Discussion September 2017

discussion@lists.fsfe.org

38 participants
27 discussions

Meetup in Barcelona?
by Carsten Agger 29 Sep '17

29 Sep '17

Dear all, with the occasion of the Plone Conference, I'll be in Barcelona from October 12 to 23. I'll be giving a talk about the Baobáxia project: https://2017.ploneconf.org/talks/baobaxia-the-galaxy-of-baobab-trees If anyone would like to meet up and discuss free software and perhaps have a beer or something like that, do get in touch! Best Carsten

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Free Software in Europe -- Position Paper
by hellekin 28 Sep '17

28 Sep '17

This proposal was submitted to the Next Generation Internet consulting project at NLnet on 2017-09-27 at 22:27. ## Building a Public Discourse for Free Software We need support to engage with the free software community at European level to fulfill the following agenda. The specific step for which we’re asking support is the funding of our forum platform that serves as the base of operations of [the Migration project]. We’re aiming at boosting a think-tank involving technicians, philosophers, lawyers, lobbyists to create influential publications and amplifying existing free software action networks at European level. [the Migration project]: https://ps.zoethical.com/groups/Migrators We're making *a public discourse that differentiates proprietary software from free software on technical ground.* With this new understanding, policy-makers in Europe can consciously choose to favor free software instead of wasting public funding on private interests that are unable to deliver a solid public digital infrastructure. Over the last decade, a number of free software activists, mostly in Europe, have been gathering, trying to alleviate the huge asymmetry of funding between proprietary and free software in general, and especially in public institutions. Small steps have been made, resulting in a growing network of instruments for free software projects to access economic and legal means to sustain them. But the free software movement is too often perceived as an ethical lobby of entrenched idealists who don’t play well with others. Lately the open-source world has been diluting with corporations historically opposed to free software, and others that make extensive use of free software, eventually promoting and funding some open-source projects, but who are actually working against the ethics of software freedom, such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Microsoft (GAFAM). This recuperation of the free software movement by problematic U.S. companies involved in sapping privacy, fair markets, and technological diversity, send the wrong message, and give a wrong incentive to European policy-makers who make decisions with few actual technical knowledge. Our aim is to develop a public discourse that free software activists and lobbyists can use to counteract this trend in European policy, that appear even more pregnant as the upcoming reform of European Copyright law seems to indicate that the rule of Law may be side-stepped by direct access of software patent owners – often U.S. corporations – to actual means of disrupting the open-source model of code development. (See the current Public Money, Public Code campaign of the FSFE, and the article 13 of the European Copyright law reform under way.) In order to counteract this trend, we started the NEST (Nouvelles Études Simondoniennes Transdisciplinaires, New Transdisciplinary Simondonian Studies) working group gathering philosophers and technicians interested in developing a public discourse that distinguishes proprietary software from free software on technical grounds. We’re looking for support to: - publish a collective article on this topic - extend our reach and publish a review demonstrating the need for free technologies to provide a public digital infrastructure - engage and coordinate with existing free software activists and developers in Europe We’re currently using an online forum to develop this discourse on our spare time. We need resources to professionalize this endeavor in order to provide a European-wide initiative that will amplify the reach of existing lobbies (FSFE, EDRI) and support the free software community out of the idealist margins it has been relegated to, into a strong force to build a sustainable technological society that is respectful of citizens, and economically sound. The worst-case scenario is already under way. If article 13 is voted into European law, software patent holders may be able to forcefully close key public code repositories that participate in the larger open-source code base without intervention of a judge, eventually breaking software builds and rendering some free software illegal. Anti-reverse-engineering clauses may render software security research illegal and harder to do. This combination of trends may effect in a disruption of the Internet and the free software movement. The GAFAM are currently in a unique position where they can force competition out by “selling at zero price”, effectively killing any attempt at entering the market. This monopolistic behavior requires huge amounts of capital, and cannot be countered with current laws and tax systems. The GAFAM are known to pay much less taxes than they should. This gives them an unfair advantage only reinforcing itself as they capture more markets in Europe. Understanding of how technologies work is a key component of inflecting European policy in a direction that is favorable to the Internet and democracy. By gathering support around key technical arguments, we believe we can provide strong political support towards establishing a public digital infrastructure in Europe, based on free software that create open-ended technologies where all technical stakeholders, small and big, can contribute. This will create a highly competitive market not only open to larger corporations with infinite credits, but also to local businesses that can better respond to local needs while still strengthening the common infrastructure. It will also pave the way to bring forward a strong strategic advantage for the European Union over the USA that currently dominate the Internet markets. For example, once policy-makers have understood the technical influence they can gain from forcing competition on larger corporations, they can implement EU-wide electronic payment systems on free software like GNU TALER that provides transparent sales (taxable), and at the same time privacy-preserving purchases. Such a possibility can bring a halt to many current fraud and tax evasion from larger players in the European Union, reinforcing the European market and helping to balance unfair competition from larger corporations. These issues must be addressed at several levels and time frames but the first part that this proposal introduces must be addressed by a small group of free software technicians and philosophers to create the public discourse that will provide others the arguments for a shift in policy. The first part of the effort, i.e., running the NEST WG successfully, will require a full time effort for the coordinator, and several publications by renowned academics over the next year. The main obstacle is the current misunderstanding of open-ended technologies that allow proprietary software companies to capture public money, instead of having a myriad of free technologies companies building up a public digital infrastructure. But once the discourse is public, it cannot be undone: understanding implies a change of perception, a new perspective on technologies from the part of policy-makers. We’re aiming for: - more engagement with the https://ps.zoethical.com/ platform and/or a new successful platform hosted in partnership with FSFE and other stakeholders. - concrete outcomes with federating EU free software lobbyists - successful impact on the understanding of open-ended technologies by EU policy-makers Current time estimates aim: - to establish a public discourse susceptible to bring a more adequate understanding of open-ended technologies to the public in general, and EU policy makers in particular within 6 to 12 months. - to gather forces and create European consortia that can respond to public EU calls following this discourse, involving existing activist (CCC, EDRI, FSFE, LQDN, etc.) and funders (CCT, EdgeFunders, NLnet, Public CIC, TCC) networks, as well as free software unions (e.g., Synpell in France) and related free software companies and university departments, within 18 months. - to involve political parties active in the EU Parliament and work in collaboration with the above-mentioned networks to pass legislation favorable to a public digital infrastructure, 6 to 12 months from now, within 36 months. - to catalyze local businesses so they can use the public discourse to gain local markets with their cities and at regional level, 8 to 12 months from now, for the next 5 years. == hk -- Towards a GNU Consensus on Free Software for Social Networking

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Advertisement for presentation software
by Jens Lechtenboerger 26 Sep '17

26 Sep '17

Hi there, if you frequently give presentations, this may be for you; in particular, if you use Org mode in GNU Emacs. In a nutshell, this is an advertisement for free software, called emacs-reveal, to generate HTML presentations (with audio if you wish) from simple plain text files, separating layout from content and allowing collaboration with Git. I use that to generate Open Educational Resources for lectures. Technically, presentations are written down in Org format [1]. The recommended editor to do so is, of course, Emacs. In theory, you could use other editors because HTML presentations are generated from Org files, and you are free to use my infrastructure on GitLab (which, under the hood, is based on a Docker image containing Emacs and other necessary software). I created a Howto explaining the use of the software based on a simple presentation [2]. The Org file of that Howto is translated into an HTML presentation whenever changes occur. The resulting presentation is then published as so-called GitLab Page [3]. A sample (in fact, first and, so far, only) course is available on GitLab, where you can inspect the Org files in the main directory [4]. I created emacs-reveal to address the following requirements: - Self-contained presentations embedding audio, usable on lots of (including mobile and offline) devices with free software - Separation of layout and content for ease of creation - Text format for diff and merge for ease of collaboration I hope this to be useful for somebody else’s talks or teaching as well. Feedback is highly appreciated. Best wishes Jens [1] http://orgmode.org/ [2] https://gitlab.com/oer/emacs-reveal-howto [3] https://oer.gitlab.io/emacs-reveal-howto/howto.html [4] https://gitlab.com/oer/OS

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separate GA and community meetings
by Daniel Pocock 26 Sep '17

26 Sep '17

Hi all, There are upcoming meetings of the GA (October) and FSFE community (November) I want to raise the question of why these happen separately. For example, the GA weekend only includes a brief formal meeting of GA members, the last time this happened, it took just 15 minutes[1]. The rest of the time is spent, as described on the wiki[2], as "a strategic weekend in which the long term strategy for Free Software is discussed". How do people in the GA and wider community feel about this topic? Would it be better to have a wider range of community members present around the formal GA meeting in future years, or is it better to have separate events? Regards, Daniel 1. https://fsfe.org/about/legal/legal.en.html 2. http://wiki.fsfe.org/Teams/GA

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[UK] Information about the think tank Doteveryone
by Mat Witts 22 Sep '17

22 Sep '17

I presume they have to be 'supportive' in some way - which could mean a donation or something else - like a commitment to promoting FS I would assume - but I don't know DOTEVERYONE is a trading name of GO ON UK LTD. The newly incorporated DOTEVERYONE is now a dissolved company. The older company, GO ON UK is a registered Charity, two of their websites (digitalskills.com and go-on.co.uk) weren't responding when I looked today and their latest accounts highlight two risks about 'organizational capacity' and 'financial stability' which again, because I don't know the conditions of being added, don't know if that's relevant here. It's certainly interesting to learn that the bulk of the money (approx. 1.2M a year) has been pledged by companies not known for their sympathy towards free software AFAIK including E ON (Energy), EE (Telecomms), Lloyds Bank, Sage (software) and Talk Talk (telecomms). Their accounts don't mention FS anywhere as far as I can see... they don't seem to know much about FS and don't talk of it's importance in any of their materials... which is not to say they wouldn't if they were educated since they do seem well intentioned, fairly well resourced and well connected. The bulk of the expenses seems to go on wages, consultants, web costs and other things which doesn't impress me much though. I have worked in UK third sector for 15 years and the variability in quality in UK charities is hard to overestimate and the regulator is seen as being quite weak and ineffective. Any UK registered charity would fit the broader category description of 'NGO'. What a 'true' NGO 'like the other organisations on our list' means I am not sure. SUMMARY IMO: I don't know the terms /conditions of entry to the list so can't make a judgment. The company are having quite a few teething problems... which I think is because it's rather unfocused aims and objectives and (ironically) for an organization promoting digital competence - it doesn't seem to have demonstrated much of that so far... e.g. it has 'frozen' some of it's operations because it's uncertain about the 'viability of the platform'. They do not seem to be oriented towards FS so far, but you may still want to add them for other reasons... e.g. FSFE might be able to influence them into talking more about FS in their events? / mat

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Freelance web development
by Andreas Nilsson 22 Sep '17

22 Sep '17

Hello FSFE I am a web developer with two years experience in NodeJS and MongoDB looking for a free software job I can do in place in the company I work as a consultant job. Can anyone help me? Kind regards Andreas

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Fwd: Consultation on fixing issues of the internet
by Matthias Kirschner 22 Sep '17

22 Sep '17

Hello everybody, do you think a certain aspect of the core internet technology is broken? Do you have an idea what could be done about it? This is the time to submit your idea to: https://nlnet.nl/NGI Best Regards, Matthias PS: Below some more information by Michiel: * Michiel Leenaars [2017-07-24 08:07 +0200]: [...] please find some information about the consultation for the European Next Generation Internet initiative to pass on to your members. To clarify: we are looking for the 'technical debt' (or put differently, 'skeletons in the closet') of the internet, i.e. what is preventing the internet as a whole from moving forward. And what could be done about it, given that the EC is embarking on a Next Generation Internet initiative and we can try to direct public funding to it. While there is plenty of innovative work happening at the fringes, the core internet technology that is actually being run at internet scale is not actually properly absorbing that work - in a sense creating even more chaos than if nothing would have happened. We are looking for intervention logic to get things going again. The context is the following: NLnet foundation (the independent charity I work, which was was set up by pioneers of the European internet) and Gartner were invited by the European Commision to write the vision for their Next Generation Internet initiative, as well as prioritise the key topics for funding. We are organising the process in a much broader way than previous 'next-gen internet' efforts (of which there were quite a few), as we believe these were doomed to fail from the start because they only pushed for 'innovation' and never involved the right people (= the people that actually design and operate the 'current' internet). Not to mention that you need people from adjacent areas (such as operating systems and browsers) to be involved. Note that many of the people and organisations we think could make the most difference tend to avoid the public funding machinery, because they have their own funding and little need for bureaucracy and forced consortia. However, this leaves many issues unresolved, and we want to change that. (we are also eager to see the unfortunate bureaucracy and forced consortia go away, and likely that will happen too in the context of the NGI initiative - which is really awesome). We actually went to get support from all the leading European umbrella organisations - besides FSFE we approached RIPE (the European regional internet registry), CENTR (organisation of domain registries), GEANT (research networks), ISP associations, the digital civil rights community (EDRi) and Internet Society, etc. So not just the separate communities that operate different layers of the technology but also what we consider 'ethical guardians' of the internet. And we are not looking to just get their presidents, managing directors or CTO's involved, but also harvest 'bottom up' - under water the iceberg looks rather different, and there are quite some issues that are not in view at the management level. We are therefore very thankful for you relaying this information to your members. You can either send you ideas (in any shape or form, although written can concise is preferred) by mail to us (ngi(a)nlnet.nl), or fill out the open online consultation at: https://nlnet.nl/NGI (that is conceptually like an issue tracker, and helps us to isolate the individual actions - we believe by now that no single issue by itself is responsible, the ossification of the internet is more 'death by a thousand cuts'). We feel this is quite a unique opportunity for the internet to get funding to resolve a significant amount of technical debt that has accrued over the years, as well as stimulate new interesting work to hardening the internet and make it more resilient and keep it open - an area I expect your members to be quite interested in. I hope your membership has time to provide us with some input, and/or relay this to some interesting people (we are open to any suggestions). I have some additional information attached, if people have any questions do not hesitate to let us know - me and my colleagues are happy to help. Best, Michiel Leenaars [...] -- Matthias Kirschner - President - Free Software Foundation Europe Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin, Germany | t +49-30-27595290 Registered at Amtsgericht Hamburg, VR 17030 | (fsfe.org/join) Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) - Weblog (k7r.eu/blog.html)

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Re: [gaia] Internet Hall of Fame
by willi uebelherr 21 Sep '17

21 Sep '17

Visionaries Who Helped Shape the Internet Take Their Place in the Internet Hall of Fame https://www.internetsociety.org/news/press-releases/2017/visionaries-helped… Dear friends, for your information. -------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht -------- Betreff: Re: [gaia] Internet Hall of Fame Datum: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 12:33:07 +0100 Von: Andrés Arcia-Moret <andres.arcia(a)gmail.com> An: gaia <gaia(a)irtf.org> And here Ermanno's’ 20+ years trajectory on connecting Latin America: http://www.eslared.net/english/ Congratulations! Regards, Andrés -------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht -------- Betreff: Re: [gaia] Internet Hall of Fame Datum: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 12:25:29 +0100 Von: Leandro Navarro <leandro(a)ac.upc.edu> An: gaia <gaia(a)irtf.org> Wow, congratulations and many thanks to both Ermanno and Mike Jensen for their contributions in our common endeavour in this group: • Mike Jensen (South Africa) built some of the earliest networks to connect the nonprofit sector, and played a key role in establishing network connectivity for developing countries. • Ermanno Pietrosemoli (Venezuela) led technical education of the Internet in dozens of countries in South America and Africa, and was instrumental in building Universidad de los Andes’ direct connection to the Internet backbone. https://www.internetsociety.org/news/press-releases/2017/visionaries-helped… Kind regards, Leandro. Leandro Navarro http://people.ac.upc.edu/leandro http://dsg.ac.upc.edu -------- Weitergeleitete Nachricht -------- Betreff: [gaia] Internet Hall of Fame Datum: Tue, 19 Sep 2017 07:09:27 +0100 Von: Arjuna Sathiaseelan <arjuna.sathiaseelan(a)cl.cam.ac.uk> An: Ermanno Pietrosemoli <ermanno(a)ictp.it> Kopie (CC): gaia <gaia(a)irtf.org> Congratulations to Prof Ermanno Pietrosemoli for the Internet Hall of Fame Award :). Regards

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Participating to POSS’17 ?
by Bastien Guerry 15 Sep '17

15 Sep '17

Hi all, the Paris Open Source Summit is a big event in France, dedicated to everything related to the "open source" mouvement. Quotes are needed here : I disagree with the usefulness of confusing free softwares with "open source" softwares, as I guess you do. In any case, I was wondering: has someone from the FSFE participated to this event (by attending or giving a talk)? I’m in charge of organizing several sessions around the "ecosystem" theme. "ecosystem" is a very broad topic: basically everything not related to business or to tech. Seeing the very nice campaign "public money public code", I would like to invite someone who worked on this campaign and give a talk about it: is there someone on this list? Also: if you see anything useful the FSFE members could talk about at this conference, let me know, I’d be glad to help. Thank you very much in advance, -- Bastien

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Poster for PMPC
by Jonke Suhr 15 Sep '17

15 Sep '17

Hey guys, I wonder if you think if a poster for PMPC would be a good idea? It could borrow the design of the sticker: https://fsfe.org/contribute/spreadtheword.html#pmpc-sticker But maybe with more design elements on it? Cheers, Jonke

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Discussion September 2017