Different Free Software business models evolved over the past and the most successful are threaten these days by the raise of IaaS providers. What does this mean for the future of economical success of Free Software? Read more...
These days I looked up the German word “Kulturtechnik” at Wikipedia which translates to “cultural techniques” in English. Surprisingly there is no English Wipipedia article for it, so I have to quote the German one. This section attracted my attention the most: [Für Kulturtechniken] sind ein oder mehrere Voraussetzungen nötig: das Beherrschen von Lesen, Schreiben und Rechnen, die Fähigkeit zur bildlichen Darstellung, analytische Fähigkeiten, die Anwendung von kulturhistorischem Wissen oder die Vernetzung verschiedener Methoden. Read more...
What does software freedom actually means, in a world where more and more software no longer runs on our own computer but in the cloud? I keep thinking about this topic for quite some time and from time to time I run into some discussions about this topic. For example a few days ago at Mastodon. Therefore I think it is time to write down my thoughts on this topic. Read more...
Lightening talk about Free Software licensing and how it is handled at Nextcloud. Read more...
This discussion is really old. Since the first days of the Free Software movement people like to debate to whom the freedom in Free Software is directed? The users? The code? The developers? Often this goes along with a discussion about copyleft vs non-protecting Free Software licenses like the BSD- and the MIT-License. I don’t want to repeat this discussion but look at the question from a complete different angle. I want to look at it from the position of a software company and its business model. Read more...
There are two major terms connected to software you can freely use, study, share and improve: Free Software and Open Source. Based on them you can also find different combinations and translations like FOSS, Libre Software, FLOSS and so on. Reading articles about Free Software or listening to people involved in Free Software often raises the question: Why do they use one term or another and how they differ from each other? Read more...
At the moment Free Software in education is one of my main interests in the Free Software ecosystem. FSFE’s Fellowship wiki already provides some useful information on this topic. It’s quite interesting to see the development in this area. Further I think schools play an important role for the adoption of Free Software in many areas. What pupils learn and get used to during school is what they want to use and what they demand if they enter the business world. Read more...
Freie Software alleine garantiert keine sichere Software, aber sie ist eine notwendige Grundvoraussetzung um überhaupt sichere und vertrauenswürdige Software zu schaffen. Read more...
The FSF has released a Quick Guide to GPLv3. This article explains all major changes in an easy-to-understand overview. So it is a good staring point for everyone who wants to understand GPLv3. It is also a good resource for developers who plan to release their software under the GPLv3. Read more...
While browsing the Web i have found the video presentation “Free Software and the Matrix” by Alexandre Oliva. Just take some time, watch this presentation and you will see how much the movie “The Matrix” discusses the issues of the Free Software movement. Read more...
While reading some FSF Blogs i found a link to a license quiz where you can test your knowledge of the GPL and LGPL.. If you want to test your knowledge of the GPL and LGPL than try the license quiz. I remember that i had found this test already some years ago but forgot about it. So i tried it again to see if my licensing knowledge has improved. The last time i did the test i remember that i answered a few questions wrongly but this time everything was correct. Read more...
I’m back from the SFSCon and the first international FSFE Fellowship Meeting in Bolzano (Italy). For me i can say that it was a great event and it gaves me the opportunity to meet a lot of great people from the Free Software Foundation Europe and around Free Software in general. The Fellowship Meeting was also the place were a new project of the FSFE was launched, the Freedom Task Force (FTF). Read more...
After about seven month of discussion and more than 1000 comments through gplv3.fsf.org/comments/ the FSF has published the second draft of the GNU General Public License (GPL) Version 3 and the first draft of the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) Version 3 which is now designed as a set of permissive exceptions to GPLv3 in accord with section 7. The main changes in the second draft of GPLv3 are clarifications of the DRM section, a reworked license compatibility section and provisions that specifically allow to distribute programs on certain file sharing networks such as BitTorrent. Read more...
As a GNU/Linux user i’m used to have PDF export in almost every program. With Office 2007 Microsoft finally wants to offer this common feature to their users too. But it seems like Adobe doesn’t like this idea. As cnet reported Adobe asked Microsoft to remove the PDF export feature or pay a fee for it. Brian Jones from Microsoft has published some information, too. Adobe promotes PDF as an open standard. Read more...