What I am missing in CyanogenMod 9

Since CyanogenMod 9 rc1 came out, I’ve been testing it extensively on my phone. I got used to the new look and appreciated the visual speed improvements. I also like the new data usage diagram and predictions. Furthermore, my phone uses a lot less battery power than on CM7. It had power for four and a half days without charging recently. But there are also some features I’m missing from CyanogenMod 9. In good Free Software fashion I created feature requests for them in CyanogenMod’s issue tracker. Here’s my list: Power Control Widget Not Configurable In CM7 multiple Power Control … Continue reading

UnRAR in Freedom

The FSF maintains a list of high priority projects. Thanks to The Unarchiver initiative, we are now able to extract recent rar files in freedom and the FSF could remove this item from their list. There used to be a free implementation of unrar, but it is outdated and could only extract very old rar archives. Packages for the new and shiny Unarchiver are already available for Debian and Gentoo. The initiative that made this possible can also be supported via Flattr. … Continue reading

FSCONS 2010 Divide and Re-Conquer Talks Now Online

Last year in November, FSFE hosted its own track at FSCONS around different topics of decentralized (social) networks and free network services. Now the videos of the talks are finally online for you to see. With the exception of one, they are all in WebM format :) Designed For Decentralisation: Understanding the Internet – Benjamin Bayart Centralised Internet Services and Problems of Power – Torsten Grote – WebM HD Socially Responsible Social Networks – Michael Chisari Web Search By The People, For The People – Michael Christen GNU Social and GNU FM: Empowering Communities – Matt Lee Have fun watching … Continue reading

Cloud Computing

Since Internet services such as Facebook, Twitter and Skype became popular, I began to think about their political implications, especially about how they threaten computer user’s freedom. Within FSFE I developed my ideas more and began to spread them. So I think it is about time that I blog about my activities. It all began with a talk at Berlin’s Linuxtag 2010 and a follow-up interview with Germany’s Deutschlandradio as well as another German interview with the community Radio Tux. Out of those interviews and discussions I had with conference participants, the need for a starting point for people interested … Continue reading

German Pirate Party Adds Free Software to Agenda

Last weekend, the German Pirate Party had their federal party convent and managed to add two amendments out of hundreds of proposals to their agenda. My text about a free democratically controlled technological infrastructure which includes Free Software, Open Standards, no Software Patents, nor DRM was one of the two accepted. More information can be found in my German blog post. … Continue reading

Google and Open Video Standards

As some of you might have heard, Google released an experimental player for Youtube that works without Adobe Flash, last Wednesday. While they are “very excited about HTML5 as an open standard” (from the announcement), they surprisingly chose not to offer the content as such and instead serve videos in a patent-encumbered format. As Google has not yet stated whether it will add videos in an unencumbered format, this clearly strengthens the stand of proprietary solutions in the ongoing debate about the future of video in HTML and disappoints those of us who expected Google to live up to their … Continue reading

Linux Tag 2009

Right after the GA there was no time for me to relax. The LinuxTag 2009 in Berlin started right after it. As every year FSFE was present with an own booth and answered many questions by interested visitors. Some people even became Fellows right at the booth and some that were already fellows expressed their desire to organize fellowship meetings in their home town. The LinuxTag lasted four days and after every day was over there were tons of social events. The picture on the right shows the BBQ of Linux Works that was quite some fun. More LinuxTag coverage … Continue reading

Report from FSFE's general assembly

In May, I was elected the first Fellowship representative. In this function I attended FSFE’s general assembly (GA) in Miraflores de la Sierra and would now like to give you some insights in what happened there. The first and probably most important point is personnel changes. This time there were unusually many. A whole new executive team was formed that will give FSFE a new face. After careful deliberations, the General Assembly has elected Karsten Gerloff as President, Fernanda Weiden as Vice-President, Reinhard Müller as Financial Officer and Christian Holz as Executive Director. The former president and founder Georg Greve … Continue reading

Traveling to the General Assembly in Madrid

Tomorrow, I’ll leave for Madrid in order to attend FSFE’s general assembly as the first Fellowship representative. Unfortunately, there haven’t been much feedback from the fellows, so I’m not taking many questions or tasks with me to Madrid. The agenda of the GA will include many personnel changes, one small change of the constitution and a lot of discussion about FSFE’s direction. There will also be a social event where everybody is welcome to get to know the GA people. If you have last minute questions, don’t hesitate to ask. But since I don’t know when I will be online … Continue reading