Mise à jour de la base de données, veuillez patienter...

Key stakeholders debated the future of Router Freedom in Austria

Together with the Alliance of Telecommunication Terminal Equipment Manufacturers (VTKE), the FSFE organised the online event "The Future of Router Freedom in Austria" where decision makers could debate with industry and civil society stakeholders on the future developments regarding the free choice of terminal equipment in Austria.

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) and the Alliance of Telecommunication Terminal Equipment Manufacturers (VTKE) organised an online session about the future of Router Freedom in Austria. In this session, key stakeholders had the opportunity to debate and raise arguments supporting free choice of terminal equipment for internet connection.

The event occurred in the context of the introduction of the reform for telecommunications law in Austria, where the national regulator RTR is tasked with the regulatory framework for defining the boundaries between the internet service providers' networks and home networks of end-users. In this process, the new rules have the potential to negatively affect end-users' freedom to choose and use private routers and modems. Depending on the regulatory position adopted, either ISPs will continue to be allowed to impose their own routers/modems on customers or internet users will be able to choose their preferred router/modem for broadband connection. The panelists, therefore, had the opportunity to point out why Router Freedom is fundamental not only for consumer rights but also for a functional and competitive router and modem market.

The journalist Barbara Steinbrenner moderated the panel and it consisted of decision makers, industry representatives and civil society stakeholders. The panelists were: Dr. Natalie Ségur-Cabanac, Head of Regulatory and Data Protection Officer, Hutchison Drei Austria GmbH; Mag. Christian Drobits, Parliament Member (SPÖ) and spokesperson for Data Privacy and Consumer Protection; Kira Terstappen-Richter, MSc, VTKE Coordinator and Max Mehl, FSFE Programme Manager. You can check the recording of the debate below (video in German).

The Router Freedom initiative

Router Freedom is the right that consumers of any ISP have to be able to choose and use a private modem and router instead of equipment that the ISP provides. Since 2013, the Free Software Foundation Europe has been successfully engaged with Router Freedom, promoting end-users' freedom in many European countries. Join us and learn more about the several ways to get involved. Please consider becoming a FSFE donor; you help make possible our long-term engagement and professional commitment in defending people's rights to control technology.

Support FSFE

46 Sign OS Freedom Open Letter +++ Fair Market App +++ Your Digital Rights

In this Issue: an alliance of 46 entities - and counting - supports the universal right to install any software on any device. Free Software is being considered for inclusion in the EU Declaration of Digital Rights. FSFE's transparency in public procurement app gets to EU Datathon finals. Italian FSFE volunteers prepare tour.

46 Entities Request the EU for the Right to Reuse Hardware

The EU is redefining their ecodesign criteria for environmentally friendly electronics. The FSFE provided input by publishing an open letter demanding the right to install any software on any electronic device. This right would allow to keep our devices longer, but it requires manufacturers to follow certain rules. For example, manufacturers must be required to unlock bootloaders on all devices, including computers, tablets and phones; they must also publish full specifications for every component on the device. This allows us and any third party to better repair our devices, and even reuse parts of them. The use of Open Standards is also necessary for devices to communicate and operate with each other.

Initially 38 organisations agreed on the necessity of these conditions and signed the open letter before publication. It is still possible to sign the letter and more than 45 organisations have now signed. It speaks volumes that tech companies, right to repair initiatives, and important environmental organisations support the right to install any software on any device.

FSFE's App Prototype Shortlisted to EU Datathon Finals

The FSFE System Hackers created an application prototype aspiring to connect publicly available tendering and company data and to allow analysis of this data. The goal of the app is to allow citizens and experts to monitor suspicious market activity of public interest. The project idea has been a success and made it to the top six out of 26 entries in the ‘transparency in public procurement’ challenge of the EU Datathon 2022. Our team has now been invited to further develop the app.

Update: Digital Rights Declaration

The EU is in the process of discussing the Declaration of Digital Rights and Principles. The European Parliament has now agreed on a common text recognising Free Software as a way to ensure transparency in algorithms and artificial intelligence. The agreed text also stresses the need for 'trustworthy standards and, wherever possible, open source standards'. It encourages 'sustainable by design digital technologies that are durable, repairable, and interoperable, both on hardware and software level, and banning practices leading to premature obsolescence'. The FSFE keeps monitoring the ongoing inter-institutional dialogue trying to make sure that the Parliament proposal remains.

Update: AI Resolution Passed

The European Parliament passed a resolution on Artificial Intelligence (AI) with a huge majority. According to the resolution, public procurement should require Free Software, where appropriate, with the goal to encourage cross-border collaboration. The Parliament acknowledges that Free Software can enhance investments and boost innovation in AI technologies in the EU. The FSFE now urges the Parliament to transfer its own position into the AI regulation.

Save the Date!

• On 12 May the FSFE Berlin group has its regular monthly meeting.
• On 14 May the FSFE will have a booth in make-it.saarland in Saarbrücken, Germany and also our Policy Consultant Alexander Sander will give a talk ‘Innovation needs Free Software’ on Saturday and Sunday. On 19 May Alexander will discuss the challenges and perspectives of ethical and diversity-sensitive AI in the European context at the KIDD-Fachkonferenz panel in Berlin.
• On 20 May the FSFE Women group has its regular monthly meeting. In the last meeting, the group discussed the legal structure and the blogging network of the organisation.
• On 2 June there is an author reading of Ada & Zangemann [DE] in Cologne.
• On 14 June the FSFE local group Hamburg has its regular monthly meeting.
• Lucas Lasota, FSFE Legal Project Manager, is conducting a seminar on digital sovereignty at the Humboldt University of Berlin for the summer semester.

Past and Ongoing Activities

• On 4 May we held an online session about the future of Router Freedom in Austria. The recording [DE] will soon be available in our Peertube instance.
• Max Mehl, FSFE Programme Manager, wrote a blog post about a Python application he created for the FSFE infrastructure to automate reverse proxies for Docker containers, Docker2Caddy.
• We published a short video: What is Free Software (Open Source)? EN, DE. Matthias Kirschner, President of the FSFE, shared a blog post on how the video came to be made. To reach to possibly new audiences, we also uploaded the video to proprietary platforms EN, DE where you can upvote it to help new people learn about software freedom.
• „Nur ein Jahr länger…“ – Politik und Software rund um’s Smartphone [DE], the talk by FSFE Programme Manager and sustainability expert Erik Albers at the Digital Social Summit 2022, is now available on our Peertube instance.

FSFE Local Groups

Italy | The Italian Translation team has worked on the PMPC brochure and it is now available in Italian. Friends of the team are kindly proofreading the brochure.

The Italian volunteers are also preparing a summer tour around the country to let people know that code paid for by the public should also be publicly available. The first stop in the tour is Trento, on June 7th. Learn more about the plans in the mailing lists or chats of Milano and Sicily. Meet the volunteers in the tour and get yourself a copy of the freshly translated PMPC brochure!

Zurich | The local group in Zurich is working on persuading public administrations to migrate to federated social networks. The group have been discussing the idea since early April, and the project gained a boost when many people and entities, including the European Union have been joining Mastodon. The group will meet again on 18 May 2022.

Netherlands | Building on the Zurich group's idea, the Dutch team brainstormed technical solutions to automatically post Dutch municipalities’ news to Mastodon. ‘What if we gather the RSS feeds of 345 Dutch municipalities and feed them to a Mastodon account?’ was a question that caught attention. Fani Partsafyllidou, Project Manager at FSFE, joined the last meeting. The next meeting is on Wednesday 25 May 20:00 CEST.

Get Active

In the FSFE we want to empower users to control technology. But Free Software also helps to achieve ecological sustainability. That is why we joined the organising committee of the Bits & Bäume 2022 ('Bits and Trees') conference which will take place from 30 September to 2 October.

Passionate about sustainable Free Software solutions? Please let us and everyone else know at the conference! Submit a talk, a workshop or a fine piece of art to Bits & Bäume 2022. The Call for Participation for is open until 7 June.

Contribute to our Newsletter

If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, please send them to us. As always, the address is newsletter@fsfe.org. We're looking forward to hearing from you! If you also want to support us and our work, join our community and support us with a donation or a monthly contribution. Thanks to our community and all the volunteers, supporters, and donors who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators, who enable you to read this newsletter in your native languages.

Your editor, Fani Partsafyllidou

Support FSFE

FSFE calls for digital sustainability in the telecom sector

As a contribution to a consultation organised by the European telecom regulator, BEREC, the FSFE calls for increasing the level of digital sustainability in the telecommunications sector by safeguarding device neutrality and establishing the right to install any software on any device.

Last month BEREC, the European telecommunications regulator, organised a public consultation on a report about the impact of the telecommunications sector on the environment. The report is an initiative to assess and better understand the impact of the digital sector, including electronic communications networks and services, on the environment and to set an outline for BEREC activities in support of environmental sustainability of the sector.

The FSFE took part in the consultation as a civil society stakeholder with years of experience in digital sustainability. Our position offered recommendations that could be further used to improve environmental transparency and data accuracy on the telecom sector’s environmental footprint by developing regulatory frameworks to safeguard and promote software and hardware sustainability. FSFE's position in this consultation was aligned with the publication of the Open Letter "The universal right to install any software on any device", co-signed by more than 45 organisations, demanding the universal right to install any software on any device. Publication of source code of drivers, tools, and interfaces is fundamental for extending devices’ lifespan.

Router Freedom: a sustainability case study for the telecom sector

The FSFE highlighted how it is possible to develop policies for consumer protection which have a significant positive impact on the environment. Our Router Freedom activity is a perfect example of how to enable consumers' rights to choose and use their own internet devices as a close and direct connection with sustainability by mitigating e-waste and increasing the lifespan of terminal equipment.

Router Freedom mitigates e-waste and empowers users to control their own internet devices.

However, we also raised the point that the current EU regulatory framework negatively impacts sustainability by restricting freedom of terminal equipment. This directly impacts the sustainability of the whole telecom sector. Based on our experience, we encouraged BEREC to consider other regulatory ways directed to software and hardware re-use in telecom markets that would enable sustainable approaches and safeguard end-users' rights. We also called for strict collaboration with national regulators in achieving a favourable regulatory landscape for terminal equipment, including routers and modems, which would positively affect the more efficient use of internet devices and equitable use of public networks.

Free Software, device neutrality and right to repair are important for the environment

The FSFE acknowledged the regulator's initiative to raise concerns on how the telecom sector impacts the environment and recommended including in the agenda for future work the policy principles that can have a profound impact on digital sustainability and consumer protection.

• Software design and Free Software licensing are key to enabling repairability and extending usage lifetimes of electronic devices. Free Software is key to avoiding software obsolescence and protecting end-users' ability to install any program on their devices, thereby reducing e-waste and prolonging the lifespan of devices.
• The universal right to install any software on any device and the publication of source code of drivers, tools, and interfaces are fundamental for extending devices’ lifespans. The right to repair is crucial for extending the lifespan of devices, which directly affects sustainability. Therefore, for the ability to reuse and repurpose resources in a creative and sustainable way, the universal right to install and develop any operating system and software is key. Legal, technical, commercial, or other obstacles to reuse of these devices for any purpose should be discouraged.
• Device Neutrality is necessary for a non-discriminatory environment for digital services and software applications in devices. The sustainability of the telecom sector has much to gain with Device Neutrality, a concept that has been introduced to describe a non-discriminatory IT environment in that all service and software applications are treated equally within the running operating systems, their dominant platforms, and their respective hardware companies by fostering more competition in device markets, consumer choice, and innovation.

FSFE: several initiatives for digital sustainability

The FSFE has been deeply involved in working to protect and enhance freedoms of technology users in Europe and defending the rights of end-users to choose and use terminal equipment for internet connection. In recent years, the FSFE has developed and conducted several initiatives oriented to the sustainability of software and hardware, including technologies with direct impact on the telecommunications sector, for instance:

• The comprehensive study On the Sustainability of Free Software, focused on the analysis of how Free Software impacts the sustainability of IT infrastructures, including policy recommendations for a more sustainable digital society.
• The Router Freedom activity, aimed to protect end-users' rights in regard to terminal equipment and sustainability and competition on router markets.
• The Upcyling Android campaign to overcome software obsolescence and to extend the lifespan of hardware - mainly smartphones - with the help of Free Software.
• The Radio Lockdown Directive initiative, which was intended to safeguard Free Software on radio equipment. It has positive consequences for the environment.

Join us to support our work in engaging with telecom regulators all around Europe to influence legislation and raise awareness for sofware and hardware sustainability with a financial support.

Support FSFE

EU Declaration of Digital Rights & Principles: Free Software included by European Parliament

Early this year, the Commission proposed a draft for an EU Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles that aims to guide the digital transformation in the EU. Now the European Parliament has agreed on a text and Free Software makes part of it.

The European Commission has presented its proposal for the EU Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles which will serve as reference point in the future and as a common vision of our digital rights in Europe. After receiving the contributions to the text from different committees and finding a compromise, the European Parliament has now agreed on a common text. The FSFE welcomes that the text by the European Parliament now includes Free Software as a way to ensure transparency in the use of algorithms and artificial intelligence. It further highlights the importance of promoting "trustworthy standards and, wherever possible, open source standards".

"The EU Declaration of Digital Rights and Principles will be an important guideline to our fast pace digitalisation. Therefore, we welcome the agreed text from the European Parliament for acknowledging the role that Free Software has on trustworthy technologies, specially with regard to AI. Now we expect the ongoing-discussed AI regulation to be consistent with these principles" says Lina Ceballos, FSFE Project Manager.

Furthermore, in Chapter VI of the agreed text named "Sustainability", there is the commitment to support the "development of sustainable by design digital technologies, that are durable, repairable, and interoperable, both on a hardware and a software level, and banning practices leading to premature obsolescence".

"The European Parliament's call for the development of sustainable technologies, that are durable, repairable, and interoperable is in fact a call for the development of Free Software." as Erik Albers, FSFE Digital Sustainability Programme Manager, emphasizes. From here on we expect future legislations aligned to these principles and making use of the crucial role that Free Software plays for an eco-friendly design and the sustainability of our hardware"

The FSFE has published an open letter co-signed by meanwhile more than 45 organisations and companies from the environmental, economic, and technological sectors. In the letter, the broad alliance asks EU legislators for the right to install any software on any device, including full access to hardware. These rights support reusability and longevity of our devices.

The FSFE keeps monitoring the ongoing inter-institutional dialogue trying to make sure that the Parliament proposal remains. So that the final text of Declaration of Digital Rights and Principles can become a milestone for software freedom.

Support FSFE

European Parliament votes for Free Software in AI resolution – This position must now be included in the AI regulation

Today the European Parliament passed a resolution on Artificial Intelligence (AI) with a huge majority of 495 votes in favor, 34 against and 102 abstentions. There are many references to the advantages of Free Software included in the text - the FSFE now urges the Parliament to transfer its own position into the AI regulation.

The resolution states that in public procurement Free Software should be mandated, where appropriate, with the goal to encourage cross border collaboration. The parliament also highlights the importance of Free Software as a way to enhance investments and boost innovation in AI technologies in the EU.

Artificial Intelligence starts with machine learning "We welcome the assessment and the demands of the European Parliament. With this resolution, the Parliament recognises the importance and relevance of Free Software for AI." explains Lina Ceballos, FSFE Project Manager.

The FSFE demands with its "Public Money? Public Code!" Initiative that publicly financed software made publicly available under a Free Software licence. It is also important to rely on Free Software in AI as it helps to foster innovation, boosts local economy, ensures transparency and thus helps to protect fundamental rights.

“We ask Members of the European Parliament to take into account their position they voted on today and make sure this important position on Free Software and AI will be also included in regulation.” demands Alexander Sander, FSFE Policy Consultant.

In the upcoming weeks the European Parliament will get closer to its position on the AI regulation, until end of May members can table amendments to the commission text from which the position of the Parliament is formed. The FSFE recently shared a dedicated document for decision-makers, with elaborated arguments on the use of Free Software in AI technologies, which highlights the benefits that Free Software can offer to this crucial regulation.

Support FSFE