Hey all,
irregardless of the split in our community between privacy pragmatists
and privacy absolutists, I think we should take note of this step
Mozilla has taken, as I believe FSFE still has a Facebook page (last
active on September 21st as far as I can ascertain).
> Dear global community we’ve had the opportunity to interact with over the past several years here:
>
> We’re taking a break from Facebook.
>
> At Mozilla we champion platforms and technologies that are good for the web and good for the people that use it.
> We stand up for transparency and user control because they make the web healthier for us all.
>
> That’s why we are pressing pause on any Facebook activity. Mark Zuckerberg has just promised to improve Facebook’s settings and make them more protective, which is a start! Please do that! But we can’t help but think we’ve heard it before, so we’re still going to wait and see what materializes before we resume spending our ad dollars or time here.
>
> IN THE MEANTIME:
> If you need support for Firefox or want to tweet at us, you can find us here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/
> and https://twitter.com/mozilla
(Non-tracked link to the source:
https://web.archive.org/web/20180323091845/https://de-de.facebook.com/mozil…)
What do you guys think?
Best regards,
Jonke
There is an interesting article on LWN about Free Software and voting:
https://lwn.net/Articles/797557/
Several commenters argued that electronic voting itself should not be
done. E.g. one of the first commenters (Roberto) wrote that:
It is indeed pretty sad to see that in 2019 we still need to explain,
again and again, why electronic voting is not feasible. I have been
involved in public debate about electronic voting since the early
2000, when it was unfortunately introduced in France. Here is a
recent summary of the key points, in English, that should make a nice
reading.
http://www.dicosmo.org/MyOpinions/index.php?post/2016/02/25/A-rule-of-thumb…
Do you agree with this criticism or what do you think about that topic?
Best regards,
Matthias
PS: Btw. there was also a good episode of John Oliver explaining this to
a broader audience: $youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svEuG_ekNT0
--
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/support)
Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) Weblog k7r.eu/blog.html
Hello,
Last summer, there was a discussion on this list about "Strategy and
serendipity" to which I contributed the following remarks:
> Maybe the role of the FSFE is to go beyond advocacy and help knock some
> stubborn heads together, to eliminate people's parochial and needlessly
> competitive attitudes, to actually persuade people to commit to realising an
> actual vision in a genuinely serious way, perhaps to secure resources to
> allow this to happen. Urging people to use Free Software products that
> don't exist just won't do the job.
Recently, in the "suggestions/request for fsfe" discussion, it was pointed out
that people want to use Free Software solutions but have no clear course of
action they can take. And more recently still, I encountered another kind of
situation that perhaps highlights the deficiencies of merely advocating for
something without anything being organised to make that advocacy meaningful.
As luck would have it, it has something to do with arguably one of the more
successful and engaging campaigns that the FSFE has run: the PDFreaders
campaign [1] requesting that public institutions cease advertising proprietary
PDF-reading software (particularly that of a single vendor), emphasise the
standardised nature of the PDF format, and acknowledge the existence of Free
Software solutions.
(One can imagine taking elements of such a campaign in other directions. For
instance, public broadcasters like the BBC systematically promote proprietary
social networking platforms whose harmful social effects go far beyond those
caused by the promotion of proprietary PDF reader applications. Just as one
might wonder whether Adobe had somehow procured favours from public
institutions, so might we wonder what bargains have been made between
taxpayer-funded media organisations and multi-billion-dollar corporations.)
But it is the aspect of promoting Free Software solutions in a campaign that
becomes troublesome, particularly if those solutions do not manage to address
end-user needs. It was precisely this problem that I encountered recently.
Having been sent a PDF form that needed completing, I rediscovered the
apparent lack of support in Free Software applications for performing this
task.
Now, I may have mentioned this before in another context, that being a
discussion about an alternative microkernel-based foundation for GNU Hurd,
which I think most people would agree is quite a different area from PDF
application software. But ignoring the rather out-of-place nature of the
encouragement from an influential figure of the Free Software movement [2], a
need for improved PDF document handling in Free Software is clearly
recognised.
Yet the situation is still confused and rather unsatisfactory:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/29230/is-there-software-that-can-fill-pdf-f…
While there may have been other factors involved in my own recent experiences,
such as whether such documents would even be communicated securely, I ended up
with the feeling that it would not be possible to perform an important task
using Free Software. No amount of advocacy would remedy this situation.
I imagine that some people would rather let "the market" figure out how Free
Software products can be improved, that people motivated by a "business case"
would see to it that such improvements are made. Unfortunately, the
accompanying "business model" usually ends up taking the software proprietary,
pursuing dubious monetisation strategies, or looking after niche groups of
customers.
What really needs to happen is that a coherent vision be articulated and then
all necessary action pursued to realise it. If people are supposed to be able
to use Free Software for their needs - interacting with PDF documents, in this
particular case - then organisations must go beyond advocacy and actually
facilitate the development of the features that are part of that vision. That
may well involve the financing or sponsorship of developers, rather than
"inspiring volunteers" or whatever the mantra - ostensibly empowering
creativity, actually perpetuating exploitation - tends to be.
So, while the PDFreaders campaign was helpful in raising awareness of Free
Software and competition issues, as well as having useful side-effects in
terms of liberating some PDF handling software, it also needed to be
accompanied by initiatives to sustain Free PDF software development. Without
such accompanying initiatives, we find ourselves confronting the same
situations over and over again, always on the defensive and never really
having something compelling to offer to those willing to try something new
(or, for that matter, those of us who have supported Free Software all along).
Well, that was probably far too many words stating the obvious, but I suppose
the message will eventually sink in.
Paul
[1] https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/pdfreaders.en.html
[2] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/l4-hurd/2018-05/msg00001.html
Hello all,
In this third episode of our software freedom podcast we speak with our
guest is Harald Welte about mobile phone communication and the general
status of Free Software in this area:
https://fsfe.org/news/podcast/episode-3.en.html
Best regards,
Matthias
--
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/support)
Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) Weblog k7r.eu/blog.html
Dear all (mainly FSFE team),
First wish you all a new year and appreciate your solid work.
My email may look a bit annoying but please think it as a request (not
a native english person).
Over the holidays I (being the crazy family geek) speaks about adblock
(µblock origin) and many in family are bored but a bit thinking it is
a good idea. With many smartphone + TVs - I sent (whatsapp) links to
these people but realized soon everyone ignore this as running pi-hole
is too much work. No one wants to touch router if it f**** up.
After Googleing a bit I found there are few pi-hole open to everyone to use.
https://pi-dns.comhttps://public-pihole.com/
I am not an expert in network (actually a zoologist) things but I was
wondering why not FSFE build a open pihole server?
Instead of trusting some people on the internet (there are warnings
about using someones dns server???) FSFE is a trustable place.
This finally rounds up studies that say *people* do *care* about
privacy but to enable this is too much effort. (other than buying
Apple devices - at least people think)
Would it not be better FSFE does *real* practical help to world?
Every year here in our chapter we distribute flyers but many go to
bin. Why? Not easy to do it?
Want to avoid google search but others are not good (enough)?
Want to google docs - no easy docs in phone!
Want to stop MS-office - forced by enterprise/job!
Want to stop Gmaps but ...
Are there any legal reasons FSFE does not want to get into adblocking?
Or is it money?
Educating public/law makers is good intension - but at the end of the
day people need practical help. Or finally I found many end up buying
Apple devices - assuming they automagically get privacy - despite
using Gmaps, or Google search etc. How long can people be tracked
(especially our friends) until law changes or helps. I feel worry
because some smartTVs are traking with even mic.
*So people really want to do change but it is help are presented in a
easy way. *
What about a simple VPN service or pihole type adblock. Every small
thing will help the innocent citizen?
Sorry if my email was rude...
Wish you a good start for wonderful year.
Minor report from the trenches of free software development, but a
project for Danish local authorities I've been heavily involved with the
last few years (since 2015, getting up to speed since 2017) made it to
the Joinup site:
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/news/au…
Basically, it's about something as bureaucratic as maintaining
authoritative organisation hierarchies, e.g. for local authorities
(which the tools was specifically made to support). Ideally, all
onboarding etc. of new staff could be done in this tool with
integrations in place to allow automatic access to other systems the
employees would need. Or, as it says in the article:
"OS2mo keeps tabs on the hierarchical links between units, manages lists
of employees, per unit, project and task. It provides a management
interface that shows for each unit, department, project team and person
who is responsible for what, who else is involved, and which IT systems
are being used. The information is easily exchanged with access
directories and other IT management systems, helping to create, change
and manage roles in an organisation, and manage user rights and access
rights. And then, OS2mo can also work as an organisation’s address book,
displaying contact details and presence information."
What is also interesting is that as small as this tool is, we also hope
it can serve as a door opener for other free software, which has *not*
otherwise been a priority for Danish local authorities. In order to run
this system, based as it is on PostgreSQL, Flask and Python (and some
frontend stuff) the municipalities need to provide a GNU/Linux server,
and for many of our customers this has been a first and a struggle with
their own IT departments.
I'm sorry if people find this announcement off-topic for this list, but
I can't help but be a bit excited to see a project I've been working on
for so long getting ready to go out there - and hopefully open more
doors for free software in the municipalities, as they see that it works
and is much cheaper than the proprietary systems they normally use for
these things.
Best regards,
Carsten
Hi everybody,
In the blog about fellowship elections being cancelled[1], the
fellowship has been likened to a corporate donor.
A similar comparison was made in the invitation to the extraordinary
general assembly.
On the transparency page[2], there is a link to donor information[3]
where FSFE identifies the significant corporate donors, especially those
who contribute more than 10% of the budget.
The fellowship appears to contribute[4] about a third of the budget,
more than any other single donor. That was almost EUR 190,000 in 2016
A single fellow also made a bequest of EUR 150,000 to FSFE and they were
not identified publicly. Every corporate donor who contributes over 10%
is named publicly. Does anybody feel that the same transparency
principle should apply in cases such as bequests?
Corporate donors (whether they are publicly listed or private companies)
typically have to publish some information publicly, at a bare minimum,
we can see in which country they are domiciled and who their directors are.
I feel it is a good idea to publish more details about FSFE membership
and fellowship. In comparison, while at RMLL, I was at the session
about April where they announced that they have 4,000 members[5] and
clarified that these are all full members of the association with a
right to vote.
FSFE currently publishes[6] the names of all legal members (GA members),
there are 29. FSFE has not directly published statistics about the
fellowship though, although the page[7] about the last elections showed
there were 1,532 people eligible to vote.
There is a weekly report circulated in the team mailing list that gives
a membership breakdown by country. As fellowship representative, I feel
that the information in this report is quite important for the
fellowship at large. I also feel that it is important for other reasons:
- giving volunteers transparency, the same details that GA and team are
aware of
- being consistent with the availability of information about the
corporate donors (e.g. we can see where corporate donors are domiciled,
so it is important to know where the fellows are predominantly domiciled)
- as the "E" in FSFE is for Europe, I feel it is important to
demonstrate the extent to which FSFE is engaged in each European country
The dissemination of the fellowship statistics on the team mailing list
stopped shortly after the extraordinary general assembly. I notice that
the fellowship numbers had been increasing last year but in the last few
months it has been decreasing. Personally, I suspect that two factors
may be responsible:
- the renaming of "fellow" to "supporter", many of the email templates
and web pages only started using the new term in the last few months.
I personally feel this is a downgrade, as a fellow is by definition a
member of a fellowship while a supporter is a more external role. Other
people may have had the same feeling and quit.
- increasing awareness about the GA decision[8] in October to begin the
process of abolishing elections
There is also a report circulated each week about mailing list
subscriptions. I notice in this report that there is a strong
correlation between the number of fellows in each country and the number
of mailing list users in each country. The blog[1] about removing the
elections asserts that fellows are a "purely financial contributor" but
if they are active in the mailing list and volunteering, I feel that
statement does not adequately describe the fellowship and it is even
more critical to have details on the transparency page and to ensure the
GA meeting in October puts in place a new procedure for community
members to vote.
Regards,
Daniel
1. https://fsfe.org/news/2018/news-20180526-01.en.html
2. https://fsfe.org/about/transparency-commitment.en.html
3. https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus.en.html
4. https://fsfe.org/about/funds/2016.en.html
5. https://www.april.org/association#Chiffres_cles
6. https://fsfe.org/about/team.en.html
7. http://civs.cs.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/results.pl?id=E_29119d29f759bbf8
8. https://danielpocock.com/our-future-relationship-with-fsfe-2018