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News

News Archive for 2015

The FSFE empowers users to control technology with its diverse activities and concrete engagement for software freedom. Follow us and make sure to receive regular updates and deeper insights on our various channels.

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FSFE needs your donation to work for Free Software in 2016

16 December 2015

Lots of people and companies in our society benefit from Free Software. The Free Software Foundation Europe is empowering people to control technology since 2001. To make a difference in our work, we aim at 140.000€ in donations until 31 January, of which we already received 60.000€. 

    European Parliament pushes for Free Software

    10 November 2015

    On 29 October 2015, the European Parliament adopted a report (2015/2635(RSP)), which condemned mass surveillance throughout Europe. While focusing primarily on legal precedents of data protection, Parliament proposed new recommendations to improve IT security by migrating to free software, as well as adding free software as a mandatory selection criterion in public IT procurement. 

    FSFE submits comments on the European Commission's Digital Single Market strategy

    04 November 2015

    The European Commission has set a goal to make the EU's single market fit for the digital age by adopting “A Digital Single Market Strategy” which is aimed at bringing down regulatory barriers between 28 different national markets. According to the Commission, a true Digital Single Market (DSM) can be achieved by taking the following actions: 

    Zurich Fellows offer Laptops with Libreboot

    30 October 2015

    Fellows in Zurich started "Free Computer for Free People", an initiative to offer laptops that run completely on Free Software only. This includes alternative firmware as well as free BIOS. By reusing used hardware, the Zurich Fellows also like to foster a sustainable use of hardware. 

    Pictures from the FSF's 30th birthday are now available

    20 October 2015

    On 3 October 2015 the Free Software Foundation of Europe celebrated the Free Software Foundation's 30th birthday with some delicious cake and many wonderful birthday wishes. The pictures from this celebration are now available online. Special thanks to Isabelle Wunderlich and Mirko Boehm for organising the event and all the attendees who joined the celebration.  

    Interview with FSFE Fellow Isabel Drost-Fromm

    13 October 2015

    Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day that aims to raise the profile of women in science, technology, engineering and maths. FSFE happily joins the celebration of Ada Lovelace Day by interviewing Isabel Drost-Fromm - long time FSFE Fellow, member of the Apache Software Foundation and co-founder of Apache Mahout as well as the Berlin Buzzwords conference. Read about Free Software migration, free search engines, Java, Berlin and her advice for your personal contributions.  

    Revisiting the Sony Rootkit fiasco 10 years later

    08 October 2015

    Today the Free Software Foundation Europe looks back on the Sony rootkit fiasco from 2005. This page outlines some facts about the rootkit and how it was handled, as well as some context about what these kinds of restrictions mean for the notion of computers as general purpose machines. 31 October 2015 marks the 10 year anniversary of when the rootkit was discovered, and in preparation for this day, we ask you all to use this information and spread the word, not only about the Sony rootkit, but about the dangers of digital restrictions on users' freedoms everywhere. 

    [Blog] 30 years Free Software Foundation

    04 October 2015

    On 4 October 1985 Harold Abelson, Robert J. Chassell, Richard M. Stallman, Garald Jay Sussman, and Leonard H. Tower, Jr. incorporated the Free Software Foundation, Inc. The application included also the GNU Emacs General Public License, the GNU Manifesto, a list of software which was already written (Bison, MIT Schema, Hack, plus a list of several Unix utility replacements)...  

      FSFE elects new President and Vice President

      22 September 2015

      Matthias Kirschner and Alessandro Rubini are FSFE's new President and Vice President. They were elected last week in Bucharest during FSFE's General Assembly, while Reinhard Müller was re-elected as Financial Officer. They will serve FSFE in those positions for the upcoming two years. 

        "Freedomvote": 10 questions about digital freedom for the Swiss national election

        16 September 2015

        In anticipation of the Swiss national parliament elections (Nationalrat- / Ständeratswahlen) on 18 October 2015, FSFE Switzerland starts the „Freedomvote“ campaign today, in cooperation with the "Swiss Open Systems User Group“ (/ch/open). The campaign offers an online portal that lists those candidates who will run for election, and their opinion towards Internet policy, Free Software, and open data formats. 

        FSFE's role in the Bacula project

        17 August 2015

        In April 2015, we announced a change in the relationship between Kern Sibbald and the FSFE owing to the cancellation of the Fiduciary License Agreement (FLA) between Kern and the FSFE which previously made the FSFE a fiduciary for copyrights in the Bacula software.  

        Interview with FSFE Fellow Neil McGovern

        04 August 2015

        After some discontinuity, FSFE will start again to interview their sustaining members. This way, we like to show you who we are, where we come from and what we stand for. This month and as the first in our new series, we interviewed Neil McGovern, FSFE from the United Kingdom. Neil has been working in the Open Rights Group and was recently elected as Debian Project Leader (DPL). Read about his role as DPL, his engagement in Free Software as well as on political levels.  

        FSFE is looking for a systems administrator and architect

        27 May 2015

        Please note that this position is no longer open for applications.
        The Free Software Foundation Europe was founded in 2001 and has gone through a tremendous growth since then, both in the number of volunteers and staff, and also in the complexity of our technical infrastructure and the number of services we run and offer for both internal and external use. We're currently looking for a system administrator and architect that, for a limited time, can support us in our work to migrate our services to a new infrastructure. 

          A restriction on technological restrictions

          06 May 2015

          Safecast is a global project to map radiation data from around the world and release this information openly. When the project just started out, they used modified hardware, together with their own custom software and a few clever tweaks, to allow anyone to participate in the project. This kind of ingenuity, the ability to re-purpose or adapt existing technology by replacing or supplementing its software, should be permitted and encouraged by the law. In the example of Safecast, fortunately nobody prevented them from being innovative. 

          [Blog] Final PDFreaders advertisement squashing

          24 April 2015

          We currently wrap-up the PDFreaders campaign, and we need your help to measure our success. Started in 2009 FSFE’s goal with the campaign was to get rid of advertisement for proprietary PDF readers. We focused on the websites of public administrations, and many people helped us gather contact details for over 2000 public websites which advertised non-free software. Many people helped us to contact the public administrations, governments were made aware of it and published guidelines. Until now we know that 772 of the 2110 bugs were fixed, which is a 36% success rate. But for most countries we did not check the status for several months now. That’s why we need your help now to make one final round. We are looking for volunteers who can help us checking websites in their native language, following the step-by-step guide in the blog post. 

          Open Standards around the world

          08 April 2015

          Document Freedom Day is the day when we talk about Open Standards around the world. In 2015, all together, we turned this day once more into a global event with 63 local event organisers in 31 countries on 4 continents. Volunteers around the world, accompanied by international organisations as well as politicians and public services joined our demand for document freedom. Read our report to see what happened during Document Freedom Day 2015. 

          Joint statement : Maximising inclusiveness and engagement through the use of Open Standards in the European Commission

          25 March 2015

          Today is Document Freedom Day, the international day to celebrate and raise awareness of Open Standards. On this occasion, we would like to reflect on the importance for public institutions in general, and for the European Commission in particular, considering its leadership role, of using Open Standards in all their digital communication and services.  

          Worldwide more than 50 events about Open Standards

          24 March 2015

          On March 25 is this year's Document Freedom Day and, depending on your time zone, it has already started. Document Freedom Day is the global campaign for document liberation by local groups throughout the world. So far more than 50 groups registered their events in over 25 countries ranging from Asia, Europe, Africa, to South and North America. 

          Swiss Federal Council considers legal assurance for release of Free Software

          06 March 2015

          Currently, there is uncertainty in Switzerland regarding the development and release of Free Software by public contractors. The trigger for this was the development and release of the software OpenJustitia by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. The federal council now wants to examine whether the publication of Free Software by the federal administration can be explicitly allowed. The Free Software Foundation Europe demands a clarification so that publicly-financed software can unambiguously be legally released as Free Software 

          #ilovefs Report 2015

          03 March 2015

          On Saturday, 14 February 2015, people all over the world showed Free Software contributors their appreciation. It was the fifth year the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) asked people to participate in the “I Love Free Software” day. This report shows a variety of love declarations that happened this day, including blog posts, pictures, comics, poems, and an #ilovefs Android library. The FSFE thanks everybody who motivated Free Software contributors this year, and ask everybody to mark 14 February in their calendars for next year's “I love Free Software” day. 

          Jonas Öberg joins FSFE as Executive Director

          02 March 2015

          FSFE has recruited long-time Free Software activist Jonas Öberg to be the organisation's Executive Director. He joins the organisation's leadership team on March 1.  

            Jonas Öberg joins FSFE as Executive Director

            02 March 2015

            FSFE has recruited long-time Free Software activist Jonas Öberg to be the organisation's Executive Director. He joins the organisation's leadership team on March 1.  

              Position paper for the boost of Open Educational Resources on the basis of Free Software

              10 February 2015

              Together with FSFE and other partners, the Bündnis Freie Bildung ("Free Education Alliance") today publishes its position paper about the creation and usage of Open Educational Resources (OER). Therein, the Bündnis demands a consequent publishing of all OER-material under public licences and their availability as Free Software and in Open Standard formats. 

              Show your love for Free Software

              09 February 2015

              Every year on 14th February, the Free Software Foundation Europe asks all Free Software users to think about the hard-working people in the Free Software community and to show them their appreciation individually on this "I love Free Software"-Day.