Announcements
Brief items
FSFE 2012 Annual Report
The Free Software Foundation Europe has published its annual report for 2012. "In order to be in charge of our own lives, we need to be able to control the computers we use. We can only do this if they run Free Software that we can use, study, share and improve. We can only do this if our computers aren't neutered to restrict their functionality, or loaded with spyware. We also need neutral networks to connect them to, so we can freely choose what to say, and to whom. With this in mind, 2012 was both a good and a bad year for our freedom."
The Linux Foundation's year in review video
For those with 2.5 minutes to spare: the Linux Foundation has posted a video looking back at the most important Linux-related events (from its point of view) that happened in 2012.
Articles of interest
European Union's open source license to become compatible with GPLv3
The European Union's open source license, EUPL, will be revised to make it more compatible with GPLv3. The EUPL forum on Joinup is open for comments until mid-March 2013. "The main reason to update the licence is to remove barriers that could hinder others in the open source communities from using software licensed under the EUPL. "Making it explicitly compatible with the GPLv3 should increase interoperability", explains Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz, a Brussels-based legal specialist working involved in the drafting of the EUPL. This should for instance make it easier to combine EUPL and GPLv3 software components or to use both licences to publish a project, says Schmitz. "It should also put an end to the categorisation by the Free Software Foundation of the EUPL as not fully GPL compatible."" (Thanks to Martin Michlmayr)
Author Gabriella Coleman Expands on Role of Linux in Hacker Culture (Linux.com)
Jennifer Cloer interviews Gabriella Coleman about her new book Coding Freedom: The Ethics and Aesthetics of Hacking. "To hack effectively requires the freedom to determine the shape, contour and direction of technological production. Freedom, in other words, is essential for quality. Sociologist Richard Sennet has has defined this drive in terms of “craftsmanship,” which is “an enduring, basic human impulse, the desire to do a job well for its own sake." It is not always easy to put this ethic into practice and open source hackers have figured out how to do so, using the right mix of law, tools and project governance to make it happen."
Women in computing: An interview with Leslie Hawthorn (opensource.com)
Opensource.com has an interview with Leslie Hawthorn about the 2012 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference. "This has been the 3rd year that I've been involved in the Grace Hopper conference. Three years ago, in Atlanta, we had a group of folks come together and decided that it was kind of a bummer that there wasn't a lot of open source related content on the program. So, we got together a program committee and put on a full day of tracks related to contributing to open source software—everything from how you get started as a contributor to different projects you may wish to join, and how to get involved in open source if you're a student (from an academic point of view, how working in open source can enhance your career prospects)."
Defence of the GPL realm (The H)
The H talks with Bradley Kuhn about GPL compliance. "Certainly we're in an era where lots of people are scrambling to create business models dancing around the issue of GPL compliance, and in using GPL enforcement in nefarious ways. Our community already has too much of that kind of activity, and I certainly don't want more of that. If, however, someone wanted to start another non-profit charity to do enforcement, I'd certainly welcome it and help them do it. I also encourage any individuals who hold copyrights in projects that Conservancy currently does active enforcement for – namely, BusyBox, Linux, and Samba – to get in touch with me and join our coalition. That's an easy way for those who hold copyrights to get involved with the work Conservancy's already doing in this area."
Calls for Presentations
GNU Tools Cauldron 2013 - Call for Abstracts
GNU Tools Cauldron will take place July 12-14, 2013, in Mountain View, California. The abstract submission deadline is February 28. "The purpose of this workshop is to gather all GNU tools developers, discuss current/future work, coordinate efforts, exchange reports on ongoing efforts, discuss development plans for the next 12 months, developer tutorials and any other related discussions."
OSCON 2013 call for proposals
The 15th annual O'Reilly Open Source Convention (OSCON) will take place July 22-26, 2013 in Portland, Oregon. Proposals are due by February 4. There will be 20 full tracks covering all things open source.
Upcoming Events
LCA: Inventor of the Web to Keynote
Sir Tim Berners-Lee will be a keynote speaker at the January 2013 linux.conf.au in Canberra. "Sir Tim Berners-Lee was knighted in 2004 for his work on HTTP and the World Wide Web, and was elected as a foreign associate of the United States Academy of Sciences in 2009. He also holds the Founders Chair at MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. This is Sir Tim Berners-Lee's first visit to Australia, and his linux.conf.au keynote speech is set to be the only technical talk during his Down Under tour."
Events: December 20, 2012 to February 18, 2013
The following event listing is taken from the LWN.net Calendar.
| Date(s) | Event | Location |
|---|---|---|
| December 27 December 30 |
29th Chaos Communication Congress | Hamburg, Germany |
| December 27 December 29 |
SciPy India 2012 | IIT Bombay, India |
| December 28 December 30 |
Exceptionally Hard & Soft Meeting 2012 | Berlin, Germany |
| January 18 January 20 |
FUDCon:Lawrence 2013 | Lawrence, Kansas, USA |
| January 18 January 19 |
Columbus Python Workshop | Columbus, OH, USA |
| January 20 | Berlin Open Source Meetup | Berlin, Germany |
| January 28 February 2 |
Linux.conf.au 2013 | Canberra, Australia |
| February 2 February 3 |
Free and Open Source software Developers' European Meeting | Brussels, Belgium |
| February 15 February 17 |
Linux Vacation / Eastern Europe 2013 Winter Edition | Minsk, Belarus |
If your event does not appear here, please tell us about it.
Page editor: Rebecca Sobol