Tag Archives: FSFE

Linux

Fan-taz-tic: Document Freedom Germany Award goes to TAZ

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taz café

taz café at Rudi-Dutschke-Strasse

Today is the international Document Freedom Day. There are always local actors that serve as good examples for respecting document freedom and enabling users to participate in the digital society. The international documentfreedom.org communities award such exemplary local actors with the Document Freedom Award. The Document Freedom Germany Award this year goes to *drumroll* the TAZ newspaper.

Ralf Klever, head of IT for TAZ, explained how it’s political mission since the turbulent founding of the newspaper was to allow everybody to form their political opinion relatively independently of their financial means. It is a priority for TAZ to be available in various electronic and printed channels. In essence, this means giving readers the freedom of choice, and that is exactly what the Document Freedom Award is about. TAZ is available in various DRM-free electronic formats, even plain text.

In Document Freedom Germany Award was presented by FSFE and FFII. FSFE works to enforce software and data freedom for users and consumers. FFII is dedicated to the development of information goods for the public benefit, based on copyright, free competition and open standards. As Eric Alberts said for FSFE: “We are awarding the TAZ with the Document Freedom Award for their longstanding commitment to Open Standards and continuos efforts in offering their newspaper without restrictions”.

There are a press release and a few other mentions of the award, but… In the collaborative fashion the award called for, FSFE brought the cake and TAZ the coffee. Here you will find a few more original impressions from the scene, like coffee decorated with edible document freedom stickers and the whole TAZ, FSFE and FFII crew hard at work devouring the cake. It was good. And I realised I need a better camera.

The cake for the 2013 Document Freedom Germany Award

Cake no more

Cake no more

taz café coffee

taz café coffee

document freedom edibles

document freedom edibles


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Filed under: CreativeDestruction, English, FLOSS, KDE, OSS Tagged: Creative Destruction, DFD, FLOSS, free software communities, free software foundation, free software foundation europe, FSFE …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet KDE

Linux

We Love Free Software!

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I love Free Software!

It’s this time of the year again, where we express our love for what and whom we like:

This year I want to express my personal thanks to

  • the kmaildevelopers for the awesome work during the last year,
  • the KDE sysadmins for being so fast and efficient,
  • the Amarok team for their love and dedication,
  • the Sconcho developer for being so responsive and making my knitting pattern editing so easy,
  • the whole FSFE team for their hard work on protecting our Freedom!

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet KDE

Linux

I ♥ Free Software (and why)

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Today is February 14. Some think of it as flower grocer appreciation day, but most (and for better reasons) celebrate it as the international I ♥ Free Software day. I spend a lot of my time on various Free Software activities, like KDE, FSFE, OIN and netzpolitik.org. I even research it and teach about it. These contributions have become something I regularily do. Every minute I spend as a contributor is thoroughly rewarding. Here is why.

I was thinking to begin with how I selflessly work for the common good and all, but the first and foremost reason why I love Free Software is because I am a tinkerer. Not only do I love to code, but I have an urge to understand how things really work. Free Software allows me to to do just that. At the age of 12, I was intoelectronics.I built power amplifiers. At 14, disco light shows to impress the ladies (it failed to induce the desired effect). Then, Z80 based chess computers. This triggered my interest in software, since the actual chess program used was a binary CMOS image and I had no idea how it worked, and was practically unable to figure it out. Then came a C64, on which I learned programming in 8 bit assembly (the assembler came on a cartridge and did not even support labels for jumps). Later at university I asked the teachers if it would be possible to, instead of handing in throw-away programming assignments,do course work on a Free Software project. Luckily they accepted (quite far-sighted, in 1997), and that is what got me into KDE. I have been there ever since.

So Free Software gives me the opportunity, the freedom to tinker and explore, to really understand how the computers I use work. What makes that infinite times better is that I can share my findings, be it code, or a theory. At the latest since the industrial revolution, we grew accustomed to the idea that to create complex and costly products, companies or governments are needed. These come with a certain level ofrigidityand subordination of individual interest. While this is acceptable since it pays the bills and is sometimes necessary to get things done, it requires following some other parties priorities and goals. It distracts from pursuing those challenges that we really care most about. Those would likely be the ones each of us excels most at. We do not invent, create and improve to our full potential when working for others. We do, in Free Software communities (and other collaborative communities of similar kind) – they enable us to flock together on similar interests, and create something – like a Free Software desktop – we are truly and genuinely passionate about. Because of that I enjoy working on KDE, a community that treats all contributors as …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet KDE

Linux

Today’s lecture: “Open Source and Standards”

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Today’s lecture was about Open Source and Standards. What made it special is that while there was a lot of theoretical background, most of that could be discussed based on the UK Open Standards Consultation last year. The questionnaire for the consultation covered pretty much all aspects discussed in the session. The KDE and the FSFE responses illustrated the position of the Free Software community. Here is the session summary:

Standards play an important role in increasing productivity and competition. After a brief introduction of the economic role of standardization, the idea of an Open Standard will be introduced. While there has been plenty of discussion around the definition of Open Standards, what constitutes such a standard is ambiguous. The requirements of Open Standards to be supportive for Open Source software will be discussed in relation to the definition of Free Software by the Free Software Foundation, and contrasted to the definitions applied by the International Telecommunication Union, and the European Interoperability Framework.

Standards can only be as open as the licenses of the essential patents that are necessary to implement them. The industry often pushes for the adoption of patented technologies under RAND or FRAND terms. The relation between FRAND terms and Open Standards will be analysed, and compared to the requirements of the Four Freedoms. It will be shown that again, openness applies to the standards themselves, and to the processes in which they are developed.

Open Source has caused a massive standardisation in the use of IT for institutions and individuals. The majority of the Open Source products are never made into formal standards, and usually innovate faster than standard setting organisations can keep up. Depending on the type of Open Source licenses applied, different network effects apply: When copyleft licenses are chosen, there are often converging network effects, leading into the development of a single dominating product like Linux. With permissive licenses, forking of derivative works is more common, as can be observed with the BSD family of operating systems. So while the Open Source licenses are guaranteeing the same essential freedoms, the projects may develop differently due to the economic effects caused by the choice of license.


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Filed under: CreativeDestruction, English, FLOSS, KDE, OSS Tagged: Creative Destruction, FLOSS, free software foundation, international telecommunication union, science
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet KDE