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Spread your concern about Free Software funding in your local newspaper

27. August 2024 um 23:00

Spread your concern about Free Software funding in your local newspaper

Are you also worried and concerned about the European Commission decision to cut the funding for Free Software projects? Besides contacting European representatives you can also write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper to make their readers aware of the importance of funding Free Software solutions with a long term sustainable funding.

As stated in our recent news, the European Commission has decided to cut the funding for Free Software in the Next Generation Internet Initiative (NGI) 2025 Horizon draft work programme. Since then, we have raised our voice about this issue. But we need your help to continue put pressure on the European Commission. Your pressure already helped! Let’s continue the efforts!

Budget cut in contrast to digital strategy

Since 2018, the European Commission has been supporting the Free Software ecosystem through the NGI initiative as part of Horizon Europe, the framework research program of the EU. This funding provided support and technical assistance to Free Software projects, that have turned out to be useful and a way to provide alternatives to proprietary applications. Funding is an important component in nurturing new Free Software technologies, and often makes the difference for whether a Free Software project is able to survive, succeed, or fall into abandonware. This is a particular problem because large parts of our infrastructure are based on these projects, as they guarantee the necessary independence and resilience. Cancelling funding means curtailing our own autonomy.

This decision to cut the funds has been taken from the European Commission in a non transparent and unclear way. This budget cut for Free Software Freedom by the European Commission is in explicit contrast to their digital strategy. A true open and digital independent Europe is possible only with a long term sustainable funding scheme for software freedom.

Your pressure helped – let’s continue

In a committed and community-driven reaction, the FSFE community reached out to the EU institutions and the Head of Unit of Next Generation Internet (DG CNECT) answered. However, the EC’s answer we received is vague and with no clear information on how Software Freedom will be supported by the European Union in the future. That is why we still ned your help!

It is important to keep the pressure high and your support is crucial in doing that. In order to make even more people aware of this situation, you can send a letter to your local newspaper explaining them what has happened until now and why the European Commission needs to come up with sustainable long-term funding for Software Freedom.

Here you can find a template to modify and to send to your preferred newspaper.

Dear [name],

I would like to draw attention to the recent news that the European Commission is stopping its funding for Free Software (also known as Open Source).

Although we do not notice, our daily devices are running using Free Software, guarantees the freedoms to use, study, share and improve the software by everyone. Thanks to these freedoms, it ensures that citizens, businesses and governments are not dependent on proprietary software solutions, which often come with significant costs and limitations. Free Software is at the core of our digital infrastructure and it strengthen local economies and foster innovation.

Despite its proven success, the European Commission has decided to stop supporting Free Software by cutting its funding for the Next Generation Internet initiative (NGI) for the next period of Horizon Europe. This goes against its own strategy to achieve a digital future that is open, fair and sustainable. So, being Free Software essential to reach this goal, why are our politicians only supporting it through nice wording and not with a proper budget? Hundreds of Free Software projects will struggle if the funding is not resumed and the internet of the future will look less open and accessible to everyone.

The European Commission should come up with a dedicated funding programme for Software Freedom, so that the Next Generation Internet the the European digital infrastructure is independent, sustainable and accessible to everyone.

Your name

If you should receive an answer or if you know that your letter has been published, please share it with us via email contact@fsfe.org.

YH4F Countdown: Time for Jury evaluation and new sponsor on board

12. August 2024 um 23:00

YH4F Countdown: Time for Jury evaluation and new sponsor on board

The third programming period of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom has ended. During the past six months, teenagers from all over Europe worked on their Free Software projects, and eventually submitted their work for evaluation to the jury. To give you a teaser, 2024 submissions include Free Software research and scientific projects, projects that tackle social problems, and some fun games. As with previous editions, it is stunning to see the great ideas the teenagers come up with. And the best thing is to see how they manage to stick to a project idea for six months.

Now it is the jury’s turn to evaluate all the amazing projects and decide on the six winners, who will join us in October for the award ceremony in Brussels.

Why your company or organisation should sponsor YH4F

Youth Hacking 4 Freedom is possible thanks to it's financial contributors. Just recently OpenSSF joined as sponsor. With their support, the FSFE can keep organising this programming competition for young Europeans and help to spread knowledge about Free Software, helping the participants to develop programming and project management skills while having fun and meeting new people from all over Europe.

As an organisation or company, you can sponsor Youth Hacking 4 Freedom or even better, become a donor. By supporting Youth Hacking 4 Freedom, you contribute to strengthening young people's skills, enhancing their understanding about Free Software, and helping them to develop crucial competencies like time management.

Watch Reinhard Wisesmann, founder of the Linuxhotel and the Vielrespekt Stiftung, an inspiring donor, who explains why YH4F is so rewarding for him. Winning a similar contest in his youth helped him to found his first company.

Forty years ago, Reinhard Wiesemann won a hacking competition for young people. He used the money from his cash prize to advance his professional development. Youth Hacking 4 Freedom has been financially supported with donations by Reinhard Wiesemann, Linuxhotel, and Vielrespektzentrum.

Youth Hacking 4 Freedom is more than just your average programming competition. Young people get in contact with other like-minded teenagers from all over Europe while also learning more about licensing, Free Software, and programming. There are different sponsorship levels available with various benefits for your company or organisation. For more information get in contact with us via email – we are happy to hear from you!

Apple gegen EU-Kommission: Die FSFE interveniert zum Schutz von Freier Software

07. August 2024 um 23:00

Apple gegen EU-Kommission: Die FSFE interveniert zum Schutz von Freier Software

Die Free Software Foundation Europe beteiligt sich an einem Rechtsstreit zwischen Apple und der Europäischen Kommission vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof. Apple versucht, DMA-Verpflichtungen in Bezug auf seinen App Store und die Interoperabilität seines Betriebssystems zu umgehen. Ziel der FSFE ist es, Freie Software vor monopolistischer Unternehmenskontrolle zu schützen.

" Bei Apple ist der Wurm drin: Die FSFE interveniert, um die Softwarefreiheit zu schützen. CC-BY-SA 4.0 von Rahak für die FSFE

Der Europäische Gerichtshof (CJEU) hat der FSFE offiziell erlaubt, dem Rechtsstreit zwischen Apple und der Europäischen Kommission beizutreten. Apple möchte mit dem Verfahren verhindern, dass das Unternehmen als "Gatekeeper" unter dem Digital Markets Act (DMA) bezeichnet wird. Das Unternehmen hat eine aggressive Politik gegen Software-Freiheit und Interoperabilität verfolgt und versucht, die Durchsetzung des DMA zu verhindern. Der DMA ist ein Gesetz, das die Fairness und die Anfechtbarkeit auf den digitalen Märkten erhöhen soll, indem es das wirtschaftliche Verhalten sehr großer Technologiekonzerne reguliert.

"Die FSFE vertritt in diesem Fall die Perspektive der Zivilgesellschaft, was das Gerichtsverfahren bereichert. Dies ermöglicht es dem Gericht, fundierte Entscheidungen zu treffen", sagt Dr. Martin Husovec, der Anwalt, der die FSFE vor Gericht vertritt.

Die Intervention der FSFE zielt darauf ab, die Anwendung des DMA auf Apple aufrechtzuerhalten und die Stimme der Freie-Software-Gemeinschaft gegen die unfairen Praktiken des Unternehmens zu erheben. Freie Software-Projekte sind unverhältnismäßig stark von den monopolistischen Praktiken des Unternehmens betroffen. Apples Gebührenpolitik, die strikte Anbieterbindung, das Verbot von Side-Loading und die Beschränkung alternativer App-Stores stellen unüberwindbare Hindernisse für die Softwarefreiheit dar.

“Sich gegen einen Konzerngiganten wie Apple zu stellen, der über Milliarden von Euro verfügt, um die Softwarefreiheit zu behindern, spiegelt das Engagement der FSFE wider, offene und wettbewerbsfähige digitale Umgebungen zu bewahren. Die Intervention der FSFE ist von grundlegender Bedeutung für die Geräteneutralität, da sie sicherstellt, dass Nutzer und Entwickler nicht an proprietäre Systeme gebunden sind und Software frei wählen und frei nutzen können. Die Annahme des Antrags der FSFE durch das Gericht unterstreicht die Bedeutung von Freier Software und Interoperabilität nicht nur für digitale Märkte, sondern auch für die Freiheit der Nutzer, ein offenes Internet und die digitale Demokratie", so Lucas Lasota, Leiter des Rechtsprogramms der FSFE.

Im Zuge der Aufnahme der FSFE in das Verfahren stellte das Gericht fest, dass "der Fall wahrscheinlich eine erhebliche Auswirkung auf [...] das Angebot von Freier Software, den freien Informationsaustausch und die Chancengleichheit beim Zugang zu Software haben wird". Außerdem erkannte das Gericht an, dass für den Fall, dass die Einstufung als "Gatekeeper" durch die Kommission für nichtig erklärt würde, [...] "ein solches Ergebnis Auswirkungen auf die Möglichkeit für Entwickler von Anwendungsprogrammen oder Freier Software hätte, ihre Anwendungen kostenlos mit Apples Betriebssystem iOS zu verbinden, was wiederum die Fähigkeit der FSFE beeinträchtigen würde, solche Software weiterzuentwickeln und an eine möglichst breite Öffentlichkeit zu verbreiten".

Im nächsten Schritt des Verfahrens wird die FSFE nun bis Mitte September ihre Stellungnahme einreichen. Weitere Updates werden auf fsfe.org veröffentlicht.

Apple vs EU Commission: the FSFE intervenes to safeguard Free Software

08. August 2024 um 23:00

Apple vs EU Commission: the FSFE intervenes to safeguard Free Software

The Free Software Foundation Europe is intervening in a litigation brought by Apple against the European Commission before the Court of Justice of the European Union. The case relates to Digital Markets Act, with Apple seeking to avoid obligations related to its App Store and the interoperability of its operating systems. The FSFE aims to hold Apple accountable under the DMA to protect Free Software against monopolistic corporate control.

More detailed information will follow beginning next week

European Commission needs to come up with dedicated budget for Free Software solutions

07. August 2024 um 23:00

European Commission needs to come up with dedicated budget for Free Software solutions

A couple of weeks ago, we shared the news that the European Commission has made the decision to stop funding the Next Generation Internet initiative (NGI) in its then current draft for the Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme. Since 2018, the European Commission has supported the Free Software ecosystem s through NGI, that provided funding and technical assistance to Free Software projects. The FSFE has always been a part of this initiative as a consortium member in the NGI Zero (NGI0) sub-group, where we provide legal and licensing support to hundreds of Free Software projects funded by the initiative.

Update from the European Commission: nice words but not long-term plan

The FSFE community has reached to the EU institutions and the Head of Unit of Next Generation Internet (DG CNECT), answered. In this letter, it is stated that the European Commission intends to support Free Software solutions, but it is not clear how and if there will be a budget for it:

“The Commission will continue to support Open-Source solutions and the community supported in the NGI programme, in various initiatives notably to harness its potential to contribute to the transition of digital networks to a Connected and collaborative computing and the evolution towards Web 4.0. Both topics are present in the draft 2025 work programme to be approved by relevant Committee of Member States and Associated Countries.”

While this is not a confirmation of renewed funding support for the NGI initiative, it does indicate a vague level of intent to continue supporting Software Freedom and Free Software development in the EU. Nevertheless, without any concrete programmes where this funding can go, and how it will be disbursed to grass-roots organizations that support Software Freedom, the future of financial support for Free Software in the EU remains sadly uncertain.

Sustainable funding needed

This development unfortunately exposes a larger issue: that software freedom in the EU needs more secure, long-term financial support. That this funding could so easily be left out of the Work Programme discussions demonstrates how precarious its position has been all along. Software Freedom needs to be consistently supported with public funds, and such support should not be easily displaced by decision-making that favours popular trends in technological development.

Pressure helps – continue your efforts

This statement from the European Commission is a sign that our persistence as well as from our community and various organizations about the lack of proposed funding for NGI’s future has effect. Following the news of the proposed cut in funding last month, there was an outcry by us and from other Free Software organizations about how this would negatively impact Free Software development in the EU.

Nevertheless, more work is definitely needed to continue to push for funding support for NGI and Free Software. This is why the FSFE is already in touch with various EU officials and decision-makers to make sure this funding is secured for the future, and we call for you to do the same to keep the pressure on the EC high on this topic.

Reach the European Commission to ask for a sustainable funding

The reply from the European Commission shows that individual actions are helpful: since our last news item on this subject, as we’ve already seen how contacting officials has been helpful to shift opinions. As the allocation of funds for Horizon EU 2025 is still going on, there is still a chance to get funds available for NGI:

Continue to contact Ursula von der Leyen (President EU Commission), and/or DG Connect, to ask them to make the funds available.
Help us make member states aware of and understand this issue. Contact your National Contact Point (NCP) and persuade them to also advocate for the NGI funds to be made available.

Did you receive a response?If so, we kindly ask you to also share these responses with us at contact@fsfe.org.

EU cuts funding for FS +++ Router Freedom +++ SFP

05. August 2024 um 23:00

EU cuts funding for FS +++ Router Freedom +++ SFP

The EC is planning to cut its funding to NGI projects, while in Belgium a court has supported end-users’ Router Freedom rights. We also submitted feedback on the NIS2 implementation; learnt about Linqa, a Free Software platform developed with public money; and gathered with volunteers at the Summer Meeting. Listen to our new SFP episode.

Table of contents

Quote of the Month

“We therefore call for these funds to be made available again immediately and for funding to be secured in the medium to long term. This is the only way to successfully drive the digitalisation of Europe forward."

FSFE statement about EC plans to cut NGI funding

EC cuts funding support for Free Software projects

The Next Generation Internet initiative has supported Free Software projects with funding and technical assistance since 2018. Despite its proven success, the European Commission made the decision to cut this funding in the current draft for the Horizon Europe 2025 Work Programme. This decision highlights the larger problem of the lack of motivated and sustainable public funding for Free Software projects.

We therefore call for these funds to be made available again immediately and for funding to be secured in the medium to long term. This is the only way to successfully drive the digitalisation of Europe forward.

Take action! Ask EU representatives to fund Free Software

We need sustainable, secure, and dedicated funding for NGI and Free Software solutions that help Europe to control its technology!

Help us to make our EU representatives aware of it! The budget decision is not yet official - so there is still a chance to allocate funds for NGI. It is therefore very important to contact Ursula von der Leyen (President of the EU Commission) and DG Connect to ask them to make the funds available. You can also contact your National Contact Point (NCP) and persuade them to also advocate for the NGI funds to be made available.

Another way is by supporting us with a donation so we can continue advocating for software freedom.

NIS2: Protecting the Free Software ecosystem in implementation

Together with NLnet Labs and the Open Source Security Foundation, the FSFE submitted feedback on the NIS2 Implementation Act, pointing to the need to protect the European Free Software ecosystem.

Belgian court’s decision impacts the future of Router Freedom

A Belgian court has upheld the decision of the country’s regulator to introduce Router Freedom for fiber networks. The objections, raised by a local internet service provider, were deemed unfounded. This landmark decision represents a significant victory for consumer rights, and we urge other national regulators to follow this example.

More about this

During the 2024 FSFE Summer Meeting, attendees had the chance to discuss together about the current status of EU policy in regards with Free Software. Volunteers had also the chance to solve their doubts as well as provide ideas about how to take part in it.

Linqa: a Free Software bilingual collaboration platform developed with public money

Linqa is a bilingual collaboration platform whose code is Free Software and was developed using public money. It helps the daily work of the Franco-German Forum for the Future, a public institution that fosters collaboration among actors in France and Germany. We dive into the roots of Linqa with the people behind it.

SFP#25: MirageOS and OCaml with Hannes Mehnert and Matthias Kirschner

For our 25th episode of the Software Freedom Podcast we are happy to welcome Hannes Mehnert, one of the MirageOS core developers. Matthias Kirschner, president of the FSFE, and Hannes talk about MirageOS. This episode gives an overview of everything from the basics to the future of MirageOS.

FSFE Summer Meeting 2024! As in 2023, staff and volunteers gathered at the LinuxHotel for a weekend full of surprises, talks, and workshops, and of course a lot of fun. For the second year in a row, the FSFE organised this meeting to inform our volunteers first-hand about our activities and initiatives as well as to gather their feedback and ideas.

Join us at FrOSCon

Once again, this August we will be attending FrOSCon in Sankt Augustin. During 17 and 18 August our team and volunteers will be present with a booth and several talks.

Also, the local FSFE group in Bonn is hosting a community get-together the evening before! So even if you cannot make it to FrOSCon, join them on 16 August!

Contribute to our Newsletter

Your editor, Ana

Linqa: a Free Software bilingual collaboration platform developed with public money

25. Juli 2024 um 23:00

Linqa: a Free Software bilingual collaboration platform developed with public money

Linqa is a bilingual collaboration platform whose code is Free Software and developed using public money. It helps the daily work of the Franco-German Forum for the Future, a public institution that fosters collaboration among actors in France and Germany. We dive into the roots of Linqa with the people behind it.

To learn how Linqa started and how it works we talked with the CEO of the organization that commissioned this platform, Lale Eckardt, the co-founder of the company that developed it, Juergen Neumann, and Linqa Project Lead, Robin Denz.

FSFE: First of all, can you explain what is Linqa?

Juergen Neumann (DMX co-founder*): Linqa is a simple web-based whiteboard application with automatic translation between two languages. Editors can create and upload bilingual content, e.g. notes or PDFs, and arrange it within workspaces. Each workspace has dedicated members, who can discuss and comment on these contents in their native language in a chat panel. All content is visible in both languages and can be re-edited to manually improve the automatic translation.

*DMX develops dmx – the context machine, a Free Software semantic data platform. DMX developed Linqa for the Franco-German Forum for the Future.

FSFE: What brought you to develop a platform like Linqa?

Robin Denz (Linqa Project Lead): The development of Linqa was spurred by the necessity to enhance collaboration steered by the Franco-German Forum for the Future. With the aim of strengthening bilateral relations and promoting sustainable transformation, we facilitate dialogues among local initiatives, public administrators, civil society, and academia. In co-creative processes with a wide array of experts, we elaborate actionable policy recommendations for both governments. For this, we needed a platform that could transcend language barriers and streamline our complex work processes. Partnering with DMX to create Linqa allowed us to tailor a solution that meets our specific needs.

FSFE: Compared to fully proprietary solutions, which is the main benefit of this tool?

Juergen Neumann: Linqa provides an easy-to-use solution to communicate and collaborate across language barriers in bilingual teams. While many other platforms are cloud-based services that tend to make money out of the users’ data, Linqa is Free Software and can be self-hosted. The automatic translations in Linqa are currently done using DeepL’s EU-based translation service (which is proprietary, ndr).

FSFE: DeepL is proprietary. Do you have any plans to change this dependency? Which option do you see to address this?

Juergen Neumann: The fact that Linqa depends on DeepL was driven by the client's requirements for very accurate automatic translations in alignment with data protection requirements, as we found them in their public tendering back in 2021. Unfortunately, by that time we did not know of any comparable and suitable Free Software based option to replace their service. Luckily we can find promising candidates these days. We are in the process of evaluating LibreTranslate as an alternative service.

FSFE: Why did you decide to develop a platform whose code is Free Software?

Juergen Neumann: Since the founders of DMX Systems have been Free Software advocates early on, we have chosen a Free Software license from the very beginning. When you start to develop code, you immediately understand that writing software is all about sharing knowledge. That’s why we think that the resulting code should be licensed as Free Software as well. In addition to that, we think that Free Software, Open Standards and open interfaces are the only way to effectively avoid a vendor lock-in. They can be seen as catalysts to encourage people to join efforts. We think this is especially relevant for public administrations spending public money. That’s why we always try to convince our clients to stay the course and join the Free Software environment with their requirements and investments.

The transparency of the code and algorithms allows to investigate how the software was made and how it works. The code is no black box: improvements by others are not only possible, but explicitly welcome.

FSFE: What is the main benefit of LInqa being developed as Free Software for the Franco-German Forum for the Future?

Robin Denz: The main benefit of developing Linqa as Free Software lies in its potential for widespread adoption and adaptation. The Franco-German Forum for the Future has a very specific use of the Linqa platform, which follows from our particular methodology and the people we work with. We get exactly what we need with Linqa but still its potential goes beyond our specific use case. So, I am excited and curious to see how other organisations can make use of its different functions in other fields than the one of Franco-German sustainable governance. For instance, in the humanitarian sector. By making the platform Free Software, we empower other non-profit actors and organizations to leverage its capabilities for their specific domains and requirements. This not only enhances its utility beyond our immediate use case but also encourages a community of users to contribute improvements and innovations, enriching the platform for all users.

FSFE: Which role do you think Free Software has in developing this kind of projects, commissioned with public money?

Robin Denz: Free Software plays a crucial role in projects like Linqa by fostering transparency, accessibility, and community-driven innovation. Knowing that a software like Linqa can benefit a wide array of other non-profit actors can act as a strong legitimization for putting public money in this kind of projects. For us, it meant to be able to customize and extend the platform according to our evolving needs without being constrained by proprietary limitations. Moreover, the ethos of Free Software aligns with our mission of promoting collaboration and knowledge sharing across borders, ensuring that our tools remain inclusive and adaptable to diverse contexts.

FSFE: What challenges did you have to face when developing Linqa?

Juergen Neumann: The first challenge is about licensing: Since there are very many different software licenses, it can be difficult to find out if you can actually publish your code - including the external libraries – under the terms and conditions of your desired license.

The second challenge is about money: Still too few individuals and organizations understand the challenges of the Free Software ecosystem. To develop and maintain good code, you need skilled people who all need to make a living. If individuals and especially organizations were willing to spend more money on Free Software instead of proprietary software, it would be beneficial to all.

Also, for us as a company, finding investors often feels much harder, because our business model does not include intellectual property but is free and open to all.

FSFE: What would you say to other companies that are not aware of the benefits of Free Software?

Robin Denz: I would emphasize that choosing Free Software for your project not only aligns with principles of openness and collaboration but also offers practical advantages. It can foster innovation through collective intelligence and enable rapid customization to meet specific needs. Moreover, Free Software encourages ethical considerations such as data privacy and security, which are increasingly critical in today's digital landscape. All in all, Free Software helps empowering organizations to build robust, community-supported solutions that can benefit society as a whole.

FSFE: Some years ago, the FSFE launched the “Public Money? Public Code!” initiative. With it we ask that software paid by taxpayers’ money should be released as Free Software. What is the role of Free Software in an organisation like the Franco-German Forum for the Future?

Lale Eckardt (Franco-German Forum for the Future CEO): The Franco-German Forum for the Future is rooted in the Treaty of Aachen signed by the two governments in 2019. We are thankful that the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF), which finances our work on the German side, was supportive of an experimental approach. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we decided against jumping to conclusions and developing a run-of-the-mill platform just to tick off digital engagement. Instead, we took our time trying to understand where in our specific work and dialogue process a digital tool can offer significant value and how. With Linqa we have a tailored tool whose strength lies in its specificity and simplicity. And I think that is why Linqa is gathering interest from other organisations as well.

FSFE: How was the procurement process regarding Linqa? Was there a public tender or direct contact with DMX? Was it easy to procure Free Software? Do you think is there a way to make it simpler to help the procurement of Free Software tools in public administration?

Lale Eckardt: Of course, we put the development of our platform out to public tender, with DMX submitting the most competitive offer. Free Software development was not specified in the tender but emerged as an idea through our cooperation with DMX. The main challenge for procurement processes of this complexity is finding a middle ground between specificity and openness. On the one hand, as the contracting authority, we need to be as specific as possible about our needs. This ensures fair competition and reliable offers. On the other hand, we wanted to remain open to learning from and with the service provider, as well as critically assessing our hypotheses during the development process. To balance these two aspects, we aimed to clearly define the functionalities we envisioned for the platform without fixing too many technical details.

FSFE: What would you say to other public administrations that want to develop software? Would you recommend them to follow the Public Money? Public Code! principle?

Lale Eckardt: If the money spent on developing software from within public administration or in publicly funded project like ours can not only make public administration more efficient but also, through its availability as Free Software, strengthen our digital infrastructure in the public interest, than that is good news for our democracies!

The “Public Money? Public Code! (PMPC)” initiative aims to establish Free Software as the standard for publicly funded software. Promoted by the Free Software Foundation Europe, PMPC is supported by over 200 organizations and administrations, and more than 35.000 individuals. You can also support the campaign signing the Open Letter and with a donation to support this work.

EC cuts funding support for Free Software projects

18. Juli 2024 um 23:00

EC cuts funding support for Free Software projects

The Next Generation Internet (NGI) initiative has been a project of the European Commission’s (EC) Horizon Europe programme since 2018. It provides funding for scientific research and innovation that can improve the Internet as a platform, including for the development of Free Software. The FSFE has always been a part of this initiative as a consortium member in the NGI Zero (NGI0) sub-group, where we provide legal and licensing support to more than 400 Free Software projects funded by the initiative.

As the EC works on the future plans for Horizon Europe, the FSFE is disappointed to learn that NGI is no longer mentioned as part of the plans for the Horizon Europe funding drafts and work programmes for 2025. The lack of public funding to such crucial technologies negatively impacts not only Free Software but the whole future of the Internet.

A blow to the vast NGI ecosystem

NGI is structured to support a large number of organizations and individuals working on open digital technologies, through open calls and a cascade funding system. Through this system, the NGI allocates its budget to fund crucial open technologies of the Internet. Open assets include Free Software, Open Hardware, Open Data, Privacy Enhancing Technologies, AI, networking, and many more. Under the previous Horizon Europe Cluster 4 Work Programme, spanning from 2023-2025, €27 million have been allocated to these projects.

The FSFE has over the past years seen the wide array of Free Software projects funded by NGI, that support, in their mission, values that promote privacy, security, diversity in opinion and participation, as well as choice in the digital sphere, among others. These are values we view to support democratic participation online, and to enable users to better control their digital technology. NGI funding support was also crucial for the FSFE to develop better copyright and licensing practices for software projects, making compliance easier for everyone.

This cascade funding system is however not renewed in the current draft proposal for Horizon Europe 2025, which will have the unfortunate effect of depriving many Free Software projects (and other types of beneficial research and innovation projects) of vital funding. This has us worried about the future of many of these ongoing grassroots level Free Software (and other) projects.

Where did the funding go?

An impact study finds that NGI projects have been immensely positive in providing funding and technical support for a diverse range of open projects, and in fostering an internet ecosystem that respects digital rights, promotes sustainability, and upholds EU legislation and values. Indeed, in practical terms, the study also notes that from the over 1,000 projects that received funding, 57% offer “viable alternatives to existing market solutions”, and 74% continue to operate post-funding.

Given these positives achieved by the NGI initiative at large, it is disappointing and baffling to see the decision to discontinue funding for it. Without the Horizon Europe 2025 umbrella, NGI is now left without alternative funding, which will harm the Free Software ecosystem and therefore, EU innovation. The reasons for this shift in budget away from funding Free Software and the NGI initiative seems to be an allocation of more funds for AI, leaving internet infrastructure by the wayside. Meanwhile, the EC has thus far declined to comment to share its official reasoning for striking this funding from its budget.

The future of an open Internet needs public funding

Funding is an important component in nurturing new Free Software technologies, and often makes the difference for whether a Free Software project is able to survive, succeed, or fall into abandonware. This is a particular problem because large parts of our infrastructure are based on these projects, as they guarantee the necessary independence and resilience. Cancelling funding means curtailing our own autonomy. This debate once again demonstrates a fundamental problem: We need sustainable, secure, and dedicated funding for NGI and Free Software solutions that help Europe to control its technology.

With the EU attempting to create fairer and more competitive markets with the Digital Markets Act, boosting alternative business models that challenge large, monopolistic, and consolidated digital platforms (also known as “gatekeepers”) is essential. Free Software is key for achieving such ambitious objectives. Public money is therefore more important than ever to support Free Software alternatives in internet infrastructure. It is impossible to achieve Device Neutrality, and a free and open internet without the commitment of the public sector to maintain a vigorous and sustainable ecosystem of viable and real-life tested software alternatives that can disentrench gatekeepers.

What you can do to help

The budget decision is not yet official - so there is still a chance to allocate funds for NGI. It is therefore very important to contact Ursula von der Leyen (President EU Commission), DG Connect, to ask them to make the funds available.

Pressure is also needed from member states. Contact your National Contact Point (NCP) and persuade them to also advocate for the NGI funds to be made available.

CRA and NIS2: Protecting Free Software ecosystem in implementation

14. Juli 2024 um 23:00

CRA and NIS2: Protecting Free Software ecosystem in implementation

Together with NLnet Labs and the Open Source Security Foundation, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) submitted feedback on the NIS2 implementation act, pointing to the need of protecting the European Free Software ecosystem.

The NIS2 implementation act, with its cyber security regulations and implementing decisions, is also addressing Free Software ecosystem in Europe. It is therefore crucial that these measures, while contributing to cyber security, do not hamper Free Software development, especially as Free Software is a strong component in the cyber security area.

“It is important to recognise the special nature of Free Software development and the Free Software ecosystem and its role in the software supply chain. Implementation needs to be proportionate and effective”, states Alexander Sander, FSFE.

In this sense, the FSFE, together with NLnet Labs and the Open Source Security Foundation, jointly provided feedback to the consultation on the European Commission’s draft NIS2 Implementing Act concerning "Cybersecurity risk management & reporting obligations for digital infrastructure, providers and ICT service managers" (launched on 27 June).

We raised our concerns about the focus on business to business (B2B) relationships. Complex software products, which are at the core of services of the digital infrastructure sector of NIS2, are often published by independent individuals, not-for-profit actors or academic organisations. In this case, beyond the freedoms granted by Free Software licences, no relationship exists between developer ('direct supplier') and an entity in scope for NIS2.

The FSFE actively participates in regulation processes such as consultations, attends hearings and is in close dialogue with decision-makers in the EU to make sure cyber security regulation does not hamper Free Software development. If you are negatively affected by the implementation of CRA and NIS2, please contact us.

Belgian court’s decision impacts the future of Router Freedom

08. Juli 2024 um 23:00

Belgian court’s decision impacts the future of Router Freedom

In an historic ruling within the EU, a Belgian court has upheld the decision of the country’s regulator to introduce Router Freedom for fiber networks. The objections, raised by a local internet service provider, were deemed unfounded. This landmark decision represents a significant victory for consumer rights, and we urge other national regulators to follow this example.

Internet services providers (ISPs) have been pushing back in different ways to limit the ability of end-users to choose and use their own routers for internet connection. After a thorough regulatory process which officially confirmed Router Freedom in Belgium, the local ISP Orange contested the decision of the Belgian Institute for Postal Services and Telecommunications (BIPT) alleging lack of proportionality. Although past court cases in other countries have been decided in favour of end-users, the Orange vs the BIPT case represents an important victory for Router Freedom: this is the first time a court refers to fiber networks from the perspective of the regulatory framework established by the 2020 reform of the telecommunications law in Europe.

Orange’s allegations rebutted by the court

In September 2023, the BIPT, following the BEREC guidelines, defined the position of the “network termination point“. This means that routers, modems and optical network terminals (ONT) would not be part of the ISPs’ infrastructure, opening up the possibility for freedom of choice in the equipment market. The regulatory decision encompassed fiber networks, following by a comprehensive technical, economical and legal analysis conducted by the regulator.

Orange questioned the Belgian regulator decision’s regarding the position of the NTP, which introduced Router Freedom in the country. Source: BEREC

Soon after the publication of the decision, Orange started litigation at the Market Court in Brussels against the regulator, listing a long list of arguments against the decision:

The BIPT was not diligent in the decision-making process;
The BIPT insufficiently researched the market and technical situation in Belgium to decide to place the NTP at Point A;
The decision should be reversed because it violates proportionality. The market situation in Belgium is different from other countries that decided in favour of Router Freedom. Instead, Point B should have been chosen;
Orange was under the assumption that the BIPT would choose Point B, therefore violated its trust;
The decision was not technology-neutral because it excluded other terminal equipment (like TV decoders) from its scope.

The court dismissed all Orange’s arguments as unfounded, confirming the BIPT’s decision to introduce Router Freedom in Belgium by defining the position of the NTP at Point A. The court ruled that:

Although the court has the authority to check the legitimacy of the regulator’s decision, it should not regulate in its place. In any case, the BIPT has not violated the principles of proper governance and was diligent in following the regulatory framework proposed by BEREC, in particular the Guidelines for the Identification of the NTP;
The BIPT was not unreasonable to set the NTP at Point A, as Orange stated multiple times. Instead, the regulator acted diligently and took into account the different technologies (cable, copper, fibre). The BIPT determined that there are no objective technological reasons to limit freedom of terminal equipment. The purpose of setting the NTP at point A is to create a framework that stimulates competition;
Deciding in favour of Point A was proportionate. The regulator diligently analysed competition in the equipment market; the costs for operators and the service provision, sustainability and energy consumption aspects. Orange did not provide concrete data to demonstrate that the BIPT insufficiently researched technological necessities to limit freedom of terminal equipment. The situation in each country is indeed different. That’s why regulators are required by BEREC to assess whether there are objective criteria to limit this freedom: the BIPT’s comprehensive assessment demonstrated that there are none;
The BIPT has not violated the trust of the operators. It is not sufficient for Orange to claim that their own concrete interest is better served with a different outcome than the one proposed by the BIPT (limiting Router Freedom at Point A). The BIPT did not arbitrarily determine the position of the NTP;
Media boxes and TV decoders are not the same as routers and modems, so they should be treated differently.

The FSFE emphasises the importance of this ruling as the court has not only clarified the procedural aspects, but confirmed the Belgian regulator's diligence in analysing all the market, technical and sustainability aspects concerning Router Freedom. It should be highlighted that the court reaffirmed the BIPT’s conclusion that no technological necessity to limit Router Freedom in fiber networks was found. This resonates with FSFE’s demands that ISPs’ commercial interests should not prevail over consumer rights. This ruling should serve as an precedent for other EU member states who have argued the existence of such technological constraints in fiber networks.

The future of Router Freedom is under attack, help us safeguarding it

For many years ISPs have been pushing back in different manners to limit the ability of end-users to choose and use their own routers for internet connection. Their lobbying power has been intense against Router Freedom in fiber networks. Countries like Austria and Latvia have prioritized operators’ interests by not safeguarding end-users’ freedom of routers, while others like Greece and Croatia have promoted a compromise by allowing Router Freedom in DSL and coax but excluding fiber. Particularly concerning are countries, like Germany, which have positively decided in the past in favour of Router Freedom but are facing pressure from ISPs to exclude fiber networks.

The FSFE is the only civil-society organisation that systematically monitors and advocates in favour of Router Freedom across Europe. We have intervened in key regulatory processes, and articulated alliances and coalitions with local digital rights groups, industry representatives and consumer protection organisations. We have participated in dozens of conferences and events in Europe, and have been quoted by the media, think tanks and academics.

Most importantly, we are aiming at the future. Our advocacy does not expire in the short term. We are committed to Device Neutrality as we believe everyone should be able to bypass gatekeepers – these small or large corporations blocking their rights – to run Free Software on their devices. For example, while Apple is hampering software freedom on smartphones, ISPs prohibit subscribers to have their own routers running Free Software operating systems.

An open, healthy and neutral Internet needs Router Freedom, as this freedom refers to the hardware layer of Net Neutrality. Indeed, Router Freedom was considered a top priority by a study on the future of the Net Neutrality Regulation commissioned by the EC last year. The study cited the FSFE in several parts.

New challenges are appearing in the horizon. Next year the EU will assess its telecom legislation that tasked BEREC to develop the guidelines on the NTP. In parallel, as the importance of satellite networks grows, it is not clear how regulators will react to lack of freedom of choice among proprietary devices.

Router Freedom is key for an open and neutral Internet. We have achieved so much in the last five years balancing the power of ISPs to promote software freedom in routers and modems! Your support is vital for our advocacy and policy engagement in favour of your right to choose and use your own router. Please become an FSFE supporter today and help us keep our independence! Donate now

A big shout out for the FSFE Benelux Team for the amazing work in translating the lengthy and complex court decision!

SFP#25: MirageOS und OCaml mit Hannes Mehnert und Matthias Kirschner

03. Juli 2024 um 23:00

SFP#25: MirageOS und OCaml mit Hannes Mehnert und Matthias Kirschner

Für unsere 25te Episode des Software Freedom Podcast freuen wir uns Hannes Mehnert, einer der MirageOS Hauptentwickler, begrüßen zu dürfen. Zusammen mit Matthias Kirschner, President der FSFE, spricht Hannes über MirageOS, OCaml und Modulare Systeme. Diese Folge gibt einen Überblick von den Grundlagen bis zur Zukunft von MirageOS.

Als einer der Hauptentwickler vonMirageOS hat Hannes Mehrnert ein umfangreiches Verständnis der Funktionsweise des Programmierrahmens und seiner Module. Er und Matthias sprechen über die Verwendung von MirageOS, seine Finanzierung und wie du MirageOS als Freiwillige*r unterstützen kannst. Außerdem sprechen beide über die funktionale Programmiersprache OCaml, die Grundlage auf der alles aufgebaut ist. Höre dir eine spannende Folge mit Hannes und Matthias an, während du mehr über MirageOS, modulare Systeme, reproduzierbare Builds und funktionale Programmierung lernst.

Die perfekte Episode für alle, die gerne mehr über MirageOS und modulare Systeme lernen wollen!

Show notes

Wenn dir diese Folge gefallen hat und du unsere kontinuierliche Arbeit für Softwarefreiheit unterstützen möchtest, hilf uns bitte mit einer Spende.

DMA & Apple +++ Openwashing, EU infrastucture & more

01. Juli 2024 um 23:00

DMA & Apple +++ Openwashing, EU infrastucture & more

The July issue is full of news! We continue to monitor and raise our concerns about DMA compliance. We call upon the EU to use Free Software for its digital infrastructure and are asking for your experiences with openwashing. And we also bring you updates on REUSE, YH4F, Ada & Zangemann...

Table of contents

Quote of the Month

“I have received the package, the T-shirts are great. Thank you for including the stickers in the pack, your work is amazing".

A Free Software supporter who bought merchandise in our Summer Sale

Defending DMA against Apple: The FSFE signs joint position paper

Together with seven stakeholders organisations, the FSFE has submitted a joint position paper to the European Commission, with whom we are working on the implementation of the Digital Markets Act. This paper, supported by legal and data-backed arguments, addresses Apple’s non-compliance with the law, particularly concerning software freedom, alternative Free Software app stores and interoperability obligations.

Europe needs Free Software to master its digital infrastructure

The FSFE calls upon the European Commission to use Free Software to ensure a secure and resilient digital infrastructure. Also the economy, civil society and democracy will benefit from software freedom.

Save time and minimise licensing headaches with REUSE

REUSE helps make a project's licensing and copyright status more transparent, ensure that third-party code is properly attributed and make the project's code easily reusable. This tool is currently used worldwide and its specification has been adopted by several corporate and institutional projects. We spoke to Matija Šuklje of Liferay International, one of the companies that has adopted REUSE.

Share your views on openwashing with us!

We are working on the topic of openwashing to learn more about current market practices, and we need your help! Openwashing has become a growing issue for the Free Software community. Many companies claim to be working on "Open Source" or "Free Software", while at the same time distributing proprietary software products. We have already received many valuable responses, but more input is welcome! You can still share your views and experiences on openwashing.

Please spread the word!

YH4F: end of the programming period

The 2024 edition of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom has reached its peak with the end of the programming period. After six months of working on their projects, the young participants of this third edition submitted their projects at the end of June. Now it is the turn of the YH4F jury to evaluate the submissions and choose the six projects that will be awarded prizes in Brussels in October. Keep up to date with our news! Meanwhile, take a closer look at one of our winning projects from last year, ArduPlot.

Interested in participating in the next edition? You can already register!

“Érase una vez…“, Ada in Spanish!

Thanks to the Volkswagen Group in Spain, the story of Ada & Zangemann is now being printed in Spanish! The company will be distributing 500 copies to its employees and, from September, its STEM team will be embarking on a 'STEM tour', visiting schools in several Spanish cities around the country to distribute the book. We can't wait to hear more about these readings and the children's feedback! And maybe this translation of the book will find a publisher soon, so that it can make its way into bookshops!

Besides, Ada ready-to-go slides are currently available in Spanish and Portuguese! These resources are really helpful when doing a reading.

“They are young and they need the code”, Italian pilot project

With its kick-off online meeting last month, the FSFE has started a pilot project in Italy to educate primary school kids about Free Software. This project is creating a set of tools for Italian volunteers to organize a pedagogic event with a reading of the book “Ada & Zangemann”.

If you are in Italy and you want to participate, please get in touch with the FSFE ItalyTelegram channel. Check out the recording of the kick-off session and download all the documentation and tools to kick off the project in your area!

Individual regular supporters power our work day-to-day. We need your help to continue our work!

Our mission is in jeopardy due to lack of funding. Inflation has also hit us hard, so in order to continue to fight successfully for you and your freedom, we need individual, regular contributions.

To continue to be a thorn in the side of deep-pocketed tech giants and a watchdog for governments, it is important that individual regular donations are a cornerstone of our income so we keep our independence.

If you value our work and have the means to do so, please do not hesitate to make a donation; any amount you can contribute would really help us to continue to work consistently and tirelessly for Software Freedom.

I ♥ Free Software Day & SUSE OSCC network

We got an email, a few weeks ago, that caught our attention. It came with a donation explaining that it was made in the name of an employee network at SUSE. We decided to investigate and asked the people responsible, and we want to share this awesome story with you. (Note - this is also a great idea for an initiative to ask your company about).

End of the Summer Sale

Our summer sale is over and now is the time for us to restock! Remember that you can still order our merchandise online and also get it at our booth at several events! Also, if you are wearing our t-shirt and socks this summer, do not forget to post about it in your social media channels and tag us! We love to see our products all around the world, and it is a great way to spread the message about Free Software and Software Freedom!

Trento Open Festival,Tübix, Offenburg’s reading and Dev.Conf.CZ

The FSFE participated in the Trento Open Festival conference (Italy) giving some talks, participating in panel discussions and with reading of the book ‘Ada & Zangemann: a Tale of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream'. Besides, the outcome of the ZOOOM project was validated with different stakeholders.

Also, the FSFE went to Tübingen (Germany) to participate in this yearly event around GNU/Linux and Free Software. We had a reading of the book ‘Ada & Zangemann: a Tale of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream’ and a talk about banks and Free Software. And of course, a booth.

Last month, we also had an Ada & Zangemann reading, in Offenburg (Germany). The reading was opened by Offenburg's mayor and attended by more than 200 third graders in Offenburg's largest cinema. The 200 pupils had the chance to discuss the book with the author after the reading.

The illustrated book was also present at DevConf.CZ, where the FSFE shared experiences from readings, and discussed how to engage with younger audiences about Free Software https://www.offenburg.de/de/detail/nachricht-seite/id/19191-digitaltag-kommt-an/?default=true (DE)

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Europe needs Free Software to master its digital infrastructure

30. Juni 2024 um 23:00

Europe needs Free Software to master its digital infrastructure

The FSFE calls upon the European Commission to use Free Software to ensure a secure and resilient digital infrastructure. Software freedom will also benefit the economy, civil society and democracy.

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) provided last evening its input to the European Commission's consultation on the white paper "How to master Europe’s digital infrastructure needs?". As an advocate for software freedom, the FSFE underscores the crucial role of Free Software in building secure and resilient digital infrastructure for Europe while strengthening economy, democracy and civil society alike.

Challenges around digital infrastructure occur at global, regional and local levels, often revolving around control and access. Collaboration and openness are playing just as important role as the capability and skills to swiftly and effectively fix issues. Challenges addressed by the White paper could be addressed by redirecting IT investments in software freedom instead of procuring closed source, proprietary software. This approach not only boosts the European IT landscape and creates jobs but also saves costs and resources in the medium and long term by avoiding the need to repeatedly reinvent the the wheel.

“The European digital infrastructure, the European tech market, the IT skills of Europeans and civil society would greatly benefit if investments in software adhered to the principle of “Public money? Public Code!” We need software that fosters the sharing of good ideas and solutions. Like this we will be able to manage and improve IT services and digital infrastructure all over Europe. We need software that guarantees freedom of choice, access, and competition. We need software that helps public administrations regain full control of their critical digital infrastructure, allowing them to become and remain independent from a handful of companies. Therefore, laws and programs are needed, that publicly financed software developed for public sector must be made publicly available under a Free Software licence. Investment in the Free Software ecosystem will pay off quickly while strengthening Europe infrastructure, economy, democracy and civil society alike.” , demands Alexander Sander, FSFE’s Senior Policy Consultant.

The "Public Money? Public Code!" initiative aims to establish Free Software as the standard for publicly funded software. The "Public Money? Public Code!" initiative of the Free Software Foundation Europe is supported by over 200 organizations and administrations.

Interview with last year's YH4F winner, Davide Rorato

27. Juni 2024 um 23:00

Interview with last year's YH4F winner, Davide Rorato

After six months of programming there are only a few days left until the end of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom 2024. We are very excited to see this year's projects and to learn more about the participants and their work during the past months. Before we dive into the new projects, let us take a deeper look at last year's winner, Davide Rorato.

Davide presenting his winning project, 'ArduPlot', at the Award ceremony in Brussels, October 2023

Davide programmed the tool "ArduPlot", a real-time serial plotter that automatically adjusts itself to your use case. ArduPlot provides a nice graphical overview of the sensor data from any Arduino board. But let us hear all about ArduPlot from its developer.

FSFE: Hi Davide, thank you very much for your time. Before we learn more about "ArduPlot" we want to learn more about you and your skills. What was your first experience with programming, and how did you start learning to write code?

Davide: My first ever experience with programming was creating Automator scripts. Automator is an application that lets you create a sequence of actions such as keyboard presses and mouse movements that can be recorded and then played back without the need to write any code (it’s actually a lot more powerful but I used it in a very basic way).

The next thing I started to experiment with was coding on an Arduino UNO that I borrowed from my older brother. When it wasn't in use I would write simple programs by copying them from a book of ready-made projects and adapting them to suit my needs. This gradually evolved into me wanting to know more about programming and electronics, and a couple of years later, during summer vacation, I thought it would be fun to actually learn how to code, so I opened up YouTube and followed the first C++ tutorial I could find.

After getting accustomed to the basics, when I got an idea for a project, I would start coding until I found a problem I didn't know how to tackle. I then googled and tried every way possible to make the program work until it did.

FSFE: Can you remember when you first used Free Software?

Davide: I think my first contact with Free Software was with the OpenOffice suite, followed by the Arduino IDE. Of course at first I didn't realise what Free Software meant, and I was simply glad I could use the software for free, but as years passed I came to really appreciate the ethical principles of Free Software.

FSFE: How did you find out about this contest?

Davide: It was thanks to my IT teacher, who told my class about this contest when the first edition of YH4F started. I actually participated in the first edition of YH4F as well, but I didn’t manage to win, and seeing the quality of the projects that did it was clear why, they were amazing!

FSFE: Why did you decide to join YH4F?

Davide: The first year I decided to join because I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to do a bigger project, and in turn learn a lot of new things that I didn't have an opportunity to before. Had I not participated in the first edition, I wouldn’t have been able to create ArduPlot the following year.

For the second edition of the contest, I actually didn't have any plans to submit a project, but incidentally I had been working on ArduPlot to help with the debugging of a robot for a school project, so the day of the submission deadline I thought: “Well, I got nothing to lose so I might as well submit this!”. I can safely say I did not regret that decision!

ArduPlot graphical output of the input from an Arduino board

FSFE: And before we talk a bit more about ArduPlot, what did you enjoy the most about this contest?

Davide: The thing I enjoyed the most was the open-ended nature of the contest. Any type of Free Software can be created and submitted, with no restriction to a specific type or theme, letting everyone work on something they are passionate about at the moment.

FSFE:This is nice to hear, however we also know that this can be quite a challenge for some to find "their perfect project". Here as you said it is very important to find something you are passionate about, or a problem you want to fix. And of course, the YH4F team is there to help you to come up with an idea. Now for some more detailed questions about ArduPlot. Can you explain how ArduPlot works and how you came up with the idea?

Davide: I created ArduPlot from a need to analyse different types of data coming from a microcontroller for an autonomous robotics project one of my classmates and I were developing. The robot had all kinds of sensors on it, and we needed to split fast paced data from the sensors, that required a specific visualisation (line graph, heatmap), from the less frequent text logs. If these two things are mixed together in a single text console, it’s much harder to see what’s happening at a glance.

What ArduPlot does is split this data in two: when it recognises a data packet, it gets analysed and displayed as a visualisation. For any other case the data gets redirected to a text console.

FSFE: What was the biggest challenge or problem you faced when developing your idea?

Davide: The main challenge I faced was reading data from the microcontroller reliably, which meant reading, parsing and displaying it faster than the data coming in, which isn’t a problem with low data rates, but as they get higher issues start to appear if everything isn’t properly implemented.

FSFE:It sounds like you were already somehow familiar with microcontrollers before you started ArduPlot. Have you worked with the data from microcontrollers before?

Davide: Yes, but in past projects I didn’t need this type of detailed visual feedback. The Serial Plotter in the Arduino IDE sufficed most of the time, because I had a couple of sensors at most attached to the microcontroller.

FSFE: Are there any problems that ArduPlot has solved for you when working with this kind of data?

Davide: ArduPlot made it possible to see through the 'eyes' of the robot in real time and discover and fix bugs faster. For example, if a sensor got slightly moved and suddenly the robot started to work badly, we instantly knew what went wrong at a glance by looking at the data.

FSFE: What motivated you to keep working on ArduPlot during the programming period?

Davide: The main motivation was the fact that I actually needed the program I was developing, and without ArduPlot, debugging the code of the robot would have been much more time-consuming.

FSFE: Have you continued to work on your project in recent months?

Davide: Yes, but not as much as I wanted to. I have lots of ideas for features I want to implement (and bugs that need to be fixed) but during the past months I have been busy with other projects, and most importantly university, which I have prioritised.

Nevertheless, since the contest ended I’ve added Windows support, I fixed a couple of critical bugs, optimised heatmap rendering, added friendly USB device names alongside the serial device’s location on Linux and added serial output, which was the last thing keeping ArduPlot from reaching feature parity with the Arduino integrated serial terminal/plotter, but with the addition of other quality of life improvements, such as auto reconnect and, of course, the ability to plot graphs on demand!

FSFE: And last but not least, is there anything you would tell new participants to do or not to do?

Davide: Build something you are passionate about and that other people would find useful or cool, but most importantly have fun doing it!

FSFE:Thank you Davide for your time, it was a pleasure to meet you in the Youth Hacking 4 Freedom contest.

The 2024 edition of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom is still going on now! The coding period ends on 30 June. The next edition will start on 01.01.2025. You can already register now. Check out the YH4F website to find out all the details of this competition or feel free to reach out to the organisers via mail!

Defending DMA against Apple: The FSFE signs joint position paper

26. Juni 2024 um 23:00

Defending DMA against Apple: The FSFE signs joint position paper

Together with nine stakeholders organisations, the FSFE has submitted a joint position paper to the European Commission, with whom we are working on the implementation of the Digital Markets Act. This paper, supported by legal and data-backed arguments, addresses Apple’s non-compliance with the law, particularly concerning software freedom, alternative Free Software app stores and interoperability obligations.

CC-BY-SA 4.0. by Rahak for FSFE. Limitations to Free Software, vendor lock-in, and lack of control over personal data are current hurdles faced by end-users in digital markets

The Digital Markets Act (DMA) regulates large tech companies in the EU, setting the main rules for designating gatekeepers and enforcing their obligations. As a designated “gatekeeper”, Apple was required to present a strategy for complying with the DMA. Since March 2024, the European Commission (EC) has been investigating it for non-compliance.

Following a series of interventions, in order to assist the DMA enforcement procedure, the FSFE signed a joint position to the EC, highlighting the main problematic aspects of Apple in relation to Free Software.

As far as the FSFE is concerned, the main points relate to:

Software freedom: By blocking side-loading of apps and the unfettered installation of alternative app stores, Apple is violating Art.6(4). Concretely, paragraph 4 obliges the gatekeeper to provide users with the possibility to easily install apps from other sources than the gatekeeper’s own software application store. Recital (41) clarifies that the gatekeeper is prohibited from undermining or restricting that possibility in any way.
Vendor lock-in vs interoperability: By hampering effective interoperability with of hardware functions, the company is violating Art. 6(7). Apple has introduced an opaque and non-accountable system to grant interoperability that impedes Free Software projects to effectively access hardware and software functions of devices. The DMA prescribes the opposite: interoperability should be granted free of charge and effectively, so third parties can enjoy the same privileged access to hardware and software as the gatekeepers.

The FSFE welcomes the EC’s efforts in finding Apple to be in breach of the law. However, this is only the first step in a regulatory process aimed at reducing the company’s monopolistic control over devices.

Apple threatens Free Software – please help protecting software freedom!

The DMA includes several provisions directly impacting Free Software. It mandates “gatekeepers” to allow installing of software (sideloading), to enable alternative app stores and repositories to be used in devices, and several interoperability obligations, allowing third party developers to access the same hardware functions as the gatekeepers.

Apple’s unfair behaviour against Free Software highlights the critical need to monitor the implementation of the DMA. The FSFE collaborated with F-Droid, the AppFair project, and other interoperability experts to scrutinize Apple’s DMA compliance, and it’s impact on Free Software. Since then, we coordinated several expert workshops with stakeholders, discussed with regulators in FOSDEM, had official meetings with the EC’s DMA team, and submitted a comprehensive position to the EC detailing several problematic elements in the Apple compliance that will harm the Free Software.

Free Software is key for a democratic society and we should not allow gatekeepers to threaten our rights and freedoms. Apple has a huge revenue from blocking Free Software on iOS, and has dedicated a lot of resources to interpret the DMA as it deems fit. For instance, Apple publicly stated that iPhones and iPads are not general purpose computers, and users are not allowed to run the software they want.

Holding companies like Apple accountable under the DMA is a complicated, time-consuming and resource-intensive activity. It can even be a dangerous one as the risk of retaliation is real. We face it with courage and determination. If you are not yet an FSFE supporter, please join our cause today.

Defending Free Software against large corporations takes a long time, maybe more than a decade.Our long-term commitment includes engaging with Free Software communities across Europe, conducting research and analysis for legal and policy positions, participating in official hearings, and we are getting prepared to be involved in strategic litigation.

Inflation is hitting everyone, especially organizations like ours that rely on individual donations. Your regular support is vital to help us continue standing up to those who seek to circumvent the law and undermine our freedoms.

Save time and minimise licensing headaches with REUSE

19. Juni 2024 um 23:00

Save time and minimise licensing headaches with REUSE

REUSE helps make a project's licensing and copyright status more transparent, ensure that third-party code is properly attributed, and make the project's code easily reusable. This tool is currently used worldwide and its specification has been adopted by several corporate and institutional projects. We spoke to Matija Šuklje of Liferay International, one of the companies that has adopted REUSE.

REUSE is a set of best practices to simplify Free Software licensing, making licensing easy for humans and machines alike. It helps developers with simple guidelines for declaring their copyright and the conditions for reusing code, and provides help documents and low-threshold tools to get the job done.

Led by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), this initiative seeks to solve a fundamental issue that Free Software licensing has at the very source: what license is a file licensed under, and who owns the copyright? A set of best practices and the helper tool make the task of adding this legal information in every single file of the project a simple practice.

Since its first release in 2017, the number of projects implementing REUSE in their workflows is steadily increasing. Liferay is one of the companies that use and sponsor REUSE so we talked with its Legal Director and Associate General Counsel (FOSS & Community), Matija Šuklje.

“When we switched to REUSE that kind of snowballed a lot of the internal processes to streamline our licensing documents, and to streamline some technical development, which caused us in turn to save a lot of engineering time and even shortened negotiations and sales cycles because things were much clearer”, explains Mr. Šuklje.

REUSE Software new version

REUSE is constantly evolving and improving. The alpha version v3.1.0a1 of the REUSE tool was released a couple of weeks ago containing the new REUSE.toml functionality, and soon REUSE Specification v3.2 will be released.

“The version 3.2 of the REUSE specification adds a long-awaited improvement in the form of REUSE.toml that helps projects declare their licensing with heightened flexibility and reduced ambiguity. Furthermore, the new TOML format is much easier to parse for third parties, allowing them to read and modify this file with their own tooling”, explains Carmen Bianca Bakker, coordinator of this initiative.

More and more organisations, companies, and individuals are using REUSE and benefiting from the growing ecosystem of its specification, its helper tool, its API and all the documentation. As using REUSE does not require registration, there are not precise numbers about its users but we know that it is being adopted by:

All 2000+ compliant projects of the REUSE API
Many projects of the EU-funded Next Generation Internet project we help to become REUSE compliant from the start.
DLR, the KDE community, and Software Heritage made REUSE the standard for their licensing policy.
Corporate licensing policies of Siemens, SAP, Huawei, Liferay, and many more.
Large parts of the Linux Kernel with ~70% by now.

The REUSE project is based on its community and the people who support and adopt it! The contribution of all our FSFE supporters also allows our continuing work on REUSE as well as on our other activities. You can join them by becoming an FSFE supporter (and enabling our long-term work), you can spread the word among your friends and convince them to support our work with a small donation, and you can contribute to Software Freedom in many other ways. Your support enables our work!

I ♥ Free Software Day & SUSE OSCC network

09. Juni 2024 um 23:00

I ♥ Free Software Day & SUSE OSCC network

We got an email, a few weeks ago, that caught our attention. It came with a donation explaining that it was made in the name of an employee network at SUSE. We decided to investigate, asked the people responsible, and today we want to share this awesome story with you. (Note - this is also a great idea for an initiative to ask your company about).

Several weeks ago, we received a really nice message:

I'm part of a special interest group / employee network at SUSE called the SUSE Open Source Community Citizens (OSCC). In the spirit of the "I Love Free Software Day", we asked our SUSE colleagues to share why they got into and love Free Software. Every story told was being rewarded with 50 EUR that is going to be donated to the Free Software Foundation Europe, to support any of the activities that you're doing.

Of course our curiosity was piqued: we wanted to see the messages that they shared, to know a bit more about the SUSE OSCC group and this initiative and to know why they chose us. This is what we found:

On 14 February 2024, SUSE celebrated "I Love Free Software" day with its employees around the world with a variety of activities. One of the activities, organised by the SUSE employee volunteers of the Open Source Community Citizens, was simple: tell us why you got into Free/Libre/Open Source (FLOSS) Software and why you love it. Easy, right?

But that was not all! With the support of SUSE Cares, the SUSE Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program, every story was worth $50! To donate to a non-profit charity. And for this occasion OSCC chose the Free Software Foundation Europe.

About 50 people participated sharing their 'I Love FS' messages, mainly internally through the internal communications wall but also externally on social media. In total, the amount of 2500EUR was reached, matching the Silver Sponsorship level!.

“The employee network / special interest group that organized this is focused on Open Source/Free Software and community activities. We like and generally endorse many of the activities from FSFE and several SUSE employees have been active in free software communities pretty much since GPLv2 was released. I personally have a connection to that as well”, explained Dirk Müller, one of the main organisers of this activity and a member of the OSCC group. Andy Fitzsimon, the sponsor of the employee network, said: “SUSE is proud to support the Free Software Foundation Europe, championing the ideals of free/libre software. Our donation reflects our commitment to fostering a collaborative community where technology and innovation benefit everyone.”

Although most of the reasons, often with personal messages that were shared by the SUSE colleagues, were shared within SUSE, some were posted on public social media. A few samples are below:

An awesome action, right? It really makes us happy to hear stories like these about I Love Free Software celebrations! And even more, when the initiative comes from the employees and the company supports them!

You can also help us by asking your employer to donate to the FSFE as part of their corporate responsibility program.

Donate now

Footnotes

SUSE Cares is a corporate program at SUSE that focuses on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and manages a budget for the philanthropic giving program, which empowers our colleagues to volunteer their time and direct corporate donations to non-profit organizations that support any of SUSE’s chosen philanthropic goals like Education and Digital Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunities or climate action.

EU election +++ DMA & Apple +++ REUSE tool

03. Juni 2024 um 23:00

EU election +++ DMA & Apple +++ REUSE tool

In this issue, we explain our plans to make a movie of the story of Ada & Zangemann and we are asking for your support. A new REUSE version released; read the FSFE opinion to the European Commission on Apple’s new strategy to comply with DMA and its impact on Free Software.

Table of contents

Quote of the Month

“Socks. I want the socks. I love the FS socks. And if you have, others too”

-FOSDEM 2024 FSFE attendant-

Take action! Talk to your politicians, like our FSFE Netherlands coordinator

In a couple of days, the European citizens will choose their next representatives in the European Parliament. Get active to ensure that Software Freedom is part of the larger political debate!

The FSFE Netherlands coordinator has added his voice for Free Software to Amsterdam's digital city debate. Now it's your chance to highlight the importance of Free Software in the lead-up to the upcoming European Elections next week.

FSFE Netherlands coordinator question (in Dutch):"I think in March something beautiful happened in Amsterdam: the proposal 'Amsterdam Digital Independent' (or 'autonomous') was adopted. I was wondering: in it open source is mentioned to promote autonomy, but also to promote transparency. I would say this aligns with the points of the NSC. What will you do in Europe to bring that further and to support governments and municipalities to really make progress with free and open source software?"

REUSE v.3.1.0a1

The REUSE tool v3.1.0a1 has just been released! This is an alpha release that includes the new REUSE.toml functionality that replaces .reuse/dep5 (which is being soft-deprecated). The main purpose of REUSE.toml is to resolve .reuse/dep5 scenarios as described in https://github.com/fsfe/reuse-tool/issues/779: if a file has a header and is also covered by .reuse/dep5, and the two sources of information disagree about the licence, which licence applies?

In three steps, REUSE software addresses a fundamental problem with Free Software licensing at its source: what licence is a file licensed under, and who owns the copyright? The REUSE project consists of a set of best practices and a tool that makes it easy and simple to add this legal information to every single file in a project.

We are working on releasing version 3.2 of this tool soon, so stay tuned!

Apple's approach to DMA will harm Free Software

The FSFE continues to work on the implementation of the Digital Markets Act (DMA), monitoring the strategies adopted by affected companies (gatekeepers), and their impact on Free Software. We submitted a comprehensive stakeholder position to the European Commission on how Apple cannot be compliant with DMA, and their strategy will reinforce their anti-competitive position. Our report lists that:

Apple should not limit business and end-users in their software freedom by overstating arguments of integrity and security of devices.
Apple should not discriminate against Free Software.
Apple should not be allowed to impose DRM encryption for app distribution regarding Free Software.
Apple should not be allowed to impose arbitraryinteroperability request forms, but interoperability should be granted automaticallyand effectively.

This study received substantial contributions from experts and other organizations including F-Droid, Onion Browser, and AppFair.

FSFE at the DMA compliance workshop about Apple

This report concludes that, while the DMA aims to promote contestability and fairness, Apple's proposed changes may reinforce its monopolistic behaviour by restricting software freedom, strengthening the dependency of developers and users on its own services and products, and increasing switching costs. The report also sets forth how integrity of operating systems must not be used for summarily imposing restrictions on 3rd party app stores

Ada goes to the set: let’s make an animated movie!

The illustrated book 'Ada & Zangemann: A Tale of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream' has made it into homes and libraries around the world. Now we need your help to reach even more kids! Help us make a film of this story and continue doing readings to spark more kids’ interest in coding and tinkering!

Stories from our community

On 25 and 26 May, the RoboCup France Junior took place in Bordeaux. Nursery and primary kids presented their robots while the teens and young adults competed with theirs in various competitions from soccer to rescue. On Sunday 26 May, Théo (15y) and Émilie (12y), two young French supporters, repurposed some of their local robot club (CDSR) booth into their first FSFE booth! They proudly shared FSFE stickers and presented the children's book Ada & Zangemann.

Also in France, in this case in Lyon, FSFE volunteer Vincent Lequertier participated in the Days of the Software Libre (JDLL is its acronym in French) with two readings of the illustrated book "Ada & Zangemann: Un conte sur les logiciels, le skateboard et la glace à la framboise".

And in the Netherlands, André Ockers, volunteer and deputy coordinator of the Dutch FSFE team, presented (in English) the Free Software Foundation Europe at WikiconNL 2024, the annual conference on Wikipedia, Wikimedia, digital heritage, and free access to information in a changing world.

Do not forget to check out planet.fsfe.org; our blog aggregator has several articles that you might find interesting!

And even more: LibreItalia, DORS/CLUC 2024 and esLibre 2024 conferences

At the beginning of May, we took part in the LibreItalia Conference. It was a great occasion to meet and chat with the Italian Free Software community. We had the possibility to talk about Public Money? Public Code! and engage with a younger audience thanks to the Ada and Zangemann story!

A bit later last month, we participated in DORS/CLUC, a conference in Zagreb with two talks, one about "Making AI Really Open: The Current Landscape of Free Software and AI Licensing" and another about "When our routers are not free: the challenges for an Open and Neutral Internet".

Finally, we travelled to Valencia to attend esLibre 2024. There we presented the competition YH4F, talked about CRA, PLD, and liability in Europe and explained why Free Software is important for our society!

Our talks from esLibre and DORS/CLUC were recorded so we will upload them in our usual channels as soon as they are available!

Contribute to our Newsletter

Your editor, Ana

EU election: FSFE Netherlands Coordinator joins Amsterdam's Digital City Debate

29. Mai 2024 um 23:00

EU election: FSFE Netherlands Coordinator joins Amsterdam's Digital City Debate

EU elections debate: FSFE Netherlands coordinator adds voice for Free Software to Amsterdam's digital city debate. Now it's your chance to highlight the importance of Free Software in the lead-up to the upcoming European Elections next week.

With the European Elections approaching, the FSFE prompts a call to action, pointing out the importance of including Software Freedom in the political debate. On May 29, 2024, the city of Amsterdam organized the "Digitale Stad" debate, focusing on the online world of Amsterdammers and the impact of technology on the city and its residents in view of the European Elections, taking place between June 6 and 9 2024. The FSFE Netherlands coordinator, Nico Rikken, actively participated in this discussion, asking a question about Free Software.

FSFE Netherlands coordinator question that leads into a discussion during a Digital City Debate in Amsterdam. He asks (in Dutch):"I think in March something beautiful happened in Amsterdam: the proposal 'Amsterdam Digital Independent' (or 'autonomous') was adopted. I was wondering: in it open source is mentioned to promote autonomy, but also to promote transparency. I would say this aligns with the points of the NSC. What will you do in Europe to bring that further and to support governments and municipalities to really progress free and open source software?"

In the debate, the FSFE Netherlands coordinator emphasises the significance of Free Software in public administrations and its role in ensuring digital autonomy and a resilient digital society. This engagement highlights the importance for the Free Software community to get active and ensure its voice is heard in the upcoming elections. The FSFE empowers users to control technology and helps its community to make an impact. The experience of the Netherlands local group shows how this is possible:

“The European elections are a great opportunity to make an impact. For past elections we've contacted politicians and organized a “Freedomote” voting toolkit. That involved quite some work and had little impact. We discussed opportunities at our get-together and following the FSFE guide we looked into debates as a way to get in direct contact with candidates. Turns out there was one debate scheduled on digitization, held at DeBalie in Amsterdam, a location that frequently hosts debates. Looking at videos of past debates we concluded that it was at a small scale, and that there would be opportunity to speak to candidates before and after and that there was an opportunity for questions from the audience, as well. So in our online get-together we prepared a question to ask if we got the opportunity. To sum it up: little upfront investment, a bit of time to attend a great debate and made quite an impact”, explains Nico Rikken, FSFE Netherlands’ Coordinator.

With one week left to the elections, it is important to get involved and make your voices heard! The Netherlands local group meets regularly online and is very active. After reading the FSFE’s advice on how to get active during electoral campaign, they discussed together the opportunity to take part in a debate during one of their regular meet-ups. They elaborated possible questions to ask the candidates and took part in a debate happening in their area. This is only one example of the activities that local groups around Europe do every day. If you want to take part in one of the FSFE’s local groups, you will find one near you!

Ada am Filmset: Aus ihrer Geschichte wird ein Animationsfilm!

14. Mai 2024 um 23:00

Ada am Filmset: Aus ihrer Geschichte wird ein Animationsfilm!

Was haben ein Premierminister, ein MIT-Professor und ein Kind aus Rajasthan gemeinsam? Genau wie andere Persönlichkeiten des öffentlichen Lebens und Tausende von Kindern lieben sie das Buch „Ada & Zangemann – Ein Märchen über Software, Skateboards und Himbeereis“. Ada hat es bereits in Wohnungen und Bibliotheken auf der ganzen Welt geschafft, und jetzt braucht sie deine Unterstützung, um noch mehr Kinder zu erreichen! Hilf uns, ihre Geschichte als Film zu erzählen, um mehr Kinder für das Programmieren und Tüfteln zu begeistern!

„Ada & Zangemann – Ein Märchen über Software, Skateboards und Himbeereis“ erzählt die Geschichte des berühmten Erfinders Zangemann und des Mädchens Ada, einer neugierigen Tüftlerin. Ada beginnt, mit Hard- und Software zu experimentieren, und erkennt dabei, wie wichtig es für sie und andere ist, Technik zu beherrschen.

„Eine brillant illustrierte Entdeckungsreise, die junge Menschen dazu inspirieren wird, ihre Neugierde zu entfalten und die Welt mit Technik zu gestalten.“- Zach Latta, Gründer des Hack Club

Die Geschichte wurde in mehrere Sprachen übersetzt und hat durch öffentliche Lesungen Tausende von Kindern und Erwachsenen erreicht. Jetzt wollen wir einen Schritt weiter gehen und einen 30-minütigen Film über Adas Geschichte produzieren! Der Film wird als Open Educational Resource veröffentlicht. Er soll mehr Kinder, vor allem Mädchen, zum Tüfteln und Programmieren ermutigen und gleichzeitig Inklusion und Barrierefreiheit fördern. Hilf uns, dieses Ziel zu erreichen!

„Mir gefällt, dass [die Geschichte] Mädchen vor Augen führt, wie sie programmieren und Computer benutzen können.“ - Aus der Rezension eines Kindes, Purdue

Für Mädchen ist es oft abschreckend, sich mit Technik zu beschäftigen, zu tüfteln und zu programmieren. Deswegen wird Technik weitgehend von Männern für Männer entwickelt. Ada zeigt Mädchen und jungen Frauen, dass sie Technologie und damit auch die Zukunft nach ihren Vorstellungen gestalten können.

„Die verwendete Lizenz ermöglicht auch die Übersetzung des Werks, was mich auf die Idee brachte, ein kollaboratives Bildungsprojekt für die französische Übersetzung zu starten.“- Alexis Kauffmann, Projektleiter, Französisches Ministerium für Bildung und Jugend

Dank unserer FSFE-Supporter und vieler, die uns ehrenamtlich unterstützen, ist die Geschichte bereits in neun Sprachen verfügbar und wir arbeiten an weiteren Übersetzungen. Mehr als 18.000 Exemplare von Adas Geschichte haben ihren Weg in die Hände von Kindern auf der ganzen Welt gefunden, und wir konnten mehr als 1.400 Kinder mit Lesungen, Diskussionen und Workshops erreichen.

„Eine wunderbar unterhaltsame Lektüre mit einer ermutigenden Botschaft für jüngere Generationen, die unsere Welt und die Art, wie wir in ihr leben, prägen wird.“- Kaye Fogarty, Lehrerin an einer Schule in Marbella, die mit ihren Schülern eine Lesung durchgeführt hat

Deine Spende hilft uns, Adas Geschichte als Animationsfilm umzusetzen, um ein breiteres Publikum zu erreichen, damit noch mehr Kinder, insbesondere Mädchen, von dieser Geschichte zu Neugier und Tüfteln ermutigt werden. Der Film wird frei herunterzuladen und zu teilen sein. Man kann ihn in Schulen verwenden und in andere Unterrichtsmaterialien integrieren, um die Qualität der IT-Bildung zu verbessern, die für junge Menschen in unserer digitalen Gesellschaft so wichtig ist.

„Dieses moderne Märchen ist eine großartige Parabel. Es zeigt perfekt wie wichtig digitale Freiheiten für unser tägliches Leben sind. Der Tonfall ist freundlich, heiter und zuversichtlich, dass die junge Generation stärker sein wird als wir es waren“- JB Kempf, Präsident, VideoLAN

Deine Unterstützung macht einen Unterschied! Sie wird uns helfen, diesen Film zu verwirklichen, und durch sie können wir Adas Geschichte durch Lesungen in verschiedenen Sprachen verbreiten und auch andere dazu ermutigen!

„Dieses Buch ist genau das, was ich an meine Kinder weitergeben möchte!“- Canelle A., Schülerin an einem Pariser Gymnasium

LLW 2024 +++ YH4F interviews +++ Ada in France

You can check the letter (in Danish) here.

07. Mai 2024 um 23:00

LLW 2024 +++ YH4F interviews +++ Ada in France

May comes with legal news such as the Legal & Licensing Workshop and the Bitcoin lawsuit regarding the liability of Free Software developers. We also talked to two 2023 YH4F participants and our Danish local group sent an Open Letter to their parliament. Did you see that Ada & Zangemann won a prize and that the French ebook version is now available?

Table of contents

Quote of the Month

"As in our democracies, the distribution of power in the field of technology is essential. And we need to show that an inclusive path is possible".

-Matthias Kirschner, thanking the Forum InCyber for the prize given to Ada & Zangemann.

LLW 2024: A forum for difficult legal topics of Free Software in Gothenburg

For the second year in a row, the Swedish city of Gothenburg hosted an edition of the Free Software Legal & Licensing Workshop (LLW), the annual conference for the Legal Network members. The 2024 edition brought new faces and great discussions and presentations on current legal and licensing issues related to technological developments such as AI.

Meet Antoni and Tobias, YH4F participants

Find out more about the Youth Hacking 4 Freedom participants of the 2023 edition. We are continuing this series talking with Antoni and Tobias: Antoni developed a dictionary to preserve endangered languages, and Tobias conceived a rich featured calendar.

Free Software developers' liability and the Bitcoin lawsuit

Free Software is everywhere, with studies estimating that it is present in about 96% of the applications that we use. But what are the responsibilities and liabilities of the Free Software developers? A potential threat to Free Software developers looms in the form of an ongoing lawsuit in the UK involving Bitcoin and its core developers.

Find more about it

Ada & Zangemann: news from France

‘Ada & Zangemann: A Tale of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream’ has been awarded the 2024 Youth Book Prize of the InCyber Forum Europe. This is the first time this prize has been awarded to a children's book.
300 copies of Ada & Zangemann were distributed to teachers at the Journée du Libre Éducatif 2024. The book was presented at this fair, that this year was held in Paris, by two of the students who translated it.
More great news! The French publisher CFE editions published an online version of "Ada & Zangemann - A Tale of Software, Skateboards, and Raspberry Ice Cream": https://ada-lelivre.fr/.

Danish local group initiative

The FSFE Danish local group has sent an Open Letter to the IT spokespersons of all the political parties in the Danish Parliament, entitled “Digitalisation problems can be solved with Free/Open Source Software”. In this letter, the local group pointed out several examples of cases in which using proprietary software is harming citizens’ rights and privacy, for example the municipalities' strong wish to use proprietary software (Google Classroom) in schools, which is actively sharing students' private data to Google in violation of the GDPR.

The local group is currently waiting for an official answer from the parliamentarians though they have already received positive responses.

Germany: Public TV broadcasters announce ‘Streaming OS’ as Free Software

The German public broadcasters ARD and ZDF have announced that they will integrate their media centres in future and publish their code as Free Software. Under the name ‘Streaming OS’, the software will be available to the general public under a Free Software licence.

In their announcement, the directors of the broadcasters emphasise that by publishing the code, they want to give something back to society that it has previously paid for. ARD and ZDF are thus addressing the core idea of our FSFE initiative ‘Public Money? Public Code!’. We are looking forward to seeing Streaming OS and its code in 2025!

The Berlin group of the FSFE participated in the 2024 edition of the Umweltsfestival (Environmental Festival) together with Bits&Bäume Berlin and KDE Eco. Our volunteers explained to festival attendees the sustainable use of computers with Free Software as well as other FSFE initiatives such as Public Money, Public Code and even answered questions about the Fediverse.

Get involved: organize an Ada & Zangemann reading!

Do you want to help spread the word about Free Software to the younger generations? You can do it with an Ada & Zangemann reading! If you like children, this is an easy and a great way to talk to them about Free Software. And everyone who has done it has found it a really rewarding and enriching experience!

If you are interested in facilitating a reading of the book in schools or libraries, write to contact@fsfe.org.

Contribute to our Newsletter

Your editor, Ana

LLW 2024: A forum for difficult legal topics of Free Software in Gothenburg

05. Mai 2024 um 23:00

LLW 2024: A forum for difficult legal topics of Free Software in Gothenburg

For the second year in a row, the Swedish city of Gothenburg hosted an edition of the Free Software Legal & Licensing Workshop (LLW), the annual conference for Legal Network members. The 2024 edition brought new faces and great discussions and presentations on current legal and licensing issues related to technological developments such as AI.

Under a sunny and blue sky, the beautiful Swedish city of Gothenburg once again hosted FSFE’s Free Software Legal & Licensing Workshop (LLW), a two and a half day conference for members of the Legal Network community to meet face-to-face and share legal expertise in a safe space. It was great to have attendees engaging with the speakers in interesting legal discussions, as well as to see them use the venue to engage in impromptu discussions on legal theory, policy, and case law related to Free Software topics. This shows how valuable this conference has become for Free Software legal professionals, who arrived from Europe, the Americas, and Asia, and the importance of a healthy community to encourage discussion of the most current Free Software legal topics and to network in order to build a culture of knowledge exchange in the legal sector.

Discussion, even controversial, can help legal experts to make better decisions while accomplishing the mission of empowering users to control technology. Good examples are Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, that continued to be hot topics during this year’s edition, with a number of discussions on the conference agenda touching on the legal ramifications of AI developments on software and licensing.

Nevertheless, there were many other developments from the past year for attendees to discuss as well, from new legislative initiatives and case law in various jurisdictions within and outside the European Union, to presentations to introduce various community-initiated compliance tools, to conversations about more philosophical ideas regarding Free Software and community.

"I have been working for 2 years in this field now. In the past 2 days I learnt more on those topics than in the 2 years before", said one participant in LLW 2024

This conference also gives newcomers who may be a little shy about participating in discussions on the mailing list a chance to introduce themselves and meet various more established members of the community in person. The FSFE believes in the importance of supporting young professionals, which is why this conference also offers a mentoring programme, so that experienced members can help integrate newcomers into the Free Software legal community, as well as to help them build professional connections and expertise.

We appreciate all Legal Network members who took the time to participate in person and hope to see them again next year. It is extremely heartening for us to see the Free Software legal community grow in strength and knowledge with regular meetings like the LLW.

We want to thank our sponsors: Intel, Red Hat, Microsoft, Amazon, Bosch, Ericsson, Siemens, Volvo, Bird & Bird, Google, the law firm Heuking, and the Open Invention Network.

The Legal Network

The Legal Network is a neutral, non-partisan group of experts in different fields involved in Free Software legal issues. Currently the Legal Network has over 400 participants from different legal systems, academic backgrounds and affiliations.

The aim of the Legal Network is to promote discussion and foster better knowledge of the legal constructs that back Free Software. The conversations on the Legal Network are intended to be dynamic, thought-provoking, and up to speed with the most recent developments.

The Legal Network is a safe space to promote legal knowledge about Free Software so that companies can make strategic decisions about Free Software development based on an understanding of how Free Software licensing and other related legal issues work. This allows Free Software developers and legal professionals who work within larger companies to continue to contribute to software freedom.

Admission to the Legal Network is restricted, and the discussions held there are confidential. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the content of the mailing list is contained away from the larger Free Software community. The Chatham House Rule applies to all discussions on the Legal Network mailing list and at Legal Network events, which enables members to use the information received, but not to reveal the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker or any of the participants involved in the discussion.

Meet Antoni and Tobias, YH4F participants

29. April 2024 um 23:00

Meet Antoni and Tobias, YH4F participants

Antoni and Tobias participated in YH4F in 2023, being both currently in their last year of high school. Antoni is Polish and he developed the Endangered Languages Dictionary, software with the purpose of keeping languages at risk of extinction alive, valuing the contribution of native language speakers. Tobias comes from the Netherlands, and he developed Plan2Go, a calendar webapp he got the idea for while talking with his friends.

Read along to learn more about these projects and their developers!

FSFE: Hi Tobias and Antoni! Can you introduce yourselves before explaining your projects?

Tobias: I’m Tobias from the Netherlands and I’m 17 years old. I love programming and helping others by making software. Sometimes I play video games or make stuff for video games.

Antoni: My name is Antoni, I am a high school student from Poland. I’m mainly a linguistics and computer science nerd, but am also interested in sociology, psychology, cultural studies, literature, and philosophy. I would like to study computer science and classics.

FSFE: What is the project you developed for YH4F 2023? How does it work?

Antoni: The Endangered Languages Dictionary (ELD) project aims to be a dictionary for the world’s languages that are at risk of extinction. The project home page–still in construction–intends to only have a title in Esperanto and a bar redirecting to the selected language main page. There one can search for a phrase. The browser calculates Levenshtein’s distance between the phrase being searched and all the phrases in the given sub-dictionary (the upper limit of the search is the number to the left of the search bar that one can specify, the default is 2). All phrases meeting the specified criteria are displayed on the page as hyperlinks to their specific pages.

The landing page of the Endangered Languages Dictionary

Tobias: I developed Plan2Go with the idea to make a planning app that is fully customisable and with many features. The front end has been coded with HTML and CSS, and the calendar and customisations are made using JavaScript. You can get access to the calendar by using the website hosted on GitLab Pages, by cloning the code and building the source, or by using the desktop app.

The main page of Plan2Go with example events

Tobias: Once you are in, you see an overview of the current month and you can click to add new events. If you click on an existing event, you can view more details about it and you can delete it. If you click above an event, you can add another event. Using the “Back” and “Next” buttons you can go back and forward in months. When an event starts, you could get a notification [not fully working, see below in the interview]. Overall, its key features are: multiple events per day, theme switcher, exporting and importing iCals, secret Easter Eggs, PWA installable and a desktop app version available.

Plan2Go example event details window

FSFE: What motivated you to create this software?

Antoni: I wanted to provide an online presence of the endangered languages to prevent their native speakers, especially the young ones, from abandoning their tongues. I believe “if you aren’t online, you don’t exist” to be an unjust rule. This dictionary was going to be the first step in achieving this.

Tobias: Mostly, the idea came while talking with my friends, who just started programming. We made a whole list of stuff that we could make, and we shared this list publicly. Eventually, I just let my friends choose what to do. They chose to go with a planner, and we made that.

FSFE: Your projects are Free Software! When and how did you get in touch with the movement?

Antoni: One day, at school, I was chatting with a classmate and introduced Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL) to him. He replied he preferred VirtualBox, as “it is open source” After I explained to him that he was wrong [VirtualBox is licensed under GPL, but the extensions are proprietary], and the openness of the source code of WSL, he asked for evidence, and he got it. After examining the codebase, he wrote me: “It is quite similar to the situation when you would paint a beautiful white shirt in brown just to wallow it in the mud. (of course the shirt is Linux)”. This has influenced me to the degree that I got pushed even further in that direction than my classmate.

Tobias: I always only made software for myself, I began to do it more seriously when I found out that other people might also want my software. So I published it online, without any license.

FSFE: So it seems that at the time you did not know that by default, if you do not specify a license, it is copyrighted.

Tobias: Yes, I discovered Free Software licenses thanks to YH4F!

FSFE: Both projects are very interesting and ambitious. Why did you decide to code them from scratch, rather than to contribute existing projects?

Tobias: It’s always nice to have one [project] that you can completely modify the way you want. If you are going to contribute to other projects that are already kind of finished, there is only a little bit of stuff that you might be able to add. We had about six months, and I did not really think I could just spend all of it contributing to just an existing project. Most probably, I would have been done before the end of the coding period. Above all, it is very helpful to know what’s behind a project you build from scratch by your own.

Antoni: I didn’t find any Free Software similar to mine, though I didn’t actively do any in-depth research. If it comes to the value of ELD, it is low-bandwith friendly as it doesn’t depend heavily on stylesheets. Additionally, this also implies a decrease of resources. needed only to render a webpage!

FSFE: How was the experience of developing your software during YH4F 2023?

Antoni: What I enjoyed the most was the fact that this is not only a competition, but also an opportunity to learn something, just by participating! I think that is mainly because of the long timespan given and the short list of requirements.

Tobias: I liked the whole thing! You can program stuff, you can join meetings with other participants and have a discussion. For example, you can explain your project and then get some feedback. That’s the deal: making software and getting feedback from others. And just having fun.

FSFE: What are the future plans for your project?

Antoni: I would like to share the message to conserve endangered languages because it is quite sad that we are losing linguistic diversity. The world would be less interesting and less rich. About extending the project, I am going to pause its development, and get back to it once I have resources, such as time and money.

Tobias: If I find the time and I get an idea to add something to the software or just fix a feature that does not work right now (like the time notifications) then I will work on it. Otherwise, I will just leave it as it is right now.

FSFE: Thank you Antoni and Tobias. We wish you a bright future and a lot of success with your plans!

The 2024 edition of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom is still going on now! The coding period ends on 30 June and you can still take part in the 2024 edition via last minute registration. Check out the YH4F website to find out all the details of this competition or feel free to reach out to the organisers via mail!

Are Free Software developers at risk?

16. April 2024 um 23:00

Are Free Software developers at risk?

Bitcoin (BTC) is a cryptocurrency created in 2009 that operates under the MIT Free Software licence. After its creator disappeared, a group of software developers continued to develop Bitcoin independently. Currently, Dr. Craig Wright, who claimed to be the creator of Bitcoin, is suing the Bitcoin developers in the UK courts through his company, Tulip Trading Limited (Tulip). This company claims to have lost £3 billion worth of bitcoin due to a hack that compromised the private keys, resulting in the loss of access to the funds. In this lawsuit Tulip is demanding that the Bitcoin developers provide access to the lost Bitcoin, arguing that the developers have a legal obligation to provide access or offer equitable compensation or damages.

As such, this legal case is currently drawing attention to the issue of Free Software developers' liability, in particular the extent to which they are responsible to their users.

UK High Court’s opinion: Developers have no legal duties or a duty of care in this case, but they do have certain duties in some specific situations.

The High Court considered whether software developers and controllers of digital asset networks bear legal obligations to cryptocurrency holders who rely on their software. The court ruled in favour of the developers, stating that as a "fluctuating body of individuals", the developers could not realistically maintain ongoing obligations. The court rejected the notion that developers should be compelled to provide software updates upon the request of digital asset owners, emphasising the absence of any explicit commitment or assurance by the developers. Regarding the alleged tortious duties, the Court determined that the developers did not owe Tulip a duty of care, highlighting that Tulip's loss was solely economic.

A duty of care is a legal responsibility imposed on an individual that requires them to follow a level of reasonable care when conducting any acts that could endanger others.

However, the court recognized that, in certain cases, software developers have specific duties. For instance, developers must exercise caution to avoid harming users' interests and may have an obligation to remedy bugs or faults in the system.

The court also acknowledged that the disclaimer in the MIT license, broadly disclaims liability for software issues. However, the court did not confirm whether this disclaimer absolved BTC Network developers of responsibility for its operation. This is because:

the MIT disclaimer has never been litigated, and the court is free to decide and set precedent.
such disclaimers are not easily found when using software.

UK Court of Appeal’s opinion: Arguable that developers owe some fiduciary legal duties

On appeal, the Court of Appeal (the second highest court in the UK) overturned the High Court's decision, concluding that it was at least arguable that the developers owe fiduciary legal duties to cryptocurrency owners. The court noted the exclusive control of the Bitcoin software code by a small group of developers and their decision-making role on behalf of all Bitcoin owners, resembling fiduciary responsibilities. The court also noted that only a handful of developers have exclusive access to the Bitcoin software code on GitHub. For example, if a Bitcoin owner notices a bug, he or she is unable to fix it because only the developers with access can do so, and they have to agree to do so. In the eyes of the court, this is a clear exercise of the de facto power of the developers. The court completely missed the point that no one can prevent others from applying a fix to the code - that is part of the fundamental freedom that comes with Free Software: if the developers of a particular repository refuse to apply needed fixes, the community can fork the project and bypass those developers.

Furthermore, code is speech. Freedom of expression includes expression in the language of computer code as well. Imposing disproportionate duties on Free Software developers forces them to change their code, and therefore infringes on their freedom of expression. The court also observed that the developers have a positive duty to fix bugs and code errors and a negative duty to refrain from acting in their own self-interest.

In summary, Tulip's case raises significant legal questions, and according to the latest developments, Tulip must prove ownership of the alleged stolen bitcoins in a preliminary trial.

Chilling effect on Free Software development?

Common law in the UK (and other countries) is developed through court decisions and precedents. When a court makes a decision in a case, it establishes a legal precedent that serves as a guide for future cases with similar circumstances. Lower courts generally have to follow the precedents set by the higher courts. Courts in common law countries tend to also borrow concepts and precedents from other countries if there is no local precedent available. The law and legal scholarship around Free Software developers’ duties is underdeveloped and almost non-existent. If Tulip succeeds in their case, it may set an international legal precedent, opening the floodgates to litigation. This means that any user of Free Software could potentially sue developers for alleged breaches of duty.

A fiduciary duty, as claimed by Tulip, refers to the legal duty of a person or entity to act in the best interests of another party, typically referred to as the beneficiary or principal. This duty is characterized by trust, confidence, and reliance on the fiduciary to act ethically and responsibly on behalf of the beneficiary. Fiduciary duties exist in only very specific relationships, like those of trustees, solicitors, agents, partners, and company directors. Attaching these duties to Free Software developers is unprecedented and disproportionate.

Free Software production, a catalyst for technological innovation, relies on voluntary contributions. Imposing fiduciary duties (or any disproportionate duties) on developers could deter them from participating in Free Software projects, fearing legal repercussions. This could lead to a chilling effect, where developers opt for more restrictive licensing, or refrain from sharing their code altogether, or release the software only in jurisdictions where there are no duties out of fear of litigation. The results of such an effect would be disastrous; stifling innovation and potentially halting the progress of specific Free Software endeavours.

In essence, if the court rules in favour of Tulip, it can have far-reaching consequences that can be detrimental to the Free Software developers in the following ways:

Courts may impose an active duty on Free Software developers to fix what the courts deem to be problematic issues.
In future courts may impose an active duty on Free Software developers to not cause any bugs that impact users. This can potentially expose the developers to litigation for just letting through a bug or failing to spot a bug.
Courts may also impose obligations on Free Software developers that require them to compromise the cryptographic integrity guarantees of the software. This could involve mandates to weaken encryption algorithms or provide backdoor access, directly undermining the security measures designed to protect user privacy and data confidentiality. Such orders would not only compromise the effectiveness of encryption software but also the tools such as secure file deletion or data recovery.

Free Software development thrives on the collaborative efforts of developers worldwide, continually evolving. The developers’ autonomy inherent in Free Software must not be jeopardized by the fear of unjust litigation. FSFE remains vigilant in safeguarding against threats to developer autonomy that could stifle innovation. In the light of these concerns, we call upon the developers to persist in their invaluable work without fear.