FSFE Newsletter - July 2019

Written by admin on 2019-07

In this month's newsletter, we pay special attention to our new Testimonials page and the freshly prepared summary of the FSFE's annual Legal Licensing Workshop that took place in Barcelona. Further down, you can discover the upcoming events we are participating in and hosting, as well as see some visual details about how and where we managed to promote and extend the use of Free Software around Europe.

The Testimonials

FSFE is a charity dedicated to empowering users to control technology. Together with our community we form a movement across Europe to build our digital societies on users' and software freedom. Although there will never be enough space to shed light on all the creative minds and motivated people who have helped us grow our movement and live out our mission, we would still like to highlight at least some of our highly-valued community members who have in one way or another shaped the FSFE's profile and who continuously helped us become what we are today.

In the past month, the FSFE has worked on the Testimonials page. This page is part of a series of interviews with FSFE supporters and friends who wanted to share their excitement for being part of such a diverse group of people and volunteers who shape the FSFE community across Europe while achieving our mission. One of the first entries is by our French supporter and privacy expert, Cryptie, who has been using Free Software for 15 years, and has been an active part of the FSFE community for the last 6 years. You can find more such interviews, videos and testimonials on our Testimonials page. Enjoy getting to know our community!

The Legal and Licensing Workshop 2019

A big aspect of Free Software use and deployment goes through the often confusing webs of legislation. One of our big initiatives to improve understanding of Free Software legal issues is the Legal Licensing Workshop, a closed conference that we organise annually for the members of the FSFE's Legal Network. Every year, many of lawyers from Europe and all over the world attend this conference to exchange knowledge, present best practices and discuss issues surrounding Free Software licensing. With up to three days of talks in an informal and confidential atmosphere, the Workshop advances the state of the art of knowledge on topics ranging from licence compliance to patent management, from project governance to corporate responsibility.

Participation to the Free Software Legal and Licensing Workshop provides legal professionals not only the opportunity to share knowledge and updates on the topics they are working on, but also a chance to meet and get acquainted with each other. These two aspects, combined, foster better licence compliance by spreading best practices. The conference also provides a forum for different professionals to better understand each other, thus reducing the overall friction in the sector.

The FSFE has prepared a short summary of this year's Workshop. You can also find information on past years editions, if you are curious.

Join our community: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2019-07

Do not miss: upcoming events with the FSFE

As with every month, we are trying to spread the word and help individuals and organisations understand what Free Software is and how Free Software contributes to freedom, transparency, and self-determination. If you are interested in seeing us in action and to join our cause, keep in mind the following dates and locations in the coming months:

Between August 10 and 11, the FSFE Policy Manager Alexander Sander will promote the "Public Money? Public Code!" initiative to the FrOSCon audience in Bonn, Germany.
Between August 21st and 25th the FSFE will host an assembly at the Chaos Communication Camp in Mildenberg, Germany. The assembly will be part of about:freedom, a cluster with a focus on digital (human) rights politics, freedom of information and Free Software advocacy. It is a union of different and diverse organisations from all over the world promoting Free Software and defending and extending digital rights. There will be workshops on-site and information materials. If you are coming to the camp, drop by and have a chat with us!
Between August 24th and 25th, you will have another chance to see our booth at the second Veganmania festival in Vienna, Austria.

What have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE

Since the last newsletter we have been very active in promoting the Free Software cause, by helping individuals and organisations have a better understanding of what Free Software is and encouraging them to develop and implement it in their lives. We want to share with you the events we have photos and videos for, below:

Alexander Sander during one of his talks at the Church Day

The FSFE Policy Manager Alexander Sander gave a talk and attended a panel discussion during the Church Days in Dortmund between June 19th and 23rd about Free Software. You can see the full report on the event and the talks. Throughout those days Alex also hosted two workshops for beginners on how to use and operate with the Open Street Map and how to use and edit on Wikipedia.

Max Mehl's presentation at Pass the SALT in Lille, France

The FSFE Programme Manager Max Mehl explained how Free Software can be the solution to many security problems at Pass the SALT on July 3rd, in Lille, France. You can watch his entire presentation on our mirror.
Long-time FSFE volunteer Reinhard Müller gave a presentation at Tübix about the development of web applications he used successfully for the development of the new online FSFE community portal on July 6th, in Tübingen, Germany.

Reinhard Muller talking to his audience in Tubix, Germany — Reinhard Müller talking to his audience in Tübix, Germany

On July 22nd, the Franken community of the FSFE and the Nuremberg Hackerspace hosted a joint lecture about the basics and common misunderstandings of Free Software in Nuremberg, Germany.

Christian Carlowitz in Nuremberg, Germany

Editor's choice

In the month of July you can see some technical and other not so technical findings by members of the FSFE's Planet community:

Albert Astals offers some new KDE application branches
Evaggelos Balaskas shared his notes on the idea to use nested-Kernel-based Virtual Machine to run minikube inside a Virtual Machine, so that minikube will create a Kernel-based Virtual Machine node, upon an Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.
Matija Šuklje (Hook) shares the results of the analysis he did on the most commonly used licenses in OpenAPI

Get Active

Do you want to see our newsletter also available in your language, so you can share the news with peers in your country? Don't be shy and join our team of brave translators by emailing us at contact@fsfe.org.

If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to us. As always, the address is newsletter@fsfe.org. We're looking forward to hearing from you!

If you also want to support us and our work, join our community and support us with a donation or a monthly contribution: https://my.fsfe.org/support

Thanks to our community, all the volunteers, supporters and donors who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators, who enable you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.

Your editor,

Galia Mancheva