«...Much of the communication on the Internet happens between computers according to standards that define common languages. If we are going to live in a free world using free software, our software must be allowed to speak these languages.

Software standards must be implementable in any software or business model, including those based on Free Software. When patents are included in software standards, they need to be licensed in a manner that doesn’t restrict their implementation in any way. Besides the absence of any other restriction, that means royalty-free licensing to any party implementing the standard.

Today, activists in 37 cities around the world are raising awareness for Open Standards and open document formats. In workshops, talks and other events, they are explaining why Open Standards and Free Software are crucial to a free and competitive information society. "It's great to see the power of the community behind Document Freedom Day", says campaign coordinator Fernanda Weiden.

IBM today announced that it is granting universal and perpetual access to certain intellectual property that might be necessary to implement more than 150 standards designed to make software interoperable.

Free software has much to offer non-profit organizations (NGOs). If you are reading this, you are probably a member or participant of an NGO, and I hope I can show you why free software and open standards are important for your organisation. Or maybe you are a free software supporter who’d like to see a change in a social organisation near you. In any case, I will try to give you a few arguments in favour of free software, along with some practical information on how to successfully face a migration process from proprietary software.

"The Free Software Foundation and the GNU Project oppose publication of draft-housley-tls-authz-extns as an experimental standard..."

In a huge win for open standards, free and open source software and the public, the long-awaited UK government definition of open standards has come down firmly on the side of royalty-free, not FRAND. The UK government list seven principles as defining an open standard.

Many of us know that governments can threaten the human rights of software users through censorship and surveillance of the Internet. Many do not realize that the software they run on their home or work computers can be an even worse threat. Thinking of software as `just a tool', they suppose that it obeys them, when in fact it often obeys others instead.

Curious about programming, but having trouble getting started because you're confused about all those languages? This article will give you an overview of the most common desktop languages you'll see in free software today.