. We ask the NEC to release the software used in the election process as Free Software.
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29 July 2013
In a recent antitrust submission to the
European Commission, a Microsoft-led coalition falsely claimed that the
distribution of Free Software free of charge hurts competition. FSFE has written
a letter to the European Commission's competition authorities to
refute this claim, and make it clear that Free Software is
critical for an open, competitive IT market.
29 July 2013
To:
European Commission
DG Competition
B-1049 Brussels
Belgium
25 July 2013
FSFE supports the Open Letter to stop surveillance. The letter calls for twelve
political steps including the development and promotion of Free Software for
digital self-defence. The letter was initiated by Digitale Gesellschaft and
also signed by several organisations including CCC, Creative Commons Germany, the German journalist
association, DigitalCourage, EFF, EDRI, Greenpeace Central/East Europe,
Transparency International Germany, the German Consumer Protections, Wikimedia,
and others.
12 July 2013
In an article
published today, The Guardian describes how Microsoft is actively
cooperating with the NSA. According to the article, Microsoft is providing
the NSA with broad access to the communications of anyone using the
company's services:
11 July 2013
Today Hemlis, a proposal for a new encrypted mobile messaging app, received $125,000 in crowdfunding. It’s wonderful to see ambitious new software projects get support from the community, but how open will it be?
03 July 2013
Today, the Free Software Foundation Europe publishes its
Free Software related election questions for this fall's elections
to the German parliament, which will take place on
September 22.
All political parties have responded to the questions, which cover
issues like users' control over their electronic devices, the
release of publicly funded computer programs as Free Software, and
software patents.
25 June 2013
In a Communication published today, the European Commission urges public bodies to break free from vendor lock-in in their IT systems. The Commission wants public bodies to rely on standards rather than brand names and proprietary technology when they buy software.
20 June 2013
In recent weeks, political events in Istanbul have been the focus of international media. Important discussions are taking place about Turkey's government and her people. Several have lost their lives in the process
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20 June 2013
Faced with user protests, Microsoft has been forced to
make the terms for its latest Xbox gaming console look a little less
restrictive. However, the “new” terms which had caused
such outrage were not in fact new at all: they were similar to most other
proprietary software licences, including those covering other Microsoft
software products and on-line services.
12 June 2013
On Friday the 7th of June the German Parliament decided
upon a joint
motion to limit software patents (see English translation by
BIKT). The Parliament urges the German Government to take steps to
limit the granting of patents on computer programs. Software should
exclusively be covered by copyright, and the rights of the copyright
holders should not be devalued by third parties' software patents. The
only exception where patents should be allowed are computer programs which
replace a mechanical or electromagnetic component. In addition the
Parliament made clear that governmental actions related to patents must
never interfere with the legality of distributing Free Software.
11 June 2013
In a case of a Slovak company protesting against being forced to use non-free software to file taxes, a court has failed to rule on the substance of the case.
31 May 2013
As reported in the our last
newsletter, W3C wants to implement usage controls on the web.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) now published a formal
objection to the HTML working group draft charter. Free Software
Foundation Europe fully supports EFF's objections.
23 May 2013
In April the German Parliament (the 'Bundestag') has introduced a joint
motion against software patents. It urges the German government
to take steps to limit the granting of patents on computer programs.
After the first hearing in Parliament, Matthias Kirschner was invited
for FSFE as external expert to the legal committee meeting on May 13th.
FSFE published a written
statement and we published
the notes of our oral presentation. There will be a second
meeting of a committee and afterwards on the 6th of June the Parliament
will vote upon the motion.
03 May 2013
This Friday, May 3rd 2013, FSFE is joining the 8th international "Day against DRM" campaign in the call to end Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). The fight against DRM has been gathering momentum in the past weeks. Freedom activists rallied against DRM in HTML5, stressing this technology's harmful effects on innovation and user's freedom. On today's Day Against DRM, our sister organisation the Free Software Foundation will deliver the petition signatures opposing DRM in HTML5 to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)in Boston.
03 May 2013
Today, May 3rd 2013, is the international day against Digital Restrictions Management (DRM). Usually, the term DRM refers to various restrictions that companies – or any other content provider – impose on digital media and data. These restrictions are there to let providers decide what you can do with your media and data and what not. This blog entry sheds light on a related issue: the loss of digital and physical control of your own device.
02 May 2013
On April 27, the administrative court of Almada, Portugal, declared a 550, 000 Euro contract between Microsoft and the municipality of Almada to be illegal. The technical specifications of the competition launched by the municipality prevented any company other than Microsoft and their partners to submit a proposal.
25 April 2013
Join us in calling on the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and its member organisations to reject the Encrypted Media Extensions proposal (EME). This proposal aims at incorporating support for Digital Restriction Management (DRM) into HTML and would therefore exclude Free Software browsers from being compatible with many web pages.
24 April 2013
A group of Free Software activists from Romania and Moldova has joined FSFE's program of associate organisations. Active since 2008, Ceata incorporated as a foundation in February 2013. Fundația Ceata and FSFE will work together to promote software freedom in Romania and throughout Europe.
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22 April 2013
The German Parliament, the Bundestag, has introduced
a joint motion against software patents. The resolution urges the
German government to take steps to limit the granting of patents on
computer programs.
02 April 2013
On April 8, Microsoft will discontinue its Windows Messenger service. All current users will be switched to Skype. The Free Software Foundation Europe advises former users of Windows Messenger to take this as an opportunity to embrace
Open Standards such as Jabber (XMPP) instead of switching to Skype.
27 March 2013
The German newspaper taz.die tageszeitung (TAZ) receives this year's
Document Freedom Day award. With this award, the Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE) and the Foundation for a Free Information
Infrastructure (FFII) honour organisations that make exemplary use of
Open Standards.
27 March 2013
In 30 countries around the world, activists are celebrating Open Standards on today's Document Freedom Day, an annual campaign to promote Open Standards. More than 50 groups are hosting events around the world, from Brussels to Nicaragua to Nepal.
19 March 2013
…Heiki "Repentinus" Ojasild! The election period for this year's Fellowship
GA seat has ended on March 15 and it was exciting until the end. Albert Dengg
who also stood for the Fellowship GA seat promised to stay around and
continue his great work for FSFE in their area.
26 February 2013
Today event registration opens for Document Freedom Day 2013, March 27th. Local teams can add details of their activities to DocumentFreedom.org, and have them marked on the global campaign map.
21 February 2013
Every year on February 14th people celebrate love,
relationship with others.. and for the third year running, the wonders of Free
Software. All around the world people expressed their love during the "I love
Free software" day. We
would like to thank you for participating, and share some lovely quotes, dents,
tweets, blog entries and articles that were done because of your dedication to
Free Software. When developers
will read your declarations, they will definitely find extra energy to carry on
their good work.
12 February 2013
On February 14th Free Software Foundation Europe asks all
Free Software users to show their appreciation for Free Software. FSFE suggests
to take this day as an opportunity to say "thank you" to one of the dedicated
hard-working people in the Free Software community.