Le Parlement européen veut protéger les logiciels libres dans le règlement sur l'IA

Today the European Parliament's responsible committees voted by a large majority to protect Free Software in the AI regulation. The plenary is called upon to uphold the idea. Likewise, this principle must be anchored in the ongoing Cyber Resilience Act and Product Liability Directive and their upcoming votes.

Les deux commissions compétentes pour la législation sur l'IA, la commission du marché intérieur et de la protection des consommateurs (IMCO) et la commission des libertés civiles, de la justice et des affaires intérieures (LIBE), ont voté aujourd'hui à une large majorité en faveur de la protection des logiciels libres dans cette législation. Les organisations à but non lucratif et les petits projets de logiciels libres, jusqu'à la taille des micro-entreprises, seront largement exemptés des réglementations à l'avenir.

Alexander Sander, Consultant Politique Sénior de la FSFE, explique : "Au lieu de faire porter la responsabilité sur les développeurs de logiciels libres, il faudrait la faire porter sur les entreprises qui en tirent profit sur le marché. Les petites organisations et les activités à but non lucratif, par exemple les fondations, doivent être exclues. Par ce vote, les députés européens reconnaissent ainsi la réalité du développement des logiciels libres et tentent de la protéger. Le principe du transfert de la responsabilité à ceux qui profitent du marché au lieu de se concentrer sur les développeurs doit également être ancré dans la loi sur la cyber-résilience et la directive sur la responsabilité du fait des produits. C'est la seule façon de protéger non seulement les logiciels libres et leurs contributeurs, mais aussi les consommateurs et les clients.”

Le vote final de la loi sur l'IA est attendu dans les prochaines semaines, après le trilogue entre le Parlement, le Conseil et la Commission sur le texte final. En ce qui concerne la loi sur la cyber-résilience et la directive sur la responsabilité du fait des produits, le Parlement européen discute actuellement des amendements récemment soumis. Plus d'informations.

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Tack foss-north 2023!

The 2023 edition of foss-north took place in Gothenburg on 24 and 25 April 2023. It was a great occasion to meet again in person with the Nordic Free Software community. Over 180 participants had the opportunity to learn about and discuss Free Software in more than 20 sessions.

This year, for the first time, the FSFE co-organised a track on political, social, and legal issues around Free Software. It was two days full of enlightening discussions. The topics addressed were many, and in case you missed the event, here it is a short overview of some of them. There are more interesting talks that took place during these two days. The recordings of the sessions will be available on the FSFE Peertube channel soon, so stay tuned!

Interoperability and Free Software

Lina Ceballos, Policy Project Manager at the FSFE, gave a keynote on the Interoperable Europe Act (IEA), a proposal with which the EU is aiming to create a dedicated legal framework on interoperability.

Our position was stated clearly: the IEA needs a “Free Software First” approach. Free Software indeed creates the conditions for interoperability. This kind of solutions should be considered the default when it comes to interoperable digital solutions. Similarly, concerning innovation, numerous NGOs are at the forefront of the process, and that is why we stress the fact that the engagement of stakeholders – especially civil society and the Free Software Community – should be taken into consideration when it comes to the governance of the proposed legislation.

Public Procurement and Free Software

Björn Lundell illustrated how current practices in public sector organisations discriminate against the use of Free Software. Public administrations often express mandatory requirements in the public procurement process which inhibit the use of Free Software solutions.

Professor Lundell highlighted the issues concerning lawfulness and appropriateness related to public procurement and the use of services without having identified all applicable Free Software solutions before. The talk gave a brief overview and illustrative examples concerning how current practice amongst public sector organisations discriminate against FOSS usage and the fundamental challenges concerning how to avoid it.

Public Administrations and Free Software

Jonas Södergren and Johan Linåker discussed the challenges and the possibilities that Free Software can bring to public administrations, especially smaller ones – like municipalities – that often do not have enough expertise or resources when it comes to building their digital infrastructure. There are challenges, but Free Software offers the potential for shared and standardised platforms and infrastructure, which can be tailored to specific needs in a modular structure.

The experience of the Swedish Public Employment Service demonstrates this. Together with JobTech and Free Software, 400 different source code repositories have been shared over the past few years. This highlighted the possibilities of Free Software to improve operations and deliverables through open data APIs in Public Administrations.

If you are interested in Free Software and its use in Public Administrations, we suggest you to have a look on our Public Money? Public Code! campaign and to sign our Open Letter!

Empowering Users

Petter Joelson and Martin Raspaud gave two examples of how Free Software can empower users. The Free Software platform Decidim has enabled participatory budgets and citizen involvement for millions of people. Petter Joelson, the founder of Digidem Lab, shared experiences of working with the platform Decidim together with the city of New York, the European Commission, and small cities in Sweden.

Similarly, Martin Raspaud showed how a specific Free Software program can become leading in its field: The Python framework Pytroll has successfully competed with proprietary software, leading multiple weather institutes internationally to adopt it as their main tool for processing satellite imagery, and it is now thriving around a community of dedicated users, developers, and researchers.

The first 10 years of reproducible builds

Holger Levsen took us on the journey of reproducible builds; a journey from being a Debian effort to something many projects work on together, and even to be mentioned in an executive order of the president of the United States back in 2021. He also discussed where we are today and where we still need to go until Debian stable will be 100% reproducible and verified by many.

Community Day

The conference was preceded by a Community Day on 23 April 2023. It was an opportunity to meet and learn about Free Software and share knowledge. On this occasion, the drawing program Inkscape celebrated its 20th anniversary and the people behind it organised an exciting workshop on graphic production and stitching with Free Software. The Community also had the possibility to join the kick-off of the translation of The Standard for Public Code into Swedish, together with the NOSAD team.

It was also time again to sit all together around a table and share some food. The community dinner was the perfect occasion for this!

During foss-north, our booth was full of visitors asking us questions about our work, taking stickers, and buying shirts. If you like our work you can take your contribution one step further: become a supporter. The FSFE would be nothing without our supporters. And it would be so much more with you! Each financial donation multiplies our strength in public awareness, policy advocacy, legal, and technical expertise. Support software freedom, support the FSFE.

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Chaos Communication Camp: Call for Participation

After four years of waiting and many online conferences – probably too many –, the Chaos Communication Camp is finally back! Come and camp with us in the 'Bits & Bäume' village from 15th to 19th August 2023. The Free Software Foundation Europe is part of this year's 'Bits & Bäume' village.

Together with many different groups, the FSFE is organising the 'Bits & Bäume' village. This is a space for all CCCamp participants to come together, talk about Free Software and sustainability, connect with others, or simply visit the FSFE booth. The 'Bits & Bäume' village is not just a meeting place but also a space for input sessions and listening to new ideas, as it is involved in organising one of the five central stages.

Call for Participation: Let's Boost Our Resilience

As a village, we focus on connecting environmental issues with technology. Together, we find solutions for sustainable technology that respects nature and digital human rights. Let's rethink our technological world and increase our resilience.

Do you have insights, thoughts, and experiences to share? Are you interested in Free Software and the sustainable use and provision of technology, such as hacking or upgrading old devices? We are looking for inspiring talks, hands-on workshops, community/developer/strategy meetings, or any other public, informative, or collaborative activities.

Together with 'Bits & Bäume', the Free Software Foundation Europe will provide a stage and a workshop area. If you're interested in applying, please submit your talk or workshop proposal to the official Call for Participation for the Chaos Communication Camp by 9. June 2023. Please choose the 'Bits & Bäume' channel. Session slots range from 20 to 45 minutes. Please indicate your preferred length in your submission.

As the climate crisis mostly affects people in the Global South, we would particularly encourage those individuals to share their ideas for a resilient technological world. We look forward to your proposals. We actively encourage FLINTA* and Queer* people, BIPOC, and people from the Global South to apply.

Note: The acceptance of your talk will not provide you with a ticket. A ticket is necessary for attending the conference and holding a talk or giving a workshop. Ticket information will be available on events.ccc.de once the pre-sale begins.

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FOSS-North & LLW+++Device Neutrality+++NGI Zero

In this issue, you can read about the EU project NGI Zero, LLW, the FOSS-North conference, and the struggle of Lithuanian students to avoid using proprietary 2FA. Don't miss our new SFP episode on Device Neutrality; deepen your knowledge with two interesting articles; enjoy the latest ‘Ada & Zangemann’ readings; and discover two YH4F projects.

FOSS-North and LLW in Gothenburg

The Swedish city of Gothenburg hosted the 2023 edition of the Free Software Legal & Licensing Workshop (LLW), the annual conference for the Legal Network community. A few days later, FOSS-North took place, the conference in Gothenburg that brings together the Nordic Free Software communities. The FSFE organised a track on political and legal aspects of Free Software and also participated in the community day that preceded the conference.

During FOSS-North, over 180 participants took the opportunity to learn about and discuss Free Software in more than 20 sessions. FSFE's Policy Project Manager Lina Ceballos gave a keynote speech about the Interoperable Europe Act and its possible impact on the Free Software community.

📺 The recordings of the sessions will be available on the FSFE Peertube channel soon, so stay tuned!

The FSFE is helping to build an “Internet of Humans”

The Free Software Foundation Europe is a partner of the Next Generation Internet Zero consortium, which aims to build a more resilient, trustworthy, and open Internet that empowers end users to control technology. The FSFE team provides support to NGI0 grantee projects on legal and licensing issues. In addition, the FSFE helps them become REUSE compliant.

📰 Find more about our work in this project

Lithuania: Students stop university from using only proprietary authentication

Vilnius Tech officials attempted to enforce the use of proprietary two factor identification (2FA) methods. Some students were concerned the methods would compromise privacy and could not be run in their devices, so they proposed an alternative authentication method. Eventually, the university reversed its decision.

📰 Read the full story

SFP#20: All about Device Neutrality with Lucas Lasota

Although digital devices are all around us, the number of devices that cannot run Free Software is growing, with smartphones, PCs, and routers being particularly problematic. In this episode, Lucas Lasota joins Bonnie Mehring to discuss Device Neutrality and Router Freedom. Lucas explains how software freedom, the absence of vendor lock-in, and end-user control over data are crucial to breaking monopolies in digital markets, promoting an open Internet, and ensuring access to Free Software in devices.

📻 Listen to the podcast!

Two reading proposals: REUSE specs for the scientific community & Free Software to control technology

Last year, the FSFE presented the REUSE initiative at the Weizenbaum Conference 2022 “Practicing Sovereignty – Interventions for Open Digital Futures”. The presentation resulted in an academic article (EN, page 66-71) explaining how REUSE specifications facilitate and improve management policies for the digital commons by improving data and metadata communication for individuals, communities, governments, and businesses.

Check out also our article on Free Software to control technology in the Publication "Access OpenTech" for the CrossCulture Programme (CCP) by ifa (EN, pages 11-12[18-21])

Listen or watch - Ada & Zangemann book

You can now get your copy of Ada & Zangemann in English or German. While you can simply order the German edition online or at your favourite book store, the English version is currently available in the US from the publisher and at the FSF online store and can be pre-ordered in the rest of the world. One more reason to pre-order it? It helps to support a book under a Creative Commons Share-alike license.

If you would also like to listen to it, we are giving you two options: the reading of the book at the last episode of the Linux Inlaws podcast and the video of the reading at LibrePlanet, the annual conference of the FSF, our sister organisation.

And do not forget the rest of the videos of LibrePlanet 2023, that took place in Boston last March.

'Youth Hacking 4 Freedom' projects

While we wait for the projects developed by the participants of the second edition of the Youth Hacking 4 Freedom contest, let's go back to last year's edition to learn about two of the projects submitted: StarVibeLab and OnionSproutsBot.

📰 Learn more about the projects

Don’t forget to check our Events page

Our team and our community participate in many Free Software events. Check our events page to be up to date about what is going on. Subscribe to our feeds to stay current about events and do not forget to sign up for our local group and country mailings to receive updates about what is going on in your region.

Get Involved! Contact your administrations

Code paid for by the people should be available to the people! Publicly financed software developed for the public sector should be available under a Free- and Open Source Software license. Therefore, we created the activity Contact your administrations under the initiative Public Money, Public Code. On this wiki page, you will find all the necessary information and arguments that you need when getting in touch with your public administrations. Do not forget to leave a comment about it in your favourite social network… and tag us!

Quote of the Month

"I'm a Free Software supporter for a long time, I fought against software patents in Brussels, co-organised the system theme at the Libre Software Meeting (RMLL) and run a Free Software company. Free Software is an essential part of our global freedom, so it was natural to become a supporter of the FSFE."

Benoit Mortier

Contribute to our Newsletter

We would love to hear from you. If you have any thoughts, pictures, or news to share, please send them to us at newsletter@fsfe.org. You can also support us, contribute to our work, and join our community. We would like to thank our community and all the volunteers, supporters, and donors who make our work possible, with a special mention to our translators who make it possible for you to read this newsletter in your mother tongue.

Your editor, Ana Galán

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LLW 2023: learning and exchanging legal knowledge

The Swedish city of Gothenburg hosted the 2023 edition of the Free Software Legal & Licensing Workshop (LLW), the annual conference for the Legal Network community. It was great to see so many old and new faces in person after two years online, and to learn, share and network about the legal and licensing issues facing current technology developments.

Two and a half days of talks and discussions about licensing and other legal issues surrounding Free Software in the beautiful Swedish city of Gothenburg. Two and a half days in which the Legal Network community finally got together in person to share legal expertise during the official sessions, but also during the coffee breaks and social gatherings. After a long hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, during which the FSFE had to organise the LLW as an online conference for two years, we are grateful to be able to provide a productive platform for such discussions.

A healthy licensing ecosystem allows Free Software to flourish. Discussion and knowledge sharing contribute to this, which is why this conference was so valuable for the professionals who attended. One of the key discussions this year, with an entire track dedicated to it, was Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, discussing its ethical and responsible use, as well as the implications on Free Software licensing. But of course, there were also time to engage in other issues that have been around for years and that are also important for the Free Software community, such as Open Data, the legal implications of cryptocurrencies on Free Software, or the practices of “Open Source Program Offices” (OSPOs) in different international companies.

Enabling newcomers to the community to be able to productively engage in sharing expertise and knowledge is also important to the Legal Network. To that end, the FSFE organises a mentoring programme at the LLW to support young professionals in the Free Software legal field, and mentors were able to help their mentorees build community connections and integrate them into the Free Software legal community smoothly during the LLW 2023.

In short, the initial feedback from the 2023 edition of LLW has been very positive, with interesting talks and exchanges of ideas, as well as time to socialise and have a coffee with new and old faces. We are appreciative for all Legal Network members who took the time to participate in person, and hope to see them again next year. It is extremely heartening for us to see the Free Software legal community grow in strength and knowledge with regular meetings like the LLW.

The Legal Network

the Legal Networkis a neutral, non-partisan, group of experts in different fields involved in Free Software legal issues. Currently the Legal Network has over 400 participants from different legal systems, academic backgrounds and affiliations.

The aim of the Legal Network is to promote discussion and foster better knowledge of the legal constructs that back Free Software. The conversations on the Legal Network are intended to be dynamic, thought-provoking and up to speed with the most recent developments.

Admission to the Legal Network is restricted, and the discussions held there are confidential. Nevertheless, this does not mean that the content of the mailing list is contained away from the larger Free Software community. The Chatham House Rule applies to all discussions on the Legal Network mailing list and at Legal Network events, which enables members to use the information received, but not to reveal the identity nor the affiliation of the speaker or any of the participants involved in the discussion.

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