FSFE Newsletter - June 2016
FSFE co-signed letter on net neutrality
FSFE together with 72 organisations signed a letter to the EU telecom regulators in support of strong net neutrality rules in the on-going negotiations for the guidelines on the implementation of the recently adopted EU Regulation 2015/2120. The Regulation creates a basis for strong net neutrality, and FSFE together with other organisations from all over the world asks the Body of European Regulators of Electronic Communication (BEREC) and the 28 national telecom regulators to uphold these rules and to establish strong net neutrality guidelines around Europe.
From Free Software misunderstandings to software at CERN - FSFE busy at events
The past month was full of events and talks, with FSFE staff and team members being present on several occasions. Talks and presentations make a large part of our work to reach out and communicate our message to people from different backgrounds.
FSFE's president Matthias Kirschner gave a short talk during Re:publica TEN about how to counter Free Software misunderstandings. He also participated as a speaker at the Croatian Linux Users' Conference DORS / CLUC in Zagreb, Croatia, where he gave a keynote about "The long way to empower people to control technology".
During the foss-north conference in Gothenburg, Sweden, FSFE's vice president Alessandro Rubini gave a talk on "Time in Software and Hardware - how time is handled in the Linux kernel and in the White Rabbit network at CERN", and FSFE's executive director, Jonas Öberg, presented a talk about the "State of Free Software in Europe (and elsewhere)".
German Coordinator Max Mehl gave a talk about Radio 'Lockdown' Directive during the Wireless Battle of the Mesh v9, in Porto, Portugal, and your co-editor Polina Malaja gave an overview on the same topic during the Wireless Community Weekend 2016in Berlin, Germany.
Last but not least, FSFE's Austrian coordinator Peter Bubestinger gave a talk about Free Software in schools at the Open Source Conference Albania OSCAL.
From the community
Torsten Grote gives an overview of recent security innovations in instant messaging in his blogpost about "Briar - Next Step of The Crypto Messenger Evolution". Briar is aiming at becoming a peer-to-peer messenger which is entirely Free Software: it utilises end-to-end encryption with forward secrecy and does not require its users to disclose their metadata (i.e. the content of their address-books and how frequently they talk to their contacts). These criteria will help in offering a secure and privacy-friendly messenger that is available for everyone to use freely.
Elena Grandi described her experience with OpenPandora, a handheld game console and a mobile personal computer. On this occasion, Elena also anticipated the pros and cons of the successor device Pyra.
Diderik van Wingerden blogged about his perception of future innovations and the role of Free Software in it by compiling a list of sources that helped him in "Shaping a vision of the future".
Our executive director Jonas Öberg wrote about the Videorooter project and its automated testing of algorithms. The code is now connected to Github repositories and automated tests of algorithms are run every time someone improves the code.
Björn Schießle read the coalition contract of the new government in Baden-Württemberg, a state of Germany, and analysed how they promise to promote Free Software (German).
Christian Widerström made an overview of the upcoming activities and events that the Austrian FSFE team will be participating in (German).
The project "Sustainable use of older laptops with Linux and Free Software", mainly run by Fellow Wolf-Dieter Zimmermann, has been given the RWE Sustainability Award. The project helps people to migrate to Free Software and to make use of their old hardware with a proper GNU/Linux installation (German).
What else have we done?
How to successfully campaign for Free Software in a way that is appealing both for the general public and politicians? FSFE teamed up with the Peng! Collective and learned from the latter's experience in campaigning during a weekend-long workshop. FSFE's Fellowship Representative Mirko Boehm summarised the outcome of the workshop in his blogpost.
FSFE's Austrian team did a great job by being present with booths at Linuxwochen Wien and Grazer Linuxtage (German) and the local group in Berlin was present at the OpenTechSummit in Berlin, Germany.
Wolf-Dieter Zimmermann gave an interview about the importance of Free Software in Open Educational Resources (German).
Getting active for Free Software and doing this by working for the FSFE is increasingly attractive and we receive a lot of applications for our internship program each month. However, most of the applications we get do not make the cut. In his blogpost, our executive director Jonas Öberg gave a few hints about how to succeed with your internship application and make it to the FSFE team as an intern.
Take Action
Become a volunteer to maintain our blog platform! If you are interested in devops or system administration, we now offer an opportunity to polish your skills and learn new tricks by hosting a blog platform for thousands of our volunteers!
FSFE's blog platform is a service we provide to our volunteers to give them a place to write about their explorations of Free Software and their work in the FSFE. For a while, the service has been in dire straits and in need of an upgrade. Thanks to our wonderful volunteers who already stepped up and proposed their help in maintaining the platform, the service will be kept alive.
If you are interested in joining our blog platform team, get in touch with our blog team at blog-hackers (at) lists.fsfe.org.
Good Free Software news
The Hungarian government published a decree promoting the use of Free Software and Open Standards in public administrations. The country's Ministry of Interior is bound to start a central licence registry for software used by the public sector and report yearly on the progress made in use of Free Software and Open Standards. Meanwhile, France revised its interoperability guidelines which from now on recommend ODF as a standard communication format between public administrations and citizens. Sweden's Social Insurance Agency (Försäkringskassan) is determined to adhere to its Free Software strategy and to sustain the Free Software solutions it uses, according to the planned updates of the strategy to be published in June. As stated by the Social Insurance Agency, Free Software maximises value of IT by allowing its efficient use.
Thanks to all the volunteers , Fellows and corporate donors who enable our work,
your editors Polina Malaja and Erik Albers, FSFE