Berliner Wahlversprechen umsetzen und Freie Software im Koalitionsvertrag verankern

In dieser Woche steht das Thema Netzpolitik auf dem Programm der aktuellen Koalitionsverhandlungen in Berlin. Die Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) fordert die Koalitionäre dabei auf, die in ihren Wahlprogrammen und bei den Wahlprüfsteinen der "Koalition Freies Wissen" gemachten Versprechungen im Koalitionsvertrag zu verankern und Berlin damit zu einem europäischen Vorreiter in Freier Software zu machen. Dazu gibt die FSFE drei konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen.

"Berlin hat sich in den letzten Jahren in der IT-Branche zu einem wichtigen internationalen Standort entwickelt. Wenn Berlin dieses Know-How weiter bündeln will, wird es höchste Zeit, dass sich diese Ambition auch in einer fortschrittlichen Hauptstadtpolitik widerspiegelt", so Erik Albers von der FSFE. "Dazu hat die sich formierende Koalition tatsächlich beste Chancen, da sie in wesentlichen Punkten zur Förderung und Verwendung Freier Software und offener Standards übereinstimmen."

Um die koalierenden Parteien an ihre Gemeinsamkeiten und Chancen zu erinnern, versendet die FSFE heute drei konkrete Handlungsempfehlungen an die derzeitigen Koalitionäre von SPD, Die Grünen und Die Linke:

Eigenentwicklungen des Landes Berlin sowie in Auftrag gegebene Software unter einer freien Lizenz veröffentlichen. Entwicklung einer langfristigen Strategie, um die Verwaltung Berlins auf Freie Software umzustellen. Die Förderung des Einsatzes von Open Educational Resources (OER) und Freier Software in den öffentlichen Bildungseinrichtungen Berlins.

Diese drei Handlungsempfehlungen sind direkt aus den von den Parteien fomulierten Zielen vor der Wahl abgeleitet und in ihrer Übereinstimmung zusammengeführt. Grundlage dazu sind die Wahlprogramme sowie die Antworten auf die Wahlprüfsteine der "Koalition Freies Wissen".

SPD, Die Grünen und Die Linke sind sich einig, dass von der öffentlichen Hand beauftragte und finanzierte Software grundsätzlich unter einer freien Lizenz veröffentlicht werden soll. Die SPD hatte bereits in ihrem Parteitag 2012 formuliert, dass „Neue Software-Lösungen, welche für die Berliner Verwaltung eigens entwickelt werden, sollen dann auf freien Lizenzen aufbauen“. Die Linke stellt in ihrer Antwort auf unsere Wahlprüfsteine klar, dass "für alle zukünftigen Beschaffungen wollen wir auf die Nutzung freier Software drängen.". Und auch Die Grünen antworten, dass "Softwareentwicklungen von und für Behörden stets mit Quellcode unter einer freien Lizenz veröffentlicht werden [sollen], damit alle von ihnen profitieren und sie einfach weiterentwickelt werden können".

"Zu einer zukunftsweisenden IT-Strategie gehört, dass das Land Berlin fortan sowohl Eigenentwicklungen als auch Auftragsarbeiten unter freier Lizenz veröffentlicht. Wir fordern die sich bildende Regierung auf, so bald wie möglich die rechtliche Grundlage dafür zu schaffen und geeignete Vorgaben zu machen." sagt Erik Albers von der FSFE. "Zugleich ermutigt die FSFE die neue Koalition dazu mit gutem Beispiel voran zu gehen und erste Freie-Software-Projekte umzusetzen. Die Softwarelösung für das Berliner Haushalts-, Kassen- und Rechnungswesen bietet sich dafür exemplarisch an. Die FSFE unterstützt dabei gerne mit fachlicher Expertise."

Außerdem sind sich die koalierenden Parteien einig, dass die Verwaltung Berlins auf Freie Software umgestellt werden soll. Die SPD hatte wiederum auf ihrem Landesparteitag 2012 bereits „das langfristige Ziel" beschlossen, "eine Umstellung auf freier Open Source Software für die Verwaltung durchzuführen, wie sie beispielsweise die Stadt München seit nun mehr zehn Jahren erfolgreich betreibt“. Die Grünen versprechen in ihrem Wahlprogramm, „den Einsatz von offener und freier Software sowie ressourcenschonender Informationstechnik (Green IT) bei hoher IT-Sicherheit zum Standard" zu machen und Die Linke fordert in ihrem Wahlprogramm, "die öffentliche Verwaltung soll auf Open Source Software umgestellt werden".

Schließlich empfiehlt die FSFE der entstehenden Koalition ihre Übereinstimmung in der Förderung von Open Educational Resources dazu zu nutzen, von Beginn an eine nachhaltige Strategie zu verfolgen und die Verbreitung von OER mit der Verwendung Freier Software zu verknüpfen. Beides muss zusammen gedacht werden, wie das Bündnis Freie Bildung in ihrem Positionspapier deutlich herausarbeitet.

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From December 27 to 30, the FSFE will host an assembly during the 33rd Chaos Communication Congress (33C3) including an information booth, self-organised sessions and a meeting point for all friends of Free Software to come together, share or simply relax. We are looking forward to organise sessions in the name of our assembly and we will book proper rooms or offer our assembly itself. Sessions can be inspiring talks, hands-on workshops, community/developer/strategy meetings or any other public, informative or collaborative activity. Topics can be anything that is about or related to Free Software. We welcome technical sessions but we also encourage to give non-technical talks that address philosophical, economical or other aspects of/about Free Software. We also like sessions about related subjects that have a clear connection to Free Software for example privacy, data protection, sustainability and similar topics. Finally, we welcome all backgrounds – from your private project to global community projects. If you are interested, read more about our call for participation.

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FSFE Newsletter - October 2016Words from your editors

After some changes to the FSFE's internship program in early September, we're happy to be able to announce an opening for a technical intern with the FSFE. We're seeking an intern who can work with us for three months in our Berlin office, learning about Free Software and the FSFE, while at the same time contributing to rewriting parts of our technical infrastructure.

In the coming months, we'll announce more internship opportunities and a good way to get to know about them is to read this newsletter regularly. Be sure to check out our section on taking action below for some news about our merchandise sale and information material (we'd love to send you more, if you've run out!).

The Summit

We're still not over how cool it was to see so many from our community join the FSFE Summit in September. It was a good experience and we're keen to repeat it. One of the highlights was the ending keynote where Julia Reda called out proprietary software as a threat to democracy. Be sure to view the keynote and some of the other talks from the Summit, either on our YouTube channel, or from our download server where you can get the available videos in webm format.

We also celebrated the FSFE's 15th birthday in C-Base with a ceremony where we honored many of our local heroes from around Europe. C-Base has kindly provided a recording of the ceremony if you're interested in hearing the story of some of our heroes, all of whom you can find working in one of the FSFE's teams today.

Are you our next technical intern?

As mentioned, we are looking for a technical intern to join our team for three months, taking part in rewriting and implementing a new account management system. This internship is based in Berlin, starting the 1st of January 2017 or as otherwise agreed. It's compensated with a basic salary, the details of which you can read together with other information in our call for a technical intern. We look forward to seeing your application!

From the community

David Boddie described the experiences he had exploring alternative operating systems and in particular, Inferno.

Michał ‘mina86’ Nazarewicz offered a handful of useful Python tricks and tips

Jonas Öberg blogged about code availability, or code contributions and introduced the changes to the FSFE internship program. Subscribe to our newsletter, if you haven't done already, in order to receive the latest news about all the open internship vacancies in the FSFE!

Elena "of Valhalla" explains the differences between accepting candy from strangers and using gratis software from random sources.

Polina Malaja blogged about the challenges of the EU Copyright reform.

Florian Snow shared his memories from the 3 days of the FSFE Summit in Berlin, inside and outside the BCC.

Other news

Matthew Garrett, board member of the FSF, wrote an article stressing the necessity of full user control over Internet-connected devices, outlining some necessary practices for IoT.

What else have we done?

Polina Malaja, FSFE's policy analyst and legal coordinator, together with the FSFE's legal counsel Carlo Piana, participated in a workshop on the interactions of Free Software and standardisation, organised by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) in Sophia-Antipolis, France. During the workshop, they worked to push for adoption of strong copyleft licenses and to resolve some of the tensions around patents.

Continuing the practice of being present in events organised by other communities, the FSFE was present with an Info-booth at the Rotlintstraßenfest in Frankfurt am Main. A big thanks to the Fellowship group Rhine/Main for making this possible!

Take action! We have recently collected, sorted and taken stock of some leftovers of the merchandise we had in previous years, and we've put these items online. For most of the older items, we only have a few available, so this is your chance to order some vintage FSFE merchandise at a reduced price (look out for the red numbers!) If you're starting to run out of informational material about free software, now may also be a good opportunity to get some more. Order some stickers, posters and flyers from our promotional material page and we'll get them to you as soon as possible so you can help us spread them around your company, your school, the local library, at events, or anywhere else where you feel people should know about free software. If you're not already a Fellow of the FSFE, you should consider joining. Our work wouldn't be possible without the contribution of our Fellows and volunteers! The FSFE in the Press [DE] by Patrick Beuth, Zeit Online, HP sabotages its own customers [DE] by Stefan Krempl, Heise, Free Software Summit: Campaign for "Public Software" in Public Administrations

Thanks to all the volunteers, Fellows and corporate donors who enable our work,

Your editors, Jonas Öberg and Olga Gkotsopoulou FSFE

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Open internship position as a technical intern

FSFE is a charity dedicated to empowering users to control technology. We are working to build freedom in digital society. We operate in a lively environment with volunteers from many countries. We are looking for a technical intern to join our team for three months, taking part in the work to rewrite and implement a new account management system.

What we can offer is: A challenging and exciting time with a dynamic NGO working internationally A close-up view of organisational and community processes A chance to take the initiative and put your ideas into practice

What you'll do: Contribute to the FSFE's ongoing project to rewrite (from scratch!) our account management system, focusing on primarily the front-end system Contribute to our other projects, interacting with our volunteer community General office tasks Work with our system administrators and other staff and volunteers

Be sure to read our pages about internships in general before applying!

Basic details

Location: Berlin, Germany. Please note the FSFE has no ability to help with accommodation or travel, you will need to cover this yourself and arrange this prior to your internship.

Duration: 3 months full time at 35 hours per week, starting around the 1st of January 2017 or as otherwise agreed.

Compensation: This internship is salaried with a basic salary of €1,289 per month.

Work responsibility and activities

You will be in charge of rewriting our account management system, a central piece of our infrastructure which is the public facing interface for new membership registrations, donations and volunteers.

By rewriting the system with a Python framework, we hope to make it more modular and maintainable so we can tackle some of the limitations of the current system which is a blocker for some of our other work.

Qualifications

You need to have experience from development in Python, and some knowledge of common web frameworks (Flask, Pyramid or Django, for instance). Some CSS framework experience is also beneficial.

Formal requirements

You must be fluent in English and will be required to show that you can legally work in Germany; either by being an EU citizen, or by having a residence and work permit for the duration. The FSFE can not help you in getting either of these documents, but we will accept them if you have them (for instance because you are studying in Germany and are allowed to work).

You must also have a German tax number which you get by registering with the residents registration office (Einwohnermeldeamt) in Germany. This should ideally be done before starting the internship, or at latest on the first days of your internship.

Application deadline

We would like to receive your application by the 1st of November, but will be communicating with prospective applicants already before then.

How to apply

Send your application containing a letter of motivation, a CV by e-mail to office@fsfe.org. Please make sure to write clearly you apply for the internship position with reference TI-WEB. 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 position itself, and the work involved Ulrike Sliwinski for any administrative questions

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

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EU copyright proposal reinforces DRM

On 14 September the European Commission (EC) published its long-awaited proposal for a Directive on copyright in the Digital Single Market. While we welcome the proposal to introduce a mandatory exception for 'text and data mining' (TDM) in the field of scientific research, we are concerned about the inclusion of a far-reaching "technical safeguards" clause granted to rightholders in order to limit the newly established exception.

The proposal grants a mandatory exception to research organisations to carry out TDM of copyrighted works to which they have lawful access. The exception is only applicable to research organisations, thus narrowing its scope and excluding everyone else with the lawful access to the copyrighted works.

According to the accompanying Impact Assessment, the TDM exception has the potential of inflicting a high number of downloads of the works, and that is why the rightholders are allowed to apply "necessary" technical measures in the name of "security and integrity" of their networks and databases.

Such a requirement, as it is proposed by the EC in the current text, gives rightholders a wide-reaching right to restrict the effective implementation of the new exception. Rightholders are free to apply whichever measure they deem "necessary" to protect their rights in the TDM exception, and to choose the format and modalities of such technical measures.

This provision will lead to a wider implementation of "digital restrictions management" (DRM) technologies. These technologies are already used extensively to arbitrarily restrict the lawful use of accessible works under the new TDM exception. This reference to "necessary technical safeguards" is excessive and can make the mandatory TDM exception useless. It is worth repeating that the exception is already heavily limited to cover only r esearch organisations with public interest.

Further reasons to forbid the use of DRM technologies in the exception are:

DRM leads to vendor lock-in. As researchers will need a specific compatible software in order to be able to access the work, they will be locked to a particular vendor or provider for arbitrary reasons. These technical safeguards will most likely stop researchers from exercising their right under the exception of using their own tools to extract data, and can lead to the factual monopoly of a handful of companies providing these technologies. DRM excludes free software users. DRM always relies on proprietary components to work. These components, by definition, are impossible to implement in Free Software. The right of Free Software users to access resources under the exception will be violated. DRM technologies increase the cost of research and education. Accessing DRM-protected resources typically requires purchasing specific proprietary software. Such technology is expensive and it is important to ask how much the implementation of these technologies would cost for research and educational institutions throughout Europe. Furthermore, very often this software cannot be shared, so every research workstation would need to purchase a separate copy or license for the software. DRM artificially limits sharing between peers. A typical functionality DRM provides is to cap the number of copies you can make of documents and data. This will force different researchers to access and download data and documents several times even if they are working on the same team. This is a waste of time and resources. As DRM also typically limits the number of downloads, teams could find themselves cut of from resources they legitimately have a right to access under the exception.

We ask the European Parliament and the EU member states to explicitly forbid the use of harmful DRM practices in the EU copyright reform, especially with regard to already heavily limited exceptions.

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