FSFE Newsletter - October 2016

Published 2016-10

Words from your editors

After some changes to the FSFE's internship program in early September, we're happy to be able to announce an opening for a technical intern with the FSFE. We're seeking an intern who can work with us for three months in our Berlin office, learning about Free Software and the FSFE, while at the same time contributing to rewriting parts of our technical infrastructure.

In the coming months, we'll announce more internship opportunities and a good way to get to know about them is to read this newsletter regularly. Be sure to check out our section on taking action below for some news about our merchandise sale and information material (we'd love to send you more, if you've run out!).

The Summit

We're still not over how cool it was to see so many from our community join the FSFE Summit in September. It was a good experience and we're keen to repeat it. One of the highlights was the ending keynote where Julia Reda called out proprietary software as a threat to democracy. Be sure to view the keynote and some of the other talks from the Summit, either on our YouTube channel, or from our download server where you can get the available videos in webm format.

We also celebrated the FSFE's 15th birthday in C-Base with a ceremony where we honored many of our local heroes from around Europe. C-Base has kindly provided a recording of the ceremony if you're interested in hearing the story of some of our heroes, all of whom you can find working in one of the FSFE's teams today.

Are you our next technical intern?

As mentioned, we are looking for a technical intern to join our team for three months, taking part in rewriting and implementing a new account management system. This internship is based in Berlin, starting the 1st of January 2017 or as otherwise agreed. It's compensated with a basic salary, the details of which you can read together with other information in our call for a technical intern. We look forward to seeing your application!

From the community

David Boddie described the experiences he had exploring alternative operating systems and in particular, Inferno.
Michał ‘mina86’ Nazarewicz offered a handful of useful Python tricks and tips
Jonas Öberg blogged about code availability, or code contributions and introduced the changes to the FSFE internship program. Subscribe to our newsletter, if you haven't done already, in order to receive the latest news about all the open internship vacancies in the FSFE!
Elena "of Valhalla" explains the differences between accepting candy from strangers and using gratis software from random sources.
Polina Malaja blogged about the challenges of the EU Copyright reform.
Florian Snow shared his memories from the 3 days of the FSFE Summit in Berlin, inside and outside the BCC.

Other news

Matthew Garrett, board member of the FSF, wrote an article stressing the necessity of full user control over Internet-connected devices, outlining some necessary practices for IoT.

What else have we done?

Polina Malaja, FSFE's policy analyst and legal coordinator, together with the FSFE's legal counsel Carlo Piana, participated in a workshop on the interactions of Free Software and standardisation, organised by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in Sophia-Antipolis, France. During the workshop, they worked to push for adoption of strong copyleft licenses and to resolve some of the tensions around patents.
Continuing the practice of being present in events organised by other communities, the FSFE was present with an Info-booth at the Rotlintstraßenfest in Frankfurt am Main. A big thanks to the Fellowship group Rhine/Main for making this possible!

Take action!

We have recently collected, sorted and taken stock of some leftovers of the merchandise we had in previous years, and we've put these items online. For most of the older items, we only have a few available, so this is your chance to order some vintage FSFE merchandise at a reduced price (look out for the red numbers!)
If you're starting to run out of informational material about free software, now may also be a good opportunity to get some more. Order some stickers, posters and flyers from our promotional material page and we'll get them to you as soon as possible so you can help us spread them around your company, your school, the local library, at events, or anywhere else where you feel people should know about free software.
If you're not already a Fellow of the FSFE, you should consider joining. Our work wouldn't be possible without the contribution of our Fellows and volunteers!

The FSFE in the Press

[DE] by Patrick Beuth, Zeit Online, HP sabotages its own customers
[DE] by Stefan Krempl, Heise, Free Software Summit: Campaign for "Public Software" in Public Administrations

Thanks to all the volunteers, Fellows and corporate donors who enable our work,

Your editors, Jonas Öberg and Olga Gkotsopoulou FSFE