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1. Ciaran O'Riordan working full-time for FSFE 2. IFSO becoming associate organisation 3. WIPO IIM on "Development Agenda" 4. FSFE office in Hamburg 5. Fellowship SmartCards being sent out 6. Freedom party in Milano 7. Teaching the World Bank 8. FSF Latin America on its way 9. Nordic University Computer Club Conference in Sweden 10. Alessandro Rubini speaks at University in Lecce 11. Web pages translated to 14 languages
1. Ciaran O'Riordan working full-time for FSFE
Thanks to the success of FSFE's Fellowship campaign, Ciaran O'Riordan, long-time Irish Free Software advocate, is now working full-time for Free Software Foundation Europe in Brussels. Among other things he is working with FSFE's associate organisation FFII on the software patent issue and the other FSFE activities at European Union level. FSFE hopes that with the increasing number of Fellows it will be possible to make this a permanent activity.
2. IFSO becoming associate organisation
The FSFE is happy to welcome Irish Free Software Organisation (IFSO) as its latest associate organisation. IFSO was founded on 5 January 2004, the 20th anniversary of the GNU project, and works to protect Free Software developers and users from harmful changes in legislation as well as promoting awareness of Free Software in Ireland.
3. WIPO IIM on "Development Agenda"
Last month, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) met in Geneva for its Intersessional-Intergovernmental-Meeting (IIM) on the establishment of a "Development Agenda for WIPO." That title refers to the idea of establishing a critical review process for WIPO policies in terms of their beneficial and harmful effects with specific regard to developing country needs.
As this is the kind of reform the WIWO declaration [1] is pushing for, Georg Greve and Karsten Gerloff participated in the IIM. Georg Greve also staid for the Permanent Committee on Cooperation for Development related to Intellectual Property (PCIPD) and both statements are available online [2][3]. More information is available in Karstens Blog [4].
[1] http://www.fsfeurope.org/documents/wiwo.en.html [2] http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/wipo/statement-20050413.en.html [3] http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/wipo/statement-20050415.en.html [4] http://www.fsfe.org/Members/gerloff/blog/
4. FSFE office in Hamburg
To handle the growing organisational needs, especially regarding the Fellowship, the FSFE rented a small office in Hamburg, Germany, where Georg Greve and Karsten Gerloff are located when they are not travelling.
5. Fellowship SmartCards being sent out
After weeks of preparation, the first batch of 250 Fellowship SmartCards has been sent. For security reasons, a unique random admin pin is generated for each card, and sent via snail mail from a separate location, independently from the card. Each Fellow will receive two envelopes from two different senders, one containing the card, and the other containing the admin pin.
6. Freedom party in Milano
The Fellowship of FSFE is a huge success and the team is proud of it. With Georg Greve available in Milan, FSFE hosted a small aperitif with some journalists and few of the first Fellows in town. It has been a nice evening with very relaxed chats and exchange of opinions with old and new friends. The Italian Chapter of FSFE is preparing a new, bigger event during the upcoming GNU/Linux World Expo still in Milan. If you want to host a Fellowship party please get in contact with the Italian team.
7. Teaching the World Bank
After the good experience of last year, the World Bank again invited FSFE's president Georg Greve to teach about "Free Software in World Bank financed projects" at an internal course for World Bank employees held at the International Training Center (ITC) of the International Labor Organisation (ILO) in Torino, Italy.
8. FSF Latin America on its way
After some months of discussions including FSFE president Georg Greve, a team of Free Software advocates in Latin America have published their declaration of intent to join the global network of Free Software Foundations.
http://www.fsfla.org/doi-en.html
9. Nordic University Computer Club Conference in Sweden
Jonas Öberg participated in the Nordic University Computer Club Conference in Uppsala, Sweden, which gathered participants from Norway, Sweden and Finland. Jonas gave a lecture on the philosophy and law of Free Software, which was followed by several interesting discussions with the participants.
10. Alessandro Rubini speaks at University in Lecce
Alessandro Rubini has been invited in Lecce, where there is a strong GLUG and the University is launching "Sistemi Operativi 3", a course on kernel internals, the third course in the Engineering Faculty completely about Free Software. There he had a talk about "Developing Free Software in the Technological Market", and has been interviewed, together with Prof. Tommasi who organized the events, at the local TV station.
11. Web pages translated to 14 languages
After some new volunteers from Eastern Europe joined the translation team, the FSFE homepage is now available in no less than 14 languages! However, the Czech, Greek, and Portuguese translations have not been updated for quite a while, and the translations to other languages are incomplete and need maintenance. So any help with translations to virtually any language is always highly welcome.
http://www.fsfeurope.org/contribute/translators.en.html
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