From press at fsfeurope.org Wed Apr 2 09:37:08 2008 From: press at fsfeurope.org (press at fsfeurope.org) Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2008 09:37:08 +0200 Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] FSFE concerned about quality of standardisation process Message-ID: <87ve30672z.fsf@fsfeurope.org> Media release 2 April 2008 FSFE concerned about quality of standardisation process Today the International Standards Organisation (ISO) approved Microsoft's Office OpenXML format as ISO/IEC standard 29500 despite severe technical and legal concerns with the specification that have been raised by various parties. "FSFE published its 'Six questions to national standardisation bodies' before the September 2nd vote last year. [1] Considering the statements about progress made on MS-OOXML, one would have hoped that at least one of these questions enjoyed a satisfactory response," states FSFE's German Deputy country coordinator Matthias Kirschner. He continues: "Unfortunately that is not the case. Issues like the 'Converter Hoax' [2] and the 'Questions on Open Formats' [3] are still equally valid. As the 'Deprecated before use' [4] and 'Interoperability woes with OOXML' [5] documents demonstrate, MS-OOXML interoperability is severely limited in comparison to Open Standards. In addition to these issues, there are the legal concerns that were raised by various parties. [6]" "Technologically speaking, the state of IS29500 is depressing," says Marko Milenovic of FSFE's Serbian Team and co-chair of the Serbian technical committee on DIS29500. "In large parts it is low quality technical prose that fails to use the normative terminology mandated by ISO/IEC's guidelines. We've been told to wait for the maintenance process for MS-OOXML to become usable. That ISO would knowingly approve a dysfunctional specification is disillusioning." FSFE vice-president Jonas ?berg states: "Governments have to start asking themselves what the ISO seal of approval really means. As demonstrated by the MPEG standards, it never meant that something qualifies as a meaningful 'Open Standard.'" ?berg continues: "Now it seems that ISO could be the wrong forum for standards development in information technology in general. It seems to work too slowly or too poorly to make the ISO brand meaningful in the IT world. We'll have to see whether ISO can repair its own processes enough to become a meaningful participant." "Governments that seek to gain control over their own data and ensure long-term archival of public records independently from any specific vendor will need to establish other criteria in their public procurement," concludes Georg Greve, FSFE's president. "Programs like 'Certified Open' that seek to assess the actual interoperability and independence are likely to play a larger role in the future." [7] [1] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-questions [2] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-converter-hoax [3] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-questions-for-ms [4] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-idiosyncrasies [5] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-interoperability [6] http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/stdlib/offdoc/mision [7] http://www.certifiedopen.com 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. Contact: You can reach the FSFE switchboard from: Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57 ext 408 Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73 ext 408 Sweden: +46 31 7802160 ext 408 Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66 ext 408 UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7 ext 408 Further information: http://fsfeurope.org From press at fsfeurope.org Wed Apr 16 20:00:50 2008 From: press at fsfeurope.org (Free Software Foundation Europe) Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:00:50 +0200 Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] FSFE Newsletter Message-ID: It has been another busy month for software freedom. Open Standards have continued to dominate discussions in ICT with the MS-OOXML proposal being accepted by ISO as a standard. FSFE and numerous other parties have observed this process from the beginning and have reason to be concerned about the state of international standardisation. You could read more about this in our lead story below. Document freedom, open access and software licensing are increasingly important topics of discussion. Awareness of these issues has never been higher but at the same time the challenges faced have never been so difficult. As Free Software becomes more accepted, so too do the attempts by those supporting restrictions and constraint to undermine our movement. We need your help to ensure that logic, fairness and decisions for the benefit of all continue to be heeded by decision-markets in Europe and beyond. If you have some free time, please visit http://fsfeurope.org/contribute/ and see how you can contribute to our success. Shane, FSFE Zurich Office 1. MS-OOXML approved by ISO, FSFE concerned about standardisation process 2. FSFE context briefing: Interoperability woes with MS-OOXML 3. Document Freedom Day - young but strong 4. Keynote at Chemnitzer Linux-Tagen, Germany 5. FSFE co-launches Open Parliament initiative 6. Speech on Free Software licensing and the GPLv3 at OSiM USA 7. FTF delivers licensing courses in Zurich, Switzerland FORTHCOMING EVENTS 8. (2008-04-19) Linuxwochen, Krems, Austria 9. (2008-04-19) Linuxwochen, Graz, Austria 10. (2008-05-15 to 2008-05-17) Linuxwochen, Vienna, Austria 1. MS-OOXML approved by ISO, FSFE concerned about standardisation process Microsoft received Ecma's approval for the partial documentation of its Office 2007 file format in December 2006 as Ecma-376. Ecma then filed Ecma-376 for ISO approval as DIS29500. This raised concerns that in spite of claims to the contrary this would turn out to be a strategic move to get ISO approval at all cost for pure marketing purposes. FSFE's own experience in some countries and the reports about various irregularities around the world confirmed that concern. These concerns also overshadow the final approval of MS-OOXML as an ISO standard. ISO certification was never a seal for Open Standards, as demonstrated by patent-encumbered formats like MPEG. But if technically deficient documentation gets ISO approval, it questions ISO on a much more fundamental level. http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2008q2/000206.html http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/what_s_wrong_with_ooxml_anyway http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/re_enacting_the_parrot_sketch 2. FSFE context briefing: Interoperability woes with MS-OOXML FSFE released a context briefing on interoperability problems caused by Microsoft's Office OpenXML format: "The proposed MS-OOXML/DIS29500 specification raises serious technical and legal concerns. This context briefing highlights three examples of how the proposed specification and its practical implementation in MS Office 2007 hinders interoperability, fosters vendor dependence and results in market distortion." http://fsfeurope.org/news/2008/news-20080305-01 3. Document Freedom Day - young but strong We are happy to announce that the first Document Freedom Day was a complete success. Great response we received from the teams during the preparations and registration process, resulted with lots of activities on March 26th all over the globe. DFD Teams did their best to pass the message of document freedom and importance of Open Standards. DFD flags were hoisted around the world in Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe, North and South America. Events and activities of more than 200 DFD teams ranged for street events and speeches to an award for the German governmental body that adopted good policies in the field of Document Freedom and Open Standards. We are expressing our biggest gratitude to all DFD teams for being part of the community and contribution in making DFD08 successful. http://documentfreedom.org/ 4. Keynote at Chemnitzer Linux-Tagen, Germany Shane Coughlan, the coordinator of FSFE's Freedom Task Force, delivered the keynote speech at Chemnitzer Linux-Tagen at 13:00 on the 1st of March. The title of the keynote was 'Free Software in the ICT mainstream' and covered issues ranging from licensing through to Free Software on the desktop. The key message of the speech was that we have come a long way, and now that we are a mainstream technology we can accomplish even more. The big question remaining for each individual is simply "what will I contribute to this?" http://chemnitzer.linux-tage.de/2008/vortraege/detail.html?idx=223 5. FSFE co-launches Open Parliament initiative The Open Parliament petition was launched in March to initiate a review of the European Parliament's policies regarding internal software use and file formats for published information. If this petition gathers enough support to launch a review, FSFE will have a guiding role in the process. The official petition is an internal matter for the European Parliament, but there is also an online petition where FSFE asks free software supporters to show their support. This petition was co-launched with OpenForum Europe and ESOMA. More information on this will be published soon on the fsfe.org blogs. http://www.openparliament.eu/ 6. Speech on Free Software licensing and the GPLv3 at OSiM USA Shane Coughlan, FTF coordinator, delivered a speech entitled 'Analysing Whether GPLv3 Has Improved Free Software Licensing' at OSiM USA on Tuesday the 12th of March in San Francisco. The speech covered topics ranging from the creation of GPLv3 and its place in licensing through to examining the place of GPLv3 in tomorrow's market. Reaction was positive and productive discussions with telecommunications companies took place afterwards. 7. FTF delivers licensing courses in Zurich, Switzerland Shane Coughlan, FTF coordinator, delivered two training courses in Zurich, Switzerland as part of the Free Task Force programme to increase awareness and understanding of software licensing issues. On the 7th of March a half day session entitled 'Free Software in the public sector' was delivered, and on the 21st of March another half day session entitled 'Introduction to Free Software licensing' was presented to an audience of local Free Software advocates and activists. If you are interested in helping the FTF with its outreach programme and would like to have training sessions in your area, please contact the FTF as soon as possible: http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/contact FORTHCOMING EVENTS 8. (2008-04-19) Linuxwochen, Krems, Austria On Tuesday 15 April 2007 at 16:15, Reinhard M?ller gives a speech about open standards and free document formats at a Linuxwochen event at the Danube University Krems. The FSFE also has a booth at the event where it informs about its work and about Free Software in general. Admission is free for the whole event. http://lug.krems.cc/linuxtag2008/ 9. (2008-04-19) Linuxwochen, Graz, Austria On Saturday 19 April 2007 at 12:00, Reinhard M?ller gives a speech about open standards and free document formats at Linuxwochen event at the University of Applied Sciences "Johanneum" in Graz. The FSFE also has a booth at the event where it informs about its work and about Free Software in general. Admission is free for the whole event. http://www.linuxtage.at/ 10. (2008-05-15 to 2008-05-17) Linuxwochen, Vienna, Austria From press at fsfeurope.org Wed May 21 13:38:29 2008 From: press at fsfeurope.org (Free Software Foundation Europe) Date: Wed, 21 May 2008 13:38:29 +0200 Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] FSFE Newsletter Message-ID: Issues around standardisation continued to make headlines during April. However, other important areas of focus were also under discussion around the world. In Amsterdam, FSFE's Freedom Task Force hosted the first European Legal and Licensing Workshop, leading to broad agreement between many European stakeholders on methods of improving legal infrastructure for Free Software in Europe. In Brazil, the 9th FISL conference provided a forum for various discussion about the adoption and evolution of free technologies. The Fellowship and FSFE volunteers were also active. The Fellows in Berlin had a booth at a distribution release party and the Italian volunteers worked on building the structure to ensure long-term sustainability for their team. Please consider how you can contribute to our movement. You can visit http://fsfeurope.org/contribute for suggestions of ways to get involved. Shane, FSFE Zurich Office 1. FTF workshop leads to broad agreement on European licensing infrastructure 2. Lack of quality in standardisation a serious problem 3. Licensing as a strategic imperative, speech at FISL 4. Fellowship Group at Ubuntu Release Party in Berlin 5. Italian team: new mailing list and renewed blog FORTHCOMING EVENTS: 6. Linuxwochen, Vienna, Austria (2008-05-15 to 2008-05-17) 7. Fellowship meeting in Vienna (2008-05-17) 8. LinuxTag 2008, Berlin, Germany (2008-05-28 to 2008-05-31) 9. 'Strategic implementation of Free Software in business' speech at eLiberatica (2008-05-30) 1. FTF workshop leads to broad agreement on European licensing infrastructure The recent European Legal and Licensing Workshop hosted by FSFE's Freedom Task Force lead to productive discussions and broad agreement on important focus areas in Free Software licensing between commercial and non-commercial stakeholders. The event took place in Amsterdam during early April and was attended to capacity. Shane Coughlan, FTF Coordinator, states that "this marks an example of the growing maturity of Free Software in Europe. We have a great deal to do to ensure strong infrastructure to support the community, but as this workshop showed, the will and ability to create the infrastructure is present in all stakeholders." Documentation from the workshop will be released to the public shortly. 2. Lack of quality in standardisation a serious problem "FSFE published its 'Six questions to national standardisation bodies' before the September 2nd vote last year. [1] Considering the statements about progress made on MS-OOXML, one would have hoped that at least one of these questions enjoyed a satisfactory response," states FSFE's German Deputy country coordinator Matthias Kirschner. He continues: "Unfortunately that is not the case. Issues like the 'Converter Hoax' [2] and the 'Questions on Open Formats' [3] are still equally valid. As the 'Deprecated before use' [4] and 'Interoperability woes with OOXML' [5] documents demonstrate, MS-OOXML interoperability is severely limited in comparison to Open Standards. In addition to these issues, there are the legal concerns that were raised by various parties. [6]" FSFE vice-president Jonas ?berg states: "Governments have to start asking themselves what the ISO seal of approval really means. As demonstrated by the MPEG standards, it never meant that something qualifies as a meaningful 'Open Standard.'" [1] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-questions [2] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-converter-hoax [3] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-questions-for-ms [4] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-idiosyncrasies [5] http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-interoperability [6] http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/stdlib/offdoc/mision 3. Licensing as a strategic imperative, speech at FISL Shane Coughlan, FSFE's Freedom Task Force Coordinator, delivered a speech on the strategic importance of Free Software licensing at this years FISL event in Porte Alegre, Brazil. FISL has grown to be perhaps the largest Free Software event in the world. This year it was attended by 7,000 people and notable speakers included Jon 'Maddog' Hall, Theodore Ts'o from the Linux Foundation and Mitchell Baker from Mozilla Corporation. Well known European faces like Knut Yrvin from Trolltech and Bram Moolenaar, the creator of VIM, were also present. 4. Fellowship Group at Ubuntu Release Party in Berlin The Berlin Fellowship Group attended the "Hardy Heron" release event in Berlin's cbase and featured a talk from Fellow Torsten Grote about Gobuntu -- which aims to be a complete free (as in free speech) GNU/Linux operating system -- and the importance of Free Software in general. The group also had a booth there which attracted many interested visitors who were very eager to learn about Free Software. While Ubuntu is not entirely Free Software, it has helped a lot to make Free Software accessible to many people. The Berlin Fellowship wanted to build on this and foster discussion about our goal of having 100% Free Software available to everyone. If you would like to join in the fun, please note that the Berlin Fellowship meets every second Thursday in the month at the Newthinking Store, Tucholskystr. 48 in 10117 Berlin at 19:30 pm. 5. Italian team: new mailing list and renewed blog The Italian team of the FSFE has just launched a new public discussion mailing list about Free Software and FSFE activities in Italy. All Italian fellows, volunteers and interested people are invited to join us and come up with ideas, proposals and any kind of questions. You can subscribe to the new fsfe-it@ list at: https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-it Also, Gnuvox (http://www.gnuvox.info), the blog on Free Software and Free Culture maintained by the Italian team, has just been renewed thanks to the TIS Free Software Center in Bolzano. We have some interesting plans for the future, and we invite all italian Fellows and bloggers to follow Gnuvox , submit comments and new posts too: you can contact the editorial team at: pr-it(at)fsfeurope.org FORTHCOMING EVENTS 6. Linuxwochen, Vienna, Austria (2008-05-15 to 2008-05-17) From press at fsfeurope.org Tue May 27 13:06:33 2008 From: press at fsfeurope.org (Free Software Foundation Europe) Date: Tue, 27 May 2008 12:06:33 +0100 Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] GPL-Violations.org and FSFE's Freedom Task Force to work more closely together Message-ID: <9lod6st39i.fsf@vorcha.compsoc.com> GPL-Violations.org and FSFE's Freedom Task Force to work more closely together Coordinators of the FSFE Freedom Task Force (FTF) and GPL-Violations.org recently met in Berlin to discuss future cooperation. The two organisations have agreed to deepen their partnership, building on their combined work since the launch of the FTF in October 2006. GPL-Violations.org will be pro-actively working on cases and seeking resolutions where violations occur. The FTF will continue and expand its educational and networking activities to ensure awareness of best practice and help support people with their use of the licences. "Since GPL-Violations.org was launched the software market in Europe has changed significantly," states Harald Welte, founder of GPL-Violations.org. "It is a clear, legal fact that distributing Free Software means people must comply with the licences. GPL-Violations.org and the FTF are now building the long-term legal infrastructure for support and compliance." Key outcomes of the new arrangement between the FTF and GPL-Violations.org include an agreement that GPL-Violations.org will assist the FTF in getting a second full-time staff member. This will help the FTF to deliver services such as answering common licensing questions, offering training and consultancy, resolving licensing issues, helping projects consolidate copyright and acting as a legal guardian for fiduciary programme members. "GPL-Violations.org has been critical in building understanding of licensing in Europe, and it has also been critical in the development of the FTF," say Shane Coughlan, FTF Coordinator. "I believe our new agreement will help ensure sustainability for legal infrastructure to support Free Software in Europe." "The key thing now is to look to the future. The FTF facilitates a European Legal Network with coverage of seventeen European countries and over 100 members. I'd like to encourage European businesses and projects with legal counsel, or individual lawyers, to join this network. It provides an excellent forum for sharing knowledge about legal aspects of Free Software licensing and making new contacts." The Freedom Task Force can be found at http://www.fsfeurope.org/ftf/ The Freedom Task Force can be emailed at ftf at fsfeurope.org 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. Contact: You can reach the FSFE switchboard from: Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57 ext 408 Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73 ext 408 Sweden: +46 31 7802160 ext 408 Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66 ext 408 UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7 ext 408 Shane Coughlan, FTF Coordinator, FSFE extension: 408 Further information: http://fsfeurope.org About gpl-violations.org In the past 30 months, gpl-violations.org has helped uncover and negotiate more than 100 GPL violations and has obtained numerous out-of-court settlement agreements. The gpl-violations.org project is a not-for-profit effort to bring commercial users and vendors of Free Software into compliance with the license conditions as set forth by the original authors. The project was founded and is managed by Mr. Harald Welte, a Linux Kernel developer and Free Software enthusiast. For more information on the project, its mission, milestones and goals, please see http://gpl-violations.org/ Media contact: gpl-violations.org Harald Welte Email: laforge at gpl-violations.org From press at fsfeurope.org Wed Jun 18 16:03:16 2008 From: press at fsfeurope.org (Free Software Foundation Europe) Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:03:16 +0200 Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] Stabilisers for freedom: Wine 1.0 Message-ID: <20080618140315.GR22941@mbwg.de> Stabilisers for freedom: Wine 1.0 Companies willing to migrate to Free Software sometimes face the problem that certain applications they use for their daily work were written in a way that makes them dependent on a specific operating system. These programs undermine the the entrepreneurial freedom of any business to freely chose their hardware and operating system. Not only does this pose a threat to fair competition, but it is also harmful to the individual company as replacing those applications with Free Software cannot usually be done over night. Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) acknowledges the importance of the work being done by the Wine developers, whose efforts help many users to migrate to Free Software. Matthias Kirschner on the topic: "It's the same support that training wheels provide when learning to ride a bicycle, they take away the fear and help the children to learn to ride by themselves - Just as Wine 'balances' the burden proprietary software puts upon its user." "Of course, it should be in the users interest to 'ride their bicycles independently', i.e. not having to rely on training wheels. However, the training wheels keep children from falling and give freedom to both the children and their parents. Likewise Wine helped to give freedom and security to the users. It is for this we are thankful and we recognise their work." 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://www.fsfeurope.org/ About Open Standards Lock-in of data is one of the most common techniques to artificially raise the cost of migration to Free Software. Ensuring the best possible interoperability through Open Standards is essential in enabling users to escape vendor lock-in. FSFE's work on Open Standards has the goal of making sure that people do not have to lose all their data when migrating to Free Software. http://fsfeurope.org/standards