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MJ Ray | 5 Nov 2009 12:01
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Pirate Party Gets Second Seat in European Parliament

  "With the Lisbon Treaty being signed by all European Union member
  states, the Pirate Party has gained another seat in the European
  Parliament. The second Pirate Party seat will be occupied by the 22
  year old Amelia Andersdotter, who will become the youngest Member of
  the European Parliament."

  "Ironically, The Pirate Party was against the Lisbon Treaty, which
  has now doubled the number of seats the party has in the European
  Parliament."

  Source: http://torrentfreak.com/pirate-party-gets-second-seat-in-european-parliament-091104/

I pondered pirate party membership in
http://mjray.ukgovoss.org/2009/08/20/green-or-pirate-party-membership/
but so far think that I should remain independent.  It's not like
bottom-layer councils can do much beyond small practical steps to help
free software anyway.  For example, displays for our next consultation
event have been prepared in OpenOffice.

Could the recent launch of http://www.conservativecoops.com/ (the
movement, not the website that seems to be one person's soapbox) do
interesting things for Conservative views of cooperatively-developed
free software?  Or are all parties more liberal in opposition?
--

-- 
MJ Ray (slef)  Webmaster and LMS developer at     | software
www.software.coop http://mjr.towers.org.uk        |  .... co
IMO only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html |  .... op
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Free Software Foundation Europe | 13 Nov 2009 19:58

FSFE Newsletter - October 2009

Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) Newsletter - October 2009

October has been a dense, vibrant and challenging month for FSFE.
We have done more work than will fit the limits of this letter.
For this reason, after reading the newsletter, please visit the
news section of our website to have a complete overview of our
work:

 http://www.fsfe.org/news/news.html
							Giacomo Poderi

1. FSFE suggests to make MySQL independent as solution for Oracle/Sun deal
2. Announcing FSFE's new Finnish country team
3. Fellowship meetings in Frankfurt, Berlin and Vienna
4. Windows 7 to hit consumers with known security problem
5. New Fellowship jabber server
6. Welcome to Alina Mierlus as intern

IN THE SPOTLIGHT

7. EC vs MS: the browser and interoperability cases

IT HAPPENED IN THE PAST

8. Fellows discuss the future of the Fellowship portal

UPCOMING EVENTS

9. FSFE and the Fellows co-organise FSCONS 2009, Lindholmen, Sweden, 13-15 November
10. FSFE to launch the Fellowship grants project
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Glyn Wintle | 23 Nov 2009 20:19
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Disconnection petition now past 13k ... have you signed?

Over 13,000 people have signed the number 10 petition against the Digital Economy Bill in the last two days.
People are particularly upset about the three strikes provision where you loose your internet
connection based purely accusation and no court involvement. But there are several other bad things in
the bill.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus/

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/assets/files/pdfs/p2p-briefing-print.pdf
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Glyn Wintle | 23 Nov 2009 19:52
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Disconnection petition now moving towards 10k ... have you signed?

Over 9,000 people have signed the number 10 petition against the Digital Economy Bill in the last two days.
People are particularly upset about the three strikes provision where you loose your internet
connection based on purely accusation and no court involvement. But there are several bad things in the bill.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/dontdisconnectus/

http://www.openrightsgroup.org/assets/files/pdfs/p2p-briefing-print.pdf
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John¹ | 26 Nov 2009 23:39

AFFS

The funds remaining in its, (the AFFS), bank account have been disbursed as 
follows, two thirds, £2307, to the FSFE, and one third, £1154, as a grant, 
to a UK project to develop software. This latter sum includes the £1000 
which had been donated to the AFFS by UK Free Software Network Ltd., which 
was intended for use within the UK, for which many thanks.

The recipient of the project grant will shortly make an announcement on the 
projects to which the money will be directed.
--

-- 
John Seago
http://www.petitiononline.com/topaz/petition.html
GNU/Linux Registered User No. #219566 http://counter.li.org/
()  ascii ribbon campaign - against html mail
/\                        - against microsoft attachments
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Richard Smedley | 28 Nov 2009 23:07
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Re: AFFS

John¹ wrote:
> The recipient of the project grant will shortly make an announcement on the 
> projects to which the money will be directed.

Hi there,

I feel honoured to have the opportunity to disburse this
money from the community to FOSS projects for the benefit
of the voluntary sector - a sector which has one of the
lowest uptakes of Free Software.

An announcement is up at http://goodGNUs.org/ & follow-ups
will appear there too. Briefly, we are working on financial
software for credit unions, which has the potential to
scale beyond CUs, and also a collaborative project on
an entirely-FOSS cloud project for the sector.

Beyond this, I remain interested in what scope there
is for a national group for Free Software advocacy
in the UK now that AFFS is gone, and would love to
hear thoughts on this.

  - Richard Smedley

--

-- 
Richard Smedley          Social Media & Accessible Web for small Orgs
                                        http://GoodGNUs.org/courses

http://twitter.com/RichardSmedley           Sustainable 3rd Sector IT
http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardsmedley
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MJ Ray | 30 Nov 2009 21:15
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Re: AFFS

Richard Smedley wrote:
> An announcement is up at http://goodGNUs.org/ & follow-ups
> will appear there too. 

The announcement is at http://www.goodgnus.org/2009/11/so-long-affs/
(posted for an ulterior motive reason).

> Beyond this, I remain interested in what scope there
> is for a national group for Free Software advocacy
> in the UK now that AFFS is gone, and would love to
> hear thoughts on this.

What things could a national group usefully do?  Did AFFS wither
because it was a solution looking for a problem?  Its aims were:

     1. to promote and advance the knowledge, development, use and
     application of Free Software pioneered by the Free Software
     Foundation and others.

     2. to facilitate the exchange of information and views on the use
     and development of Free Software.

     3. to inform upon the subject of Free Software.

     4. to encourage internationalisation and localisation of Free Software.

     5. to ensure the continued legal existence of Free Software
     within the United Kingdom.

Is that enough to rally people around?  How should they be done?
(Continue reading)

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Richard Smedley | 30 Nov 2009 21:57
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Re: AFFS

MJ Ray wrote:
> Richard Smedley wrote:
>   
>> An announcement is up at http://goodGNUs.org/ & follow-ups
>> will appear there too. 
>>     
>
> The announcement is at http://www.goodgnus.org/2009/11/so-long-affs/
> (posted for an ulterior motive reason).
>   

I couldn't mention the money without at least a sentence or two looking
back on AFFS. From recent conversations, it is still remembered by
some for its raising of awareness about Free Software.

>> Beyond this, I remain interested in what scope there
>> is for a national group for Free Software advocacy
>> in the UK now that AFFS is gone, and would love to
>> hear thoughts on this.
>>     
>
> What things could a national group usefully do?  Did AFFS wither
> because it was a solution looking for a problem?

I think that's partly why I asked. While I feel that
it would be a good thing, I'm struggling in building
a "business case" for such  beast. However a
show of enthusiasm and ideas would suggest a
rethink ;-)
(Continue reading)

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Shane Coughlan | 1 Dec 2009 00:45

Re: AFFS

Hi guys

On Dec 1, 2009, at 5:57 AM, Richard Smedley wrote:
> MJ Ray wrote:
>>  Its aims were:
>>     1. to promote and advance the knowledge, development, use and
>>     application of Free Software pioneered by the Free Software
>>     Foundation and others.
> 
> Well, this is an FSF-E aim, so we need perhaps to encourage
> them into the UK?

I think there is a lot of room for talking about how FSFE could contribute to the situation in the UK.

Paul Adams and I had previously talked about getting everyone together for a chat sometime in the near
future, and I believe Paul and Adriaan de Groot (new FSFE legal department coordinator) continued that
conversation after I went to Japan.  I've got them in CC along with Christian, FSFE's Executive Director,
and Karsten, the President.

I think it's worthwhile to get this ball rolling.

Regards

Shane

--
Shane Coughlan
Senior Advisor, FSFE e.V.
e: coughlan <at> fsfeurope.org	  
p: +81 (0) 80 4035 8083
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Karsten Gerloff | 1 Dec 2009 09:51

Re: AFFS

Hi all,

On Tue, Dec 01, 2009 at 08:45:33AM +0900, Shane Coughlan wrote:

> > Well, this is an FSF-E aim, so we need perhaps to encourage
> > them into the UK?
> 
> I think there is a lot of room for talking about how FSFE could contribute to the situation in the UK.
> 
> Paul Adams and I had previously talked about getting everyone together for a chat sometime in the near
future, and I believe Paul and Adriaan de Groot (new FSFE legal department coordinator) continued that
conversation after I went to Japan.  I've got them in CC along with Christian, FSFE's Executive Director,
and Karsten, the President.
> 
> I think it's worthwhile to get this ball rolling.

absolutely. I think a face-to-face meeting of interested people is
the thing to do at this stage.

With Paul, we had been thinking about getting together a round
table meeting of Free Software groups and activists in early 2010. 

Best regards,
Karsten
--

-- 
Karsten Gerloff                      [ ]   <gerloff <at> fsfeurope.org>
Free Software Foundation Europe   [ ][ ][ ]      [http://fsfe.org]
President                            | |         +49 176 9690 4298
Your donation powers our work!           [http://fsfe.org/donate/]
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Gmane