Fsf-friends August 2004

fsf-friends@gnu.org.in

20 participants
35 discussions

FLOSS in education...
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 08 Aug '04

08 Aug '04

To get an idea of what can be done with FOSS in education, please examine http://eduforge.org/wiki/wiki/eduforge/Systems%2C%20Tools%20and%20Repositor… Just-launched FOSS Helpdesk Project. To learn about the project, examine the forums at https://eduforge.org/forum/?group_id=26 and the documents at: https://eduforge.org/docman/?group_id=26

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First Americas Social Forum
by Kapil Karekar 07 Aug '04

07 Aug '04

The 1st Americas Social Forum (ASF) was held in Quito, Equador from 25th to 30th July. The ASF is part of the World Social Forum (WSF), which was initiated in 2001 and has become the world’s largest venue for NGOs and individuals who are critical of the current state of the world. The slogan of ASF was "Another World is Possible". This slogan has drawn over 10,000 people from more than 45 countries to take part in conferences, seminars, workshops, and cultural events. Globalization, the privatization of water, and communication rights in the information society were some of the primary issues being discussed. Environmentalists, members of sexual minorities, trade unionists, grassroots community activists and students formed part of the mosaic of expressions of civil society drawn to Quito from the entire southern Americas. The ASF also enabled to assess the imposition of a neo-liberal model of globalisation by means of free trade agreements and the installation of U.S. military bases in Latin America. http://libretech.com/?q=node/view/6 -- Kapil Karekar Norrix Associates (http://www.norrix.com) Reachable at: kapil {at} hipatia.info Readable at: http://www.libretech.com Audible at: (91)(22)2867 7305

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[FSFE PR][EN] FSF Europe Newsletter (fwd)
by Frederick Noronha (FN) 06 Aug '04

06 Aug '04

---------- Forwarded message ---------- 1. FSFE supporting European Commission in their case against Microsoft 2. Widely noticed interview in "Die Zeit" 3. Writing new licenses often counterproductive 4. RSS feeds for FSFE news and events available 5. FSFE supports the declaration of Caceres 6. Investigations on the impact of Free Software on companies 1. FSFE supporting European Commission in their case against Microsoft In 2001 the European Union, through the DG Competition of the European Commission (lead by Prof. Monti), started investigating Microsoft's dominant position in the desktop operating systems market. The Free Software Foundation Europe was invited by the EC to represent the interests of the Free Software movement. Together with the Samba team, which the FSFE involved in the case and with which it cooperated closely, we were able to provide much of the arguments that the European Commission based its decision upon. Microsoft recently appealed against the antitrust decision and the DG Competition called upon FSFE in cooperation with the Samba team again to now join the efforts of the Commission to defend that decision. FSFE, representing itself and the Samba team as well as the interests of the Free Software Community, has participated in the preliminary hearing held in Luxembourg on 27th of July. Sun, which originally started the antitrust trial in Europe, declined to participate to the appeal, so the list of the supporters of the Commission are: Novell, RealNetworks, CCIA (Computer & Communication Industry Association), SIIA (Software and Information Industry Association) and FSFE. In the course of the upcoming months, FSFE will read and comment on all the documentation submitted by Microsoft to sustain the idea that "disclosing documentation on interfaces and protocols is harmful" for their business and for consumers. These will be busy months, so if you know anybody that values being able to use SAMBA and could support our efforts, please tell them to support our work with their donation. <http://www.fsfeurope.org/help/donate.en.html> 2. Widely noticed interview in "DIE ZEIT" "DIE ZEIT", a well-respected German newspaper, has printed an interview with Georg Greve that has been cited in several other newspapers and news services. Georg Greve explains why software patents are job- and economy-killers: "Many companies are facing a low liquitidy and can spend their money only once: either on software patents, or on innovation." 3. Writing new licenses often counterproductive There seems to be a trend that more and more projects create new licenses for Free Software instead of using the well established ones used by thousands of existing projects. The FSFE emphasises that the GNU GPL, the GNU LGPL and the BSD-style license are excellent for most - if not all - projects. Claims that the GPL is not fully applicable outside the U.S. have been proven wrong by a recent court decision in Germany. 4. RSS feeds for FSFE news and events available Our web team has created automatic RSS feeds for news and upcoming events. Feeds are focus and language dependent. The URL for the news feed is: http://www.<focus>.fsfeurope.org/news/news.<language>.rss while you find the event feed at: http://www.<focus>.fsfeurope.org/events/events.<language>.rss For example, for German speaking news and the German focus, you would choose http://www.germany.fsfeurope.org/news/news.de.rss as the URL. For your convenience, the news and event pages contain links to the RSS feed URLs. 5. FSFE supports the "Declaration of Caceres" During the Free Software Summer Event of the University of Extremadura in Caceres, Spain, Georg Greve gave a presentation on the Free Software Foundation Europe and participated in a panel discussion about software patents. As closing highlight of the university course, the participants made the "Declaration of Caceres" against software patents drafted by Hispalinux, which was read out in Portuguese by Marcelo D'Elia Branco, German by Georg Greve, English by Maureen O'Sullivan and finally Spanish by the vice-rector of the University, Fernando Sanchez Figueroa. The FSFE officially supports this declaration, which reads: "Freedom, equality and fraternity, the old Europe's values applied to technology, have achieved the biggest innovative space ever imagined. Software Patents are the countermeasure that augments costs, bureaucracy and legal costs to stop European progress." 6. Investigations on the impact of Free Software on companies The University Bocconi in Milan, Italy held a conference to discuss the impact Free Software has on Italian companies. Stefano Maffulli was invited to hold a speech in the name of the FSFE. You can find a list of all FSF Europe newsletters on http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html _______________________________________________ Press-release mailing list Press-release(a)fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/press-release

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Re: [ilugd] apple iPod a tune
by Raj Mathur 06 Aug '04

06 Aug '04

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 >>>>> "LL" == Linux Lingam <linuxlingam(a)gmail.com> writes: LL> dear all, have you been following the controversy of apple's LL> iPod and iTunes, with its DRM-ed and proprietory file-formats, LL> all working nice and proper with RealNetworks. Apple is LL> understandably feeling quite rotten. LL> http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,117201,00.asp What's even more interesting is another thing that has been declared legal by the US copyright office: http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,113190,00.asp <Excerpt> Software developers can use reverse engineering to circumvent digital protection of copyrighted material, if they do so to achieve interoperability with an independently created computer program. </Excerpt> Isn't that precisely what Hymn does? LL> am sure the opensource community watches this with interest, LL> thanks to the recent controversy between the community and LL> apple, even in india. Regards, - -- Raju - -- Raj Mathur raju(a)kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F It is the mind that moves -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Processed by Mailcrypt 3.5.8 <http://mailcrypt.sourceforge.net/> iD8DBQFBDu52yWjQ78xo0X8RApXLAJ9IY3RqVa4FEW4OAhc1L+fAWxBASgCeKNYJ nJXt5sz25eyYBJl/NDy1ddE= =GveZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ ilugd mailinglist -- ilugd(a)lists.linux-delhi.org http://frodo.hserus.net/mailman/listinfo/ilugd Archives at: http://news.gmane.org/gmane.user-groups.linux.delhi http://www.mail-archive.com/ilugd@lists.linux-delhi.org/

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[Fsf-friends] Free Software, GNU/Linux, Thunder, Software Patents in the News
by Ramanraj K 03 Aug '04

03 Aug '04

AB's interview has been published in Trivandrum and Chennai editions of "The Hindu" : http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/001200408021150.htm Today's Chennai edition has also carried a summary of the above interview, but I could not find online links to it.

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Fsf-friends August 2004