News

Germany Stack +++ DMA+++ YH4F

December has arrived, and with it, our last newsletter of 2025. In the last weeks, we took part in the consultation on the Germany Stack, exchanged insights at the Article 19 2025 DMA Enforcement Symposium, and gave REUSE a new home on Codeberg. Meanwhile, registration for the next edition of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom is opened and we have new Software Freedom podcast episodes to listen to.

Quote of the Month

“I believe that free software is a crucial part in ensuring the stability of our democracies and that it plays an enabling role in almost all of our modern issues; especially those, that need to be solved politically.”,Josefine FSFE supporter

Germany Stack: Only Free Software Enables Digital Sovereignty

The “Germany Stack” is a central digital-policy project of the German federal government. The FSFE calls for the Stack to be planned in close coordination with European partners and to be implemented entirely as Free Software, since only the four freedoms enable digital sovereignty.

The FSFE submitted a statement to the public consultation.

DMA: The FSFE participated in the Article 19 2025 DMA Enforcement Symposium

This annual expert conference, organized by Article 19 and a consortium of several universities, is one of the most important venues for discussions on the implementation of the Digital Markets Act. It has become a key bridge between academics and the European Commission, which reviews and comments on the submissions.

This year, the FSFE facilitated a team of technologists and open technology experts to contribute technical perspectives to the event.

The FSFE also participated in a study coordinated by Dr. Lucas Lasota from the Halle Wittenberg University on software interoperability and Google's monopoly position in the Android Open Source Project.

Fuel the next wave of tech talent with YH4F, the FSFE’s Free Software competition

Youth Hacking 4 Freedom is the FSFE’s programming competition for teenagers aged 14 to 18 years from across Europe. Through YH4F the FSFE conveys the values and knowledge surrounding Free Software, provides the chance to develop your own project idea, learn valuable skills for project management, problem solving and of course: programming! Find out why it is worth for you to support us in this mission and what our current sponsors say about YH4F.

Registration for the 2026 is now opened so spread the word!

Demands for open networks and democratic public spheres –decentralised, sovereign, and for the common good!

The FSFE supports the alliance “Open Networks and Democratic Public Spheres: Decentralised, Sovereign, and Serving the Common Good!”, which calls on elected representatives in Germany, France, and the EU to adopt coherent measures that strengthen Europe as a business location and establish public-interest digital infrastructures as the foundation of our digital sovereignty.

On the occasion of the European Summit for Digital Sovereignty a few weeks ago, the alliance published four key demands: Fediverse Fund for user-centred further development, amounting to €30 million annually; anchoring the +1 principle in the work of the federal government and public institutions; recognition of non-profit status in the field of decentralised digital infrastructure, thereby establishing legal certainty; and establishment of decentralised, interoperable and cross-sectoral pan-European media platforms with the involvement of civil society from the outset

Opening the cage: the FSFE flies away from X (Twitter)

The Free Software Foundation Europe deleted its account on X. The platform never aligned with our values and no longer serves as a space for communication. What initially intended to be a place for dialogue and information exchange has turned into a centralised arena of hostility, misinformation, and profit-driven control, far removed from the ideals of freedom we stand for.

REUSE repositories migrating to Codeberg

The REUSE helper tool has migrated from GitHub to Codeberg, and is now located at https://codeberg.org/fsfe/reuse-tool. Codeberg is software development platform run by a Berlin-based and community-owned non-profit, freely and exclusively accessible for all Free Software projects.

In three steps, REUSE software addresses a fundamental problem with Free Software licensing at its source: what licence is a file licensed under, and who owns the copyright? The REUSE project consists of a set of best practices and a tool that makes it easy and simple to add this legal information to every single file in a project.

The REUSE project is based on its community and the people who support and adopt it! Led by the FSFE, the REUSE Initiative is seeking sponsors to support it.

SFP#41: Policy and EU: Recap of SFSCON

Do you remember that the FSFE took part in the well-known and long-established South Tyrol Free Software Conference (SFSCON) in Bolzano? Together with more than 1,000 participants, the FSFE explored current topics in the Free Software ecosystem, with a special emphasis on this year’s main theme: Ethics.

In the episode 41 of our podcast, we look back and revisit the most important discussions that took place during the event.

From our community: HackerTrain to FOSDEM 2026

The call for participation for the HackerTrain to FOSDEM 2026 is now live! This is a community-led project to bring together hackers and geeks travelling to their events (in Europe).

For FOSDEM 2026 there will not be one HackerTrain, but several at the same time on different routes and different dates – all converging in Brussels.

More information.

Ada & Zangemann: Italian movie is here

After the premiere of the Ada & Zangemann movie in Italian during the community meeting at SFSCON, you can find it now in our Peertube channel and all the information in ada.fsfe.org/movie.

To make the experience even better for Italian speakers, you can use this toolkit.

Contribute to our Newsletter

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Your editor,
Ana

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