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Kujdes: Kjo faqe s’është përkthyer ende. Ajo që po shihni më poshtë, është faqja në versionin origjinal. Ju lutemi, përdorni këtë faqe që të shihni se si mund të ndihmoni te përkthimet dhe anë të tjera.

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Sustainability podcast +++ Job opportunity +++ Partial Router Freedom in Greece

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In this issue we share an uplifting podcast episode on the progress of the Upcycling Android campaign. We have a work position in the FSFE staff. Greece is about to secure Router Freedom except for fiber connections. Community news comes from Aarhus, Barcelona, Berlin, Hamburg, Vienna, Zurich, Belgium, Italy, Netherlands, Translators, and Women.

Router illustration, two people with books, person giving a Right to Repair presentation.

Sustainability podcast

In recent years the FSFE has highlighted software sustainability, launched a campaign encouraging people to reclaim their phones with Free Software, and made recommendations for the EU Ecodesign criteria. Erik Albers, who is working for the FSFE on those activities, tells the thrilling story of the Upcycling Android campaign. The campaign has been a big success. It offered workshops, shared policy recommendations, and has made it to press with these activities.

Person giving presentation on Right to Repair, Linux logo on sight.
Erik Albers presenting software sustainability. Bolzano, November 2021.

Our open letter for the right to install any software on any device was well received. 90 entities signed, including the Nature And Biodiversity Conservation Union (NABU), EDRi – European Digital Rights, and the European Right to Repair Campaign. Volunteers translated it into 9 languages: Catalan, German, Greek, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Polish. Erik talks about the progress of Upcycling Android in the new podcast episode with Bonnie Mehring. You will find out that it is ‘a happy podcast with a happy employee’.

Job opportunity

The FSFE is hiring a Senior Project Manager Communication for 20-25 hours per week in our Berlin office. Help us support software freedom, so that every human can use, study, share, and improve software and thereby support other fundamental rights like freedom of speech, press, and privacy. Do you know of anyone who might be interested? Share the news!

Greece takes one step to secure Router Freedom but leaves fiber out

Greece is one step closer to securing Router Freedom, but the regulator is excluding fiber (FTTH) connections from the legislation. A coalition of organisations is now requesting the regulator, EETT, to reconsider this and thus safeguard the freedom of all users. The FSFE coordinated the work of the coalition.

The EETT has taken a courageous position to set the position of the network termination point (NTP) at the passive point for common networks. It should equally guarantee the free choice of terminal equipment for the next generations and emerging technologies. Users who are connected to the internet using fiber connections should not be excluded from choosing their own router.

 sticker showing a router with wings and a ‘Router Freedom’ stamp.

By the way, we just released our Router Freedom sticker. Order it for free and show everybody that you have a liberated router!

Save the date!

On Wednesday 13 July the FSFE will participate in a session at the 1st International Congress on Democratic Digital Education and Open Edtech in Barcelona. The session ‘First was the code’ covers the topics of digital rights, auditing, and interoperability in education.

Past activities

Two people discuss in video call.
Carmen Bianca Bakker on licensing metadata. June 2022.
Two people holding colourful book.
Visitor during the reading of the children’s book Ada & Zangemann, Volker Wissing, Minister of Digitisation in Germany.

FSFE groups

Aarhus | The Aarhus local group had its first meeting after a long time. The group decided to focus on outreach and ‘Public Money? Public Code!’ topics. The group will meet again, and is meanwhile is having discussions in the discourse forum.

Barcelona | The Free Software Barcelona group had the first in-person event since 2020. Five lightning talks presented various Free Software interests: PDF Annotations and Fonts: The Evil, BetterCounter, Penpot, Steam Deck and KDE, and a primer to Intel's Xe architecture.

Belgium | In Belgium the regulator BIPT will soon host a consultation on Router Freedom. Supporters from Belgium and the Netherlands work together with support from FSFE to prepare to ultimately achieve Router Freedom for Belgium. This topic is discussed in the Netherlands get-together meetings.

Berlin | The FSFE Berlin local group had its regular monthly in-person meeting. Also, a group member, Tunda, gave a lecture on things Free Software and Free Seeds have in common.

Hamburg | The FSFE local group Hamburg had its regular monthly meeting and will meet again on 14 July.

Four people answering questions from the audience.
Volunteers present ‘Public Money? Public Code!’ in Italy. Trento, June 2022.

Italy | FSFE supporters in Italy held two events. In Trento the event focused on Free Software in Education. In Bologna the event focused on ‘Public Money? Public Code!’ efforts. Members of the local government attended. Three concrete proposals emerged from these events: Coderdojos in public schools, local Coding Gyms, and a public hearing to bring the topic of ‘Public Money? Public Code!’ in the town council. The FSFE local group Sicily is planning a similar event in Caltanissetta in September. Sign up for updates.

Netherlands | The FSFE country team the Netherlands had its regular monthly meeting and will meet again on 20 July.

Translators | The FSFE Translators team is meeting in the first half of August. Bonnie Mehring and Luca Bonissi will share how to translate the FSFE pages. It is a great place to start if you would like to begin contributing to the FSFE by translating our news. Date TBC, please join the translators’ mailing list to stay informed.

Two people in a booth talk to audience outdoors.
Volunteers in FSFE booth in Austria. June 2022.

Vienna | The FSFE local group Vienna had an information booth at the Veganmania street festival providing email encryption advice, an overview of 10 different Free Software distributions, and introduction to software freedom. Leaflets came in handy. The next information stall will be at another Veganmania festival on the Danube island in August.

Women | The FSFE Women team made an introduction to content management systems. CMS Garden joined the monthly meeting. The CMS Garden e. V. is an active association of the communities of 11 FOSS content management systems. Meike Jung from Drupal, Petra Hasenau from Typo3, and Kati Faude from CMS Garden gave presentations. Stay tuned in the mailing list for the next meeting.

Zurich | The FSFE local group Zurich discussed the options for the next steps for the ‘Learn like the pros’ activity and noted upcoming conferences in their monthly meeting. The next meeting is on 14 July.

Contribute to our Newsletter

If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, please 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. Thanks to our community and 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.

Your editor, Fani Partsafyllidou