FSFE Newsletter - June 2012

Free Software, Open Source, FOSS, FLOSS – Same same but different

There are two major terms connected to software that can
be freely used, studied, shared and improved: Free Software and Open Source.
You can also find different combinations and translations of those terms like FOSS, Libre
Software, FLOSS and so on. Reading articles about Free Software or listening to
people involved in Free Software often raises the question: Why do they use one
term or another and how they differ from each other?

Long time FSFE volunteer Björn Schiessle wrote a
good article about this topic, how to deal with the different
terminology.

State neglected web standards, company now faces EUR 5600 in fines

In Slovakia, the state has mandated electronic means as the only way of
fulfilling certain statutory obligations. However the dedicated web solution
excludes some citizens from participating as it is not interoperable and runs only on the
non-free software from one vendor. In absence of any non-electronic option, this means
that the state mandates the use of a certain product from a certain
vendor. People who did not own the copy, had to buy one. A Slovak textile importer
deemed that the state should not force him to use a certain software for its
business and fulfilled its legal obligation by paper. Now the company faces EUR
5600 in fines.

Current FSFE intern Martin Husovec decided this is not just and made it
his internship project to change it: he is working on the case, reading
court files, wrote FSFE's press release, and an executive summary of the EURA
case. He is motivated to ensure that no one is forced to use certain
non-free software in Slovakia just to fulfil the law, and will
keep you updated.

Will the UK be lobbied into the FRAND trap?

Free Software could be blocked from the UK's public sector use if the new
policy allow "FRAND" terms
within British standards. As recently revealed by
Freedom of Information Requests: Intensive lobbying efforts have focused on pressuring
the Cabinet Office to back down on a strong definition of Open Standards over the past few
months.

Democratic elections with non-free software?

In France, the
FSFE has raised its concerns (French) on the online voting process
implemented for French electors registered abroad. FSFE strongly criticised the
complete lack of precautions, the opacity of the voting process, and the
request to use proprietary software to vote.

Something completely different

This month's
Fellowship interview is with Giacomo Poderi, member of FSFE's general
assembly, has worked as a translator and editor for FSFE, as well as
completing a masters degree in Philosophy. Currently he is working on a Ph.D
in sociology, which looks at the user experience in Free Software Projects,
focusing on the turn-based strategy game "The Battle for Wesnoth".

According
to joinup, software written by or for public authorities and public
organisations in the Basque Country will by default be made available to
others as Free Software starting this July.

What happens with licenses when the licensor gets insolvent?
IfrOSS wrote a proposal (German) about insolvency questions with Free Software
Licenses, which FSFE also supports.

Open Standards: "How did we get to a point where we will pay for the
'privilege' of having a vendor take our data and lock it up such that we have
to pay them, again and again, to access it?" asks Jake Edge from LWN in his
article "Who owns your data?".
Will you "rebel" at next year's Document
Freedom Day?

FSFE's vice-president is
hacking on Searduino, a software to make it easy to program C/C++
for Arduino. It is also a simulator for source level Arduino API so it is possible to
directly test executable code without the Arduino board present, and it can even do more.

Or are you looking for a good configuration for your tiling window manager?
Fellows shared their configuration files for Awesome,
and xmonad.

Beside that Hannes Hauswedell wrote about improving
e-mail privacy by removing header information when using GnuPG and
Thunderbird, and

Isabel Drost explains how to ruin software projects fast and rapidly. E.g. by referring
developers as resources, not not investing in tooling, or by other suggestions.

Finally, if you have the problem that one of your presentations is
still too long, she also has suggestions
how to shorten it.

Get Active: PDFReaders 2.0 – Your help is needed!

Our petition is signed by
72 organisations, 57 businesses, and 2327 individuals. The Green party filed an
oral request in
the European Parliament (5 questions) , and
in the German Parliament (18 questions with introduction). The German
agency for IT security is recommending pdfreaders.org in their new migration guide
and highlights that you should not advertise for non-free software readers. And
539 public administrations removed the advertisement for non-free software,
which is a success rate of 25%.

After long discussions and considerations the PDF readers team is now
preparing a major update to PDFReaders.org, adding: a more appealing and
cleaner front-page, with one recommendation for the auto-detected platform;
free pdf reader recommendations for mobile platforms; and free pdf browser
plugin recommendations.