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Free Software Foundation Europe

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Le brevet unitaire menace l'innovation en Europe

vendredi 7 septembre 2012 à 01:00

Le brevet unitaire menace l'innovation en Europe

Des procès comme celui d'Apple contre Samsung pourraient-ils voir le jour en Europe ? Le Parlement Européen est sur le point de définir l'évolution future du système de brevets de l'Europe. Les 17 et 18 septembre, la commission des Affaires Juridiques du Parlement Européen va discuter d'une proposition pour un brevet à portée européenne. À partir de maintenant et jusqu'au 18 septembre, la FSFE fournira en permanence des mises à jour et des analyses sur le brevet unitaire sur son site web.

Cette proposition fait face à d'importantes critiques émanant de toutes parts. Dans sa forme actuelle, elle implique :

La Cour de Justice de l'Union Européenne a émis une mise en garde en mars 2011 contre l'incompatibilité de la précédente proposition avec le droit de l'UE (pdf).

En décembre 2011, le Conseil Européen a modifié la proposition. Ce changement n'a fait qu'empirer les choses : en supprimant trois articles clés, le Conseil a grandement réduit le rôle de la Cour de Justice de l'Union Européenne dans le futur système de brevet unitaire. Le rapporteur de la commission des Affaires Juridiques du Parlement, Bernhard Rapkay, a prévenu que cette modification soudaine avait de grandes chances d'être contraire au droit de l'Union Européenne. [Paragraphe modifié pour ajouter les commentaires du rapporteur de la Commission des Affaires Juridiques].

Pour préserver et améliorer la capacité d'innovation de l'Europe, la FSFE demande :

Mise à jour : la commission des Affaires Juridiques a décidé de renvoyer à plus tard la discussion sur la proposition de brevet unitaire. Il y a de grandes chances pour qu'elle ait lieu à l'automne 2012. La FSFE continuera a fournir des mises à jour et des analyses à mesure que de nouvelles informations surviendront.

-> En savoir plus sur le brevet unitaire

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Blog: How the European patent system works

mercredi 5 septembre 2012 à 01:00
Now that software patents are back on the table, it’s important to understand how the European patent system actually works. You need to know this in order to discuss the unitary patent and FSFE’s demands with the MEPs you call and ask for support. Patent policy belongs under legislative control. Our current political processes and institutions aren’t perfect, but they’re certainly better than the EPO’s secretive insider culture. Good patent policy needs transparency, accountability and participation. The current proposal for the unitary patent lacks all of these things.

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FSFE Newsletter - September 2012

mardi 4 septembre 2012 à 01:00

FSFE Newsletter - September 2012

Like in the 90s but with phones: First Free Your Android installation parties

More and more people start using mobile phones with Android. But in order to be in full control over your phone, you have to install another Android firmware on them. To make this phone liberation easy we started the Free Your Android campaign.

In the last newsletter edition we asked you in our "Get active" section to help us with Free Your Android installation parties, like the GNU/Linux installation parties some years ago. Thanks to all of you, who contacted us about it, and who offered their help for the future.

This month some of us already started with those installation parties. First, Torsten Grote taught Erik Albers and your editor how to free their phones, which is documented quick and dirty on your editors weblog. Second, on August 26th, 13 people from Austria, France, Germany, Slovenia, and Spain participated at FSFE's workshop. To summarise it in the words of Silke Meyer, one of the trainers: "The workshop had two goals: To help people install free software on their phones and to develop/document some guidelines that trainers for such workshops could use." Result: We liberated 4 phones, updated 3 to a newer version, documented what we did including our internal workshop documentation, and thought about stickers for liberated phones. Beside Silke's blog post, there is also a Spanish article with instructions, and this article including some pictures of happy participants.

We will have other Free Your Android workshops on 4th September in Katowice/Poland, on 9th September Pristina/Kosovo, and on 15th September in Berlin/Germany, Paris/France, and Ljubljana/Slovenia. The campaign team's goal is also to make the update process easier. There is the Free Software "OTA Update Center" which can achieve easy updates, but as Torsten explains, there are still some problems with it. Perhaps you, or someone you know can help with it?

Standardisation Absurdity: Still No OOXML

Office suites have one of the strongest network effects: it is often difficult to use another word processor than Microsoft Word. If something does not work, you as a Free Software user are blamed by the others when the document exchange is not working. So one of the reasons, why we are promoting Open Standards is to make it possible for Free Software users to communicate with others, who are using non-free software.

Because most decision-makers now understand, that Open Standards are crucial for a fair market, Microsoft pushed its own standard called Microsoft Office Open XML (OOXML), claiming it is an Open Standard. FSFE questioned the ISO certification starting in 2007, and when ISO approved it we were concerned about the quality of standardisation process.

Recently Microsoft announced that the next edition of Microsoft Office 2013, will support the OOXML document standard. Karsten Gerloff is analysing this public admission by Microsoft that they have not implemented OOXML until now – despite everything their sales people have apparently been telling clients in business and the public sector.

Something completely different

Get Active: Contribute to Free Software news!

Your editor always tries to cover important and interesting news about FSFE and Free Software. So shameless house advertising: if you read or hear interesting Free Software news, please write an e-mail to your editor, with a short note why this news is particularly interesting or important in your view.

Thanks to all the Fellows and donors who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE

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Blog: Software patents in Europe: game on

mardi 4 septembre 2012 à 01:00
Should Europe have software patents? The discussion is back in full force. After the European Parliament rejected patents on software in 2005, things went quiet for a while. Now the European Parliament is about to decide on setting up a single patent for Europe, known as the “unitary patent”. This is a chance to get rid of software patents. But if we don’t manage to achieve a real change in the current proposal, software patents will become even more entrenched in Europe. Get active, and let's get rid of software patents once and for all!

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Blog: Like in the 90ies but with phones: First Free Your Android installation parties

vendredi 31 août 2012 à 01:00
This month some of us already started with Free Your Android installation parties. Here a report from the workshops, with some pictures of happy people who liberated their phones.

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