Consultation Européenne +++ 100 jours à Munich +++ Coordinateur pour la Science Ouverte

Dans notre lettre d'information du mois d'août, nous nous interrogeons sur les raisons pour lesquelles la Commission Européenne devrait éviter d’utiliser le terme "propriété intellectuelle". Nous avons aussi interrogé le nouveau gouvernement de Munich sur son progrès concernant le Logiciel Libre, et nous présentons notre nouveau Coordinateur pour la Science Ouverte, Christian Busse. Comme toujours, vous y trouverez aussi des informations sur les activités de nos diverses communautés.

L'UE devrait reconsidérer l'usage de "propriété intellectuelle"

La FSFE a publié un premier retour d'informations à la consultation publique de la Commission Européenne concernant la mise à jour du système réglementant la "Propriété Intellectuelle (IP)". Dans ce retour, la FSFE expose à la Commission notre compréhension du terme "propriété intellectuelle" qui est chargé d'idéologies et dangereusement inconscient des importantes différences qui existent entre les nombreux domaines légaux qu'il essaie de résumer. De plus, les lois sur les brevets, les droits d'auteur et d'autres domaines apparentés ont pour effet de créer des monopoles temporaires exerçant leur pouvoir privé sur d'autres individus. Les acteurs de ce marché de monopole peuvent souvent profiter d'une telle structure, aux dépens d'une concurrence saine et d'autres bénéfices pour tous.

Par contraste, les modèles de gestion et de régulation du Logiciel Libre de par le monde ont démontré lors des 40 dernières années que partager le plus de connaissances est un régime plus durable et plus équitable pour promouvoir le progrès et la richesse de la société. La FSFE exhorte donc la Commission à utiliser cette occasion pour remettre en question la notion surannée selon laquelle étendre les monopoles sur la connaissance conduirait à plus de progrès. Le modèle du Logiciel Libre constitue un des meilleurs exemples que la Commission peut exploiter pour approfondir sa compréhension de la façon dont les nouveaux modèles basés sur le partage des connaissances sont fondamentaux pour une société plus innovante, équitable et socialement juste.

Les lois sur les brevets, les droits d'auteur et d'autres domaines apparentés restreignent l'accès à la connaissance et génèrent souvent des monopoles temporaires qui exercent leur pouvoir privé sur d'autres individus.

100 jours du nouveau gouvernement à Munich

Comme rapporté dans notre lettre d'informations de mai, l'accord de coalition du nouveau gouvernement de Munich entre le SPD (NDT: Parti social-démocrate d'Allemagne) et les Verts comprend des déclarations positives sur l'utilisation de Logiciel Libre. En particulier, il y est mentionné que le principe "Argent Public ? Code Public !" devrait s'appliquer dans le futur. 100 jours plus tard, avec "The Document Foundation", nous avons interrogé les deux groupes politiques sur les activités qu'ils ont engagées jusqu'à maintenant pour atteindre leurs objectifs.

En réponse, les partenaires de la coalition ont confirmé être en pourparlers sur un ensemble de propositions qui sera discuté à l'automne. Alors qu'il n'y a aucun plan pour revenir au prestigieux projet LiMux, tout logiciel ne contenant aucune donnée personnelle et développé par l'administration devra être transféré à une base de code publique. De plus, les employés de l'administration publique de la ville seront libres d'utiliser des produits de Logiciel Libre dans le futur. La FSFE continue d'observer l'implantation en cours à Munich.

Mairie de Munich.

Nouveau Coordinateur de la Science Ouverte à la FSFE : Christian Busse

Christian Busse a récemment rejoint l'équipe de la FSFE comme notre nouveau Coordinateur pour la Science Ouverte. Pour son métier, il travaille comme scientifique pour le Centre Allemand de Recherche sur le Cancer. La Science Ouverte est un thème à l'importance grandissante, et la FSFE appelle à considérer le Logiciel Libre et les Normes Ouvertes comme éléments vitaux de la Science Ouverte pour toute la recherche financée publiquement en Europe. Dans son nouveau poste, Christian a déjà tenu une une conférence sur l'équité (FAIRness) des logiciels de recherche lors de l'atelier annuel de la TKFDM (l'initiative de gestion des données de recherche de l'état de Thuringe). Si vous êtes intéressés par la formation d'un groupe de travail sur le sujet de la Science Ouverte et du Logicel Libre, contactez-nous.

En ces temps de distanciation physique, le plus gros impact financier pour la FSFE est l'annulation des conférences sur le Logiciel Libre, comprenant nos propres évènements. Afin de maintenir le mouvement pour la liberté logicielle solide et en vie, merci d'envisager de donner une partie de votre budget de conférence à des organisations de Logiciel Libre, y compris la FSFE.

Qu'avons-nous fait ? En interne et en dehors de la FSFE

• Alexander Sander, Directeur de la Politique UE de la FSFE, avec Basanta Thapa, employé de recherche au centre de compétence pour une IT ouverte, a tenu une session sur l'usage du Logiciel Libre, y incluant une présentation de la campagne 'Argent Public ? Code Public !'.
• Matthias Kirschner a donné une conférence lors de l'évènement à distance du FrOSCon sur "Les valeurs fondamentales de la liberté logicielle" (vidéo, Allemand). Dans son discours, Matthias argumente que les valeurs fondamentales de notre mouvement sont que tout le monde, quel que soit leur contexte, doit être en mesure d'utiliser du logiciel, quel qu'en soit le but, sans discrimination.
• Max Mehl explique la force de git-sed: dans les dernières semaines et derniers mois, l'Equipe Web de la FSFE a effectué des travaux lourds sur le site Internet de la FSFE. Ils ont eu besoin d'un outil efficace, alors qu'ils déplaçaient et remplaçaient des milliers de fichiers ainsi que leurs liens respectifs afin d'améliorer la structure d'un site cultivé dans le temps (plus de 19 ans, 23243 fichiers, environ 39k commits). Pour l'équipe web, git-sed est un gain de temps et un soulagement pour leurs nerfs lors de changements massifs de nos dépôts de code.
• Erik Albers accompagné de Anja Höfner du Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie et Johanna Pohl avec Friederike Rohde du groupe de recherche "Digitalization and Sustainability" ont publié un article sur la durabilité du logiciel et du matériel dans heise, un tech-zine bien en vue en Allemagne. Parmi d'autres sujets, ils demandent aux politiques d'appliquer "Argent Public ? Code Public !", ainsi que d'introduire un recyclage obligatoire du logiciel et un droit général à la réparation.

Participez à notre lettre d'information

Si vous souhaitez partager vos opinions, photos ou actualités, merci de nous les envoyer. Comme toujours, notre adresse est newsletter@fsfe.org. Nous sommes impatients de vous lire !

Si de plus vous souhaitez nous soutenir ainsi que notre travail, rejoignez notre communauté et aidez-nous avec un don ou une contribution mensuelle.

Merci à notre communauté, tous les volontaires, supporters et donatrices et donateurs qui rendent notre travail possible. Et merci à nos traductrices et traducteurs, qui vous permettent de lire cette lettre d'information dans votre langue maternelle.

Votre éditeur,

Erik Albers

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FSFE: EU should reconsider the notion of "intellectual property"

In order to contribute to the European Commission public consultation regarding the update of the "Intellectual Property (IP)" regulatory system, the FSFE has published a first feedback. Based on its world-wide experience with Free Software, the FSFE calls for a more inclusive and decentralized regulatory system that allows sustainable knowledge sharing and intangible wealth.

The European Commission has launched an evaluation on the update of the European "intellectual property" regulatory system. In order to contribute to a fair and inclusive assessment, the FSFE took a stand against the expansion of copyrights, patents and trade secrets. We understand that expanding their scope of protection does not necessarily lead to innovation, competition and progress. Instead, increasing patentable or copyrightable matter could rather have the effect of stagnating sustainable innovation by limiting access and improvements to know-how, raising unfairness, and leading to stronger monopolies.

The FSFE urges the Commission to question the outdated notion that expanding monopolies over knowledge means more progress, consider whether EU companies will really benefit under these regulatory tools, and question the existing trend to expand state granted monopolies on software.

You can read our entire contribution below.

Sharing knowledge leads to progress

Input to the Roadmap on the European Commission "Intellectual Property Action Plan"

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) welcomes the European Commission's (Commission) initiative to upgrade the current "intellectual property (IP)" system. Nevertheless, we question the EC's strategy, which may lead to increased regulation on knowledge and intangible wealth. The FSFE understands that achieving a fairer and more sustainable environment for the digital economy is only possible by changing the existing paradigm that fortifying existing monopolies over knowledge and creating new barriers to knowledge sharing leads to progress. Based on our world-wide experience with Free Software (also known as Open Source), we advocate for a more inclusive and decentralized regulatory system that allows for the sustainable sharing of knowledge and intangible wealth.

"Intellectual Property" is a misleading term

Since 2001, the FSFE has been working as an independent non-profit organisation to protect and enhance the freedoms of technology users in Europe, fostering the dissemination of Free Software (also known as Open Source) principles and the adoption of technological solutions that promote innovation, competition and cooperation based on the rights of using, sharing, studying and improving software. The FSFE understands the term "intellectual property" to be ideologically charged and dangerously oblivious to the significant differences that exist between the many areas of law that it tries to subsume.

We therefore find the general premise of this public consultation to be problematic. The generalisation that strengthening "IP rights" must lead to better protection of creative works and a more resilient, greener, and more digital economy, does not fully take into account how copyright, patent law, trademark law, and trade secrets have diverse scopes of regulation, that can sometimes be at odds. There is no one unified set of law as “intellectual property”; these laws originated separately, evolved differently, cover different activities, have different rules, and raise different public policy issues.

Combining the term "rights" with "intellectual property" conveys the false idea that they are natural and intrinsic to our activity as human beings. This is however far from the truth. The effect of patent law, copyright and other related areas is to create temporary monopolies that exercise private power over other people. Monopolistic market actors can often benefit from such a structure, at the expense of healthy competition and other benefits for the commons. The FSFE therefore urges the Commission to use this opportunity to examine the effects that utilising the term "IP" and its current relevant definitions in EU policies, and the impact that this would have on the creation of a digital economy that can realistically achieve the goals the Commission has set in its initiative.

Fostering wealth not monopolies

The global issues raised by patents, copyrights, trademarks, or trade secrets show that it is too simplistic to say that each of these areas of law can jointly promote progress, fairness, innovation sustainably. The notion of "IP" management, protection and enforcement in Europe has been based on the school of thought that "more protection and expansion of "IP" rights must result in higher levels of innovation, development and competition". However, the Free Software regulatory and management models around the world have shown in the past 40 years that allowing the broadest amount of knowledge to be shared in society is a sustainable and more equitable regime to foster societal progress and wealth.

Free Software has revolutionised the way people interpret and work with copyright, showing that a balance between the protection and the sharing of knowledge can be achieved in a more equitable manner for people who depend on those rights to regulate their creations. Examples of that are the permissive and copyleft licensing regimes, which has enabled the utilisation, development, sharing and vendoring of software in models that respect the copyright owner’s private interests, as well as the collective interests of others to use, re-use, and further develop this software based on those rights.

Expanding the scope of protections around patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets does not lead necessarily to innovation and competition, but to stronger monopolies. The FSFE urges the Commission to consider whether EU companies will really benefit under these regulatory tools, and how many would be pushed out of markets. Patent pools and restrictive copyright policies have become the privilege of larger multinational corporations, at the cost of smaller enterprise. In order for this initiative to be fully effective in forging a brighter digital future, the FSFE believes that an examination on how the existing copyright, trademark, and patent regimes have contributed to market consolidation and monopolies is also necessary, and whether introducing new laws to regulate large monopolies or oligopolies would help to achieve the goals the Commission has set in its initiative.

Finding better balance between copyright, patents and trade secrets

Just how fair, innovative, and sustainable the future European digital economy will be will depend on how patents, copyrights and trade secrets will be managed and enforced. The FSFE urges the Commission to investigate how the patents, copyrights and trade secrets intertwine to affect the future of the digital economy. It is impossible to explore the full capabilities of each system by promoting all of them at once. Software, an asset on which so many other areas of the human knowledge depends, is a work to which copyright, patents, and trade secrets can be applied at once. While generally either the concrete work (e.g. copyright in literature) is protected, it is possible to submit the underlying concept under patents in mechanical engineering. So with software it is clear that increasing the scope of patents can decrease the subject matter of copyright. Therefore, society's collective digital abilities cannot grow well, if large businesses can still restrict society with trade secrets, even -- or in the case of Free Software copyleft licenses especially -- if copyright rules are relativised.

The current regulatory systems for intangible works do not necessarily encourage innovation, but rather can have the effect of stagnating innovation by limiting access and improvements to know-how, specially for software. We therefore encourage the Commission to set up clear goals and strategies for patents, copyrights, trademarks and trade secrets, incorporating principles of human rights, social equity, and intellectual wealth. In practical terms, we believe that a digital economy requires a better and less restrictive approach to each one of these regulatory subsets in order to flourish. For software-related areas, we advocate in favor of a more collaborative patent regime, eliminating software patents, fairer copyright rules, a more equitable handling of trade secrets, as well as the enlargement of public domain.

Conclusion

Overall, the FSFE acknowledges the Commission's commitment to upgrade the existing regulatory system into a fairer environment for the digital economy. We recognise this as an opportunity to question the outdated notion that expanding monopolies over knowledge means more progress and question the existing trend to expand state granted monopolies on software. The Free Software regulatory and management model represents one of the best examples the Commission can take to deepen its understanding on how new models based on knowledge sharing are fundamental for a more innovative, fair, and socially just society.

You can find the submitted feedback here.

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100 days of 'Public Money? Public Code!' in Munich

100 days ago, the new Green-Red coalition in Munich adopted the principle of 'Public Money? Public Code!' to guide their procurement of software. Now, we take a look at the first activities undertaken for the use of Free Software.

100 days ago, the coalition agreement "Mit Mut, Visionen und Zuversicht: Ganz München im Blick (With courage, vision and confidence: All of Munich in view") was signed in Munich by the new government groups Grüne/Rosa Liste and SPD/Volt, as well as by the Lord Mayor Dieter Reiter. This agreement contains a strong commitment to the use of Free Software; that in the future, the principle of 'Public Money? Public Code!' shall apply. Munich has thus agreed to the FSFE's demand; in turn, we are happy about this decision and have promised to follow and evaluate its implementation.

Together with LibreOffice Foundation "The Document Foundation", we asked the two groups what activities they have undertaken in the last 100 days to implement 'Public Money? Public Code!' in Munich.

Of course, significant changes cannot always be accomplished after a mere 100 days, especially considering the difficulties in current events. However, it is still easy to see if the new government is serious about its commitment, or if is just empty words, by their actions so far.

Public Money? Public Code!

The Green-Red government has set some high goals in its coalition agreement, not only by committing to "Public Money? Public Code!", but also through innovative models, such as the introduction of a Free Software sabbatical ("open source sabbatical") for city employees to promote the development of Free Software.

At the moment, the coalition partners are in close talks about a package of proposals that will be put discussion in autumn. Part of the application package proposes that all software that does not contain personal data and is developed by the administration shall be transferred to a public code base. The introduction of the Free Software sabbatical is also part of the first proposal package.

In the short term, the coalition will also have to deal with the issue of data protection. Tools such as Cisco Webex are to be replaced by a privacy-friendly Free Software solution. Products from Microsoft's Office family are also being put to the test. In addition, the employees of the city's public administration will be free to use Free Software products in the future. However, a return to the prestigious LiMux project is currently not being sought; instead, a free operating system should be introduced which will also be used in other public contexts. In doing so, cooperation with other administrations will also be taken into account.

In addition, the new coalition also wants to deal with the public procurement system and examine the extent to which reforms are necessary. Municipal enterprises are also to be put to the test. However, in this context, the administration, in particular the IT department, will also be called upon. Cooperation with the department could still prove difficult, however, as the plans are not met with much enthusiasm at this point in particular.

The new coalition will continue the 'Public Money? Public Code!' project, even though it remains to be seen how the proposals will be formulated and ultimately implemented. We will continue to closely monitor the process and push for an end to the dependency on individual vendors and pave the way for sustainable digital sovereignty, which benefits not only the city, but also its citizens.

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Benigànim signs Open Letter +++ Interview with city of Bühl +++ New Podcast

From hackathons to apps to public administrations: Read about the recent successes in Europe regarding Free Software in our July Newsletter. Also find videos from multiple online events where the FSFE was represented and read about our diverse community activities.

When many people do many small things together

We just sent out a big thank you to all the people who supported us over the years and who are supporting us now. With their help we have been able to build trust and grow expertise in the last decade and to cope with troubling times introduced with the global spread of the corona virus and its dramatic effects. With your help we even have been able to raise attention that we need global solutions to tackle global problems. And we have been heard.

Members from our community convinced public hackathons to publish their results under free licenses. International and national political fora continue to demand that contact tracing apps have to be Free Software. Many national authorities are complying with these demands. Also in the last months, administrations in Hamburg, the Netherlands and Spain committed to use and focus more on Free Software. These are the positive developments we have seen in the last months - despite the crisis - and these are the fruits of our long-term commitment and your long-term support.

It's now time to share this good news. Let people know that Free Software matters even, or especially, in such difficult times introduced to us by the coronavirus. Use the chance yourself to order our professional promotion material, to talk with your friends, neighbours, employers or anyone else about the benefits of Free Software.

Written on the leftovers of the Berlin Wall is an African saying: "Many small people who in many small places do many small things that can alter the face of the world." This is exactly what we have been doing since 2001 and we encourage you to join us today!

Participants at "Software development for girls and boys, with Free Software and Linux" in Kreuzlingen, Switzerland. (Peter Bittner, CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0)

¿Dinero público? ¡Código Público!

"¿Dinero público? ¡Código Público!" - this is the Spanish translation of "Public Money? Public Code!" and a demand that circulates on and on. After the city of Barcelona and the Parliament of Asturias, the Municipality of Benigànim is now the third administration in Spain who signed our open letter demanding public code.

This provides good motivation for our new Spanish team, which is currently finding form with the aim to influence even more administrations to sign the open letter but also for more than 28.600 individuals who signed our call as well.

The biggest financial impact the FSFE faces in these times of physical distancing is the cancellation of Free Software conferences, including our own events. To keep the software freedom movement solid and alive, please consider donating a part of your conference budget to Free Software organisations, including the FSFE.

What have we done? Inside and outside the FSFE

• The Municipality of Benigànim in Spain signed our open letter "Public Money? Public Code!"
• Peter Bittner used the Swiss holiday time to offer "Software development for girls and boys, with Free Software and Linux" and to share the FSFE's educational material.
• In our sixth Software Freedom Podcast we invited Miriam Ballhausen to talk with us about copyright enforcement. Miriam is a German lawyer who specialises in Free Software copyright questions. Together we cover the basics about Free Software licensing and discuss how Free Software copyright can be enforced, what the steps to enforce it are, and why it is often enforced in Germany. We also explore how the REUSE project could help with being in compliance with Free Software licenses.

• The town of Bühl, in the south-west of Germany, started a video conference platform, called “Palim! Palim!” based on the Free Software “Jitsi Meet”, to ease the effects of the COVID-19 lockdown for their citizens. After a striking success, the FSFE conducted an interview with Eduard Itrich, the digitisation officer from the town of Bühl.
• Unlike many other European countries, Denmark keeps the source code of their Coronavirus tracing app a secret. This goes directly against the most recent recommendations from the WHO as well as the EU eHealth network. We hope that they reconsider and publish the code under a free license as soon as possible.
• Our Public Policy Manager, Alexander Sander, was invited to "forum digital: Alles Open - oder was?" in Berlin, Germany (video). On stage, Alexander discussed the idea of Open-X and examples such as Free Software, open standards and interfaces.
• Lucas Lasota, FSFE's Deputy Legal Coordinator, gave a talk at the online-version of OpenExpo Europe (video). Lucas explained how Free Software is essential for the future of the Internet. In particular how REUSE can help everybody to have copyright and licensing information properly displayed.
• At the online version of OW2Con, FSFE's volunteer Vincent Lequertier talked about the upcoming Challenges in Artificial Intelligence Research and Development with regard to Free Software (video).
• Also at the online version of OW2Con, our Legal Coordinator, Gabriel Ku Wei Bin, presented our work with the European Commission's Next Generation Internet Initiative (video).
• Björn Schießle, FSFE's Germany Coordinator, gave a webinar about Free Software at the HDM Stuttgart, Germany.
• Iain R. Learmonth reports how he tracks GPS traces for OpenStreetMap using a handheld radio and converts the data afterwards.

Get Active

Tell people about our recent successes and the good developments we have seen regarding Free Software in the last months. Show other people that Free Software is not a niche phenomenon but at the core of our global and future development, and that more and more administrations, institutions and people understand the benefits of Free Software and demand its usage. If you need some help and inspiration, order our professional promotion material.

In-memoriam notice

With deep mourning we have received knowledge of the death of Andreas Hilboll. The mathematician became one of our first supporting members in 2006. Andreas regularly told us about his activities or gave us suggestions for improvement; for example we implemented his suggestion to switch to fair-trade-products in our online shop and have relied on these products wherever possible since then.

We will miss Andreas as a person who supported our goal to empower people to control technology with all his heart and we will continue to work towards these goals, which were important to Andreas for over 14 years.

Our condolences go out to his family and relatives, his friends and the people he worked with to spread software freedom.

Contribute to our newsletter

If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to us. As always, the address is newsletter@fsfe.org. We're looking forward to hearing from you!

If you also want to support us and our work, join our community and support us with a donation or a monthly contribution.

Thanks to our community, all the volunteers, supporters and donors who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators, who enable you to read this newsletter in your native languages.

Your editor,

Erik Albers

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(Y)our recent successes towards software freedom in Europe (despite the crisis)

The spread of Covid-19 brought dramatic and drastic changes for us and our societies. And thus shed light on the global need for global solutions like Free Software is. A short summary about the recent successes towards software freedom in Europe we achieved together with your help and despite the crisis.

The spread of Covid-19 brought dramatic and drastic changes for us and our societies. One of the things most of us experienced was to stay at home or in quarantine. Apart from severe consequences people have been facing, suddenly many people also have been forced to work from home. In response, our community was quick and eager in helping people to stay in control of technology. In the very beginning already, our community members gathered knowledge and wrote a guide to freedom respecting online collaboration and communication tools into our wiki.

In our official channels, the FSFE focused early on highlighting that global problems need global solutions. And on explaining why only Free Software creates global solutions and cooperations. We received positive feedback and we luckily have seen tremendous success with our message: the European Union, the World Health Organsation and the EU eHealth Network followed our arguments and they now recommend to any COVID-19 contact tracing app development to be published as Free Software. Many countries followed their recommendations, for example StoppCorona in Austria, PrivateTracer in the Netherlands, the Corona Warn App in Germany or eRouška in Czech Republic.

This is a huge success for software freedom! And it is a result of our daily work we all persistently invest in Free Software advocacy. Since almost 20 years the FSFE is part of an ever growing freedom respecting community in Europe. We gather reliable expertise and consultancy and continuously explain the public and political representatives the benefits of software freedom. Now, in the face of the crisis, national and international players finally seem to realize the advantages of Free Software.

Free Software creates global solutions.

Health care apps as Free Software

Hopefully, the decision to publish Covid-19 health care apps as Free Software alone helps to change mindsets of decision-makers in the long run. But also the viral effect the preceding discussions and decisions had are priceless. In international and national major news agencies they reported about health care apps to become Free Software and the benefits involved. In several countries we have seen a coalition of scientists, data protection agencies, ministries and politicians who argued in favor of software freedom. And every time they do, more people understand why software freedom matters for our society. And any time more people understand the importance of software freedom, it is likely some of them join our cause.

These developments are part of the success of our work and they show that even in dramatic crisis you can help people to understand the benefits of controlling technology. On the other hand there is still a lot to do. Many countries still encourage the use of proprietary tracing apps. In other countries - for example the Corona Warn App developed in Germany - the tracing apps themselves are Free Software but they depend on proprietary "Exposure Notification Framework" only accessible by installing the proprietary Google Play services. Also you need to use a proprietary app market to install the app itself. Then what is all freedom worth if the solution depends on third-party proprietary blobs? And if you have to use proprietary software to install them?

Public administrations for Free Software

If we take a look at the big picture and away from the COVID-19 apps, many administrations recently have announced to follow our road to freedom. Hamburg wants to focus more on Free Software, Munich commits to "Public Money? Public Code!", the Netherlands commit to Free Software by default, the Spanish Municipality of Benigànim signs our Open Letter of the "Public Money? Public Code!" campaign and the German city of Bühl uses Free Software to connect their citizens. We like to help them on their journey and ask more to join! We like to make sure people understand that this is a long term activity and offer help and guidance.

Now is a good time to raise awareness about our topic within new audiences. Based on the shoulders of our long term work, the recent successes and the public discussions about Free Software we like to speed up the path towards a Europe build on Free Software. Please help us to convince more decision-takers and to supply them with good material to understand the benefits of Free Software.

Join us as a supporter and help us with a financial contribution so we can boost our work, repeat our recent successes and help people understand why Free Software is important for our future:

Join us as a supporter and make our success your success!

The FSFE wishes you all an enjoyable and healthy summer in (software) freedom.

PS: A financial support towards the FSFE is tax-deductible in some countries. They say it is good for your karma in any country around the globe.

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