News
News Archive for 2020
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.
Follow our News
To keep up with our latest news, subscribe to our RSS feed and visit the
different media channels.
Subscribe to our email updates. Our experts inform you about current
news, events, activities, and how you can contribute. (Our Privacy Policy)
15 December 2020
In just three years, our REUSE initiative has successfully changed licensing practices of at least over five hundred projects. From its adoption by NGI0 projects to a Corona Warn App to KDE, 2020 marks another successful year of this campaign. We used the chance to speak with Andreas Cord-Landwehr about REUSE adoption in the KDE community.
11 December 2020
In 2019, the FSFE's local group Zurich has launched the "Learn like the pros" campaign. Goal of the campaign is to present solutions for the use of Free Software in education. Recently, the campaign was awarded the DINACon Award. On this behalf we interviewed the coordinators Ralf Hersel and Gian-Maria Daffré.
10 December 2020
International development cooperation is increasingly digitised. Free Software thus is becoming a fundamental technology to reach the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals. Together with experts in the field, the FSFE summarises these interrelations in an article and demands publicly funded software to be published as Free Software.
08 December 2020
A handful of Free Software developers today achieved what official
bodies have been missing for months: They have made available the
German Corona Warn App for tracing Covid-19 risk contacts in a
version that is completely free of dependencies on Google and
available in F-Droid, the Free Software app store.
Abychom mohli bojovat za Vaší svobodu v informačních technologiich, tak potřebujeme Vaší finanční podporu.
Přidejte se k nám
20 November 2020
It is no secret that the FSFE's activities are only possible with the priceless help of our contributors and supporters around Europe. In return we support local engagement with our expertise, information material, networks or even financially. To help formalize this process, we run our second call for FSFE community projects.
12 November 2020
What is the best way to alert people about catastrophes? Germany went
with proprietary apps which caused the recent warning day ("Warntag")
to become an official failure. We analysed the situation and found
more robust solutions that respect user rights.
10 November 2020
"Software Freedom in Europe" is the yearly report of the Free Software Foundation Europe e.V. (FSFE). In one document, it gives you a breakdown of important things the FSFE has done and achieved during the last 12 months.
23 October 2020
On Wednesday the EU Commission published its new Open Source Strategy. We are pleased that the Commission recognises the benefits of Free Software
and the four freedoms to use, study, share, and improve, but the Commission lacks concrete targets and indicators to implement the strategy.
Without these, we worry that the strategy will end up accomplishing too little!
19 October 2020
The South Tyrol Free Software Conference, SFSCon, is one of Europe’s most established annual conferences on Free Software.
In recent years we have been represented with talks, workshops and our information booth. Last year we also organised our
Community Event in the context of SFSCon, so that we could meet not only our community but also many interested people and
report about our work.
Subscribe to our email updates. Our experts inform you about current
news, events, activities, and how you can contribute. (Our Privacy Policy)
09 October 2020
The FSFE's sister organisation, the FSF, celebrates its thirty-fifth
anniversary this week. Thirty-five years of working for software
freedom and inspiring many people and organisations to take a stand
for user freedoms deserve big congratulations. Watch and read the
congratulatory speech by FSFE President Matthias Kirschner.
05 October 2020
We are looking for a working student to support our work to empower
people to control technology. The person will work 10 hours per week
in the Berlin office (home office possible at a later stage) and will
support the FSFE's technical infrastructure by working closely
together with our system administrators.
10 September 2020
The increased use of Free Software is a central component for more digital sovereignty. Together with a strong
alliance of administrations, politics, business and civil society, we call for the development of a code repository
with Free Software for the public sector.
07 September 2020
It is no secret that the FSFE's activities are only possible with the priceless help of our contributors and supporters around Europe. In return we support local engagement with our expertise, information material, networks or even financially. To help formalize this process, we run our first call for FSFE community projects.
04 September 2020
We are looking for an office assistant to support our work to empower
people to control technology. The person will work 15-35 hours per week
with our team in the Berlin office and will support the FSFE's Berlin
office operations.
Abychom mohli bojovat za Vaší svobodu v informačních technologiich, tak potřebujeme Vaší finanční podporu.
Přidejte se k nám
20 August 2020
In order to contribute to the European Commission public consultation regarding the update of the "Intellectual Property (IP)" regulatory system, the FSFE has published a first feedback. Based on its world-wide experience with Free Software, the FSFE calls for a more inclusive and decentralized regulatory system that allows sustainable knowledge sharing and intangible wealth.
10 August 2020
100 days ago, the new Green-Red coalition in Munich adopted the principle of 'Public Money? Public Code!' to guide
their procurement of software. Now, we take a look at the first activities undertaken for the use of Free Software.
20 July 2020
The spread of Covid-19 brought dramatic and drastic changes for us and our societies, and this shed light on the global need for global solutions like Free Software. Here is a short summary of the recent successes towards software freedom in Europe we achieved together with your help and despite the crisis.
30 June 2020
The town of Bühl, Germany, has started the successful Free Software based video conference platform “Palim! Palim!”. To find out more about the relations between Bühl and Free Software we conducted an interview with Eduard Itrich, the digitisation officer from the town of Bühl.
29 June 2020
Like many other European countries, Denmark also tries to track
Sars-CoV-2 infections with a mobile phone tracing app. However,
against advice by health organisations and despite positive examples
by other countries, the app is proprietary, so not being released
under a Free Software (also called Open Source) license.
Subscribe to our email updates. Our experts inform you about current
news, events, activities, and how you can contribute. (Our Privacy Policy)
10 June 2020
In Hamburg, the SPD and the Greens are stating in their coalition
agreement to focus more on Free Software during their future term. The
FSFE welcomes this step and will critically monitor its implementation.
09 June 2020
Etalab maintains two lists of Free Software. One is about the Free Software recommended for the public sector (called SILL) while the other one links to Free Software repositories created by the public sector. To find out more about the two lists we conducted an interview with Bastien Guerry from Etalab.
01 June 2020
From 21 June a new set of rules will guide the implementation of Router Freedom in Europe. The internalisation of the rules by the 27 EU member states will face challenges with negative consequences for Router Freedom. The FSFE contributed to several improvements of the guidelines and will monitor compliance with them.
19 May 2020 – Lucas Lasota
In order to contribute to the EU Commission assessment of the Market Definition Notice, the FSFE has taken part in the public consultation to call for more attention to smaller stakeholders and civil society in topics of EU competition law.
14 May 2020 – Nico Rikken
After a nudge by the FSFE, the Dutch OpenAIR initiative has provided licenses on their material to support reuse.
Abychom mohli bojovat za Vaší svobodu v informačních technologiich, tak potřebujeme Vaší finanční podporu.
Přidejte se k nám
06 May 2020
The new coalition agreement in Munich commits to the principle of "Public Money? Public Code!".
The FSFE welcomes this decision by the new government and will closely monitor the progress of the implementation.
27 April 2020
NGI Pointer is an initiative from the European Commission designed to provide funding and expertise to Free Software projects that can improve the internet as a platform. The FSFE has joined its Advisory Board to provide assistance to these participating projects. The first call for applications to join NGI Pointer is now open until 1 June 2020.
24 April 2020 – Nico Rikken
In an open letter to the Parliament, the Dutch
minister for internal affairs Raymond Knops commits to a "Free Software
by default" policy and underlines its benefits for society. Current
market regulations shall be reworded to allow publishing Free Software
by the government.
15 April 2020
This year's FSFE's Free Software Legal and Licensing Workshop has been cancelled. The FSFE thanks our contributors and looks ahead to organizing the event next year.
Subscribe to our email updates. Our experts inform you about current
news, events, activities, and how you can contribute. (Our Privacy Policy)
08 April 2020
Currently we see a lot of hackathons to find tools that help tackle the crisis of pandemic COVID-19.
More and more governments and administrations are hosting or funding such hackathons. To make sure that the results of
these hackathons can be used globally and adapted locally - that the software can be used, studied, shared and improved
everywhere - the FSFE asks to publish the outcomes under a Free Software licence.
03 April 2020
Due to the ongoing Covid-19 virus outbreak many employees - voluntarily or mandatory - are working remotely now. Many organisations who have not been used to remote work so far now face a number of difficulties adapting to the situation. To avoid potential lock-ins, some FSFE supporters collectively wrote about the good reasons to use Free Software for remote work and collected a detailed list of practical solutions in our wiki.
02 April 2020
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) demands that the use of tracking technologies
that aim at breaking the chains of disease infection may only be promoted on a voluntary basis, fundamental
rights must be respected and the software must be published under a Free Software licence.
30 March 2020
Cheering on doctors and nurses, sewing face-masks, donating gloves and disinfectant gel, building respirators, running errands for elderly neighbours. Everybody wants to contribute to alleviate the dramatic situations brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
27 March 2020
Among all the serious diseases and deaths it
causes, the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its accompanying COVID-19 disease also
keep the FSFE and the whole Free Software community in suspense. For
our community and other charitable organisations we would share our
experiences and lessons learnt from the Corona crisis.
Abychom mohli bojovat za Vaší svobodu v informačních technologiich, tak potřebujeme Vaší finanční podporu.
Přidejte se k nám
11 March 2020
We are looking for an executive assistant to support our work to empower
people to control technology. The person will work 25-35 hours per week
with our team in the Berlin office and will be in charge of the FSFE's Berlin
office operations. Due to the current situation and the difficulty to onboard the the new person, the application period is enlarged as written below.
10 March 2020
What is Free Software? How does it contribute to digital sovereignty, security and transparency of state digital infrastructure? Which steps can public administrations take? These and more questions are answered in our publication "Public Money Public Code – Modernising Public Infrastructure with Free Software". After the successful release of the English version of our brochure we translated it into three more languages: German, Czech and Brazilian Portuguese.
02 March 2020 – Max Mehl, Lucas Lasota
Consider this hypothetical scenario: you moved
to a new apartment. Apart from all the stress of packing, transporting, and
unpacking all your stuff at your new home, you also had to deal with
getting utilities connected. The electric company turned out to be
difficult to deal with: they said you had to change your TV set,
toaster, refrigerator and most of your lamps.
28 February 2020
The recent security scandal around WhatsApp and
access to the content of private groups shows that there is an urgent
need for action with regard to secure communication.
12 February 2020
While you are reading this, someone somewhere is
improving the code of a Free Software you use for yourself. Free
Software has long been part of the daily use of billion of users, still
the people behind the respective projects often remain invisible.
Together we want to change that. On 14 February is the "I love Free
Software Day", a day to show your love and celebrate your favourite Free
Software and its contributors. Join us!
Subscribe to our email updates. Our experts inform you about current
news, events, activities, and how you can contribute. (Our Privacy Policy)
29 January 2020
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.
22 January 2020 – Bonnie Mehring
At the end of December, FSFE was in Leipzig at the 36th Chaos Communication Congress. As in previous years, we were present at the congress with lots of information material, talks and workshops. FSFE was one of the main organisers of the cluster about:freedom, an association of 12 civil society organisations and groups. Together with the other organisations, we focused on digital rights and network policy issues.