FSF

Stallman in Stockholm

On the 26th February at 5.30 pm – the Free Software Foundation Europe, Unionen and the Royal Institute of Technology are offering a lecture by Richard Stallman: The Free Software Movement and the GNU/Linux Operating System

Stallman will speak about the goals and philosophy of the Free Software Movement, and the status and history of the GNU operating system, which in combination with the kernel Linux is now used by tens of millions of users world-wide.

The lecture will take place at: Room F1, KTH, Royal Institute of Technology

Posted on by mklang

FSCONS and Skolelinux

The FSCONS conference was really good. I managed to speak to many interesting people and my presentation turned into a very good interactive discussion with the audience. The only thing that is wrong is that I am unable to attend the second day which is today. The reason for this is that my grandmother is 90. This is a birthday that cannot be missed so I am on the train to Stockholm.

As part of the FSCONS the Free Software Foundation Europe created and handed out the first Free Software Scandinavian Award. Since I was on the award committee I know first hand how interesting reviewing and discussing Free Software projects and initiatives can be. Here is the press release about the award which went to the excellent Norwegian project Skolelinux:

Free Software Foundation Europe is proud to announce that the Norwegian project Skolelinux is the winner of the first Free Software Scandinavian Award handed out at during the Free Software Conference Scandinavia 2007 in Göteborg friday 2007-12-07.

Skolelinux has under a long period of time worked hard to promote the use of Free Software as well as the use of free and open standards and file formats. By using low cost or spare hardware, schools and other public institutions can find a free and cheap IT solution made to meet their needs.

Skolelinux captures a big part of the free software spirit; sharing and reusing. By focusing on schools, Skolelinux makes sure students, tomorrow’s computer users, and decision makers, can grow up in a spirit of sharing, reusing and learning from family, friends and neighbours.

The goals of Skolelinux are to:

* Provide a complete software solution using free software tailored for the needs and use-cases in educational scenarios.

* Pre-configured for easy installation (standalone, as well as network-wide roll out).

* Easy to use, maintain, and administer.

* Supporting your native language.

* Classify and package all free software related to education.

* Write documentation to describe how to use the various software (in an educational context).

* International availability, currently being translated into more than 50 languages.

Skolelinux has combined important, and dedicated work contributions with technical knowledge and political skills.

The adoption of Skolelinux in so many countries around the globe shows that the use of Free Software and open standards has really been spreading in a very positiv way.

The next milestone is that we are now seeing the merge of different school systems based on Free Software. The largest example is the merge between Skolelinux and the very successful Spanish GNU/LinEx project which has at the moment more than 250.000 users and 80.000 work stations in use in schools in Extremadura. The one laptop for every two pupils project.

Both Skolelinux and the GNU/LinEx buildts on Debian GNU/Linux and can enjoy the many synergy effects.

By focusing on schools the Skolelinux project shows by example how Free Software can be used. The jury finds this strategy important for the continued use of free and open standards.

Short about Skolelinux:

GNU/Linux in Schools

Skolelinux is free, stable, future secured, sustainable, and is upgraded frequently

– no license problems
– easy and time saving administration
– security updates are made quickly available
– simple system updating
– good administration of the software packets
– older PC ‘s can be used as thin clients
– no dependence on commercial interests/vendor lock in

About the leadership:
———————
The Skolelinux project has “doer democracy” which means that the active persons decide! The merit lies in your contributions not in your title.

The free, open source code in the project is very valuable because the source code is available making it is easy to change and
customize. This is illustrated by the many languages that are being supported. In a digitalized world it is important for the survival of the cultures that even small national languages are being actively supported.

The collaboration platform:
—————————
The Skolelinux version 3.0r1 is now available. There has been a valuable collaboration between the following countries: Germany, Spain , France, Greece and Norway. Lately also with a Canadian School project.

For some years now there have been regular meetings between different free software school systems and projects. The reason being to share cool applications and avoid double work. A win-win situation for all.

Congratulations again to Skolelinux. We wish you continued growths and success.

The Scandinavian Free Software Award
————————————

The Scandinavian Free Software Award has been designed for Nordic citizens, projects or organizations that make an outstanding contribution to the Free Software movement. Free Software projects, efforts, achievements of all kinds – including work done by Nordic citizens which has had a large effect in other parts of the world are eligible to be nominated. It is the aim of FSCONS 2007 that this award becomes an annual event.

Jury 2007:

The jury is compiled by Nordic citizens only. This year the members are:

– Anne Østergaard (Gnome Foundation, Denmark)
– Henrik Sandklef (FSFE, Sweden)
– Jonas Öberg (FSFE, Sweden)
– Marcus Rejås (FSFE, Sweden)
– Mathias Klang (FSFE, Sweden)
– Petter Reinholdtsen (NUUG, Norway)

Here is the complete list of nominated projects.

Posted on by mklang

Wikipedia & Creative Commons

Since its establishment Wikipedia has been using the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL). The problem with this licence is that it causes incompatibility problems with the content also being released under Creative Commons licenses.

Jimmy Wales announced on Friday that the Wikimedia Foundation, the organisation behind Wikipedia, supports a solution the new version of the GFDL that will allow for integration with the CC-BY-SA licence.

Video and transcript of announcement here.

Wikimedia resolution on updating the licence here

Posted on by mklang

Free Software Conference

On the 7-8 December Göteborg will be hosting the first Free Software Conference Scandinavia (FSCONS). The event, which is already promising to become an important event on the Free Software calendar, is a good mix of techies and freedom folks.

While the techies will be able to enjoy talks on squid, gtk, GnuTLS and OpenMoko (among others) the non-techies (like myself) will be talking about digital rights, consumer rights, free software licensing & women in IT.

I am looking forward to speaking on the topic of Digital Rights

In an Internet-based participatory democracy we are particularly dependent upon our technological infrastructure. The qualities of digital communication and interaction create a situation where the user is often incapable ensuring the integrity and security of the communications infrastructure. Therefore we are becoming increasingly dependent upon experts to ensure the openness, accessibility and freedom of the infrastructure of our democracy. This session will address the threats and opportunities faced by users in a digital participatory democracy and the steps we need to ensure the openness of digital democracy.

But I am particularly looking forward to listening to (and discussing with) people like Shane Coughlan, Anne Østergaard and Fernanda Weiden. It’s nice to see that events such as this (and the Stallman lecture) are being arranged in my hometown.

Great Work by the tireless Henrik!

Posted on by mklang

Norwegian Free Software

On the 15th August Norway opened a National Center for Free Software whose purpose it is to work with actors from industry, university, research and development environments and the public sector. The center’s goal is to increase competence in, and the use of Free Software in both private and public sectors in addition to stimulating competition in the programming sector.

They even have a magazine called FriProg… The Norwegians seem to be taking Free Software much more seriously than the swedes are.

Posted on by mklang

GPLv3 Resources

Today is the official release of the GPLv3 license by the Free Software Foundation. This is a major event within the software community yet at the same time there are many who do not understand the purpose, point and meaning of the GPL so it’s time for a refresher course.

From the GPLv3 Press collection you can read about the purpose and meaning of free software, the relationship between GNU and Linux and the important difference between free software and “open source”.

On 1 April 2007 Richard Stallman gave a speech on the GPLv3 in Brussels you can listen to it here in Ogg/Vorbis. In the summer of 2006 Eben Moglen gave a talk in Barcelona discussing the wording of the changes in version 3 (listen in Ogg/Vorbis).

Personal Notes has collected great links about the GPLv3

So to begin withâ?¦Why would someone need or want to upgrade from the GPLv2 to the GPLv3? Let the person who started it all to explain why :)

Here there’s a really nice and clear A&Q ‘session’ on GPLv3 wrote by Luis Villa and divided in 3 blog entries (probably more to come):

Groklaw, as usual, is an incredible source of interesting material:

Posted on by mklang

GPLv3 to launch on Friday

The Free Software Foundation have announced that version 3 of the GPL will be officially launched on Friday. Here is the announcement.

On Friday, June 29, at 12 noon (EDT), the Free Software Foundation will officially release the GNU GPL version 3. Please join us in celebration as we bring to a close eighteen months of public outreach and comment, in revision of the world’s most popular free software license.

Beyond the creation of an improved license, the process of drafting version 3 has helped highlight vital issues for the community of free software users. This is a moment to thank the thousands who participated by commenting on the license, and those that represented stakeholders through the GPLv3 committee process.

Now with the release of GPLv3, we will see new defenses extended to free software. These defenses will continue the long history of fighting all efforts to make free software proprietary.

Please join us as we stream live footage of Richard Stallman announcing GPLv3 from Noon (EDT) at www.fsf.org.

If you are in the Boston area you can also join us at the FSF offices from 11:30am. Please let us know at <info@fsf.org> if you would like to attend.

Posted on by mklang

Affero General Public License

The Free Software Foundation (FSF) has released the first discussion draft of the GNU Affero General Public License (GNU AGPL). This new license is based on version 3 of the GNU GPL. It has a new term to ensure that users who interact with the software over a network can receive the source for that program.

The original Affero GPL was intended to guarantee that everyone could receive the source for web applications that they used, so the software could always be shared and improved. The corresponding provision in the GNU AGPL applies this same principle to all software that interacts with users through a network, but doesn’t impose additional requirements when the same code is used for other purposes. Since the GNU AGPL is based on version 3 of the GNU GPL, it will also provide improved internationalization, compatibility with the Apache License, and other
benefits.

As with its other licenses, the FSF will hear feedback on the draft from the public before releasing the final version of the license. The additional provision is in the first paragraph of section 13. We ask that comments not specific to the GNU AGPL be submitted to the latest draft of GPLv3. You can learn more about this draft on the GPLv3 portal at <http://gplv3.fsf.org/agplv3-dd1-guide.html>.

Posted on by mklang