SFP#21: Exploring Software Freedom in European Politics with Lina Ceballos

Listen to our new Software Freedom Podcast episode with Lina Ceballos. Lina and Bonnie talk about everything related to Free Software in European Politics. Learn more about Lina's work at the Free Software Foundation Europe and how political decisions come to pass in the EU. Discover how best to advocate for Free Software, and especially, what the Interoperable Europe Act is all about and why the Free Software communities need to be on the lookout for the protection of software freedom.

Lina is part of the team working for software freedom at the Free Software Foundation Europe. In her work, she advocates for software freedom at a European level, ensuring that Free Software is considered and protected in new laws. Listen to our 21st episode in which Bonnie Mehring and Lina Ceballos chat about Lina's work for the FSFE. Find out what the Interoperable Europe Act is trying to achieve, how and why Free Software should be considered the first option within it. Learn about the intended Interoperable Europe Board and how you can best help advocate for Free Software.

Read more:

• Lina Ceballos
• EU Parliament intends to widen participation in the Interoperable Europe Board
• IEA: EU Parliament advances in strengthening the role of Free Software, yet needs more to improve
• Council to exclude relevant stakeholders from contributing to an Interoperable Europe
• drip.

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YH4F: Coding is over!

The second edition of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom, the hacking competition for young Europeans has just ended. For the last six months, the participants have worked on developing their own personal Free Software projects.

Nearly 70 young people from across Europe signed up for the new edition of Youth Hacking 4 Freedom, a competition for European teenagers to develop their coding skills and win great cash prizes.

This second edition, which started last January, was accompanied by a new activity: a monthly meeting where participants had the opportunity to discuss their technical problems and learn some tips from different Free Software experts. These meetings have also been a way to keep in touch during the last months, and a way to support each other, promoting one of the principles of Free Software, the creation of community. These open and voluntary meetings allowed those attending to talk and connect with each other in smaller groups.

After six hard working months of coding, it is now the turn of the YH4F jury to evaluate the participants’ submitted projects. The jury is composed by Free Software professionals with different background and technological skills, that will review the projects within the next weeks taking into consideration different criteria such as the originality of the idea, the creativity of the project or the quality of the code.

After the first round of voting the jury will decide which of the submitted projects could be considered for one of the cash prizes. Then, the owners of those projects will be invited to an online interview to present it and answer the jury questions. Afterwards the jury will decide on the prizes.

Brussels is awaiting!

In the coming weeks, the winners will be announced based on the judges' scores, and prizes will be awarded at the YH4F Awards ceremony in Brussels in mid October, to which all participants will be invited for an all-expenses-paid weekend.

Six winners will receive cash prizes ranging from €4,096 to €1,024 each, at a ceremony featuring top Free Software speakers.

Keep up to date to our next news to learn about this year amazing projects and the winners!

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EU Parliament intends to widen participation in the Interoperable Europe Board

Today the EU Parliament’s Committee responsible for the Interoperable Europe Act has adopted its final position. It is a step forward towards a more inclusive Interoperable Europe Board while it introduces clearer indicators and statistics to monitor the progress of the Act. This position must now be upheld during the upcoming trialogue.

Today the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) has voted on its final text of the Interoperable Europe Act which is an improvement of the Commission proposal. The EU Parliament has introduced the possibility for relevant stakeholders to participate with observer status in the Interoperable Europe Board meetings and activities, including within those, the Free Software community.

Furthermore, the EU Parliament has also followed our demand suggesting the introduction of clearer objectives and statistics, that will allow to evaluate and properly measure the progress of the activities that will fall under this Act. Especially, when it comes to monitoring the use and uptake of Free Software solutions among public administrations.

The ITRE Committee has also voted with a large majority to enter the inter-institutional negotiations. This means that the European Parliament must now defend its position and anchor it to the final text which will be negotiated together with the Council and Commission in the coming weeks. This is of high importance bearing in mind that the latest compromise text of the Council is hindering the inclusion of relevant stakeholders in the governance structure of this Act.

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Cyber Resilience Act & Free Software: Parliament waters down its own position

The European Parliament today voted on its position on the Cyber Resilience Act (CRA). While the position improves on the Commission's exemption to protect Free Software, it fails to introduce a proper protection . We call on the institutions to put the burden of liability only on those who significantly financially benefit from the market, while protecting developers and non-profit work.

The Commission’s proposal to exclude Free Software “outside the course of a commercial activity” would fail to address a large part of software that will not be covered but is deployed. At the same time, smaller and non-profit projects would be harmed as they would have to bear major costs.

Therefore we have already proposed a solution that will lead to more security while safeguarding Free Software:

1. Liability should be shifted to those deploying Free Software instead of those developing Free Software and
2. Those who significantly financially benefit from this deployment should make sure the software becomes CE-compliant

While the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO), a committee for opinion in CRA, backed our demand and voted for the protection of Free Software developers in the Cyber Resilience Act, the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) introduced less far reaching protections with today's vote. Regular corporate donations or contributions by corporate employees to a project could turn non-profit work into a “commercial activity”, and thus lead to liability.

Interinstitutional negotiations will start start soon and should be concluded this year if possible. You can read more here.

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"The world after Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. A new generation of the Internet?"

Join our symposium in Cologne on September 22 to discuss the role of decentralised social media platforms in our society!

More and more people are turning away from social media platforms like Facebook and YouTube to alternatives like Mastodon and PeerTube. Why are they different? How are they changing the web? And how can you get involved in the Fediverse? Join our symposium and get an insight into these decentralised social networks through our talks and workshops on 22.09.2023!

The Free Software Foundation Europe, the Centre for Civic Education of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Adult Education Centre Cologne are organising this free event. It is aimed at multipliers in political education, teachers, representatives of public institutions and educational establishments, as well as all interested parties. Prior knowledge and experience of decentralised social networks is not necessary, as the programme will include an overview of various decentralised services, often referred to as "Fediverse". Other topics include the potential and problems of decentralised services and their role for a democratic society. Three workshops will deal with the practical use of Fediverse services, the operation of own instances and the transfer of knowledge about decentralised social networks in an educational context.

The event will be held in German. Participation is free of charge, but online registration is required. We look forward to your participation!

Event dates and registration

Programme

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