Medical Devices Should Use Free Software

on 2023-02-08

In this issue we have a podcast episode about the need that medical
devices have Free Software. Watch our talks from FOSDEM and videos
about legal issues when developing. Participants of YH4F are already
coding. Thanks to all your contributions, our fundraising ended
successfully. We bring community news from 9 countries.

Pictures of peole and an illustration of a sphygmometer

My Medical Device, My Software

Karen Sandler relies on a medical device to keep her heart pumping.
She had a critical moment when her defibrillator misread her
condition and she had no access to tweak the device. Since then,
Karen has been on an odyssey to persuade doctors and manufacturers to
embrace software freedom in medical devices. She recalls a case of a
neurotechnology company that ended its support of retina implants.
Despite such cases, things can improve in healthcare as more tech
savvy people need medical devices. Listen to
Karen’s interview in our Software Freedom Podcast

Binge-watch our videos

We have published 25 videos this month!

What is copyright? Can I copy someone else’s work? Read and watch
our explanatory videos on Frequently
asked legal questions.
‘Refund of Payments for Pre-Installed Software’, ‘De-Monopolizing
Access to EU Applications’ and many more hot topics
from FOSDEM 2023.
10
new ‘Thank you!’ videos to Free Software programs from our I
Love Free Software Day.

woman giving interview on camera — Niharika thanks Big Blue Button.

In our own Peertube instance you can always find our latest videos
and leave comments! So, how to do it? If you have an account on any
ActivityPub-compatible instance, e.g. PeerTube, Mastodon, or Pleroma,
copy the URL of the video and paste it into the “Search”
box of for example your Mastodon’s web interface. Comment from there!

Updates

The coding period of the second Youth
Hacking 4 Freedom competition is on! Our 70 participants are
meeting online regularly and engaging in discussions while helping
each other and networking in a Matrix chat until the end of the
coding period.
Thanks
to your valuable contributions, we have reached our fundraising
target. Thank you for your confidence and support, even in
these difficult times.
Check out the iheartsteam
teachers’ podcast series which hosted Matthias Kirschner for the
book Ada & Zangemann.
Our community loves Free Hardware too! This ‘thank
you’ note to the Libre-SOC project is one of the latest
articles you can find in our Planet.

Events

Online & 🇩🇪 Germany: On 10 March 2023 Johannes Näder, FSFE
Policy Project Manager, will participate in the workshop
“Free and Open Software as a central component of diverse,
sustainable digital ecosystems” in the German Bundestag
[DE]. You need
to register in order to watch it livestreamed..
🇩🇪 Germany: An author reading of “Ada & Zangemann – A fairy
tale about software, skateboards and raspberry ice cream” will
take place in the German city of Traunstein. Kulturforum
Klosterkirche Traunstein on March 14.
🇸🇪 Sweden: On 24-25 April the FSFE invites you to join the foss-north
conference.
🇺🇸 USA: An author reading of “Ada & Zangemann” will take place
in Boston at the Convention and
Exhibition Center on March 18.

A room full of people holding I Love Free Software cards — Group picture from Madrid

Our
community celebrated ‘I Love Free Software Day’ all around
Europe. The FSFE local groups in Spain, England, Portugal,
Greece, Germany, and Switzerland took up the call of the FSFE to get
together and celebrate their love for software freedom in person. The
Italian community organized an online event and even Free Software
contributors from outside the FSFE joined the call and organised
meetings like the ones in Austria and Barcelona.

gathering in vintage room — Special kudos to the FSFE Greece local group that celebrated this
day in Thessaloniki, their first time organizing an event in this
Greek city.

🇩🇰 Denmark: The FSFE local group in
Aarhus gave a
presentation about “Free Software and Permaculture” at
Højskolen
Mors discussing the importance of sustainability through
refurbishment and resource-saving Free Software.

In other news, one hot topic for the Aarhus FSFE local group is the
current discussion by the Danish Data Protection Authority about
whether the use of Chromebooks and Google Workspace for Education in
schools is legal.

Person giving a presentation under warm lights next to piano. — Øjvind Fritjof Arnfred from FSFE local group Aarhus. Denmark,
February 2023

🇩🇪 Germany: The local group
Berlin and the LinuxWorks LUG discussed Berlin elections,
addressed server configuration problems of private servers, and
noticed that old accounts in the Fediverse revived after the recent
changes at Twitter.

Three people on stage in front of signs ‘c-base’ and ‘Ilovefs’ — On Stage! In Berlin

🇮🇹 Italy: The Merano group
created its own wiki.

🇳🇱 Netherlands: The FSFE
country team Netherlands had a core meeting to discuss its
strategy and will meet again on 15 March.

🇨🇭Switzerland: The next meeting is on 9
March.

Gathering in a place that looks like a bar, in front of an FSFE banner — Cool vibes in Zurich

👩🏽‍🔧 Women: The FSFE Women team
discussed wiki software: Gollum, a git-based Wiki, and PmWiki, a
wiki-based content-management system (CMS) for collaborative creation
and maintenance of websites.

If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, please
send them to us. As always, the address is newsletter@fsfe.org.
We’re looking forward to hearing from you! If you also want to
support us and our work, join our community and support us with a donation or a
monthly contribution. Thanks to our community and all the
volunteers, supporters, and donors who make our work possible. And
thanks to our translators, who enable you to read this newsletter in
your native languages.

Your editor, Fani Partsafyllidou

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