Free Software Foundation Europe is ten years old this March. FSFE was founded in 2001 as "an organization dedicated to Free Software activities in Europe" and "the official sister organization of the Free Software Foundation in the United States" in Europe. Today, FSFE works across Europe and around the world.

In this edition we discuss the misleading term "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms" (FRAND), we explain what we are doing about centralised computer systems and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and update you on our current campaign to end non-free software commercials by public institutions.

"Today marks the twenty-fifth anniversary of the initial announcement of the GNU Project, a pioneering initiative to develop an operating system that gives all users the freedom to modify it and publish modified versions, individually or working together.

"The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) supports Free Software so that every citizen can play an independent, active and responsible part in our information society. However, censorship of content, violations of the principle of 'Net Neutrality' and increasing online surveillance do not fit with these goals.

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) supports Free Software so that every citizen can play an independent, active and responsible part in our information society. However, censorship of content, violations of the principle of 'Net Neutrality' and increasing online surveillance do not fit with these goals.

"My name is Shane Coughlan and and I work for Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), a non-profit, non-governmental organisation with offices in Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Sweden. You may remember me from my last FSFE update on this blog on the Freedom Task Force, which is the FSFE's legal training project which I coordinate.

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is an organization that does a lot of behind-the-scenes things, mostly policy and legal, which can be a little hard to see at times. Of course we are always happy to support Free Software projects manage the legal and organizational aspects of, um, projecthood.

"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.

"...My vision of the world is different. I would like to see a world in which all the software in our computers — in our desktop PCs, our laptops, our handhelds, our phones — is under the our control and respects our freedom. In other words, a world where all software is free software..."