FSFE appoints new Vice President

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has announced that Alessandro Rubini has stepped down as Vice-president of the FSFE.

Alessandro, an electronic engineer with Ph. D. in a computer science, brought invaluable insight to the internal discussions within the FSFE and has worked tirelessly to push the Free Software envelope in Italy and the rest of Europe.

He has now stood down to concentrate on his work with the free software community in Italy, but remains an active member of the FSFE and continues contributing his time generously to the organisation.

Taking over from Alessandro is Heiki Lõhmus, an Estonian student of aeronautical engineering. Heiki started collaborating with the FSFE when he “discovered some Estonianlanguage gibberish on fsfe.org purporting to be a translation of an English original, which it definitely was not”. He quickly became involved in the translation process and became the translation co-ordinator.

Heiki has also served on the FSFE’s board from 2013 to 2015, changing the way contributions are valued, ensuring volunteers and paying members of the organisation enjoy the same benefits for their contributions.

Beyond his work at the FSFE, Heiki has actively lobbied the Estonian government to publish the software used for the Estonian elections as free software. “Estonia is the only country in the world where it is possible to vote over the internet,” says Heiki, and relying on proprietary software to do so is a security risk and does not inspire much trust. Heiki works along with other activists to get the software published under a free licence.