Free Software Foundation Europe

Free as in Freedom

Welcome to the home page of the Free Software Foundation Europe. The FSFE was launched on 10 March 2001 and supports all European aspects of Free Software; especially the GNU Project. We are actively supporting development of Free Software and furthering GNU-based Operating Systems such as GNU/Linux. Also, we provide an assistance centre for politicians, lawyers and journalists in order to secure the legal, political and social future of Free Software.

FSFE's work is made possible by many individual contributions, in particular to the Fellowship of FSFE. One way to contribute is to join now, and to encourage others to do likewise.

Latest news FSFE Newsletter 2008-07-08 Housekeeping items are the least popular of all tasks in any organisation, and any organisation that is working under pressure has a tendency of accumulating them. That is why after the intensive work of the past year to build up and grow the Freedom Task Force, work on antitrust and OOXML issues, and various other activities, FSFE had some of them as well. Fortunately, after substantial preparation and three intensive days, FSFE's General Assembly in June managed to take care of them and send everyone home highly motivated and with a full task list. The results of this will become slowly visible throughout the coming year. [Read more...] Stabilisers for freedom: Wine 1.0 2008-06-18 "Of course, it should be in the users interest to 'ride their bicycles independently', i.e. not having to rely on training wheels. However, the training wheels keep children from falling and give freedom to both the children and their parents. Likewise Wine helped to give freedom and security to the users. It is for this we are thankful and we recognise their work." [Read more...] GPL-Violations.org and FSFE's Freedom Task Force to work more closely together 2008-05-27 "It is a clear, legal fact that distributing Free Software means people must comply with the licences. GPL-Violations.org and the FTF are now building the long-term legal infrastructure for support and compliance" comments Harald Welte. Shane Coughlan adds "I believe our new agreement will help ensure sustainability for legal infrastructure to support Free Software in Europe." [Read more...] FSFE Newsletter 2008-05-21 Issues around standardisation continued to make headlines during April. However, other important areas of focus were also under discussion around the world. [Read more...] FSFE Newsletter 2008-04-16 It has been another busy month for software freedom. Open Standards have continued to dominate discussions in ICT with the MS-OOXML proposal being accepted by ISO as a standard. FSFE and numerous other parties have observed this process from the beginning and have reason to be concerned about the state of international standardisation. You could read more about this in our lead story below. [Read more...] More news... [RSS]

Upcoming events Zurich Fellowship meeting 2008-08-15 There will be a Fellowship meeting at the FSFE Zurich office from 18:00 until 19:30 on Friday the 15th of August. Some free (as in beer) beer will be provided and all Fellows nearby are invited to attend. It will be a good chance to get to know each other in person, to discuss ways of spreading the word about Free Software in Switzerland, and to generally have a good time. This meeting will be hosted by Shane Coughlan, the coordinator of FSFE's legal activities. However, he promises not to talk about licences unless someone asks. If you are coming to the meeting please let Shane know by sending an email to coughlan@fsfeurope.org. 'Who Owns Free Software? The Copyright and Patent Debate' speech at OSiM World, Berlin 2008-08-17 Shane Coughlan, Freedom Task Force coordinator at FSFE, will deliver a speech entitled 'Free Software licenses and other questions' at OSiM World at Berlin on the 17th of August. This talk will examine question of ownership, the goal of owning creative work, benefits to consumers and the community and the relationship between ownership and Free Software licences. Official launch of GPLv3 in The Netherlands 2008-08-19 Shane Coughlan, Freedom Task Force coordinator at FSFE, will host a three hour workshop entitled 'Licensing questions and Legal issues in the light of GPLv3' for the launch of the GPLv3 at the Univesity of Tilburg, Amsterdam, The Netherlands on the 19th of August. This event is sponsored by NLnet. Fellowship's stand at the Braderie de Lille, Lille (France) 2008-09-06 2008-09-07 The so-called "Braderie de Lille" (Lille's flea market) is a big outside-event which has taken place every year since the 12th century during the first week-end of september. chtinux, a Linux User Group which is installed around there, has proposed to the Fellowship to take part in the Braderie. The FSFE, and especially the Fellowship's stand, will get much visibility, since millions of people of numerous nations take a walk on Lille's streets. Come to discover this beautiful city and to eat some Braderie's culinary specialities like clams ! And above all, come in order to support the Fellowship ! Fellowship's stand will be situated on Place du Vieux Marché aux chevaux. If you want more information about this event please send an email to Benjamin: morant@fsfeurope.org 'Licensing questions and other legal issues' workshop in Zurich, Switzerland 2008-10-17 Shane Coughlan, Freedom Task Force coordinator at FSFE, will deliver a two day course entitled 'Free Software licenses and other questions' at the Digicomp Academy Zurich, Switzerland. The course is intended for project managers, developers and technicians who wish to become more knowledgeable regarding code distribution options. More events... [RSS]

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