= FSFE Newsletter - September 2017 =
[ Read online: https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201709.en.html ]
== Public Money? Public Code! ==
Digital services offered and used by our public administrations are part
of the critical infrastructure of 21st century democratic nations. Due
to restrictive software licences, however, many public bodies do not
have full control over their digital infrastructure. Although publishing
publicly funded software under a free licence generates great benefits
for governments and civil society, policy makers are still reluctant to
improve legislation in this area. It is time to change this. At the
FSFE, we want European legislation requiring that publicly financed
software developed for public sector must be made publicly available
under a Free and Open Source Software licence. If it is public money, it
should be public code as well!
To push our demand, the FSFE launched a new campaign last week: "Public
Money Public Code" [1]. The campaign explains the benefits of releasing
publicly funded Software under free licences with a short inspiring
video [2] and an open letter [3] to sign. Furthermore, the campaign and
the open letter will be used in the coming months until the European
Parliament election in 2019 to highlight good and bad examples of
publicly funded software development and its potential reuse.
Initial success was overwhelming. The campaign launch was covered by
many websites and news magazines over Europe. At the time of writing,
the Open Letter is already signed by more than 35 organisations [4] and
more than 5000 individuals [5]. Various politicians and other prominent
people have publicly announced their support of the campaign, including
Edward Snowden, President of Freedom of the Press Foundation:
"Public money shouldn't write software the public isn't allowed to
fix. Sign the letter, save the world: https://publiccode.eu/#action
#PublicCode" [6]
[ In the online version you find a picture here: ]
[ Edward Snowden on publiccode.eu ]
[ https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201709 ]
Support public code as well and sign the open letter here:
https://publiccode.eu/#action [7]
== FSFE publishes Software Licensing Best Practices ==
If you want others to be able to use your code, you have to include a
licence, and as a best practice you should do so in a way which can be
understood by humans and computers alike. Unfortunately, endless
software projects and code snippets are available in the open but still
lack a proper licence. One potential reason is that attaching a licence
to software - properly and in a way that is understandable - can be
challenging. Making sure computers understand your licence is even more
difficult.
That is why the FSFE has begun our work to make managing copyrights and
licences in free and open source software easier [8]. Our Software
Licensing Best Practices guide will help you include license and
copyright notices correctly in your software. And as we keep evaluating
best practices, under https://reuse.software/ [9] you will already find
a few simple steps to take to make the copyright and licence of your
project more easily understood.
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== What else have we done? Inside and Outside the FSFE ==
- The proposed European Copyright Directive restricts the rights of
developers and internet users, creating barriers for the development
of source code. Together with Open Forum Europe, the FSFE wrote a
white paper [11] to help people understand the full view of the matter
at stake from a software developer point of view. We will launch a
campaign later this month but you can already help us to raise
awareness by sharing Save Code Share [12] widely.
- The FSFE's executive director, Jonas Öberg, published a blog post
about the yearly FSFE budget, how our finances are structured, and
where the money goes [13].
- The "Koalition Freies Wissen" ("Free Knowledge Coalition") created the
"Digital-O-Mat" [14], an online tool for voter information for the
German federal elections on September 24th, 2017. The Digital-O-Mat
[15] (German) highlights the parties' positions on topics relavant to
internet policy like Free Software and helps voters find their most
matching party for the election to the German parliament.
- The FSFE country team Germany sent "Ask Your Candidates" questions to
participating parties of the Bundestagswahl (the German federal
elections) and published and analysed their answers [16]. (German)
- The FSFE country team Netherlands was present with a village at SHA
Camp, a non-profit hacker-camp in the Netherlands. For five days, this
village offered a public space to discuss, meet, hack, sing-along, and
find shelter. The FSFE had its own curated track and the village
offered multiple self-organized sessions [17], from a Free Software
Song choir to a FreedomBox install fest.
- The FSFE country team Greece supported the first edition of Re:publica
in Thessaloniki [18], a conference about digital culture.
- The FSFE group Rhein/Main was present with a booth at Froscon [19], at
the Free Software conference at the University of Applied Sciences
Bonn-Rhein-Sieg, Germany. FSFE president Matthias Kirschner also gave
a talk about "Limux: das Ende eines Leuchtturm-Projekts!?" [20].
(German)
- In April this year, the Digital Society Institute hosted a workshop to
analyse "How secure is free software? Security record of open source
and free software." The workshop included contributions from Matthias
Kirschner and is now available in English and German [21] including
recommendations for the private and public sector.
- We are happy to welcome three new interns: Carmen Bianca Bakker,
Kristi Progri and Erik Da Silva. If you are interested in doing an
internship with us, find more information on our pages [22].
- We have a new item in the FSFE online shop: a non-binary pink bib [23]
with the slogan "I am a fork" stitched onto the bib. Organic and fair
trade.
[ In the online version you find a picture here: ]
[ The FSFE village during SHA Camp 2017 in the Netherlands. ]
[ https://fsfe.org/news/nl/nl-201709 ]
== Do not miss it! Upcoming events with the FSFE ==
CopyCamp in Warsaw [24] will be happening on 28 - 29 of September.
CopyCamp is a conference that focuses on the question of how exclusive
immaterial rights affect culture, education, science, technology, and
Free Software. Matthias Kirschner will speak about "Limux: the loss of a
lighthouse" and our policy analyst Polina Malaja about the upcoming "EU
copyright reform and its implications for collaborative software
development." The conference has no admission fee, but participants are
asked to register before attending [25]. Thanks to the Foundation for
Polish-German Cooperation, there are travel grants available for German
residents (not only citizens), funded by the German Federal Foreign
Office.
== Get Active ==
Have a look at our "Public Money Public Code" page [26] and the PMPC
video and share it with your friends, colleagues, and favorite mailing
lists. Also ask them to sign the open letter [27] and do this yourself.
If the page is not available in your language, help us with translations
[28].
== Help us improve our newsletter ==
If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, send them to
us. As always, the address is newsletter(a)fsfe.org. We're looking forward
to hearing from you!
Thanks to our community, all the volunteers [29], supporters [30] and
donors [31] who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators
[32], who enable our readers to read this newsletter in their mother
tongue.
Your editor,
Erik Albers
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1: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170913-01
2: https://publiccode.eu#about
3: https://publiccode.eu#action
4: https://publiccode.eu/#organisations
5: https://publiccode.eu/openletter/all-signatures/
6: https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/908012039045386240
7: https://publiccode.eu/#action
8: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170906-01
9: https://reuse.software
10: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-09
11: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170908-01
12: https://savecodeshare.eu/
13: http://blog.jonasoberg.net/where-does-our-money-go/
14: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170829-01
15: https://bund.digital-o-mat.de
16: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170905-01
17: https://blog.3rik.cc/2017/09/still-freeing-software-anyway/
18: https://re-publica.com/en/eu17/sessions?location=Thessaloniki
19: https://k7r.eu/fsfe-at-froscon-2017/
20:
https://media.ccc.de/v/froscon2017-1991-limux_das_ende_eines_leuchtturm-pro…
21: https://www.esmt.org/sites/default/files/dsi_ipr5_engl-dt.pdf
22: https://fsfe.org/contribute/internship
23: https://fsfe.org/news/2017/news-20170726-01
24: https://copycamp.pl/en/
25: https://copycamp.pl/en/contact/register/
26: https://publiccode.eu
27: https://publiccode.eu/openletter/
28: https://git.fsfe.org/pmpc/website/src/master/TRANSLATE.md
29: https://fsfe.org/contribute/contribute
30: http://fsfe.org/join
31: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus
32: https://fsfe.org/contribute/translators/translators
33: https://fsfe.org/join/nl2017-09
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