[ALUG] Fwd: FSFE Newsletter - November 2013

Sat Nov 2 00:30:38 EAT 2013

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: FSFE Newsletter - November 2013
Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 19:19:17 +0100
From: Fellowship of FSFE <fellowship at fsfeurope.org>
To: Andreas Tauscher <tauscher at fsfe.org>

[Read online: http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201311.en.html ]

== The good experimentation platforms ==

At the first glance some devices might look like crap. Why should anyone
buy them? Some people laughed at your editor when he bought his Open
Moko Neo Freerunner[1]. You could buy cheaper devices with a faster CPU,
more RAM, more disk space, nicer casing, better network connection,
better microphone and speakers at that time.

But devices like the OpenMoko are important for each one of us even if
we are not buying them ourselves. They are crucial because they are
hardware experimentation platforms which help programmers to learn how
exactly computers work -- what the code is really doing -- and therefore
enables them to write better software for all of us.

Paul Boddie wrote about one of those devices: the Ben NanoNote[2]. This
device is completely supported by Free Software drivers within the
upstream Linux kernel distribution. It does not rely on any proprietary
software, including firmware blobs, for installation or running the
device. The "Ben" encourages experimentation: you can re-flash the
bootloader and the operating system with own images, and you can install
programs of your choice.

== The bad restrictions ==

The knowledge we, as a community, gain from those devices helps us to
counterbalance IT manufacturers who use many different restrictions with
different technology to take away control from us. On several devices
the manufacturers decide which software we can install or remove from
our computers, they do not want us to learn how the software works, and
they do not want us to change the software. They decide how we can watch
DVDs, which SIM cards providers we can use in our computers, and they
want to be able to remotely delete our data including books, music, or
movies.

The questions is: do we let them do this? Do we accept those
restrictions? And if we do not, what else do we need to counterbalance
those developments?

== The pretty local meetings ==

In FSFE we believe that a crucial part in this challenge are local
meetings. We have to connect people opposing those restrictions and help
each other how to explain the topics to other people. As mentioned in
the last edition[3] we held the first meeting for coordinators of FSFE's
local Fellowship groups[4]. Afterwards the group started to summarise
tips for FSFE local meetings organisers[5], and Lucile Falgueyrac
summarised good practices for meeting moderation[6].

Beside the coordinators meeting, FSFE held its annual general assembly
in Vienna. Jonas Öberg reflected how we worked on our mission impact[7]
and Hugo Roy wrote about the second day with the formalities[8],
including reelection of Karsten Gerloff as President and Reinhard Müller
as Financial Officer. After 2 good years Henrik Sandklef stepped down as
Vice President, and your editor was elected to take over that position.

== Something completely different ==

- Our Vienna group brought Free Software to a wider public. They
  organised an information booth at the Game City Fair 2013[9],
  receiving a lot of questions about Valve's steam box. If you want to
  understand more about this, read LWN's article "Why Steam on Linux
  matters for non-gamers"[10].

- Guido Arnold explains the new concept for local meetings in the
  Rhine/Main area[11], and we have a new local FSFE group in Linz
  (Austria) which published their second report (German)[12]. So if you
  are interested in political, social, economic, or legal questions
  around Free Software, join the groups[13] and try out the tips from
  above.

- Our sister organisation, the FSF, held a global celebration for the
  GNU system's 30th anniversary[14], and ask you to nominate individuals
  and projects for for the 16th Annual Free Software Awards
  <http://fsfe.org> until Wednesday, 6 November 2013.

- As usual you will find news about Free Software in education in the
  monthly education team update[15].

- The Jamaica Ministry of Health adopted GNU Health[16], and the German
  development ministry recommends Free Software to small and medium
  enterprises[17], as they say it opens up business opportunities for IT
  entrepreneurs and offers long-term resources for local ICT processes
  and innovations.

- Our friends at the EFF wrote about how the freedom to learn the
  workings of a program is prevented in the UK in the article:
  "Speculation Trumps Academic Freedom: UK Court Censors Security
  Researchers for Reverse Engineering Publicly Available Software"[18].

- And if you have not yet read Ron Amadeo's article "Google's iron grip
  on Android"[19], you should do so and discuss it on our mailing
  list[20]. The article explains current developments in Android such as
  possible new dependencies on non-free software.

- From the planet aggregation[21]:

  - Hugo Roy asks himself why Facebook should be considered an "Open
    Source company"[22], explains how to set up Firefox sync[23] and
    documented some of your editor's favourite hacks, like how to delete
    text from the current position to your e-mail signature[24] and how
    to work effectively with text input fields in your browser[25].

  - Otto Kekäläinen wrote about the past and present of the VALO-CD[26],
    a project making it as easy as possible for any average home of
    office user to start using Free Software, and the possible future
    which might be the LibreKey.

  - What makes Open Data succeed, and how does it fail? Carsten Agger,
    our local group coordinator for Aahrus/Denmark, provides a
    transcript from his talk about these questions[27].

  - Jonas Öberg remembers how he started with Free Software[28].

  - Daniel Pocock wrote about Debian's outreach program for women[29]
    and the GSoC 2013 projects[30].

  - Nikos Roussos participated at the Mozilla Summit[31] and explains
    how to kickstart a static website with ember.js and
    handlebars.js[32].

  - If you want to set up a pirate box, Thomas Kandler explains this in
    his article[33].

  - Our new intern Max Mehl looked into organising micro task emails in
    Thunderbird[34],

  - and Lucile Falgueyrac summarised how to do pre-printing work[35].

  - Beside the planet covered topics like implementing user-friendly
    default settings[36], fixing Fedora 19's "unlockable lockscreen"
    bug[37], and an update from the NoFlo world[38].

== Get active: They don't want you to - but what do you want? ==

As explained above we do not want people to accept all the restrictions
on our devices. To gain more transparency we want an easy way to inform
a wider audience about those restrictions, and especially give younger
people a way to show that they do not agree with it. On the 4th of
November we go live with TheyDontWantYou.To[39] and together with our
partner organisations we start distributing short microblog messages,
highlighting different restrictions using the #theydontwantyouto
hashtag.

Help us to distribute the messages, send the messages to your friends,
write about them in your blog, use our stickers[40] to raise awareness,
and to let us know about restrictions you encounter in your daily life.

Thanks to all the Fellows[41] and donors[42] who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE

-- 
Free Software Foundation Europe <http://fsfe.org>
FSFE News <http://fsfe.org/news/news.en.rss>
Upcoming FSFE Events <http://fsfe.org/events/events.en.rss>
Fellowship Blog Aggregation <http://planet.fsfe.org/en/rss20.xml>
Free Software Discussions <http://fsfe.org/contact/community.en.html>

  1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Openmoko#Neo_FreeRunner
  2. https://blogs.fsfe.org/pboddie/?p=452
  3. http://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201310.en.html
  4.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/eal/2013/10/08/fsfes-first-european-coordinators-meeting
  5.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2013/10/some-nice-tips-for-fsfe-local-meetings-organisers/
  6.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2013/10/14/tips-for-afk-meeting-moderation/
  7.
http://jonasoberg.net/post/64107423387/reflections-of-fsfe-ga-mission-impact
  8. https://blogs.fsfe.org/hugo/2013/10/2013-ga-in-vienna-day-2
  9.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/franz.gratzer/2013/10/03/fsfe-booth-on-game-city-fair-2013-in-vienna/
 10. https://lwn.net/Articles/567112/
 11.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/10/fellowship-meetings-rhinemain-an-experiment/
 12.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/jzarl/2013/10/07/inoffizieller-bericht-zum-grundungstreffen-der-fellowship-gruppe-linz/
 13. https://fsfe.org/events/events.en.html
 14.
https://www.fsf.org/blogs/community/global-celebration-for-the-gnu-systems-30th-anniversary
 15.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/guido/2013/10/free-software-in-education-news-september/
 16.
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/jamaica-ministry-health-adopts-gnu-health
 17.
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/osor/news/german-development-ministry-recommends-open-source-smes
 18.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/08/speculation-trumps-academic-freedom-uk-court-censors-security-researchers-reverse
 19.
http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/10/googles-iron-grip-on-android-controlling-open-source-by-any-means-necessary/
 20. https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/android
 21. http://planet.fsfe.org
 22. http://hroy.eu/posts/facebook_open-source_company/
 23. http://hroy.eu/posts/setup_mozilla-sync/
 24. http://hroy.eu/tips/vim/email-delete-til-signature/
 25. http://hroy.eu/tips/vim/itsalltext/
 26. http://seravo.fi/2013/past-present-future-valo-cd
 27.
https://blogs.fsfe.org/agger/2013/10/05/open-data-how-to-make-it-succeed-how-to-make-it-fail/
 28.
http://jonasoberg.net/post/63665105097/with-fuelingthefuture-the-linux-foundation-asks
 29. http://danielpocock.com/debian-outreach-program-for-women-2013
 30. http://danielpocock.com/final-report-gsoc-2013-projects
 31. http://www.roussos.cc/2013/10/30/mozilla-growing-community-and-reps
 32.
http://www.roussos.cc/2013/10/20/kickstarting-a-static-website-emberjs-handlebarsjs
 33. https://blogs.fsfe.org/t.kandler/2013/09/27/piratebox-some-tipps/
 34.
http://blog.max-mehl.com/2013/organising-micro-task-emails-in-thunderbird/
 35. https://blogs.fsfe.org/lucile.falg/2013/10/23/pre-printing-work/
 36.
http://commonsmachinery.se/2013/10/implementing-user-friendly-default-settings/
 37. https://blogs.fsfe.org/samtuke/?p=644
 38. http://bergie.iki.fi/blog/noflo-update/
 39. http://theydontwantyou.to
 40. https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.en.html#tdwyt
 41. http://fsfe.org/fellowship/join.en.html
 42. http://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html