Bonum Certa Men Certa

Leak: FSF/FSFE Trademark Dispute (FSF Demanding That FSFE Should Change the Organisation's Name)

Using or misusing the FSF's good name as a 'cash machine'

Change



Summary: The FSF made demands for FSFE to change the name, the FSFE discussed the matter internally and Jonas Oberg, the FSFE's Executive Director, wrote the leaked message (below) where he states: "So the framework agreement, as it stands, is not being honored from any side."

SEVERAL months ago Richard Stallman told me that the FSFE's relationship with the FSF was largely amicable. It was around this time that we also published FSF-Relationship-Framework.txt and explained why the FSFE taking money from Microsoft was potentially mean-spirited a move.



"...the FSFE taking money from Microsoft was potentially mean-spirited a move."As it turns out, Stallman left out something that had happened 3 years earlier (and 2 years before he was pushed out, with the FSFE's support for the coup).

Here is a letter from May 2017:



Subject: Re: FSF asking us to change our name II From: Jonas Oberg <jonas@fsfe.org> Date: 30/05/2017, 15:31 To: Bernhard Reiter <bernhard@intevation.de> CC: ga@fsfeurope.org

Hi Bernhard,

I largely agree with you, but I would like to ask for a clarification on this part:

I don't see why. We should ask them to establish the agreed cooperation.


If I take an honest look at the framework agreement, I believe it's phrased rather favourable towards the FSF, and a lot of what we would like to see -- such as joint decision making on important issues related to Free Software -- isn't actually in the agreement aside from an intent to develop such a way in some hypothetical future.

And I can truly see why the FSF believes we are in violation of the agreement, at least on parts. Our work on the Radio Directive and other policy work I believe is an example of work that according to the agreement should be carried out by the FSF, and not the FSFE.

Our work on standards for cloud services is close to what's reserved for the FSF. On the other part, there are a number of activities envisioned from the FSFE which we don't do, or never did: operate the GNU Business Network, develop new free software, translate FSF position papers, recruit more volunteers for the GNU project, resell FSF merchandise, and so on.

So the framework agreement, as it stands, is not being honored from any side. What I understand from you is that you think we can push more on this:

We intend, in the future, after we have gained experience working together, to develop a system wherein these decisions are approved jointly by a specific list of several major FSFs.


Essentially, our message could be that now, after 15 years, we have the experience of working together. It's not been a pleasurable experience, but we now know what the current tensions and activities are, which makes this a good time to now negotiate what such a system for join decision making would look like.

Is that close to what you intend?

Sincerely,

-- Jonas Öberg, Executive Director Free Software Foundation Europe | jonas@fsfe.org Your support enables our work (fsfe.org/join)


A few days later the following message was sent from the FSF:



Subject: FSFE From: John Sullivan <johns@fsf.org> Date: 02/06/2017, 15:50 To: Daniel Pocock <daniel@pocock.pro>

Hi Daniel,

Congratulations on your election to FSFE's general assembly!

I'm wondering, if as part of your new position, you have been briefed on the current issues between FSF and FSFE.

I have been trying to discuss them with Jonas and Matthias for the last several years, but have gotten nowhere, and in fact things are now much worse than they were before. They made it clear at our last in-person meeting in April that they do not intend to change anything.

In your post at <https://danielpocock.com/risks-of-using-proprietary-software>, you expressed some of the same concerns FSF has. So I'm reaching out to you in the hopes that we might be able to figure out a solution, and also to hear anything you can share about plans you have for trying to address your concerns from your new position. We could arrange a call, or we could discuss by email, if you are open to talking. Will you be at Debconf in Montreal?

I am also attaching a copy of the agreement FSFE made with us in order to use the FSF name, in case you have not seen it.

-john




-- John Sullivan | Executive Director, Free Software Foundation GPG Key: A462 6CBA FF37 6039 D2D7 5544 97BA 9CE7 61A0 963B http://status.fsf.org/johns | http://fsf.org/blogs/RSS Do you use free software? Donate to join the FSF and support freedom at <http://my.fsf.org/join>.


According to this, the FSF granted FSFE permission to use the name, based on the FSF-Relationship-Framework which we reproduced here a few months ago. In 2017, John Sullivan, the FSF's Executive Director, sent an email to a newly-elected person from the FSFE's general assembly describing how difficult it is to deal with people in FSFE. "It is clear from these emails that FSFE does not have the blessing of FSF to use the name," the leak's source tells us. Quite a few people seem to be familiar with this problem, which is somewhat of an 'open secret'. The "FSFE has collected over 1 million euro of donations from Free Software supporters," the source told us. "Using a name borrowed from FSF helped them get this money."

"In 2017, John Sullivan, the FSF's Executive Director, sent an email to a newly-elected person from the FSFE's general assembly describing how difficult it is to deal with people in FSFE."And it meanwhile looks like in Wikipedia FSFE's self-promotional page has become a candidate for deletion, with the following anonymously stated reason: "Page replicates the organization's own view of itself, almost transplanted verbatim from its own web site. Staff and members of the organization have been actively editing the page (see Reinhard Müller, Mxmehl). Name of the organization is in dispute, as they borrowed the name from FSF. The organization has less than 30 members, as listed on their own People page. Demographic data released by the last elected Fellowship Representative shows that interest in the organization is very limited outside Germany. Much of the organization's work appears to be ambush marketing, for example, a city converts their computers to Free Software and the FSFE makes a lot of publicity trying to associate the decision with one of their campaigns, even if they were never involved. It is not clear what original work they have done themselves and therefore, without being either very big or having done some outstanding work of their own initiative, they are not particularly notable. If the page remains, it needs substantial work to include the history of the organization, how it has interacted with other organizations, volunteers and sponsors (Google) but there are not many Reliable Sources, as required by Wikipedia, to document those facts objectively."

In recent years the FSFE has had a number of scandals for positions it took and decided to broadcast out in the open. Seeing that even the FSF is not happy with the FSFE's stance, with hard evidence to prove it, seems reasonably newsworthy.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Alex Oliva, the Potential 'Successor' of RMS, Has a New Web Site
More freedom for Alex Oliva
Azure is Turning 17 This Year, Still Losing Money and Staff
Hallmark of pyramid schemes, deriving "value" out of things that do not really exist?
 
Links 16/02/2025: Oligarchs "Collect Your Data and Control Your World", Global Temperatures Shoot Up
Links for the day
Promoting Microsoft Windows With LLM Slop
What is the policy at BetaNews regarding LLM slop?
Links 16/02/2025: "Microsoft Is Laying Off Employees" and Internal Dissent Brewing at Facebook Over Regime Complicity
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, February 15, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, February 15, 2025
Links 15/02/2025: Harms to Health, Public Domain, and More
Links for the day
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: On Autistic People, AuraGem Over HTTPS
Links for the day
The Cyber Show (C|S) Speaks of the "Rise of the Nerd Reich."
This 'Valentine Episode' is quite good
Strong Momentum for the Free Software Foundation (FSF) as Winter Approaches Its End in Boston or in the Northern Hemisphere
FSF's founder, Richard Stallman, gives another talk in Italy in 9 days from now
The 'Drunken Plagiarists' Are Harming Journalism About GNU/Linux
They lessen the incentive to do real journalism abut GNU/Linux
Female Nazis and racist Swiss women
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman on RISC-V and Free Hardware
Invidious is under attack by Google
Links 15/02/2025: Erasing of American Science and Tesla SLAPPing Critics
Links for the day
IDG 'Reviews' of GNU/Linux Now Contain LLM Slop
It's typically ads or commercials... or sometimes spin disguised as news
Gemini Links 15/02/2025: Spectacles and "Before Sunset", Moving Domains Out of the US
Links for the day
Microsoft Has Only $17,482 Million Left, "Cash on Hand" Sank 40 Billion Dollars in 2 Years
Microsoft runs low on money in the bank
YouTube Layoffs Mean That YouTube is Still Losing a Lot of Money (Net Income or Profit Almost Definitely Negative)
In more recent years Google defunded many vloggers
In Gopher and Gemini Protocol People Abandon Services Based in the United States
There's no resistance whatsoever
Python and Microsoft: Pandas Should Have Known OpenDocument Format (ODF) and Microsoft Excel Are Different and Competing Things
now we're meant to think that in order to open ODF files we need some functions with "Excel" in their name
Not Only Windows, Surface, and "Hey Hi" PCs; Microsoft's Hardware Ventures Are a Dumpster Fire; HoloLens Mixed Reality Hardware Now Axed Altogether and Staff is Miserable
Microsoft is in a terrible state
Certificate Authority (CA) Let's Encrypt Now Down to TEN (0.3% of the Whole) in Geminispace
The number of capsules that use Let's Encrypt is, according to Lupa, about to fall to single-digit figures
Links 15/02/2025: University Price Hikes and Copyright Action Against Slop Companies
Links for the day
Slopwatch: All Those New 'Articles' Are Fake and Crafted by Chatbots (LLM Slop)
Google News is promoting these as "Linux" news; they're not even made by humans
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 14, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, February 14, 2025
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Mysterious Friend and "Eight by Eight"
Links for the day
They Will Never Leave Linus Torvalds Alone, Rust is Just Another Way to Cause Instability and Infighting in Linux
We already identified the Rust "community" as troublemakers more than 5 years ago and we wrote about the evidence
Apple: Social Justice or Social Nationalism?
Remember to buy Apple, folks
Links 14/02/2025: Mass Layoffs at Sophos, Chatbots Failing Very Badly, "DOGE as a National Cyberattack"
Links for the day
Moving Away From Certificate Authorities (CAs) Like Let's Encrypt Means Taking Away From the US Government the Power to 'Censor' Sites by Revoking Certificates
Gemini capsule is cheap to run and easy (easier than a Web site) to maintain. More people disillusioned and frustrated with social control media flock to it.
BetaNews' Managing Editor Wayne William Took Charge of GNU/Linux Articles and His Articles Are Real (He Actually Wrote Them)
We are frankly relieved to see that Wayne William recognised the problem and did something about it
Links 14/02/2025: Publicity Rights Violated (ByteDance), Bribes to Trump Passed via Social Control Media 'Settlements' Again
Links for the day
Gemini Links 14/02/2025: Constitution, Cosmic DE, and More
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Anti-Linux Articles Published by Bots, Dominating Google News
So a lot of the Web is Microsoft chatbot-generated anti-Linux FUD
Links 14/02/2025: Measles Outbreak in Texas, Zelensky Warns Russia Will Attack a NATO Country
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 13, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, February 13, 2025