FSFE Newsletter - November 2019

Written by admin on 2019-11

This month, we present our Portuguese friends from ANSOL and their success story on solving the problems DRM creates in their country and gives tips on how you can take similar actions in your country. Episode 2 of the FSFE's Software Freedom Podcast is out and we dedicate it to the KDE Community and the transformations and updates they are currently undertaking. You can discover upcoming events and interesting stories with visuals from the events where our community promoted Free Software across Europe. We offer a sneak peak into this year's FSFE Annual Community Meeting in Bolzano, Italy before the official report. In the Get Active section, we ask for your help with the new "Public Money? Public Code!" initiative. We need more municipalities and public sector bodies to embrace the principles and become part of the signatories.

How DRM was fixed in Portugal

DRM technologies restrict individuals from doing things with their media that are otherwise perfectly legal. For example we might not be able to put together a mix of music files we bought legally or to lend an e-book to a friend. Even backups can be restricted. Following up with the Day against DRM, in November we published a guest article by our friends from the Portuguese Association for Free Software (ANSOL), Paula Simões and Marcos Marado. Together with the Portuguese Association for Free Education (AEL) they were working towards resolving the DRM policies in Portugal for 15 years. They finally accomplished the solution they sought and in their article they shared with you the insights of that success. ANSOL and AEL have been able to show policy makers what was wrong with DRM and how its implementation hinders citizens and other actors from exercising their rights and take advantage of the legally foreseen copyright exceptions. Their story may inspire you to do the same in your country or simply learn insights on how policy-making can be influenced for the better.

Podcast Episode 2 - A closer look at the KDE community with Lydia Pintscher

The November episode of the newly launched Software Freedom Podcast is dedicated to the international Free Software Community KDE. At the FSFE we have some history of working together with KDE, whereof one of the biggest projects was the Fiduciary License Agreement (FLA), a topic that we also discuss in this Podcast. Our guest Lydia Pintscher is KDE's Vice President, and in this episode she shares how the KDE community developed and changed throughout time and how their team managed solving some of the most pressing social and generational challenges the KDE community is facing.

In addition, Lydia Pintscher talks about KDE's priorities. For example, their work on making their applications more consistent, so they run smoothly on your machines. Listen to the second Episode of the Software Freedom Podcast to learn how KDE sees their involvement with relation to Android and the mobile area. You will also hear how KDE places themselves in terms of technological sustainability or scenarios where the connected device is no longer a phone, tablet or desktop.

Support our work with a donation:https://my.fsfe.org/donate?referrer=nl-201911

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 weeks:

On November 28th, the Local Group of FSFE in Zurich will host a workshop under the name "There is no cloud, just other people's computers". People who decide to participate will learn how to run their own cloud to store and share files, photos, contacts, calendars and more, and have the opportunity to try different cloud services. The session is free of charge, but it requires a pre-registration.

What have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE

Since the last newsletter we have been 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, videos or other recordings below:

Between October 11th and 12th, the Greek FSFE Community joined the annual Free and Open Source Software Conference - FOSSCOM. This year the Greek town of Lamia took turn in hosting it and attracted Free Software enthusiasts from the area. The FSFE's booth attracted people interested in what Free Software technology could offer in comparison to the proprietary. Most questions were addressing the conversion into a more privacy-oriented use of cloud solutions and asked about Free Software alternatives to famous apps and services for their Android phones.

The FSFE stand at FOSSCOM in Greece — The local FSFE group in Greece joined FOSSCOM in Lamia with an infobooth

On 18 October the FSFE Local Group from Zurich was present with an infobooth at the 3rd Dinacon conference in Bern. People were visiting the FSFE stand to discuss and ask questions on Free Software Licensing and taking informative leaflets and stickers.

Giammi talking to a visitor — Gian-Maria Daffré, coordinator of the FSFE's Local Group Zurich, talking about Free Software Licensing with a visitor

The FSFE Community in The Netherlands hosted an information booth and gave a presentation at the LocHal Open Source event in Tilburg on 2 November. The Dutch FSFE coordinator Nico Rikken also gave a talk about the four freedoms we hold so dearly. He explained the concepts of each freedom, each illustrated with a cooking recipe analogy ,a software user example, and a business example.

Nico at LocHal — The FSFE's stand at the LacHol conference in Tilburg, The Netherlands

This year, the FSFE's Community Meeting joined the SFScon - one of Europe's most established annual conferences dedicated to Free Software. The FSFE ran a fully dedicated track on Saturday, 16 November, that covered various topics:The policy activities FSFE works on and is developing further, such as the new action item part of the “Public Money? Public Code!” campaign. As part of this session we shed a light on how we contact mayors and municipalities across Europe. The Router Freedom session discussed the consultation we responded to, where we explain to Regulators why it is important for the users to be able to fully control their own routers. More practically oriented talks also gave insights to new knowledge about the use and benefits of Free Software and Open Standards in tourism, legal basics for Free Software Licenses and many more. The presentations from the talks are already available for downloading at the event's wiki page. We are publishing a full report with pictures from our Annual Meeting soon, so long stay tuned.

The 2019 FSFE Community Meeting at SFScon in Bolzano, Italy — Pizza lunch at the 2019 FSFE Community Meeting at SFScon in Bolzano, Italy

Lucas Lasota prepared an activity package for people and organisations interested in Router Freedom, so they can advocate their own freedom of choice. To learn more about it, read his article Router Freedom: getting back the control over your own router.
The Body of European Regulators for Electronic Communications(BEREC) wrote guidelines for the National Regulators across EU on Router Freedom. The FSFE provided them with a feedback on their public consultation, telling them why it is essential for users to have control over their own Routers.

Editor's choice

"New challenges for Free Software business models" is an article by Björn Schiessle, who gives useful information to people who want to make money with Free Software and build sustainable and strong Free Software companies.
In their last newsletter, The Open Source Observatory (OSOR) explains how France and Italy work on linking their source code repositories with others and provides a picture of the current state of the Federation of EU repositories - a project launched and promoted by OSOR and the EU Commission.

Get Active

The "Public Money? Public Code!" campaign launched an initiative looking for more publicly funded bodies (administrations, schools, hospitals and etc) to sign our open letter. This month, we kindly ask you to join the cause by sending emails and letters to mayors, municipalities, or any other head of administrations across cities in your country. You can use the example letter as a template, calling public sector administrations to sign in the campaign.

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/donate?referrer=nl-201911

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 native languages.

Best Regards,

Galia Mancheva