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FSF reboots its High Priority list with a grant and call for input
FSF reboots its High Priority list with a grant and call for input BOSTON, Massachusetts, USA -- Wednesday, October 1, 2008 -- The Free Software Foundation (FSF) today announced a "reboot" of its High Priority Projects list with an accompanying $10,000 grant from Worldlabel.com Inc. The grant will seed a new fund to promote projects on the list, and the FSF is calling for a community conversation about the biggest challenges computer users face using free "as in freedom" software. Russell Ossendryver, owner of <http://www.Worldlabel.com>, said, "smaller companies and individuals can pool their resources in support of critical free software projects, but awareness is key. There are many threats from proprietary software and I wanted to contribute to a program that can help solve those problems. I am looking forward to working with the FSF to find creative ways to promote the cause." FSF campaigns manager Joshua Gay emphasized that the list is not considered static or complete, and that the FSF is seeking community input. "The FSF is asking the community of free software users who understand the critical issues that free software faces to tell us about the areas where they face problems. Problems that affect the most users are of the highest priority." The list is online at <http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-projects/>. It includes Gnash, a project to replace Adobe's proprietary Flash player; Coreboot, a free software replacement for proprietary BIOSes; a call for a free software replacement for the VOIP and multimedia chat program Skype; a free software membership and donor transaction and contact system for non-profit organizations; a free software replacement for Google Earth; and several more. While the FSF doesn't itself develop or take credit for these projects, it seeks to use its position and visibility in the community to help bring them beneficial help and attention. About the Free Software Foundation The Free Software Foundation, founded in 1985, is dedicated to promoting computer users' right to use, study, copy, modify, and redistribute computer programs. The FSF promotes the development and use of free (as in freedom) software -- particularly the GNU operating system and its GNU/Linux variants -- and free documentation for free software. The FSF also helps to spread awareness of the ethical and political issues of freedom in the use of software, and its Web sites, located at fsf.org and gnu.org, are an important source of information about GNU/Linux. Donations to support the FSF's work can be made at <http://donate.fsf.org>. Its headquarters are in Boston, MA, USA. Media Contacts Joshua Gay Campaigns Manager Free Software Foundation <campaigns@fsf.org> Matt Lee Campaigns Manager Free Software Foundation <campaigns@fsf.org> ### _______________________________________________ FSF And GNU Press mailing list <info-press@gnu.org> http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/info-press (Log in to post comments)
FSF reboots its High Priority list with a grant and call for input Posted Oct 3, 2008 2:04 UTC (Fri) by yarikoptic (subscriber, #36795) [Link]
imho besides the projects trying to replace non-free software, transparent legal support needs to be done. FSF indeed goes after the bad guys who fail to respect FOSS licenses, but we have no automagic protection against our innocent failures.
Coming from Debian developer perspective of view:
Trademarks: I know about few projects which got contacted by lawyers of big companies since apparently FOSS software was infringing a proprietary trademark (although the names for the projects were quite different)... sure thing poor scared developers preferred to simply pay a little fee under agreement of non-disclosure of the "deal" and changing the name of the project. But little portion of developers knows about existing trademarks in a particular field of applications... and generally speaking it is easy to check either the trademark is already registered at least in the states... e.g. would you know that 'junkyard' was trademarked by Apple some time ago? http://tess2.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=johk...
So if I were FSF, I would just announce a competition for the creation of such a tool with a prize of 10k$ (somewhat like a fixed GSOC project ;-)). In the long term imho it would have greater impact and be more valuable to FOSS community.
Never happy :-) Posted Oct 3, 2008 12:02 UTC (Fri) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]
I know of two companies that provide such tools, specialising in free software. They charge for the service, but then again, this type of multi-licence analysis of combinations of many software packages is generally only needed by companies.
There's a touch of irony in seeing this comment when FSF announces funding for (specific) software developement, given that I've often seen FSF explaining the importance of licences and people replying, asking why FSF doesn't put more resources into general software development :-)
(Of course, just for completeness, I'll mention that their reason for not focusing on general software development is the same as FSFE's reason: the market value of free software already causes companies to employ thousands of developers for general software development. Non-profits like FSF and FSFE who can employ a handful of people must focus on the necessary work that we *can't* leave to corporations or "the market": awareness of the principles of freedom and the licences that make everyone play fair.)
FSF reboots its High Priority list with a grant and call for input Posted Oct 5, 2008 17:33 UTC (Sun) by pabs (subscriber, #43278) [Link]
FOSSology does something similar to what you want:
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