][ stefano maffulli

After many years of working in a non-profit organization I became convinced that the main difference between for-profit business and non-profit business is in the availability (or lack thereof) of dividends. Plus for-profit companies prefer not to pay dividends and markets pressure corporations to act in stakeholder’s interests (not just shareholder’s) … I leave the [...]

Tags: business, community, management, non-profit, salary

While some on FSFE discussion mailing list debate whether the term ‘open source’ is good or not, the world out there is running fast adopting the THING (whatever you prefer to call it) and considering its adoption. Matt reports about Actuate 07 Open Source Survey Whitepaper which has interesting data about perception of FLOSS (page [...]

Tags: free software, marketing, perception

Roberto’s latest comment reminded me of his presentation at quifree.  One of the points he made was about the missing ‘perception’ of Free/Libre software, a constant discussion theme during the years at FSFE.  What are the values of Free Software? How to make such values meet the needs of users, citizens and companies? While many [...]

Tags: business, community, ethics, free software, marketing

I read the New York Times today before going to the World Business Forum in Milan and I was surprised to read my former colleague at FSFE enthusiam. Georg is quoted saying:
“This is a huge breakthrough,” said Georg Greve, president of the Free Software Foundation-Europe, a group that had challenged Microsoft’s practice of using [...]

Yesterday the long battle supporting the EU Commission in the antitrust trial ended.  Such activity was started by Peter Gerwinski and later carried out by others, including me.  Yesterday a phase has closed.

Today I start a new one, but without FSFE.  I have just sent the following message to FSFE board announcing my resignation.  Thank you for your help and support: these have been wonderful years.

Dear FSFE Team and Free Software community,

I hearby resign from my position as Italian Chancellor and Fellowship Coordinator for the FSFE.

I have contributed to the growth of the organization since 2001, including the creation of projects such as the Fellowship and GNUvox.info, the fight to the swpat directive, the opposition to OOXML and many other successful activities.

So it is with a heavy heart that I must recognize the organization has taken a direction that I can no longer support, one which I feel will eventually make it irrelevant in the community, if not defunct.

In June 2007 I devised with other team members a constructive proposal to re-organize the foundation as a starting point for reforms. It fell  on deaf ears. It has since become clear that all efforts would be made to ensure that my resignation was necessary.

I will continue to promote Free Software within other organizations and in other ways. 

I wish to thank all the people who generously contributed time and expertise to the Italian chapter and the Fellowship.

Regards,
Stefano Maffulli

From now on, please contact me using my personal email addresses:
stef   maffulli net or stef  zoomata  com
My personal blog is at http://maffulli.net

Eric Raymond is back and has written, with his very recognizable style, that he dislikes what Microsoft is doing to get OOXML approved by the International Standards Organization.  Good old ESR is so disgusted by the maneuvers to destroy ISO’s credibility only to maintain Microsoft’s monopoly on Office that he is willing to change his mind about Open Source Initiative’s position:

OSI will treat any licenses submitted to Microsoft strictly on their
merits, without fear or favor. That remains OSI’s position. But…

Yes, there is a but, he says:

Despite my previous determination, I find I’m almost ready to recommend
that OSI tell Microsoft to ram its licenses up one of its own orifices,
even if they are technically OSD compliant. Because what good is it to
conform to the letter of OSD if you’re raping its spirit?

I agree with ESR: who cares if some of Microsoft’s license technically grant four freedoms (or 9 principles). The problem is that Microsoft is not being a good member of the digital society, it’s still acting as a bully in the school backyard.

Now I wish Eric recognized that what he said means that OSI is about moral principles as much as FSFs are and there is nothing to be ashamed for this.

Hello world! After some (very good) time offline I’m back with good news.  As you can see from the big ‘beta’ on the  head of these pages, the site has been added an important feature. It is now possible to add content in languages that is not English and manage translations.  At the moment the languages enabled are Spanish (Castillan), German, Italian and English.  More can be added on request.

Most of the work to modify the standard eZ Publish features was done by Alejandro Serrano, who we can’t thank enough.  He didn’t know eZ Publish before but it took him very little time to master it. 

Would you like to help developing this site?  Get in touch with Fellowship-hackers at fsfeurope dot org.  For comments, bug reports and suggestions use the forum.

It seems that it’s not hot just in Milano but also in Portland. At least the debate between Eben Moglen and Tim O’Reilly at the OSCon seems to have heated up.  While giving a speech there, Moglen invited O’Reilly to join the conversation about freedom that he has been avoiding.  From what I read, Eben used his direct (warning: euphemism) style and Tim interpreted it as an attack.  But, all things considered, Eben is right: it’s time to grow up and face the real issues.

Moglen took O’Reilly to task over supporting "open source" rather than
free software. "If we’d been worrying about principle instead of open
source … You guys were wasting time talking about open source…. We
still have serious problems to correct in public policies made by
people propping up business models that were dying and wasting time
promoting commercial products." 

I couldn’t find the recordings of the speech: are there any?

 It’s recent news that the Italian Camera dei Deputati (the lower
chamber of the Parliament) has started a project to offer support for
GNU/Linux on desktops for those that ask it.  I hope to see Pietro Folena’s
laptop equipped with Free Sw next time I meet him :)  From what I
understood also the backend infrastructure of the chamber will also
migrate to GNU/Linux. 

The big news, IMHO, is that the
technical helpdesk has been prepared to support GNU/Linux, which is an important achievement.  I’m one of those that believe that Free/Libre Software
shouldn’t need laws that mandate it. What is most needed IMHO, is that
CIO of public administrations are trained and prepared to deal with
Free Software acquisition.  Tenders to "buy" software often contain
provisions that cut out Free Software based solutions (as it was the case
fought and won by Assoli).

We need leadership (as Matt says) but we also need lobbyists
and think tanks that are strong and credible to support those leaders
because it’s a war out there, as Massachusetts demonstrated.   FSFE’s Freedom Task Force training goes in that direction, but more more more is needed and should be done.  I think that good-will, as Roberto puts it, is the same thing as leadership in this case.

BTW: DoD (Naval Research Lab) does and did "C".  At least one example is the project TOR, The Onion Router. Oddly enough, DoD shared development costs with those liberals of EFF

Boy, FakeSteveJobs is so funny, even when he calls us ‘freetards‘.  This post is not about rms not getting an iphone, but it’s aimed directly at Gates and about Vista. It’s an interesting read because it could be a post that one of us could have written (and probably did).  I love the advice to get rid of Ballmer: I think that most of the bad in Microsoft comes from him, too

Because you know what you’ve become? You’ve become the Grinch.
You’ve become a tax collector. You’re the guy people hide from when you
ride into town. It’s not good. You need to do something about that.