From press at fsfeurope.org Tue Oct 9 20:39:09 2007 From: press at fsfeurope.org (Free Software Foundation Europe) Date: Tue, 9 Oct 2007 20:39:09 +0200 Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] FSFE Newsletter Message-ID: 1. Microsoft antitrust: A victory for Free Software and freedom of competition 2. WIPO: FSFE calls for interoperability and Open Standards 3. Freedom Task Force signs MoU with TIS Free Software Center, Southern Tyrol, Italy 4. Videos of FSFE president Georg Greve with Chilean Minister of Economy 5. FSFE supports protest against increased surveillance of digital communication 6. FSFE presents FSCONS and The Scandinavian Free Software Award 7. FSFE at OpenExpo, Switzerland 8. Get active 1. Microsoft antitrust: A victory for Free Software and freedom of competition European Commission demands for Microsoft to cease obstruction of interoperability with its products and to cease bundling practices have been upheld in the European Court of First Instance. These events originate in a complaint by Sun Microsystem about a lack of interoperability information for Microsoft products in 1998. This lead to the Commission's 2004 decision that Microsoft unfairly distorted the market and Microsoft's subsequent appeal against this ruling at the European Court. This appeal has now been rejected on all counts and it was even noted that the Commission had been too lenient with Microsoft on some issues. More information can be found in FSFE's press release and a Groklaw article explaining the fallacies of Microsoft's spin following the decision: http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q3/000186.html http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20070923170905803 2. WIPO: FSFE calls for interoperability and Open Standards The 2007 Assembly of the Member States was quite confrontational and could not reach agreement despite going into overtime. This was largely due to the turmoil surrounding WIPO's Director General Kamil Idris and allegations of misconduct. There was also tension over the fees WIPO receives and the need to increase effectiveness of organisation. It quickly became clear that budgeting could endanger the success of agreements like the Development Agenda. In response, FSFE is calling for interoperable, vendor-independent and Open Standards based procurement at WIPO, and for the WIPO committees to study Free Software and Open Standards more closely: http://fsfeurope.org/projects/wipo/statement-20070928 3. Freedom Task Force signs MoU with TIS Free Software Center, Southern Tyrol, Italy FSFE's Freedom Task Force has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the TIS Free Software Center about increased cooperation in the field of Free Software licensing and training. Both groups expect to work closely together on developing common services. 4. Videos of FSFE president Georg Greve with Chilean Minister of Economy The Chilean Ministry of Economy has put the recording of a meeting between Chilean Minister of Economy Alejandro Ferreiro and FSFE president Georg Greve on-line on YouTube. The talks are about economics of Free Software and legislation to create a transition path towards freedom. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz6LO16JNPU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae2MCdUTKME 5. FSFE supports protest against increased surveillance of digital communication The German Chapter of the FSFE supported a protest under the slogan "Liberty instead of Fear - Stop the Surveillance Mania!" on 22nd September in Berlin. In total more than 15,000 people participated in the demonstration. The protest took a stand against the retention of telecommunication data, an issue that is extremely topical on Autumn's political agenda in Germany. Other issues of concern included the suggested covert on-line-searching of computers. By supporting the protest, FSFE emphasises the value of liberty in digital communication. The large turnout shows that people consider the continuing tightening of surveillance laws to be unacceptable. This was the largest protest for civil liberties and privacy protection in Germany since the census in 1987. 6. FSFE presents FSCONS and The Scandinavian Free Software Award The Free Software Conference Scandinavia (FSCONS) is going to take place in Gothenburg, Sweden on the 7th and 8th of December 2007. It is the first event of its kind in the region and is inspired by the growing momentum around Free Software. Top notch programmers, hackers, lawyers, and government representatives will speak to stakeholders from all areas of Free Software. Spreading the buzz for Free Software in the region is the goal. As part of FSCONS, FSFE is also presenting the first Scandinavian Free Software Award. Presented to a person, project or organisation from Scandinavia that has showed an outstanding contribution to the cause and spirit to Free our minds, it is to become an annual event. http://www.fscons.org http://www.fscons.org/award_idea 7. FSFE at OpenExpo, Switzerland At this year's OpenExpo in Zurich, FSFE president Georg Greve opened the event with a keynote speech entitled "Free Software is compatible with your business." The audio recording and slides (all in German) are available at: http://www.openexpo.ch/openexpo-2007-zuerich#c188 8. Get active Do you want to contribute to digital freedom? Get active by joining our Fellowship, contributing as a translator, webmaster or booth volunteer, or even come to one of our offices as an intern. Find out more by visiting the link below: http://fsfeurope.org/contribute You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. From press at fsfeurope.org Wed Nov 7 11:22:32 2007 From: press at fsfeurope.org (Free Software Foundation Europe) Date: Wed, 7 Nov 2007 11:22:32 +0100 Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] FSFE Newsletter Message-ID: Welcome to FSFE's October newsletter. This month, issues of interoperability, sustainable ICT and Free Software in education have been receiving attention. There are also changes inside FSFE, with the Fellowship reviewing its infrastructure and long-term projects like the FTF European Legal and Technical networks continuing to expand. Exciting times indeed. You may notice that the newsletter has a slightly different format this month. We would appreciate any feedback or comments you have. They can be sent directly to coughlan at fsfeurope.org. - Shane, FSFE Zurich Office 1. European Commission vs. Microsoft decennial battle is over 2. FSFE at Free Software information event in Austrian school 3. FSFE's German deputy coordinator discusses Sustainable-IT in Berlin 4. Sun donates T1000 server to FSFE 5. Fellows plan the future of the Fellowship portal 6. FSFE's European Legal and Techincal Networks grow 7. Brussels meetings and Free Software awareness Forthcoming events: 8. Strategic implementation of Free Software, Stockholm, Sweden 1. European Commission vs. Microsoft decennial battle is over The European Commission and Microsoft have agreed that Microsoft is finally in compliance with the obligations contained in the 2004 Commission ruling against the Seattle company. The Commission had ruled that Microsoft distorted the market by failing to provide interoperability information for their products. Microsoft subsequently appealed against the Commission's decision and lost at the European Court of First Instance. Part of the ruling requires reasonable and non discriminatory terms for interoperability information and related patents. One reason for this was the intention to enable Free Software projects like Samba to access the information, and our legal experts are currently assessing whether the agreed conditions meet these requirements. What is certain is that Microsoft will not appeal against the judgment of the Court of First Instance, which has become final and definitive. Please visit fsfeurope.org for updates. http://www.fsfeurope.org/ 2. FSFE at Free Software information event in Austrian school As reported in an earlier newsletter, the "BG Rechte Kremszeile" public school in Austria has switched to Free Software. Recently the school organised an event to report their experience with the switch. Three speakers from the FSFE and the Vienna Fellowship group were invited to talk about the general concepts of Free Software. A number of teachers and decision-makers from other schools attended the event and showed interest in the adoption of free solutions for their own schools. https://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q3/000181.html 3. FSFE's German deputy coordinator discusses Sustainable-IT in Berlin, Germany Matthias Kirschner, FSFE's German deputy coordinator, took take part in a panel discussion at the Sustainable-IT conference on the 18th of October. The topic was "IT sustainability -- international. How can software contribute to resource protection and a fair distribution of knowledge." http://www.sustainable-it.org/ 4. Sun donates T1000 server to FSFE Sun has donated a T1000 server to FSFE's Fellowship. "The work that the Free Software Foundation Europe undertakes is important for all of us. Sun is honoured to have donated a Sun Fire(TM) T1000 server, based on the GPL licensed OpenSPARC(TM) chip, to power the FSFE Fellowship site," said Simon Phipps, Chief Open Source Officer, Sun Microsystems, Inc. Thanks to this new hardware FSFE is able to refocus the Fellowship's on-line presence and provide new services to all our supporters. http://www.fsfe.org/supporters/ 5. Fellows plan the future of the Fellowship portal The Fellows of FSFE are discussing the future of the Fellowship portal. Since 2005, the fsfe.org portal has sought to provide tools for Fellows to communicate and collaborate. The current discussion is about what services are most important to the Fellows today and what tools would be useful for the future. The discussion is covering the use of forums, calenders, mailing lists and other services. You can add your view by joining the list: https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion 6. FSFE's European Legal and Techincal Networks grow FSFE's Freedom Task Force has been busy building pan-European legal and technical networks. The goal is to strengthen the legal foundation of Free Software through building connections between professionals and researchers active on the continent. The networks now have 45 legal experts and 25 technical specialists, and contain contacts in Canada, the USA, Singapore and Taiwan. To learn more visit the website: http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/network.html 7. Brussels meetings and Free Software awareness Ciaran O'Riordan has been busy in Brussels. Along with the usual meetings about ODF, O'Riordan has been to Helsinki and Florence to talk about GPLv3 and has been writing about this in his blog. http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes Forthcoming events: 8. Strategic implementation of Free Software, Stockholm, Sweden On the 8th of November, the FSFE and its Freedom Task Force (FTF), in collaboration with the Internet Academy in Sweden, will give a course on Strategic implementation of Free Software in businesses. The course will take place in Stockholm, Sweden and given predominantly in Swedish. http://www.internetacademy.se/strategi.html You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. From press at fsfeurope.org Fri Nov 9 15:37:59 2007 From: press at fsfeurope.org (press at fsfeurope.org) Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2007 15:37:59 +0100 Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] Certified Open: Welcome to life after ICT lock-in Message-ID: [for immediate release] Welcome to life after ICT lock-in Certified Open trial period launched Today sees the launch of the trial period for Certified Open, a programme to evaluate the technical and commercial lock-in of ICT solutions. Certified Open promotes fair and effective competition in the delivery of software, hardware and services. Certified Open is a joint venture between OpenForum Europe (OFE) and Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). The programme originated in UK local government and European Commission eTen projects and was further developed with industry, community and user engagement. The certification process is simple and fast. It is based on self-assessment and uses an on-line application process. The programme tests technical and commercial aspects of interoperability and awards Gold, Silver or Bronze certificates to successful applicants. Accreditations and answers to certification questions are listed on-line for public review to ensure fairness. There is a neutral appeal process to resolve irregularities and a governance council to oversee development and forward planning. Graham Taylor, Director of OpenForum Europe said: "Certified Open represents a complete solution for public and private sector users to check the openness of their ICT solutions. We frequently see examples where organisations have become locked-in to a system due to the costs involved in change. Analysis carried out by OFE has indicated that 90% of public sector organisations no longer have the freedom to choose ICT solutions on the basis of competitiveness, functionality or price because of lock-in." Certified Open is designed to ensure freedom from lock-in and openness to fair competition. The framework assesses dependence on proprietary or undocumented protocols, dependence on undocumented or proprietary data formats, licensing terms that preclude the use of alternative products, extensions to standards to ensure good performance and the use of pseudo-standards dependent on patents or other restrictions that prevent compatible competing implementations." Georg Greve, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe stated: "Vendor lock-in has become the primary problem for IT decisions in general and Free Software adoption in particular. It distorts the market and denies Free Software solutions equal competition on the merits. The problem has been that many lock-ins are invisible, for example reliance on proprietary protocols or needing to use certain document formats. Certified Open makes that lock-in visible and allows users to measure their dependency. Suppliers can highlight clearly when their products are interoperable, and we hope that Certified Open will provide an incentive to ensure that they are. Our goal is to give back freedom of choice to all users." NOTES FOR EDITORS For more information please contact Graham Taylor on + 44 771 359 3217 or Jennifer Webber + 44 7908 643 983. 1. Graham Taylor is speaking at the Open Source Summit, hosted by Olswang and Greenberg Traurig and held at the Queen Elizabeth II Centre today at 1630. Graham will be available for comment via Jennifer Webber on +44 7908 643 093. 2. Certified Open is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee in the UK. There is no equity or profit to distribute and any surpluses generated will be returned to the development of Certified Open. It is intended that this is the first step towards the establishment of a Foundation. The Board of Certified Open Limited currently consists of four directors, two from each of the founding organisations - OpenForum Europe and Free Software Foundation Europe. Certified Open was originally developed with support of the UK Government's eInnovations programme, and the eTEN programme of the European Commission. It has already been extensively trialled with support from the community, industry and user organisations. 3. The Certified Open programme has a 3 Month Trial period running until end January 2008. During this period all accreditations will be free of charge and submissions will remain confidential. The trial can be accessed at www.certifiedopen.com. 4. OpenForum Europe is a not-for-profit, independent organisation launched in March 2002 to accelerate, broaden and strengthen the use of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) in business and government. OFE pursues the vision of an open, competitive European IT market by 2010 in line with the European Commission i2010 Strategy, with the mission of facilitating open competitive choice for IT users 5. Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and involved in global activities. FSFE is dedicated to Free Software, software that can be used, studied, shared and improved by its users. FSFE was founded in 2001 to create awareness for Free Software, secure Free Software politically and legally, and give people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software. FSFE wishes to secure equal participation in the information age and freedom of competition. Contact: Joachim Jakobs, Media Relations Email: jakobs at fsfeurope.org Tel: +49 700 373387673 Ext: 404 Mobile: +49 179 6919565 From press at fsfeurope.org Mon Dec 17 21:02:24 2007 From: press at fsfeurope.org (Free Software Foundation Europe) Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:02:24 +0100 Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] FSFE Newsletter Message-ID: Welcome to FSFE's exceptionally full November newsletter. In Europe FSFE has been involved in speeches, meetings, training courses and public betas of new technology. On the global level we have been participated in the recent Internet Governance Forum meeting in Brazil. As always FSFE's work has been complemented by the contributions of the Fellows. The Fellows in Nijmegen, Dusseldorf and Berlin are due particular credit this month after participating in discussions on various topics. In Berlin the increased use of Free Software on mobile devices was discussed, while Free Software and business was the topic of choice in Dusseldorf and Nijmegen. If you are interested in starting Fellowship meetings in your area please contact the Fellowship at http://fsfe.org/en/contact_us - Shane, FSFE Zurich Office 1. United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2. STACS meeting in London 3. Trophees du Libre 2007 in Soissons 4. Training Courses in Stockholm and Nijmegen 5. FTF events in Linz, Lausanne, Nijmegen and Dusseldorf 6. Foundation activities in Sweden 7. Berlin Fellowship discusses Free Software mobile phones 8. FSFE revisiting software patent information 9. SELF public beta and bug fixing 10. Interview with Werner Koch Forthcoming events: 11. Free Software Conference Scandinavia, Gothenburg, Sweden 12. FSFE informes on privacy and freedom in Schwetzingen 1. United Nations Internet Governance Forum (IGF) The second Internet Governance Forum was hosted by the Brazilian government in Rio de Janeiro and showed a strong emphasis of Open Standards as one of the key issues, also thanks to the constant work that FSFE has been doing over the years and the good collaboration with many groups in the Dynamic Coalition on Open Standards (DCOS). FSFE's president Georg Greve had a busy time participating in the pre-IGF Standards Edge conference by the Bolin Group and several workshops on the issue, including the general assembly Security Session. Open Standards are likely to play a greate role in the future UN work. http://fsfeurope.org/projects/igf/ 2. STACS meeting in London On the 2nd of November, the FSFE organised a capacity building session for CSOs as part of the STACS project (FP6-2005-Science-and-Society-19-044597), in order to increase CSO awareness of Free Software and to demonstrate its use. The session took place at The Hub in London and was attended by a nice mixture of participating CSOs, both from the greater London area, from the rest of the UK and from several other European countries. The session ended with a wish from all participants to hold several more similar sessions for other CSOs in other places around Europe. 3. Trophees du Libre 2007 in Soissons The Trophees du Libre, organised by CETRIL, is the world's largest Free Software award with several categories. The 29 November saw the 4th edition of the Trophees du Libre, held at the Chateau de Villeneuve Saint-Germain with participants coming from as far as Taiwan, Israel or Montreal. Having participated in the jury last year, FSFE president Georg Greve was invited to preside over the jury of this edition and to moderate the award ceremony while FSFE intern Irina Dzhambazova was using the opportunity to get to know more projects and supporting the event as best she could. http://www.tropheesdulibre.org/?lang=en 4. Training Courses in Stockholm and Nijmegen On the 8th of November, the FTF in collaboration with Internet Academy in Stockholm, Sweden delivered a course on the strategic implementation of Free Software in business. On the 26th of November the FTF and ATComputing in Nijmegen, The Netherlands delivered the same course. The FTF now offers course in Switzerland, Sweden and The Netherlands and expects to expand into more countries soon. For more information about FTF courses please visit: http://www.fsfeurope.org/ftf 5. FTF events in Linz, Lausanne, Nijmegen and Dusseldorf It has been a busy month for the FTF. Shane Coughlan, FTF Coordinator, delivered a keynote entitled 'Free Software, licensing and business processes' on the 3rd of November at elce2007 in Linz, Austria. He also spoke at the Business and Law schools of Lausanne University, Switzerland, on the 21st and 22nd of November, attended a Fellowship meeting in Nijmegen, The Netherlands on the 26th, and delivered a speech for the Dusseldorf Fellows about Free Software licensing and business processes on the 28th. For more information about FTF events please visit FSFE's events page: http://www.fsfeurope.org/events/events.html 6. Foundation activities in Sweden The Swedish team of the FSFE has been busy during the month, holding several presentations about SELF and Free Software in Sweden. The first presentation was held at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm on the 7th of November, followed up by the University College of Bor?s in Bor?s on the 9th, Ume? University in Ume? on the 12th, Mid Sweden University in Sundsvall on the 19th, Karlstad University in Karlstad on the 20th and Link?ping University in Link?ping on the 21st. All events were quite well attended, with a mixture of students, teachers and other members of the faculty. In the presentations, emphasis was placed also on how SELF actually contributes, not only to further education on Free Software, but also to encourage the Free Software philosophy of sharing and cooperation in other areas. 7. Berlin Fellowship discusses Free Software mobile phones On 13. November there was a local Fellowship meeting in Berlin. Fellow Robert Schuster gave a presentation about the relevance of OpenMoko for the Free Software community. There was an interesting discussion about what that means for the freedom of private persons as well as the possibilities these freedoms give SMEs who can offer special services for their costumers. It was decided that the Berlin Fellowship group will meet every second Thursday in the month at the Newthinking store. Afterwards the meeting was moved into a pub to get know to each other. More information: - The slides (in German): http://fsfe.org/en/content/download/33600/207464/file/OpenMoko-Vortrag-fellowship-Treffen.odp - Pictures of the event: http://store.newthinking.de/blog/archive/2007/11/13/erster-fsfe-fellowship-stammtisch - Mailing list for meetings in Berlin: berlin at lists.fsfe.org. 8. FSFE revisiting software patent information We have begun to revisit the published information on out webpages. There is increasing discussion of software patents within the institutions, so we are revising the information published on out website. Some updates are already online, and in the coming weeks, we will continue to provide more documentation about the current status as well as summaries of what was learned and what has already happened. http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/swpat 9. SELF public beta and bug fixing After the launch of the public beta version of the SELF platform, the development team has been working extensively on fixing bugs and implementing the missing functionality of the platform. However, more work is still needed in this area, and if you want to help, we encourage you to try out the platform at http://www.selfplatform.eu/ and report whatever bugs you come across. 10. Interview with Werner Koch For our German readers there is something of a treat this month. Gulli has an interview with Werner Koch, creator of GnuPG and one of the co-founders of FSFE. Werner talks about his perspectives on security and Free Software. http://www.gulli.com/news/der-autor-von-gnupg-im-gespr-2007-11-23/ Forthcoming events: 11. Free Software Conference Scandinavia, Gothenburg, Sweden The FSFE is organising the Free Software Conference Scandinavia (FSCONS), taking place in Gothenburg, Sweden on the 7th and 8th of December 2007. It is the first in its kind event in the region, inspired by the growing momentum around Free Software. http://www.fscons.org/ 12. FSFE informes on privacy and freedom in Schwetzingen The data retention directive has been put into German law and will be valid from January 2008. And there are other threads as the German "hacker act", the "on-line searching" or the electronic health card. For this reason FSFE is organising an event to inform the public about the coming risk for privacy and freedom. https://privatsphaere.org You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. From press at fsfeurope.org Thu Dec 20 18:21:15 2007 From: press at fsfeurope.org (Free Software Foundation Europe) Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2007 18:21:15 +0100 Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] EU antitrust case over: Samba receives interoperability information Message-ID: <20071220172115.GC6666@mbwg.de> EU antitrust case over: Samba receives interoperability information In 2004 the European Commission found Microsoft guilty of monopoly abuse in the IT marketplace and demanded that complete interoperability information be made available to competitors. Microsoft objected to this decision and was overruled in September 2007 by the European Court of First Instance (CFI). The CFI found Microsoft guilty of deliberate obstruction of interoperability and upheld the obligation for Microsoft to share its protocol information. The Samba Team has decided to make use of Micrsoft's obligation under the European judgements. Through the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation (PFIF), network interoperability information has been requested and a one-time access fee of 10.000 EUR is being paid to give Samba team full access to important specifications. "One case is over and interoperability won. The European Court made clear that interoperability information should not be kept secret and the agreement shows that Microsoft saw no way to continue its obstruction of interoperability in this area. This establishes a standard which everyone will have to meet from now on," summarizes Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE). Jonas ?berg, FSFE's vice president, continues: "Other winners are all users of Workgroup productivity applications: Samba will now gain full access to all the information necessary for full interoperability with today's and tomorrow's Microsoft Workgroup Server products. All users stand to benefit from this, even those using Microsoft's products, because increased competition is likely to put pressure on Microsoft's pricing and decrease Microsoft's margins." "Under the current situation, thanks to the improvements that we have been able to obtain, the agreement is the best solution possible. It does not solve all the open issues we have with Microsoft, it just partially remedies an unfair and illegal situation. It is not a settlement, it is compliance to the remedies imposed by the Commission and upheld by the EC Courts. And at least it is now fully compatible with Free Software licensing," comments Carlo Piana, legal counsel of the FSFE. Piana continues: "We have been able once for all to receive a list of the patents that Microsoft claims to be reading on the specifications. Incredibly we have never been exactly told which those patents were. This should be helpful to stop FUD against Samba, and we hope the same will happen with other Free Software projects. It is standard practice: if you have an issue with somebody, you should tell what this issue is, or shut up completely." "The European Commission has been criticised harshly for its agreement with Microsoft, in particular its failure to declare potentially relevant patents of Microsoft invalid," Jonas ?berg continues: "The system is broken and needs fixing, but it is not for civil administration to declare specific patents valid or invalid. We need informed, transparent and democratic dialog on this issue." Georg Greve adds: "The European Commission got further than any other antitrust authority in the world and was more successful. They deserve our gratitude and support for having gone 80% of the way. All the same one could have hoped for the courage to also mention the problems caused by software patents for interoperability and thus competition, including a clear request to the proper political places to address this issue." "We should also not forget that this is only about one area in which Microsoft is showing the same behaviour. There are outstanding antitrust complaints from both the European Committee for Interoperable Systems (ECIS) and Opera about different abusive behaviours in the office, Internet and web browser area," Greve adds. "If the same methods are abusive in one area, they should also be abusive in another. So if the European Commission wants to follow the positive example it set since 1998, it should not fail to also investigate the other complaints." "The overall summary is positive. When FSFE set out in 2001 to support the European Commission in its antitrust investigation against Microsoft, our goal was to make this information available to Free Software. Working jointly with the Samba team since 2003, we managed to do just that." Jonas ?berg concludes: "Software patents were a problem then and they remain a problem today. We will need to solve this problem politically, and FSFE intends to keep working on this. Meanwhile I'd like to thank all the volunteers and employees of FSFE and Samba who worked on this amazing success for Free Software with little or no support while others were allowing themselves to be solicited out of the case. Our thanks also goes to everyone who supported our work over the years and helped make this success possible." About the Free Software Foundation Europe: The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and involved in many global activities. Access to software determines participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study, modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues of the FSFE. http://fsfeurope.org Contact: Georg Greve +41-76-5611866 Jonas ?berg +46-733-423962 Carlo Piana +39-347-8835209 Shane Coughlan +41-79-2633406 Ciaran O'Riordan +32-477-364419 You can reach the FSFE switchboard from: Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57 Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73 Sweden: +46 31 7802160 Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66 UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7 From press at fsfeurope.org Fri Dec 21 16:07:22 2007 From: press at fsfeurope.org (Joachim Jakobs) Date: Fri, 21 Dec 2007 16:07:22 +0100 Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] FSFE supports new antitrust investigation against Microsoft Message-ID: <200712211607.23759.press@fsfeurope.org> FSFE supports new antitrust investigation against Microsoft "Microsoft should be required openly, fully and faithfully to implement free and open industry standards," is the message of a letter by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) to European Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes. To help achieve this goal, FSFE offered its support for a possible antitrust investigation based on the complaint of Opera Software against Microsoft. The complaint was based on anti-competitive behaviour in the web browser market. "Although Opera Software does not produce Free Software, we largely share their assessment and concerns regarding the present situation in the Internet browser market", FSFE president Georg Greve writes in the letter and continues: "Some of the most successful browsers in the concerned market are Free Software or contain large portions of Free Software. This includes, Mozilla Firefox and Konqueror, a browser made by KDE. Those products are highly innovative and widely recognized as more secure than the dominant application. They faithfully implement major international Open Standards relevant to browser technology." So what is the problem in the browser market? FSFE explains: "Precisely because they abide by industry recognized Open Standards and cannot implement the undisclosed and non-compliant 'Microsoft dialects' of these standards, they often appear limited when compared with Microsoft?s Internet Explorer which establishes itself as the closed, de facto standard due to Internet Explorer?s dominant position. Moreover, these web browsers cannot be hardwired into the dominant Windows Operating System as is the case with Internet Explorer." "For these reasons," Georg Greve concludes "we strongly support enforcement actions that counter Microsoft?s strategy of 'embracing, extending and extinguishing' multilateral Open Standards - a strategy Microsoft already employed successfully in the Work Group Server market addressed in the 2004 Decision. Default standards compliance by Microsoft is of great importance to FSFE, as we are witnessing many similar attempts by Microsoft in other markets to undermine public and international standards that enable interoperability". You can read the entire letter at http://fsfeurope.org/documents/20071219-opera-antitrust.pdf About the Free Software Foundation Europe: The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and involved in many global activities. Access to software determines participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study, modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues of the FSFE. http://fsfeurope.org Contact: You can reach the FSFE switchboard from: Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57 Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73 Sweden: +46 31 7802160 Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66 UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7 From bogus@does.not.exist.com Fri Oct 12 11:57:42 2007 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:57:42 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: building of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, Rudolf-Sallinger-Platz 1, 3rd district, Vienna. A group of Fellows will be present with a booth where they inform about FSFE, the Fellowship, and Free Software in general. Admission is free for the whole event. http://www.linuxwochen.at/ You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved. From bogus@does.not.exist.com Fri Oct 12 11:57:42 2007 From: bogus@does.not.exist.com () Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2007 09:57:42 -0000 Subject: No subject Message-ID: building of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce, Rudolf-Sallinger-Platz 1, 3rd district, Vienna. A group of Fellows will be present with a booth where they inform about FSFE, the Fellowship, and Free Software in general. Admission is free for the whole event. 7. Fellowship meeting in Vienna (2008-05-17) The twenty-second Austrian Fellowship meeting is integrated in the Linuxwochen event in Vienna. Fellows and other interested people can meet at the FSFE booth during the whole event to discuss, and at the end of the last day of the event, we will join the Linuxwochen After-Show-Party. 8. LinuxTag 2008, Berlin, Germany (2008-05-28 to 2008-05-31) As in the last years FSFE will be present with a booth at LinuxTag 2008. It takes place at Berlin's Expo Center under the Funkturm. FSFE will inform visitors about various aspects of Free Software, like the Freedom Task Force, software patents, the SELF project, GPLv3, our work in the United Nations, or the Fellowship of FSFE. Also it is planned to sell T-shirts from FSFE and books about Free Software. 9. 'Strategic implementation of Free Software in business' speech at eLiberatica (2008-05-30) Shane Coughlan, FTF coordinator, will deliver a speech entitled 'Strategic implementation of Free Software in business' at the eLiberatica conference in Romania on the 30th of May. You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.