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

on 2022-07-05

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.

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.

On 7 June Carmen Bianca Bakker, Deputy Coordinator REUSE Software, talked about the importance of licensing metadata in Free Software at the Upstream 2022 event.
On 8 June Alexander Sander, FSFE Senior Policy Consultant, gave a talk on ‘Free Software and artificial intelligence in the European Union’ during the OW2 conference.
On 9 June Lucas Lasota, FSFE Senior Legal Project Manager, gave a talk on “Practicing Sovereignty. Interventions for open digital futures” at the Weizenbaum Conference in Berlin.
On 9 June Lucas Lasota gave an online talk on Device Neutrality as part of the OW2 conference.

Two people holding colourful book. — Visitor during the reading of the children’s book Ada & Zangemann, Volker Wissing, Minister of Digitisation in Germany.

On 9 June Matthias Kirschner, President of the FSFE, gave an author reading of the children’s book Ada & Zangemann (DE) in a hackerspace bus in the re:publica 22 conference.
On 18 June Lucas Lasota gave a talk about Device Neutrality at OSCAL 2022, in Tirana, Albania. Alexander Sander gave a talk on ‘Free Software and Artificial Intelligence in the European Union’ at the same event.
On 20 June the FSFE submitted feedback to the European Commission about the Sustainable products initiative, a proposal for a regulation that will revise the Ecodesign Directive.
On 22 June Gabriel Ku Wei Bin, FSFE Senior Legal Project Manager, gave a talk on “Free Software and our Fundamental Rights” in Gothenburg, Sweden.
On 22 June Erik Albers, FSFE Program Manager for digital sustainability, gave a talk on "Free software saves lives - of hardware" at the University of Applied Sciences in Berlin.
On 24 June Alexander Sander gave a talk on "What role did Free Software play during the corona crisis?" at the esLibre conference in Vigo, Spain.
On 24 June Matthias Kirschner gave an author reading of the children’s book Ada & Zangemann to over 150 third-graders in the largest cinema room in the city of Offenburg, Germany.
On 24 June Lina Ceballos, FSFE Project Manager, gave a talk on "REUSE" at the esLibre conference in Vigo, Spain.
On 25 June, Lina Ceballos and Alexander Sander gave a ‘Public Money? Public Code!’ workshop at the esLibre conference in Vigo, Spain.
On 30 June, Lina Ceballos gave a talk on REUSE at the OpenExpoEurope2022 conference in Madrid, Spain.
In June cURL became REUSE compliant. cURL now follows the REUSE best practices that make licensing and copyright information unambiguous and perfectly human- and machine-readable.

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.

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

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