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Free Software Foundation Europe

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Rising demands for Dutch digital autonomy +++ REUSE Booster +++ Torsten Grote

lundi 28 juin 2021 à 01:00

Rising demands for Dutch digital autonomy +++ REUSE Booster +++ Torsten Grote

Dutch digital public services rely increasingly on monopolistic companies; the FSFE Dutch team actively demands digital rights. In June, we launched REUSE Booster to share legal advice with Free Software projects on copyright. We interviewed Torsten Grote, a member of the FSFE, who stressed the need to Free our Androids early on.

Dutch Digital Autonomy is undermined; demands for Free Software are rising

The Netherlands is becoming dependent on a digital infrastructure that is dominated by a small number of monopolistic companies. Although the Dutch Cyber Security Council recognises the consequent risk, their report neglects focusing on Open Standards and Free Software, the proven best practices to face this problem. The FSFE calls on the Dutch government to stand firm and get a grip on their digital security and autonomy by adhering to Open Standards and Free Software, in line with their earlier commitment to use Free Software by default.

Our team emphatically defends digital rights in the Netherlands. In 2018, Jos van den Oever noticed that the 'Debat Direct' app could not be downloaded to his Firefox OS phone. In other words, the official application for parliamentary debates was not available under a Free Software license. Jos' request to get the app's source code was denied, and he brought the case to court. The Council of State ruled on 31 March 2021 that the Parliament does not have to publish the source code. As a result, the participation app remains closed to those who wish to use only Free Software apps.

Jos van den Oever, the person behind this initiative, is a FSFE volunteer and part of our country team Netherlands. Its members kept in touch even during the pandemic, when they had to replace booths for online meetings. Nico Rikken, one of the two coordinators, shares his experiences about this transition in a blogpost, and calls anyone interested to join the FSFE community based in the Netherlands..

FSFE spot in a non-profit hacker-camp. The Netherlands, 2017.

REUSE Booster supports Free Software projects with licensing

REUSE has facilitated the licensing of Free Software projects. Developers are given standardised ways to mark all files in a project with their chosen license and copyright notice. A tutorial, a set of FAQs, a helper tool, and an API have been made available to lower the threshold and save time.

With REUSE Booster, the FSFE takes this initiative a step further. Free Software projects can seek tailored support with licensing and copyright by legal experts now. Each project will be evaluated individually and the recommendations will apply to its particular situation. Register until 8 July to get your Free Software project on board.

20 Years FSFE: Envisioning free operating systems in smartphones with Torsten Grote

In our fourth birthday publication we reminisce about the emergence of the first smartphones. We are interviewing Torsten Grote, who explored Free Software alternatives for smartphones as early as 2012. A programmer as well as a Free Software activist, Torsten shares his memories of the developments of alternative operating systems and applications for smartphones. Finally, we would not miss this chance to ask him what options there are today for liberating our phones.

This year the FSFE celebrates its 20th anniversary. Support our work for the next 20 years to come

Internal: The FSFE is migrating its IRC presence to Libera Chat.

Learn how to join us. We are moving from Freenode to Libera Chat, following the migration of its network of volunteer staff. We share our thoughts that led the FSFE to migrate its IRC presence.

What we have done

Get active

Pack your T-shirt and educate those around you on the definition of Free Software during your summer holidays. If we have the right to use, study, share, and improve it, then it is Free Software. Our T-shirts are made of 100% organic cotton, and our collection includes a variety of colours and slogans.

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

The biggest financial impact the FSFE faces in these times of physical distancing is the cancellation of Free Software conferences, including our own events. To keep the software freedom movement solid and alive, please consider donating a part of your conference budget to Free Software organisations, including the FSFE.

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20 Years FSFE: Interview with Torsten Grote

vendredi 25 juin 2021 à 01:00

20 Years FSFE: Interview with Torsten Grote

In our fourth birthday publication we are interviewing Torsten Grote, who explored Free Software alternatives on smartphones for the FSFE as early as 2012. We reminisce about the emergence of our Free Your Android campaign and discuss with Torsten which options are available for liberating our phones today.

Torsten Grote, creator of the Free Your Android campaign in the FSFE, conveys the message of 'Free Your Android' in FISL15, the 15th Forum International Software Libre. 2014, Brazil.

Torsten Grote is a Free Software developer and long time volunteer in the FSFE. He started his journey of engagement in the local group in Berlin, later joined the FSFE country team Germany and finally became a GA member in 2009. In the FSFE, Torsten is best known for being the creator of our Free Your Android-campaign, the campaign about regaining control of your Android device and your data.

For many years now, Torsten has lived in Brazil and has worked for different Free Software projects from Tor to Briar to CalyxOS. He is an expert in the field of phone liberation and creator of "Blitzmail" and "Transportr", both available in F-Droid.

For 20 Years FSFE, we interview Torsten Grote about his time with the FSFE, freedom on mobile devices, and upcoming challenges in the field.

Interview with Torsten Grote

FSFE: Do you remember your first contact with the FSFE? What caught your initial attention and how did you get introduced and active?

Torsten Grote: When I was studying computer science in university, I got increasingly interested in the political and ethical aspects of software. Thus, I discovered the FSFE that seemed to have regular meetings in Berlin where I was living. I subscribed to their Berlin mailing list in 2007 and soon received an email about a a meeting with a presentation about the first Free Software mobile phone, the Openmoko. Having heard about the Openmoko before, this got me really excited and motivated me sufficiently to show up at this meeting in person.

Arriving at my first FSFE meeting, I was warmly welcomed by Matthias Kirschner who was coordinating the Berlin group back then and is now the president of FSFE. There were lots of friendly and likeminded people. I enjoyed the meeting a lot, so that I become a regular participant for many years to come.

Through the meetings, but also special activities of the Berlin group, I got more and more involved, joined the German team, and got eventually elected into FSFE's general assembly in 2009.

'Smartphones were just starting to become a thing. The first iPhone came out around the same time as the OpenMoko and the first Android phone a year later.' Torsten Grote and the rest of the FSFE team handing over the Document Freedom Day Award in 2010 to Radio Deutschlandfunk with the theme "rOGG on". The Document Freedom Day was an FSFE campaign, designed and implemented to a great extent by Fernanda Weiden. Fernanda also gave an interview to celebrate and reflect on the FSFE's 20 year progress.

You came up with the 'Free your Android' idea in 2012. What was the status of phone liberation back then? What was the initial spark to create this campaign?

While the Openmoko was a great phone, its development fragmented and eventually stopped. Few phones were actually produced, but I managed to get one.

Smartphones were just starting to become a thing. The first iPhone came out around the same time as the OpenMoko and the first Android phone a year later. Most people had proprietary feature phones and I had hoped that having the Openmoko starting at the same time would give freedom a chance.

After this, we saw many other mobile operating systems with more or less Free Software, such as WebOS, Tizen, Maemo/MeeGo, Ubuntu Touch, Firefox OS, and many more. However, so far none managed to compete with today's duopoly.

Later, the FSFE moved forward with your idea and pioneered the idea of using Android as a base for a phone using only Free Software. What were the initial efforts, and what were the issues users had to overcome to achieve freedom on mobile devices?

To me it became apparent in 2012 that it would be very hard to compete with Android. It had already a big market share and most importantly, it was mostly Free Software. Since the beginning, people took the source code and made their own modified versions of Android, some becoming popular such as Replicant or LineageOS.

It might have been a risky bet to focus on Android, but it seemed the best chance to bring more Free Software to people and it was important to ensure that it stays free and to work to liberate its non-free bits.

'To me it became apparent in 2012 that it would be very hard to compete with Android. It had already a big market share and most importantly, it was mostly Free Software.'

The biggest challenge still exists today. It is the lower layers of the device, the hardware drivers and the firmware that are still mostly not Free Software.

Another challenge in the early days was installing a different version of Android. Even for technical people this was quite difficult and could render the device unusable. Today, some phones even allow their operating system to be changed with your webbrowser by visiting a website.

DRM, locked devices, proprietary parts in initial flagship cyanogenmod... How did the situation for users who like to put freedom first on their mobile devices evolve since the initial start of the campaign? After all, did the situation improve or worsen?

I'd say the situation improved significantly. There's now more devices to choose from, easier installation and many more apps now available as Free Software.

However, there is also more use-cases like banking, ride-sharing or instant- messages that are sometimes only available via a proprietary app and due to their connection to a specific company they are hard to replace with a general purpose Free Software solution.

'While the Openmoko was a great phone, its development fragmented and eventually stopped. Few phones were actually produced, but I managed to get one.' Torsten Grote holding an Openmoko phone in 2008.

The world of Custom-ROMs is hard to oversee and there are many different developments from more or less known entities being shared in different channels. What is your recommendation for a newbie or where can an interested user best start to learn more about Android alternatives?

If you already have a phone that you want to install an alternative Android version on, then LineageOS is a good start since they support many devices. However, they do so by including the same proprietary drivers and firmware that is already on the device anyway.

If you don't have a device yet, but plan to buy one, I suggest to choose an Android version first and then buy a device that is supported by it. Only Replicant is using 100% Free Software here and thus supports only old devices.

Unfortunately, I am not aware of a single website that presents and recommends various Android ROMs. Since the situation changes frequently, this is hard to maintain. For example, besides those mentioned already, there's now also CalyxOS gaining popularity.

'If you already have a phone that you want to install an alternative Android version on, then LineageOS is a good start since they support many devices.'

You are also creator of two Free Software mobile apps that are offered on f-droid. What role does f-droid play for freedom on Android devices in current setups and what developments do you expect / wish for or see coming regarding distribution of free software on mobile devices?

F-Droid is the destribution channel for Free Software apps. Without it, you would need to find, install and update apps manually. So it is a rather central piece in a free mobile device.

F-Droid is almost as old as Android itself. It has seen many awesome contributors over the years that all helped to make it what it is. But F-Droid has also aged and required substantial work to get modernized. This kind of work is hard to do for volunteer contributors that work without compensation in their free time.

There are now many forks and clones of the F-Droid app that would benefit from having F-Droid libraries, so they could share and maintain most the code together instead of each doing their own thing.

Then there is this whole area of building and updating all apps directly from their source code ideally reproducibile. Here, we sometimes see large delays as this responsibility historically lies with a single person.

My wish for the future would be that F-Droid finds the governance and funding to tackle these big issues to remain a viable alternative to Google Play.

What is your personal highlight with the FSFE or an important thing that you learnt from your work at the FSFE?

My highlight with FSFE were always the in-person meetings, especially those of the general assembly that would meet in a different European country each time. We were discussing Free Software strategy by day and partying together by night. It was impressive to see how we always managed to establish a consensus between all members on organizational questions.

Since many years now Torsten lives in Brazil and works for different Free Software projects from Tor to Briar to CalyxOS.

And what is a story that still makes you laugh or smile when you remember it?

When FSFE started its Free Your Android campaign, I had a big smile over my two ears to see the huge media echo it caused like few FSFE campaigns before. I was glad to see that it had hit a nerve and even the subway news monitors in Berlin had picked it up.

Years later, some F-Droid contributors confessed that they only got involved and spend many years improving F-Droid and adding more apps, because they had been motivated to join this work by the Free Your Android campaign. It is great to see what impact a few motivated people can have if they dedicate themselves to a cause.

FSFE: As a last question, what do you wish the FSFE for the next 20 years?

I wish that FSFE will continue to be a strong and respected NGO with an even bigger staff that will be able to educate the public as well as more and more European politicians about the importance of Free Software, so that we can participate in all aspects of society without having to use proprietary software. Furthermore, I wish that this will lead to all public software spending going exclusively towards Free Software.

FSFE: Thank you very much!

About "20 Years FSFE"

In 2021 the Free Software Foundation Europe turns 20. This means two decades of empowering users to control technology.

Turning 20 is a time when we like to take a breath and to look back on the road we have come, to reflect the milestones we have passed, the successes we have achieved, the stories we have written and the moments that brought us together and that we will always joyfully remember. In 2021 we want to give momentum to the FSFE and even more to our pan-European community, the community that has formed and always will form the shoulders that our movement relies on.

20 Years FSFE is meant to be a celebration of everyone who has accompanied us in the past or still does. Thank you for contributing your piece of the puzzle that shapes the FSFE and setting the foundation for the next decades' work of the movement for software freedom.

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Netherlands: Participation app remains closed to the public

vendredi 11 juin 2021 à 01:00

Netherlands: Participation app remains closed to the public

The Dutch House of Representatives (Tweede Kammer) debates in public, as it should. But as not everyone has the opportunity to go to Den Hague and sit in the gallery, the Tweede Kamer released an app to follow the debates via livestream. Unfortunately, this app not is released under a Free Software licence. Our Dutch volunteer Jos van den Oever wanted to participate but was not able to run the app on his device and got active.

In principle, it is a good idea to create and use technical solutions to increase the transparency of parliaments. However, the implementation in the Netherlands with the Debat Direct app is the opposite, as the app is not accessible to everyone. With the Debat Direct app, citizens can follow parliamentary debates easily from everywhere – but not with every device. The app is only available in the Apple, Google, and Microsoft app stores and is not available under a Free Software licence. A similar functionality is offered in an online webapp, Our Dutch volunteer Jos van den Oever wanted to participate and use the app on his Firefox OS phone - a Free Software operating system for mobile phones - unfortunately without success. Therefore Jos tried to get the app's source code in January 2018 in order to make it also accessible on other devices. It turned out to be a long fight.

Public Money? Public Code!

Request under PSI

The request for the source code invoked the Dutch implementation of the European Public Sector Information (PSI) directive (Wet hergebruik overheidsinformatie). The PSI directive allows public information to be requested in the original, reusable form in which it is present at the public institution. It is worth noting that the Parliament is exempt from Freedom of Information requests to make non-public information public, and so the PSI directive is only applicable if information is already public. However, for almost two decades now a large majority of Dutch MPs have been asking their government to use and publish software under a Free Software licence in order to give everybody the right to use, study, share, and improve the code. But so far Parliament has not led by example. Jos' request was not complied with; the code remained closed to the public. Jos did not give up and brought the case to court.

Reverse Engineering

Unfortunately the court did not agree with Jos and decided that source code is not the reusable form of software. However, most of the source code was made public on the website of the app as source maps. Jos wrote a script to save the js files from the source maps and managed to largely recreate the app from these files and reverse engineered build files. But even though Jos, and anyone else, may retrieve the source code, it remains without a proper licence; it can be studied, but not shared or improved.

Court Case

Jos appealed with the newly discovered source maps, which resulted in a hearing on 17 March 2021. Jos was the plaintiff at the hearing at the highest general administrative court in the Netherlands, the Administrative Jurisdiction Division at the Council of State (CoS). In the hearing, the Parliament argued that the source maps do not contain the source code, even though Jos submitted the source code that he extracted to the hearing. On 31 March 2021, the CoS ruled that Parliament does not have to publish the source code since, in their judgement, the source code is not public. So even though it is factually public, via source maps, it is not legally public according to the CoS judgment. In other words: it is not public because Parliament says it is not public.

As weird as that may sound, from a legal perspective the PSI directive does not apply to the Parliament and thus the app does not need to be made public. The bright side of the decision is that this does not say anything negative about the possibility of obtaining source code for software that is available publicly.

The FSFE therefore calls upon the Dutch Parliament to impose rules on itself, to act transparently, and to publish the source code of such applications under a Free Software licence in the future.

Here you can read more about the activity (Dutch): https://broncode.org

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REUSE Booster helps Free Software projects with licensing and copyright

mercredi 9 juin 2021 à 01:00

REUSE Booster helps Free Software projects with licensing and copyright

REUSE is a set of best practices to make Free Software licensing much easier. It helps developers with simple guidelines to declare their copyright and conditions for code re-use and provides help documents and low-threshold tools to get the job done. With REUSE Booster, we start to give direct support for Free Software projects.

Since its beginning, the aim of REUSE, an initiative led by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE), has been to make licensing and copyright drastically easier for developers, especially those without legal experience and assistance. It is fair to say that this goal has already been achieved.

REUSE offers standardised ways to mark all files in a project with their respective license and copyright. For developers, creating Free Software and communicating their conditions for code re-use are easier than ever before. REUSE offers a tutorial and FAQ, as well as the REUSE helper tool and the API to automate once manual processes. We are continuously working on improving all of these. But we won't stop here.

Introducing REUSE Booster

With REUSE Booster, we go one step further. We invite Free Software projects to register for getting help by the FSFE's legal experts. As the name suggests, this will boost the process of adopting the best practices as well as general understanding of licensing and copyright.

Accepted projects will be onboarded in a kick-off workshop in which the process and typical questions are clarified. Afterwards, each project will receive an individual evaluation that reveals potential challenges on their path to full REUSE compliance. If unforeseen problems arise, there will be direct contact persons that can provide guidance. Last but not least we will share practical suggestions on how to maintain a stable licensing status.

The FSFE already provides similar support for all projects in the Next Generation Internet Zero (NGI0) project. As consortium partners, we help developers to resolve licensing and copyright uncertainties and avoid legal pitfalls. Furthermore, many of them adopt the REUSE best practices to streamline their compliance. We now build on this practical experience and enable other projects to benefit from it. This is made possible by REUSE sponsors like Siemens and individual support by FSFE volunteers and supporters.

If your Free Software project wants to get support to become REUSE compliant, register before 8 July 2021. Please also spread the word and inform other developers about this opportunity.

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Cory Doctorow +++ Artificial Intelligence +++ New Staffer Fani Partsafyllidou

lundi 31 mai 2021 à 01:00

Cory Doctorow +++ Artificial Intelligence +++ New Staffer Fani Partsafyllidou

In our May Newsletter read about our time traveller Cory Doctorow who sends his wishes for 20 Years FSFE from utopian 2041, Router Freedom developments in Greece, Germany, and Austria as well as AI application benefits under Free Software licenses and as usual our other diverse community activities.

20 Years FSFE: Time traveller Cory Doctorow sends his wishes from utopian 2041!

Prolific Sci-fi author Cory Doctorow envisions the world in 2041 and informs us that humankind was able to solve major world problems thanks to collective work and mutual sharing of knowledge. Doctorow has been a vocal supporter of the FSFE for many years now. In his video he is celebrating the 20 year anniversary of the FSFE in his own fascinating way: Doctorow is travelling in time to greet us and congratulate us on our 40 year anniversary, talking to us from 2041.

His time travel allows him to see the critical importance of the FSFE in the transition to a digital society. In the author’s words ‘In those two decades we have seen massive decentralization of the internet thanks and part to deep reforms to our anti-trust and monopoly law, mandates for interoperability and open APIs’. This is why Doctorow is thanking the FSFE for our next 20 years of fostering freedom and decentralisation.

Rapid developments in Router Freedom in Greece, Germany, and Austria

Rapid developments in Router Freedom are being made in the EU countries as an EU reform of telecommunications law is being transposed into national jurisdictions. The implementation process has been complex and has led to different solutions which may negatively affect Router Freedom. The FSFE has been closely monitoring national legislation on telecommunications and actively taken part in public consultations together with local organisations to support legislative changes in favour of Router Freedom. For example, in Greece, the FSFE and six other organisations supported the preliminary decision of the Greek regulator for incorporating Router Freedom in the national legislation.

The EU is in process of reform of telecom law and it will affect Router Freedom.

The next months will be crucial for Router Freedom in EU countries. There are challenges ahead. Differently from Greece, Germany has moved in a direction to reevaluate the consolidated framework, which can lead to more restrictions to end-users rights. In Austria, the fate of Router Freedom will be decided by the national regulatory agency RTR after the full implementation of the telecom reform.

Achieving accuracy and fairness in Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications using Free Software

Vincent Lequertier published an article stating the reasons why AI applications released under a Free Software license can prevent known pitfalls in AI, making its use both efficient and fair. Three elements of AI should be provided openly: the source code used to train the AI, the datasets, and the trained AI models. Being able to understand how AI works will enable us to correct unfair discrimination generated by AI and give the opportunity for everyone to improve its transparency. Furthermore, releasing AI as Free Software can help fostering innovation in this field.

Vincent also suggested in a blog post on FSFE's Planet that the successful imposition of checklists in crucial sectors can be used as an example of good practice in AI development.

This year the FSFE celebrates its 20th anniversary. Support our work for the next 20 years to come

Internal: Our new staffer Fani Partsafyllidou

We welcome our new staffer Fani Partsafyllidou! Fani holds a Master's Degree in Modern History and Political Science and after working with the European Association of History and Citizenship Educators she joined the FSFE communication team on the first of May. You will read more and more by her in the upcoming months, and -- except this very paragraph -- you are already reading the first newsletter brought to you by Fani.

Upcoming events

Matthias Kirschner, president of the FSFE, and Bonnie Mehring, FSFE Coordinator of Translations, will talk at OpenSUSE Con about Public Money Public Code and the progress of the FSFE after 20 years of collective action. OpenSUSE Con will happen on 18 & 19 of June, the detailed schedule is still to be set.

What we have done

Get active

Our new call for local projects is open until the 25th of July! If you are a supporter of the FSFE and you have a project you have wanted to do for a long time, apply for funding by the FSFE and make it happen. If you are a supporter but you have no project in hand, look for a local group in your vicinity or create one. And if you are not a supporter yet - time to join the FSFE now.

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 are 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

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