Georg C. F. Greve

infobox person
name = Georg C. F. Greve

---

birth_date = birth date and age|1973|3|10
birth_place = Helgoland, Germany

Georg C. F. Greve (born 10 March 1973 in Helgoland, Germany) is initiator and president of the Free Software Foundation Europe.

His responsibilities include European/Global coordination and planning for the FSF (Europe), supporting the local representatives in their work, working on political and legal issues as well as projects and giving speeches or informing journalists to spread knowledge about free software.

He spends most of his time traveling and when traveling to give a talk he often stays a few days in the host country to meet the members of the local free software organisations and community.

Georg Greve is married.

Career

Georg Greve has a degree of Physics in biophysics, with physical oceanography and astronomy as minor fields of study from the computer science department of the University of Hamburg. His interdisciplinary diploma thesis was written in the field of nanotechnology.

Greve's first software development was when he was 12 years old. His first publication of a program was in a professional journal in 1991, it partly financed his studies when he managed the software development to evaluate SQUID-sensor data in the biomagnetometic laboratory at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Hamburg, Germany.

In 1993 he discovered free software, the GNU Project and Linux. In 1998, he was the European speaker for the GNU Project and began writing the "Brave GNU World" [http://www.gnu.org/brave-gnu-world/intro.en.html] , a monthly column on free computer software featuring interesting GNU projects each month. It was published on the Internet in as many as ten languages, and in international printed magazines including the German Linux-Magazin. The name "Brave GNU World" is a reference to Aldous Huxley's novel "Brave New World".

In early 2001, he initiated the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE or FSF Europe), the first Free Software Foundation outside the United States of America and, as of 2007, the only transnational Free Software Foundation. Greve was invited as an expert to the “Commission on Intellectual Property Rights” of the UK government, and represented the coordination circle of German Civil Society during the first phase of the United Nations (UN) World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) as part of the German governmental delegation. He has also networked with the Civil Society working groups on European level as well as for the thematic working group on patents, copyrights, trademarks (PCT) and free software.

External links

* [http://fsfeurope.org/about/greve/ Georg Greve's FSFE team page]
* [http://gnuhh.org Georg Greve's Personal Home Page]
* [http://www.fsfe.org/Members/greve/blog Georg Greve's Blog]
* [http://www.wsa-conference.org/video/greve.mov Video interview with Georg Greve] during the UN WSIS Contributory Conference on ICT & Creativity, the interview explains what is free software, how commercial free software works, the views of the FSFE on patents, copyrights and trademarks, WIPO and some other things. [http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2005/12/07/software_patents_microsoft_monopoly_free.htm Text transcript of that video]
* [http://www.fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3/europe-gplv3-conference.en.html#june22 Video and audio recordings of Greve's introduction to the 3rd international GPLv3 conference] , 22nd of June 2006
* [http://fosdem.org/2007/interview/georg+greve 2007 pre-FOSDEM interview]