News
News Archive for 2018
The FSFE empowers users to control technology with its diverse activities and concrete engagement for
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05 December 2018
Since 2001 the Free Software Foundation Europe empowers software users to exert control over the technology that is so deeply involved in every aspect of our lives today. As a non-profit organisation, our work is backed by the continuous and generous contributions of our supporters. From public campaigns to policy monitoring, from removing legal barriers to helping organisations in understanding how Free Software contributes to freedom, transparency, and self-determination, our supporters have helped to finance our work.
05 November 2018 – Erik Albers
"Software freedom in Europe" is the yearly report of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). In one document, it gives you a breakdown of important things the FSFE has done and achieved during the last 12 months. In the 2018 report, you will read about our electoral campaigns, our input on the European Union's copyright reform, and about our successful outreach in demanding publicly financed software be made publicly available under a Free Software licence. You will also get insights about the events we (co-)organised and about our community and groups that helped us with these achievements. Finally, we will display some numbers showing what resources we counted on, and giving an outlook for the next year.
24 October 2018 – Erik Albers, admin
In the context of the 35th Chaos Communication Congress happening from December 27th to 30th in Leipzig, the FSFE is happy to host an assembly again, acting as an information booth and a meeting point for our friends and all friends of Free Software. As in previous editions, we offer attention and a stage for self-organised sessions by and for our community, and this is our call for participation.
23 October 2018
In October Microsoft took a big step concerning its
software patents by joining the LOT
Network (LOT stands for "License on Transfer") and the Open Invention Network
(OIN). This is a clear sign of progress on the long road to handing
control of technology to the people, and the FSFE encourages Microsoft
to take additional steps in this direction.
17 September 2018 – Erik Albers, Alexandra Busch
Oskari is a Free Software platform for browsing, sharing and analysing geographic information from distributed data sources. Its development is coordinated by the National Land Survey of Finland and is organised through the Oskari network with over 38 organisations from both the public and private sector. Oskari was awarded second prize in the cross-border category of the European Commission's Sharing and Reuse Awards Contest 2017 and is currently going through incubation phase to become an official Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) Project. To shed light on best practices regarding Free Software developed by public funds, we have conducted an interview with Timo Aarnio, GIS Expert at the National Land Survey of Finland’s SDI Services department.
07 September 2018 – Erik Albers
The Free Software Foundation Europe is happy to welcome our newest staffer Alexander Sander. Alexander is hired as our new EU public policy programme manager and works full-time in the FSFE's Berlin office. In this position, Alexander mainly works with us on policy topics covering Free Software and Open Standards issues at the EU and member state level and helps us identify and monitor EU policy developments to alert the FSFE's network on relevant issues.
05 September 2018 – George Brooke-Smith
Free Software is at risk! On the 12th of September the EU is getting ready to vote on a "Copyright Reform" package, which undermines the foundations upon which Free Software is built. The proposed Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive targets every online service that allows its users to upload and share content with each other, including code hosting platforms.
26 July 2018 – Erik Albers, Max Mehl
The "Public Money? Public Code!" campaign has
received an updated set of translations, including the website, open
letter and video. The Free Software Foundation Europe has also
conducted interviews to ask public administrations about the benefits
of public code, which are now available on our website.
23 July 2018
We are looking for interns and trainees experienced in legal, policy or technical fields. The persons will work 35 hours per week with our team in the FSFE's Berlin office. There will be coordination with remote staff and volunteers, and depending on the work area opportunity to participate in events and meetings throughout Europe.
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16 July 2018
We are looking for a project manager to support
our work to empower people to control technology. The person will work
35 hours per week with our team in the FSFE's Berlin office supporting
FSFE projects and managing larger FSFE events. There will be
coordination with remote staff and volunteers, as well as travels
to other countries.
05 July 2018 – Erik Albers
Barcelona, the second most populous municipality of Spain, is actively working on a "smart city" agenda that is reshaping modern city's infrastucture and technologies to put citizen's needs first. Key to Barcelona's agenda is the use and promotion of Free Software and open technologies as a social good, to enable collaboration between administrations and to escape vendor lock-ins. Barcelona is also the first City Council who signed the open letter for “Public Money? Public Code!”. To shed light on Barcelona's best practice, we have conducted an interview with Francesca Bria, Chief Technology and Digital Innovation Officer at the Barcelona City Council, to ask her about ongoing innovations and developments in Barcelona.
13 June 2018 – Albert Dengg, Max Mehl
On Friday morning, one of our servers had a fatal
hardware crash. This affected parts of our mail infrastructure and
mailing lists. Meanwhile, all services are back to normal. We would
like to inform you about what happened and which problems it caused. In a
nutshell: Please make sure your emails arrived and check your SMTP
settings.
01 June 2018 – Erik Albers
The Technology Transfer Centre (CTT) is an initiative run by the Spanish government whose goal is to facilitate sharing and reuse of software and services among public administrations. To shed light on this best practice, we have conducted an interview with Elena Muñoz Salinero, head of CTT, to ask her about the legal, political and technological background of the CTT.
30 May 2018 – Polina Malaja
Following more than a decade long tradition, the
FSFE once again led its annual Free Software Legal and Licensing
Workshop (LLW) in 2018: a meeting point for world-leading legal experts
to debate issues and best practices surrounding Free Software licences.
This year we decided to bring the event back to its roots and emphasise
the "Workshop" part in its original title: around 120 legal experts
gathered for a 3-day conference in Barcelona, Spain with an
unprecedented amount of parallel tracks and interactive sessions
designed to dive into the most contentious topics in the legal world of
Free Software.
29 May 2018
We are looking for a programme manager for our policy work. The person will work 35 hours per week with our team in the FSFE's Berlin office. There will be coordination with remote staff and volunteers, as well as regular travels to Brussels and other countries.
26 May 2018 – Erik Albers
During last year's General Assembly the FSFE's Council was asked to prepare a constitution change to remove the so-called "Fellowship seats". This motion was adopted with 20:3 votes and zero abstentions. Today the FSFE's General Assembly approved in an extraordinary meeting the removal of the Fellowship seats. In future, access to membership of the FSFE shall be facilitated through the normal membership procedures for active FSFE contributors.
14 April 2018
The Libre Software Meeting (LSM) is maybe the biggest community-driven Free Software meeting in France and in 2018 also serves as host of the FSFE community meeting. It takes place in Strasbourg and the FSFE will organise its own track on the first days of LSM, from 7 to 9 of July. This is your chance to be part in the FSFE's community meeting and to give a talk at the LSM 2018 at the same time. Deadline to apply for a talk is April 30 - and before you forget it, apply now!
22 March 2018
From 7 to 12 July there will be the Libre
Software Meeting in Strasbourg, France. The conference also known as
RMLL is annualy rotating and currently the biggest Free Software
event in France. This year, the main topic is "Digital Education:
building captivity or new empowerment?". With the FSFE track we are
looking for inspiring insights about golden cages and liberation not
only in educational institutions but in our everyday lives.
08 March 2018
On Wednesday 14th of February, our community celebrated the
annual "I love Free Software Day". A day to declare love to the communities
most important to you as well as saying "Thank You" to the Free Software
projects surrounding us every single day. The Free Software Foundation Europe
also wants to thank everyone who cheered and contributed to make this day as
special as it could be.
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02 March 2018 – Erik Albers
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) publishes the results of the Ask Your Candidates campaign that FSFE Italy did run for the Italian election. Multiple questions have been sent to the major political parties that run for office in the national elections on March 4. We received positive statements by "Movimento 5 Stelle", "Liberi e Uguali", "Partito Democratico" and "Potere al Popolo". Unfortunately, there have been no answers by "+Europa", "Forza Italia", "Fratelli d'Italia" and "Lega Nord".
19 February 2018 – Erik Albers
In light of the upcoming elections in Italy on March 4th, the FSFE country team Italy sent out multiple questions to the participating parties to challenge them on their position about Free Software in public administration and education. We will publish and analyse their answers once we receive them.
15 February 2018 – Polina Malaja
Following the well-established tradition
of gathering active Free Software groups before FOSDEM kicks off, the
FSFE once again partnered up with OpenForum Europe
for the third edition of European Free Software Policy Meeting in Brussels,
the heart of European decision-making.
12 February 2018 – Max Mehl
The Free Software Foundation Europe calls on everyone to say "thank you" to all contributors to Free Software on 14 February. Last year the annual I Love Free Software Day has been committed with offline activism to tell people outside of our filter bubble about the importance of Free Software. This Wednesday, we will go back to our roots and focus on why this day has been invented in the first place: to celebrate the Free Software community.