-------- Forwarded Message -------- From: Free Software Foundation Europe press@fsfeurope.org Reply-To: press@fsfeurope.org To: announce@fsfeurope.org, discussion@fsfeurope.org, press-release@fsfeurope.org Subject: [FSFE PR][EN] FSF Europe Newsletter Date: Thu, 8 Dec 2005 18:30:27 +0100 1. First Austrian Fellowship meeting 2. Tweakfest in Zürich 3. UN World Summit on Information Society 4. LinuxWorld Expo in Frankfurt/Main 5. Seminar in Dublin about preventing software patentability 6. Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre in Rosario (Argentinia) 7. LinuxDay in Italy 8. Removal of Free Software from WSIS "Vienna Conclusions" 9. Welcoming the Free Software Foundation Latin America
1. First Austrian Fellowship meeting
Karin Kosina and Reinhard Müller organized the first Austrian Fellowship meeting, where Fellows and other people interested in the work of the FSFE could meet, get information about the FSFE and share experiences and opinions about Free Software. Due to the positive feedback from the participants, such meetings will be organized about bi-monthly in Vienna, and other members of the FSFE are starting to organize similar events in other cities. All these events will, as usual, be announced on the Fellowship website.
2. Tweakfest in Zürich
The Zürich Academy of Design and Art was the location for the two-day digital media and arts conference "Tweakfest 2005 - Visions of Digital Life Style". Georg Greve gave a keynote about the significance of digital freedom, the global situation of knowledge regulation and afterwards participated in a panel discussion titled "Copy Right". He also enjoyed seeing dancing robots, which you can read about on his blog:
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/back_from_tweakfest_ch_2005
3. UN World Summit on Information Society (WSIS)
The UN World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) has seen an impressing amount of media coverage during the last month; mainly because of the discussions within the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG). The FSFE, however, has been involved in the WSIS process since its start, and much of the work involved over the last years has remained largely unrecognized by the public, even though it now turned out to be very valuable.
In Bilbao in Spain, there was a Summit of Cities and Local Authorities in preparation of the WSIS in Tunis. Around 2000 local representatives from all over the world attended, and Jonas Öberg represented the FSFE. He made a presentation on freedom of information laws and how it relates to Free Software.
FSFE's president Georg Greve participated in the second phase of the summit in Tunis, Tunisia, coordinating the drafting of the Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks (PCT) working group of Civil Society for the final Civil Society declaration, as well as documenting various of the interesting projects in his blog and having interesting discussions with many people. He also participated in a side event on the future of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), including WIPO deputy director-general Philippe Petit, which received much attention.
http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/off_to_tunis
4. LinuxWorld Expo in Frankfurt/Main
The FSFE was present with a booth at the LinuxWorld Expo in Frankfurt/Main, Germany. Volker Dormeyer, Joachim Jakobs, Myriam Schweingruber, Michael Kallas, Bernhard Reiter, Reinhard Müller, Cornelius Wasmund, and Matthias Kirschner were able to answer a lot of questions about Free Software on the booth. Again, Volker did a great job organizing FSFE's appearance at this event.
5. Seminar in Dublin about preventing software patentability
Ciaran O'Riordan gave the keynote and participated in a lively questions and answers session, along with Gareth Bowker, in a seminar organised by O'Riordan with Irish Free Software Organisation. The audience included journalists, policy setters, and the largest of Ireland's pro software patent lobby groups. A transcript of the Questions and Answers session is online, and audio and video recordings should be online in the near future:
http://ifso.ie/events/2005-11-18/
6. 5th Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre in Rosario (Argentina)
The Jornadas Regionales de Software Libre are a wandering event in Argentina, and the 5th edition was organised by a very dedicated group of Free Software activists in Rosario. Georg Greve gave a keynote titled "Digital Freedom - why it matters and how to protect it" and used the opportunity to spend some time with the Latin American Free Software community. Also, after most of the event had been spent peer-reviewing the statutes and giving all conference participants the chance to comment, it then saw the official launch of FSFE's new sister organisation, the Free Software Foundation Latin America (FSFLA). In the name of the FSFE, Georg Greve participated as a guest to the official introduction and welcomed the FSFLA in the global network of Free Software Foundations.
7. LinuxDay in Italy
The LinuxDay is a group of Free Software events all over Italy which is coordinated by the Italian Linux Society and organised by local user groups. FSFE participated for the first time this year at the national level sending a video message from Stefano Maffulli, wishing everybody a great day for the Italian Free Software community. The 8 minute video covered the history of the Free Software movement, the successes and the future battles, including IPRED2 and the fight against the infamous Legge Urbani.
The video, only in Italian, is available at
http://www.italy.fsfeurope.org/it/events/2005/linuxday/linuxday.en.html
8. Removal of Free Software from WSIS "Vienna Conclusions"
In June 2005, FSFE members Georg Greve and Karin Kosina participated in the "ICT & Creativity" conference in Vienna. The outcome of this conference were the "Vienna Conclusions", which were substantially different from the text that the working group had concluded in Vienna: All references to Free Software had been removed, promotion of Digital Restriction Management (DRM) had been added, and statements about the central role of software for the digital society had been watered down -- apparently on request of Microsoft and IFPI.
A more extensive summary about the entire proceedings can be found in a groklaw article written by Georg Greve:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051130185547876
9. Welcoming the Free Software Foundation Latin America
With its involvement in UN Organisations like WSIS or WIPO, the Free Software Foundation Europe has extended its work beyond the borders of Europe. Looking at these experiences, the FSFE is more than ever committed to the concept of a world wide network of equal Free Software Foundations working together in intense cooperation.
The entire Free Software Foundation Europe is proud and happy for its new sister organisation and is glad that it could do its part in helping to bring it about. The FSFE warmly welcome the FSFLA in the network of Free Software Foundations and looks forward to fruitful cooperation.
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@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/press-release