35 ans de la FSF +++ Participation à la SFSCon +++ Emploi technique vacant

Dans notre lettre d'information d'octobre, vous trouverez des informations sur le trente-cinquième anniversaire de la FSF, notre participation à venir à la SFSCon, une vacance pour un emploi technique et sur les autres diverses activités de notre communauté.

Félicitations à la FSF pour son trente-cinquième anniversaire

Il y a 35 ans, notre organisation sœur, la Free Software Foundation, a été fondée afin de s'engager pour la liberté des utilisatrices et utilisateurs d'utiliser, d'étudier, de partager et d'améliorer les logiciels. Avec en ligne d'introduction "Notre travail ne sera terminé que lorsque toutes les utilisatrices et tous les utilisateurs d'ordinateurs seront capables de réaliser leurs tâches digitales en complète liberté". Ceci est une promesse qui tient toujours, même après trente-cinq années de travail pour la liberté du logiciel, ayant inspiré d'innombrables personnes et de nombreuses organisations à faire front pour la liberté des utilisatrices et utilisateurs. Le président de la FSFE Matthias Kirschner a enregistré un discours de félicitations dans lequel il médite sur l'importance que la FSF et notre mouvement ont eu et continuent d'avoir au cours des années.

Participation à la SFSCon

La conférence Sud-Tyrolienne pour le Logiciel Libre, SFScon, est une des conférences sur le Logiciel Libre annuelle établies en Europe. Ces dernières années, nous y avons été représentés lors d'exposés, de sessions de travail et par notre stand d'information. L'année dernière, nous avons organisé notre Évènement Communautaire dans le contexte de la SFScon, afin de pouvoir y rencontrer notre communauté ainsi que de nombreux intéressés, puis nous avons finalement fait le bilan de notre travail.

En raison de la situation actuelle, l'édition 2020 de cet évènement ne pourra se faire qu'en mode mixte : en ligne, et au NOI Techpark pour un nombre limité de personnes. Mais bien entendu, la FSFE contribuera encore au programme.

Nous avons organisé sept exposés lors desquels les questions légales ont pu être éclaircies et les développements politiques courants on pu être analysés. Les questions pratiques concrètes concernant la conformité, par exemple pour les SMEs, y seront adressées, ainsi que les questions sur le machine learning et quels problèmes surviennent lors du développement d'un smartphone "libre". Vous trouverez plus d'informations sur notre piste et sur la SFScon2020

L'impact financier le plus important auquel la FSFE doit faire face en ces temps de distanciation physique est l'annulation de conférences sur le Logiciel Libre, incluant nos propres évènements. Pour conserver un mouvement pour la liberté du logiciel solide et vivant, merci d'envisager de faire don d'une partie ou de l'intégralité de votre budget conférences aux organisations pour le Logiciel Libre, y compris la FSFE.

Emploi technique vacant

La FSFE recherche un.e étudiant.e salarié.e pour soutenir notre travail : habiliter tout le monde à maitriser la technologie. Cette personne travaillera 10 heures par semaine dans le bureau de Berlin (télétravail ultérieurement possible) et soutiendra l'infrastructure technique de la FSFE en travaillant en étroite collaboration avec nos administrateurs de système. Le délai de candidature se termine dimanche 15 novembre 2020. Merci de partager cette information avec celles et ceux de votre entourage qui pourraient être intéressés.

Évènements à venir

• Au OSSEU2020, Alexander Sander exposera comment le Logiciel Libre fournit des solutions mondiales à des problèmes mondiaux.
• Lors de la Privacy Week, Alexander Sander exposera notre campagne "Argent Public ? Code Public !" et parlera de comment le Logiciel Libre contribue à faire face à une crise mondiale.

Qu'avons-nous fait ? En interne et en dehors de la FSFE

• Pour le septième épisode de notre Podcast sur la Liberté du Logiciel nous avons discuté avec Vincent Lequertier sur la transparence, l'équité et l'accessibilité comme critères cruciaux pour l'intelligence artificielle (IA) et pourquoi il est important pour notre société de mettre à disposition du logiciel IA sous licence de Logiciel Libre.
• Dans son discours au Software Freedom Kosova 2020 Alexander Sander, directeur des politiques publiques Européennes de la FSFE, a fournie un bref aperçu des activités passées et actuelles de la FSFE pour favoriser la liberté logicielle en Europe, aux niveaux de la politique, du travail légal en entreprise et de conscience publique générale. Le discours a été suivi deux semaines plus tard par une session de travail.
• À la "openSUSE + LibreOffice Virtual Conference" (oSLO), Alexander Sander a donné une conférence sur les avantages d'utiliser le Logiciel Libre dans le secteur public, sur les leçons apprises de la crise du corona et pourquoi il est encore plus important aujourd'hui que jamais auparavant d'employer du Logiciel Libre.
• Nous sommes reconnaissants envers Lioh Möller qui a coordonné l'équipe nationale de la FSFE en Suisse et accueillons le nouveau coordinateur Gian-Maria Daffré accompagné de Ralf Hersel en tant que vice-coordinateur. Le groupe Suisse est bien connu pour son portail éducatif sur le Logiciel Libre Lernen wie die Profis (apprendre comme les pros) et le magazine d'actus et podcast gnulinux.ch.
• Le coordinateur de Berlin Erik Grun accompagné de Katja Jäger a donné une conférence sur le Logiciel Libre pour la société numérique dans l'éducation au campus re:publica à Berlin.

Participez à notre lettre d'information

Si vous souhaitez partager vos opinions, photos ou actualités, merci de nous les envoyer. Comme toujours, notre adresse est newsletter@fsfe.org. Nous sommes impatient.e.s de vous lire !

Si de plus vous souhaitez nous soutenir ainsi que notre travail, rejoignez notre communauté et aidez-nous avec un don ou une contribution mensuelle.

Merci à notre communauté, tous les volontaires, supporters et donatrices et donateurs qui rendent notre travail possible. Et merci à nos traductrices et traducteurs, qui vous permettent de lire cette lettre d'information dans votre langue maternelle.

Vos éditeurs, Erik Albers et Alexander Sander

Soutenez notre travail par un don

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EU Open Source Policy: good analysis, missing concrete next steps

On Wednesday the EU Commission published its new Open Source Strategy. We are pleased that the Commission recognises the benefits of Free Software and the four freedoms to use, study, share and improve, but the commission lacks concrete targets and indicators to implement the strategy. Without these, we worry that the strategy will end up accomplishing too little!

After the Commission's previous Open Source Strategy expired in 2017, we have waited three years for a new one. Instead of the hoped-for major step, which would reflect current developments around the debates on digital sovereignty and state of the art administration, the Commission has presented only a fig leaf. The benefits of Free Software are fully emphasised and the Commission is ambitious in its future use of Free Software. But concrete goals are rare, and a clear commitment to the use of Free Software is lacking. A failure of the strategy is foreseeable at this stage as the objectives are ambitious but the measures merely establish the status quo. Therefore, we call upon the Commission to present and implement concrete measures and activities in the coming weeks and months.

European Commission presented only a fig leaf

Apart from the establishment of a "small (sic!) Open Source Programme Office” and the definition and promotion of the "inner source" approach, which is not even connected to a publication under a Free Software license, there are no real changes to the Commission's working methods. Of course, the Strategy indeed states: "The title of this strategy, ‘Think Open’, points to a change in mindset whereby the development of software solutions takes account of openness, sharing and reuse, security, privacy, legal considerations and accessibility." But it is doubtful whether anything will happen simply by clarifying the change in thinking without having verifiable goals and by working on "inner-source" software. We believe that changes have to be implemented and lived, not just put on paper.

The strategy mainly repeats previous commitments and activities; whereas sustainable and verifiable approaches are sought in vain. It says: "The use of open source software is already common practice in the Commission and a kind of open source culture already exists in large parts of the organisation. We simply have to do more and become better". Concrete terms of the plans for how to do this more and better are however not clear. The activities of the FOSSA2 project are also mentioned, but it is not clear why this project is not being continued or why new concrete projects are not being launched. There are also still strong dependencies on Microsoft, for its desktop operating system, office applications and mail programs. These vendor lock-ins are still a big issue, but it appears that there is no plan currently on how to end these dependencies. (There is also a documentary on YouTube in English and German on that)

It is also striking that concrete indicators to measure the success of the activities are absent. The Strategy therefore seems to pay mere lip service, which is explicitly limited by vague formulations and loopholes. For example, the Commission intends to continue "to choose non-open technologies where there are good reasons to do so" and wants to publish software under a Free Software licence only "wherever it makes sense to do so”. What these reasons are and when something makes sense remains undefined and unclear.

In many places the Commission leaves it at problematic descriptions such as: "The principles and actions of the new open source strategy will make it easier to obtain permission to share code with the outside world.". At the same time, it is clear to the Commission that "[c]urrently, the paperwork involved in this process takes time to complete and this holds back many of our in-house projects. This situation needs to change." - without proposing concrete solutions, such as a proposal for reforms.

This also raises the question of how the Commission wants to “contribute to the knowledge society” in tangible terms. For example, instead of calling for Free Software to be made the default in the Horizon Europe research programme and following programmes and research activities funded by the EU, the Commission argues that "[t]his strategy therefore aims to enable the Commission to share software using a process comparable to that for its documents.” - again without a concrete proposal on how to achieve this.

Although the Commission's wording about interoperability, security, reusability and cooperation possibilities repeatedly aims at the use of Free Software and repeatedly emphasises the advantages of Free Software, we feel that the Strategy lacks concrete plans to achieve these aims. How the development of a “world-class public service" can succeed this way remains questionable. Free Software is still not part of the EU budget, so it is not surprising that Commission online-meetings are still held with the proprietary software Zoom although there are viable Free Software solutions for this. With this approach, we fear that this situation will not improve.

Conclusion

What the European Commission presented is simply too little for a strategy. There is a lack of clear task descriptions and processes, concrete guidelines for the implementation of wholehearted statements and indicators to monitor success. Additionally, existing problems and how to address them concretely, like dependencies on single vendors, are missing. So it is not surprising that even the Commission itself, in the document, expresses doubts as to whether their strategy will be a success and identifies difficulties in its implementation: "Properly implemented (sic!), the strategy, its governing principles and its action plan will help us build and deliver better ICT solutions and services, to leverage the innovative and collaborative power of open source."

It is therefore all the more important that we continue to critically monitor the work of the Commission and promote our "Public money? Public Code!" campaign. The "Public Money? Public Code!" initiative aims to establish Free Software as a standard for publicly funded software. Public administrations that follow this principle can benefit from numerous advantages: cooperation with other government bodies, independence from individual vendors, potential tax savings, promotion of innovation and a more solid basis for IT security.

The "Public Money? Public Code!" initiative of the Free Software Foundation Europe is supported by over 180 organisations and administrations from several countries, including Sweden, Spain and Germany. To find out more, please visit: publiccode.eu/

Public Money? Public Code!

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FSFE at SFSCon 2020

The South Tyrol Free Software Conference, SFSCon, is one of Europe’s most established annual conferences on Free Software. In recent years we have been represented with talks, workshops and our information booth. Last year we also organised our Community Event in the context of SFSCon, so that we could meet not only our community but also many interested people and report about our work.

Due to the current situation, the SFSCon 2020 can unfortunately only take place in blended mode: both online and at NOI Techpark, for a limited number of people. But of course, the FSFE is again contributing to the programme.

The FSFE has organised several talks in which legal issues are clarified and current political developments are analysed. Concrete practical questions concerning compliance, for example for SMEs, will be addressed as well as questions about machine learning and which problems arise in the development of a free smartphone.

Besides other interesting talks, the talks below are from the FSFE track, for which we encouraged speakers to submit a talk to the SFScon:

• Andrew Wilson: Character is what we are in the dark - The FLOSS community's response to global crises
• Alexander Sander: Public Money? Public Code! Global problems need global solutions!
• Myrle Krantz - The economics of vendor neutrality and vendor domination
• Oliver Fendt - Free Software Adoption in Industry
• Reto Schneider - Outsourcing to Open Source
• Davide Ricci: FOSS management and license compliance must come first
• Kate Downing: FOSS and Third Party Software Compliance for Small Businesses - Planting early seeds for blooming compliance
• Rowan Wilson: Machine Learning: Challenges for FOSS
• Nicole Faerber: Creating a ‘free’ smartphone

Free Pizza (not as in freedom) lunch at the 2019 FSFE Community Meeting at SFScon. Photo by Patrick Masson

If you want to get some impressions from last year's Community Meeting at SFSCOn, please read the 2019 report.

We would be pleased if you would participate in this year's SFSCon with us and support software freedom with us.

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 to donate a part of your conference budget to Free Software organisations, including the FSFE.

See you at SFSCon 2020.

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Congratulations to the FSF on its thirty-fifth anniversary

The FSFE's sister organisation, the FSF, celebrates its thirty-fifth anniversary this week. Thirty-five years of working for software freedom and inspiring many people and organisations to take a stand for user freedoms deserve big congratulations. Watch and read the congratulatory speech by FSFE President Matthias Kirschner.

35 years ago the Free Software Foundation was founded to work for users' software freedom to use, study, share, and improve software. In hindsight this seems to be an obvious step; in the 1980ies it was visionary.

Over the years more and more people, organisations, companies, and public administrations learnt why Free Software is important for a free society.

Meanwhile there are many different people and organisations out there contributing to software freedom every day.

Together we can ensure that all humans can understand how software works, use the software for any purpose without discrimination, share it with others, and adapt it to their own specific needs. Together we can ensure the continued growth and success of the Free Software movement, which the FSF started.

Thank you to the FSF, for preparing the ground for the Free Software movement, and for inspiring many organisations and people out there, including the FSFE and myself, to work for users' software freedom in the next decades to come.

Thank you and happy anniversary!

There will be an online celebration via live stream and IRC on 9 October, also featuring guest speakers from the FSFE.

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FSFE is hiring a working student as an assistant system administrator

We are looking for a working student to support our work to empower people to control technology. The person will work 10 hours per week in the Berlin office (home office possible at a later stage) and will support the FSFE's technical infrastructure by working closely together with our system administrators.

About the FSFE

Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers users to control technology. Software is deeply involved in all aspects of our lives and it is important that technology empowers rather than restricts us. Free Software gives everybody the rights to use, understand, adapt and share software. These rights help support other fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech, press and privacy.

The FSFE helps individuals and organisations to understand how Free Software contributes to freedom, transparency, and self-determination. It enhances users' rights by abolishing barriers to Free Software adoption, encourages people to use and develop Free Software, and provides resources to enable everyone to further promote Free Software in Europe.

We are involved in many activities in the legal, economic, political and technical areas around Free Software. Our work is made possible by a community of volunteers, supporters, donors, and staff. The assistant system administrator's job will strengthen the technical backbone of our operations.

Main responsibilities

• Working closely together with technical staff and volunteers.
• Regularly maintaining some of our systems, e.g. upgrades, health and security checks, or Docker image updates.
• Running and assisting with defined projects for the improvement and modernisation of our systems.
• Helping staff and volunteers in case of technical problems, especially for the systems you regularly take care of.

Qualifications

• Fluency in written and spoken English. Other European languages are considered an asset.
• Proven experience with system administration of GNU/Linux servers.
• Practical understanding of Git, Docker, and Python.
• Experience with one or more of the following technologies: mail servers (e.g. Postfix), LDAP (e.g. OpenLDAP), DNS (e.g. Bind), XMPP (e.g. Prosody), mailing lists (e.g. Mailman), webservers (e.g. Apache and Nginx), Ansible, Proxmox.
• Enthusiasm for the principles of Free Software, its community and tools.

Attitude

We are looking for a reliable, well-organised member of our technical teams who is keen to learn about old and new technologies. You support the whole organisation in its mission. Long-term thinking, efficiency and effectiveness are more important to you than the newest cool technology on the block.

Working time and compensation

The desired working time would be 10 hours per week but can be discussed. You will start working in our Berlin office to get a feeling for the organisation and the faces behind it, but at a later stage, home office is possible. The salary is based on the currently applicable minimum wage in Germany but can be higher depending on your experience. A mandatory requirement is that you are enrolled as a student at a university in Germany.

How to apply

To apply, please send a maximum one-page cover letter -- including the desired hours per week -- and a maximum two-page CV (only PDFs are accepted) by email to jobs@fsfe.org, with the subject "sysadmin student". Please do not include pictures of yourself in the application.

Your personal data will be deleted 3 months after we have made our decision. The closing date for applications is Sunday 15 November 2020.

Free Software is meant to serve everyone regardless of their age, ability or disability, gender identity, sex, race, religion or sexual orientation. Hence, we encourage applications from all backgrounds and promise to judge all applications on merit, without reference to any of the characteristics listed. To promote diversity and equality in the Free Software community, we shall give preference to applicants who identify as part of a traditionally marginalised demographic in technology for applications of equal strength.

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