Dutch government publishes large project as Free Software

The Dutch Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations released the source code and documentation of Basisregistratie Personen (BRP), a 100M€ IT system that registers information about inhabitants within the Netherlands. This comes as a great success for Public Code, and the FSFE applauds the Dutch government's shift to Free Software.

Operation BRP is an IT project by the Dutch government that has been in the works since 2004. It has cost Dutch taxpayers upwards of 100 million Euros and has endured three failed attempts at revival, without anything to show for it. From the outside, it was unclear what exactly was costing taxpayers so much money with very little information to go on. After the plug had been pulled from the project earlier this year in July, the former interior minister agreed to publish the source code under pressure of Parliament, to offer transparency about the failed project. Secretary of state Knops has now gone beyond that promise and released the source code as Free Software (a.k.a. Open Source Software) to the public.

In 2013, when the first smoke signals showed, the former interior minister initially wanted to address concerns about the project by providing limited parts of the source code to a limited amount of people under certain restrictive conditions. The ministry has since made a complete about-face, releasing a snapshot of the (allegedly) full source code and documentation under the terms of the GNU Affero General Public License, with the development history soon to follow.

In a letter to Dutch municipalities earlier in November, secretary of state Knops said that he is convinced of the need of an even playing field for all parties, and that he intends to "let the publication happen under open source terms". He went on to say: "What has been realised in operation BRP has namely been financed with public funds. Software that is built on top of this source code should in turn be available to the public again."

These statements are an echo of the Free Software Foundation Europe's Public Money, Public Code campaign, in which we implore public administrations to release software funded by the public as Free Software available to the citizenry that paid for it.

The echoes of 'Public Money, Public Code' do not stop there. In a letter to the Dutch parliament Wednesday 29 November, the secretary of state writes about the AGPL: "The license terms assure that changes to the source code are also made publicly available. In this way, reuse is further supported. The AGPL offers the best guarantee for this, and besides the GPL (General Public License), sees a lot of use and support in the open source community.

"Publication will happen free of charge so that, in the public interest, an even playing field is created for everyone who wants to reuse this code."

This is big news from the Netherlands and an unprecedented move of transparency by the Dutch government. Following a report to the Ministry of the Interior about publishing government software as Free Software (Open Source Software), it seems that this will happen more often. In it, Free Software is described as making the government more transparent, lowering costs, increasing innovation, forming the foundation for a digital participation society, and increasing the quality of code.

"We applaud the Dutch government for releasing the source code for BRP. We have been asking for this method of working since 2001, and it is good to see that the government is finally taking steps towards Free Software. In the future, we hope that the source code will be released during an earlier stage of development, which we believe in this case would have brought issues to light sooner", says Maurice Verheesen, coordinator FSFE Netherlands.

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EU Copyright review: The FSFE joins more than 80 organisations asking the EU member states to reject harmful Article 13

A new copyright proposal is currently discussed by the EU co-legislators. Part of this proposal is Article 13 which can hamper our ability to collaborate with each other online as it imposes new monitoring obligations and installation of arbitrary upload filters on every code hosting and sharing provider. The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) today raises its voice to save code sharing and joins 80 other organisations in an open letter towards the EU Council.

Free Software development often relies on code hosting platforms to build software together. Current ongoing EU copyright review, and in particular its Article 13 however, could hamper our ability to collaborate online with each other by imposing new obligations on every code hosting and sharing provider to prevent any possible copyright infringement in the form of arbitrary upload filters. In addition, the proposed Article 13 will oblige online platforms to monitor their users and actively seek for possible copyright infringements. However, there are no known filtering technologies that could accurately and reliably identify whether any Free Software is being shared in accordance with its terms and conditions. That means with such an Article 13 as currently proposed in the Council of the European Union (EU Council), software developers’ ability to share and collaborate in the development of source code would be limited.

Together with over 80 organisations, the Free Software Foundation Europe calls the EU member states to acknowledge the danger that Article 13 of the current EU Copyright Directive proposal poses to fundamental rights and freedoms, our economy, our education, our innovation, and our culture. And in order to address the issues Article 13 specifically poses on Free Software, the FSFE together with Open Forum Europe already launched Save Code Share and has published a White Paper to explain how Article 13 endangers our ability to build and share software online. We also ask individuals, organisations and companies to sign our Open Letter addressed to EU legislators to prevent harmful impact of Article 13 on collaborative software development and Free Software.

Support us today so we can make the voice of Free Software developers heard in this policy process.

Background on the policy

The main parliamentary effort in the copyright reform led by the Legal Affairs committee (JURI) will be voted upon in January 2018. However, several other parliamentary committees have issued their opinions on the matter. The most recent one by the European Parliament Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), proposes to remove the most harmful provisions from Article 13, which means:

no to upload filters; no to general monitoring obligation to actively seek for any possible copyright infringement on their platforms.

As a result, the LIBE opinion goes in the right direction to make sure that no content, including source code, is taken down because of 'potential' copyright infringement decided by the arbitrary filters. While LIBE's vote did not reject the harmful Article 13 as a whole, it still sends a clear message to the rest of the European Parliament that there is no place for arbitrary code filters when it comes to sharing Free Software online.

While European Parliament's main negotiating position regarding the EU copyright directive is yet to come, the co-legislator EU Council consisting of the EU member states representatives, however, seems to be taking a completely diverging direction, evident from their revised presidency compromise proposal on Article 13. EU Council's compromise proposal reinforces arbitrary removal of works hosted online.

In particular, the EU council proposal reinforces the European Commission's proposal to oblige online platforms, such as code sharing platforms, to prevent any copyright infringement on their platforms. It explicitly mandates to delete and block any content, including code uploads, as soon as the platform is notified of a potential infringement without any meaningful redress mechanism for users to contest that decision. Furthermore, it makes it an explicit responsibility of a platform to make sure that the same content is not being available elsewhere on the same platform, including for example all other projects that might have incorporated the same source code into their software. As a result any code repository or project can be disabled or taken down from online code hosting services at any time.

The EU Council's text is even more inconsistent in its proposals. Not only are platforms obliged to pre-block content, but they have to make sure the "preliminarily blocked content"' is made publicly available so the relevant rightsholders can "enforce their rights with regard to infringing works". The proposal mandates at the same time to both pre-block content upon uploading, and to make the same content publicly available simultaneously, in order to expand the number of possible copyright infringers for rightsholders to go after. Only then, platforms cannot be held liable for actions of their users, while demanding mutually exclusive actions from them. As a result, the EU Council's compromise proposal is introducing more legal uncertainty for online platforms and their users when it comes to sharing works online, including software.

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FSFE Newsletter - November 2017The FSFE presents modernised Fiduciary Licensing Agreement 2.0

The FSFE's Fiduciary License Agreement (FLA) was initially introduced in 2002, to address the challenge of managing rights and content within a Free Software project over long periods of time. The FLA is a well-balanced contributor agreement, which gives the trustee, responsible for managing the rights within a Free Software project, power and responsibility to make sure the contributed software always remains free and open. This way the project, together with all the respective contributors, is protected against any possible misuse of power by a new copyright holder.

However, the last review of the initial FLA was back in 2007 and we are happy to present an improved and modernised version - FLA-2.0. The biggest improvements are that the FLA-2.0 now also covers patents and enables more practical licensing options directed towards third parties – including referencing an external licensing policy. In addition, the new wording is much improved both in its compatibility with more jurisdictions as well as being easier for everybody to understand and apply.

For FLA-2.0, the FSFE joined forces with ContributorAgreements.org and integrated the FLA-2.0 into its Copyright Licensing Agreement (CLA) chooser/generator, in order to make the use of the FLA easier both for projects and for developers. As a side-effect, all CLA on ContributorAgreements.org have been updated as well, following some of the improvements from the FLA.

General Assembly 2017: new members, new roles and new directions

The members of the Free Software Foundation Europe held their General Assembly on October 15 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The annual meeting is held to discuss strategies for the upcoming year and to set the overall direction of the organisation. Amongst other things, the General Assembly prepared a route to some reforms of the organisational structure and adopted an overall Code of Conduct for the FSFE. Patrick Ohnewein was elected as the new Financial Officer, and six new members joined the association. You can read more details in the official minutes and a summary about the accepted proposals in the corresponding news-item.

Participants of the General Assembly 2017.

Help us grow and make a difference in 2017

What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE The Free Software Foundation Europe released its next version of REUSE practices to make computers understand software copyrights and licenses. The REUSE page now also comes with an explanatory video as well as a set of developer tools and examples which show the REUSE practices in action. The FSFE's Vice President Heiki Lõhmus explains the background about decisions for future changes to FSFE membership and the removal of the Fellowship Representatives during the General Assembly 2017. As in previous editions of the Chaos Communication Camp, the FSFE will set up an assembly during 34C3 for all friends of Free Software and is running a call for participation until November 19. At the beginning of October, 32 European Ministers signed the Tallinn Declaration on eGovernment. The FSFE's policy analyst Polina Malaja writes about FSFE's input and the good process involved in this declaration. The FSFE's Executive Director Jonas Öberg blogs about the steps he took to make cURL REUSE compliant. André Ockers analyses the Dutch coalition agreement on the matter of software and misses any support of Free Software within. Tarin Gamberini evaluates that in the last semester, eight Italian Regions have reduced advertisement of proprietary PDF readers on their website, and that one region has increased its support for Free Software PDF readers. Hannes Hauswedell explains how to use FSFE's Gitea and/or Github to host comments in statically generated blogs and in a privacy-friendly way. The FSFE was present at the Open Source Summit 2017 in Prague, Czech Republic. The FSFE's president Matthias Kirschner gave a talk about "Limux: The Loss of a Lighthouse", and Polina Malaja about "DSM, EIF, RED: Acronyms on the EU Level and Why They Matter for Software Freedom". Jonas Öberg was at the Open Source Strategy Forum in New York to present updates to FSFEs' REUSE practices. The FSFE's country coordinator Germany Björn Schiessle gave a talk about how to avoid digital dependencies at the Fellbacher Weltwochen. The FSFE's country coordinator Italy, Natale Vinto, gave a talk about Public Money? Public Code! at Linux Day Milano to celebrate Linux Day, a national manifestation to discuss about Linux and free software. Do not miss it! Upcoming events with the FSFE

Always find the FSFE's future events listed on our events page.

Contribute to our newsletter

If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to us. As always, the address is newsletter@fsfe.org. We're looking forward to hearing from you!

Thanks to our community, 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 mother tongue.

Your editor, Erik Albers

Help us grow and make a difference in 2017

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Welcome supporters (and goodbye smartcard)

Earlier this year, after a public consultation, we took the decision to change the name of our supporter program, the Fellowship of the FSFE, and talk about our supporters by their true name: Supporters. This is an exciting change for us, as it brings our Supporters much closer to the organisation, by making them an integral part of the FSFE. Today, with the change almost complete, we're also taking the opportunity to say goodbye to the Fellowship Smartcard, which has been a part of FSFE life for more than ten years.

These changes do not come easy for us. They have been a part of the FSFE for as long as many of us, and many of us have at times identified as being part of the Fellowship. But what's become apparent is in creating the Fellowship, we also introduced an artificial divide between the FSFE and its supporter program.

In order to have a closer connection to the FSFE, anyone who has felt part of the Fellowship should, and will, be encouraged to think of themselves as a part of the FSFE. Rather than talking about Fellowship Groups, meeting locally to discuss Free Software, we're now talking about FSFE groups. Instead of being a Fellow of the Fellowship program of the FSFE, you will be a Supporter of the FSFE.

A photo of the brand new FSFE supporter patch which all new (and old!) supporters will receive, as an exclusive gift for supporters.

This connection between our supporters, volunteers, and the FSFE is important to us: as a volunteer organisation, anyone who participates in our work, regardless of whether they support us financially or through volunteer contributions, should feel a part of the FSFE. You can choose to do either, or both.

By changing the name we also make clear that a Supporter is someone who contributes to the FSFE, not someone who gets funded by the FSFE (as some have thought it to mean to be a Fellow).

At the same time as we're completing this change, we're also decomissioning our old Fellowship SmartCard, an OpenPGP SmartCard which all our Fellows have traditionally received as a thank you for joining. As we say goodbye to the Fellowship, we also say goodbye to the SmartCard, but for different reasons.

We love the SmartCard, and many of us still use it. But the number of of supporters who actually use it is small. The fact it requires a SmartCard reader, which most people do not have in their computers, further limits its use, especially amongst the non-technical supporters who increasingly join us. Most of the questions we receive about the SmartCard are also about how to use it. Which we would love to help with, but the FSFE is not setup to handle support inquiries related to OpenPGP smartcards.

Since the FSFE is not the only provider of these SmartCards, we've decided to stop offering them to new Supporters. These days, you can get similar SmartCards and other crypto devices from other vendors for those of our Supporters who still want to get a hand on one. Without the SmartCard, the FSFE can focus its ressources better at what is at the core of our mission: Promoting Free Software. It's also a way for us to be more welcoming towards new Supporters: you don't need deep technical skills to become a Supporter.

So with this, it's time for us to say; Goodbye Fellows! Welcome Supporters!

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Open position as office assistant

FSFE is a charity dedicated to keeping the power over technology in your hands. We are working to build freedom in a digital society and operate in a lively environment with volunteers from many countries. We are looking for an assistance supporting the office manager with for instance:

Sending out information material, merchandise-articles and welcome-letters for new supporters Packing and posting packages for FSFE’s information-booths Keeping office and staff’s kitchen tidy

Basic details

Location: FSFE’s office in Berlin (Schönhauser Allee 6/7, 10119 Berlin.

Duration: unlimited, 10 hours per week attending at least twice a week once at beginning of the week and once at the end of the week.

Compensation: 8,84 € per hour as Minijob

Qualifications

Basic knowledge with computers, fluent in English and German.

Application deadline

Please apply by 07.01.2018.

How to apply

Send your application containing a letter of motivation, a CV by e-mail to contact@fsfe.org. Please make sure to write clearly you apply for the office assistant position with reference A-2018. We prefer to receive your documents in PDF format.

Contact persons

If you have any questions about the position or any administrative details in connection with it, you're welcome to contact:

Jonas Öberg about the work of the FSFE, Ulrike Sliwinski for any questions about the work itself.

Both will be reading and responding if you send your question to the contact@fsfe.org address. We look forward to reading your application!

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