Documents

Documents, information, philosophy and other sources of information about Free Software, the FSFE and related issues.

Initiatives
European Commission
Political
Basics of Free Software
Reports
Transcripts
Historic
Further Reading

Initiatives

Initiatives by the Free Software Foundation Europe

Karlsruhe Memorandum against software patentability in Europe (2005-06-25)
Towards a "World Intellectual Wealth Organsiation" (2004-10-14)
Supporting the Geneva Declaration
We speak about Free Software (2001-11-19)
Speaking of Free Software offers many advantages

European Commission

Documents in the European Commission context.

Free Software in Europe - European perspectives and work of the FSF Europe (2003-05-20)
An article explaining the large-scale beneficial aspects of Free Software in multiple areas and how Europe and the European countries can benefit from Free Software. (Published in the Spring 2003 issue of the Public Service Review - European Union with a foreword by Romano Prodi)
FP6 EOI: LAFIS - LAying the Foundations for the Information Society (2002-06-04)
FP6 EOI: FOCAL - FOcussing Competence for Advantages of Liberty (2002-06-04)
Recommendation by the FSF Europe and supporting parties (2002-04-30)
for the 6th framework programme

Political

Essays, articles, letters and similar documents.

Interoperability woes with MS-OOXML (2008-03-05)
FSFE context briefing on Interoperability problems caused by Microsoft's Office OpenXML format: "The proposed MS-OOXML/DIS29500 specification raises serious technical and legal concerns. This context briefing highlights three examples of how the proposed specification and its practical implementation in MS Office 2007 hinders interoperability, fosters vendor dependence and results in market distortion."
DIS-29500: Deprecated before use? (2008-02-18)
FSFE context briefing on the DIS-29500 Ballot Resolution Meeting (BRM) for Microsoft's Office OpenXML format: "When ECMA submitted MS-OOXML as ECMA-376 to ISO for fast-track approval, several countries criticised overlap with the existing ISO standard ISO/IEC 26300:2006, the Open Document Format (ODF). [...] Considering that alleged preservation of idiosyncrasies is the stated reason for the entire DIS-29500 ISO process, FSFE considers it worthwhile to investigate this claim in greater depth."
FSFE's written statement to the 2007 General Assembly (2007-09-28)
Statement at the 2007 Assemblies of the Member States of WIPO, 24 September - 3 October 2007
The converter hoax (2007-07-16)
FSFE Guest Commentary on Heise.de: "Conversion between Microsoft's Office OpenXML (MS-OOXML) and the vendor-independent Open Document Format (ODF) has been proposed by Microsoft and its associates as a solution to the problems caused by Microsoft's efforts to push a format into the market that conflicts with the existing Open Standard. [...] If these converters were actually able to do what they promise to do, they would be unnecessary."
Questions for Microsoft on open formats (2007-07-11)
Featured article by Georg Greve and Joachim Jakobs about the need for Open Standards in archival, and why using MS-OOXML risks future data loss: "Digital information could potentially be stored without loss of quality for a very long time to come. But without knowledge about the encoding, our documents will become a meaningless series of ones and zeroes to future generations, just like cave paintings are too often meaningless bits of colour on stone to us."
Six questions to national standardisation bodies (2007-06-26)
Six questions relating to the application of the ECMA/MS-OOXML format to be accepted as an IEC/ISO standard. Unless a national standardisation body has conclusive answers to all of them, it should vote no in IEC/ISO and request that Microsoft incorporate its work on MS-OOXML into ISO/IEC 26300:2006 (Open Document Format).
Sovereign Software - Open Standards, Free Software, and the Internet (2006-10-30)
Software issues are issues of power and fundamentally shape the societies we are living in. Even to those who had not followed digital policy issues before this became increasingly evident throughout the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Two fundamental questions characterise this battlefield: Who controls your data? Who controls your computer?
WIPO statement (2006-06-28)
Statement at the second Provisional Committee on a Development Agenda (PCDA) for WIPO
Free Software Essentials Reference Sheet (2006-06-28)
Handout prepared for the second Provisional Committee on a Development Agenda (PCDA) for WIPO
WIPO statement (2006-02-23)
Statement at the first Provisional Committee on a Development Agenda (PCDA) for WIPO
WSIS and the Software Challenge (2005-11-15)
Article by Georg Greve about the role of Free Software in the digital world and FSFE's involvement in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
WIPO statement (2005-09-30)
Statement of the Free Software Foundation Europe and the Free Software Foundation Latin America towards the 2005 WIPO general assemblies
WIPO statement (2005-07-21)
Statement on behalf of the WSIS Patents, Copyrights and Trademarks (PCT) Working Group of Civil Society at the third Inter-Sessional, Inter-Governmental Meeting (IIM) on a Development Agenda
WIPO statement (2005-06-20)
Statement at the second Inter-Sessional, Inter-Governmental Meeting (IIM) on a Development Agenda
Software patents - a danger to democracy (2005-06-06)
Open Letter to Mr. Mr Borrell Fontelles, President of the European Parliament by Georg Greve
European Commission is going to undermine some of its best work (2005-05-02)
Open Letter to Mr. Charlie McCreevy, European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services by Georg Greve
WIPO statement (2005-04-15)
Statement at the Permanent Committee on Cooperation for Development related to Intellectual Property (PCIPD)
WIPO statement (2005-04-13)
Statement at the Inter-Sessional, Inter-Governmental Meeting (IIM) on a Development Agenda
Software patents putting International Financial Report Standards (IFRS) in danger (2005-04-05)
Open Letter to Mr. Rudy Provoost, President of the European Information & Communications Technology Industry Association (EICTA) by Georg Greve
European Cities will suffer from software patents (2005-03-07)
Open Letter to Mrs. Catherine Parmentier, Chief Executive Officer of EUROCITIES by Georg Greve
Software patents harm banks (2005-02-07)
Open Letter to Mr. Nout Wellink, President of the International Bank of Settlements by Georg Greve
Software patents are bad for your health (2005-01-03)
Open letter to Mr. Lee, General Secretary of the World Health Organisation (WHO) by Georg Greve
Software patents detrimental to European power supply business (2004-12-06)
Open letter to Mr. Haider, President of the Union of the Electricity Industry - EURELECTRIC by Georg Greve
Software patents are like firefighting with petrol (2004-11-01)
Open letter to Mr. Barroso by Georg Greve
Allianz Group will suffer because of software patents (2004-10-04)
Open letter to Mr. Diekmann, CEO of Allianz Group by Georg Greve
Endings and Beginnings (2004-09-17)
"Handelsblatt Navigator" written by Georg Greve about Digital Restriction Management (DRM)
No software patents, conserve competitive advantage! (2004-09-06)
Open letter to the Dutch Prime Minister Dr. Balkenende by Georg Greve
Software patents will destroy the foundations of IBM's future (2004-08-02)
Open letter to Dr. Wladawsky-Berger of IBM by Stefano Maffulli and Georg Greve
Open Letter to the Fraunhofer Gesellschaft (FhG) on software patents (2004-07-06)
Open letter to Prof. Bullinger by Georg Greve
Open letter to Prof. Köhler on software patents (2004-05-31)
Open letter to Prof. Köhler, designated German President by Georg Greve
Open letter to all citizens of Europe (2004-05-10)
Open letter on software patents by Georg Greve and Hartmut Pilch
On "Intellectual Property" and Indigenous Peoples (2004-02-09)
An essay by Georg Greve about questions raised for Indigenous Peoples by the "intellectual property" ideology
Civil Society Essential Benchmarks (2003-11-14)
for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
Fighting intellectual poverty (2003-11-04)
Article by Georg Greve for a publication of the Heinrich Böll Foundation on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
PCT Statement (2003-09-23)
Civil Society Statement for World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) United Nations (UN) Plenary -- Georg C.F. Greve on behalf of Patents, Copyright, Trademarks (PCT) Working Group

Basics of Free Software

Some basic information about Free Software, the GNU Project and the Free Software Foundation.

Free Software and WSIS
Civil Society reference paper on Free Software and its impact on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
Why do we exist?
A brief summary of the reasons for the FSFE and an introduction into its goals.
What is Free Software?
A short lexicon-like text explaining what Free Software is.
What do we do?
A brief summary of what the FSFE does to achieve its goals.
What is the GNU Project?
A short lexicon-like text explaining what the GNU-Project is.

Reports

Reports by the FSFE and its working groups about their activites and results.

Two year executive summary (2007-06-30)
Report about FSFE's work during the years 2005-2007 for the 2007 general assembly
Two year executive summary (2005-05-07)
Report about FSFE's work during the years 2003-2005 for the 2005 general assembly
Two year executive summary (2003-06-21)
Report about the first two years of work of the FSF Europe for the 2003 general assembly

For more recent information about our activities, please also read our monthly newsletter.

Transcripts

Transcripts of talks about Free Software and related issues.

The Free Software Movement and the Future of Freedom (2006-03-09)
Transcript of a lecture given by Richard Stallman in Zagreb.

Historic documents

Documents of mostly historic interest that are kept for reference and those who are interested; may contain information that is largely outdated.

Preamble to the Constitution of the Free Software Foundation Europe
Possibly interesting to learn more about Free Software - if you wish to learn more about the FSFE in general, the About section is your friend.
Declaration of Intent - FSFE
The first public announcement for the Free Software Foundation Europe with the goal to inform about the idea and get in touch with people from other countries willing to participate.