SFP#55: FSFE is turning 25! Come and celebrate with us!
SFP#55: Policy and EU: Meet our Danish local group from Aarhus!
Back to the episode SFP#55
WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:16.920 Hello and welcome to the Software Freedom Podcast. 00:16.920 --> 00:21.760 Dear listener, thank you so much for being here, for turning on the Software Freedom 00:21.760 --> 00:26.200 Podcast and for also supporting the Free Software Foundation Europe. 00:26.200 --> 00:30.800 This podcast is brought to you by the Free Software Foundation Europe and we are a charity 00:30.800 --> 00:34.440 that empowers users to control technology. 00:34.440 --> 00:39.760 Today I'm here with Carsten Agger, the FSFE's Danish Coordination. 00:39.760 --> 00:45.120 Hello Carsten, it's so nice to finally have you here on the Software Freedom Podcast. 00:45.120 --> 00:50.200 We have been trying to organize this for quite a while now. 00:50.200 --> 00:54.200 Thank you so much for making the time, thank you so much for joining me. 00:54.200 --> 01:00.200 Hello Bonnie and thanks for having me and yeah, it's unglazed, it's finally worked out. 01:00.200 --> 01:02.200 Me too. 01:04.200 --> 01:08.200 I think it was a month now that we tried to organize this right? 01:08.200 --> 01:10.200 Yeah. 01:10.200 --> 01:12.200 Very very happy that this worked out. 01:12.200 --> 01:19.200 How did you start to become involved in the FSFE? 01:19.200 --> 01:32.200 That was back around 2011 I think and the prehistory is that I discovered Free Software 01:32.200 --> 01:44.000 like as a concept to engage myself in 2004, 2004, 2005 and I started writing a lot of 01:44.000 --> 01:55.000 blog posts about it and I read whatever Richard Stallman had written about it and I started using 01:55.000 --> 02:03.000 Ubuntu on my local computers at home and experimented with other distributions such as 02:03.000 --> 02:11.000 Debian or something called TimeBurlig at the time and FreeBSD, that kind of thing. 02:11.000 --> 02:20.000 But I got involved in doing advocacy for Ubuntu around 2009. 02:20.000 --> 02:26.000 There was a guy in August who wanted to create what he would call, what he would call it 02:26.000 --> 02:38.000 an Ubuntu user group or Ubuntu day or his idea was that we in August would meet once a month or so 02:38.000 --> 02:43.000 and engage in the Ubuntu community. 02:43.000 --> 02:52.000 So he was very focused on Ubuntu and I wanted some more activity around Free Software in the area so I joined in 02:52.000 --> 03:02.000 and after a year of this we helped co-found the local hackerspace in August and when we switched to the 03:02.000 --> 03:08.000 hackerspace from the local library, all of a sudden there were a lot fewer people attending our meeting 03:08.000 --> 03:19.000 because the hackerspace was like fire away but it also turned out that this guy Martin's idea was 03:19.000 --> 03:27.000 that we should be there like a supportive community, we should come and we should do book triaging, 03:27.000 --> 03:33.000 we should do testing, we should do book reports, we should maybe code and send the input 03:33.000 --> 03:37.000 to the Ubuntu community slash canonical. 03:37.000 --> 03:44.000 But all the people who turned up actually were more interested in like tips and tricks 03:44.000 --> 03:49.000 for my desktop and stuff which we were not very focused on. 03:49.000 --> 03:58.000 So after some time we were four people at the time driving that Ubuntu group after some time and that was in 2011 03:58.000 --> 04:10.000 I think Martin got triplets and another guy had to move to Copenhagen for a new job 04:10.000 --> 04:19.000 and a third person, a woman, also got a new job and that meant I was the only one left to maybe run the group 04:19.000 --> 04:20.000 Oh no! 04:20.000 --> 04:29.000 Yeah and then I decided I'm not going to do this because I am not as such really interested in Ubuntu 04:29.000 --> 04:35.000 I am more interested in Free Software as a concept and I need to think this over 04:35.000 --> 04:39.000 so this was 2011 04:39.000 --> 04:51.000 and around that time I started looking around for organized Free Software activities in Europe and I 04:51.000 --> 05:00.000 of course knew about the FSF and I was also like a associate member I think they call it of the FSF 05:01.000 --> 05:10.000 paying them some money every month and then I also discovered there was this thing called Free Software foundation 05:10.000 --> 05:19.000 Europe, the FSFE and the FSFE had local groups in something called the fellowship of the FSFE 05:19.000 --> 05:27.000 so I joined that I started an FSFE blog which still exists but isn't really updated very often 05:27.000 --> 05:36.000 and then I started thinking about I could create a group which had local meetings 05:36.000 --> 05:47.000 in order to take over from my activity in the Ubuntu group but this time focusing on the concept of Free Software 05:47.000 --> 05:54.000 and the necessity of Free Software, the politics and policies behind Free Software 05:54.000 --> 06:05.000 and in order to start doing that I contacted the FSFE as an organization 06:05.000 --> 06:13.000 and at that time I got hold of the vice president of the FSFE who was called at the time Matsias Kirsner 06:13.000 --> 06:23.000 and yeah same guy and he said he was very excited about me wanting to start this local group in Orhus 06:23.000 --> 06:31.000 but he also wanted to check me out first so he wanted to have a phone call and we did that 06:31.000 --> 06:42.000 and yeah and basically in early 2012 we started the weekly meetings in the Hagger Space 06:42.000 --> 06:47.000 now they were at first monthly meetings in the Hagger Space 06:47.000 --> 06:54.000 and I tried pulling people in, some of my colleagues, some people from the Hagger Space people 06:54.000 --> 06:57.000 but you did not go back to the library right? 06:57.000 --> 07:00.000 no I did not go back to the library we... 07:00.000 --> 07:09.000 at the time there was this when we first moved the Ubuntu meetings out to the Hagger Space 07:09.000 --> 07:18.000 the Hagger Space was like in an industrial neighborhood like far out a bit difficult to get 07:18.000 --> 07:26.000 and later when in early 2012 the Hagger Space had moved to a location 07:26.000 --> 07:30.000 very close to the computer science department of the university 07:30.000 --> 07:36.000 so it had actually moved to a very good location 07:36.000 --> 07:41.000 so that was why I didn't consider going back to the library at the time 07:41.000 --> 07:49.000 but yeah we were running these monthly meetings from 2012 to 2015 07:49.000 --> 07:53.000 and I was... 07:53.000 --> 08:01.000 and as a result Matsias asked me if I wanted to officially be the coordinator for Denmark 08:01.000 --> 08:11.000 and I did and I was actually also the only person doing any organized advocacy work at the time 08:11.000 --> 08:17.000 there were of course quite some supporters as we call them today 08:17.000 --> 08:25.000 fellows as we call them at the time in Denmark but I was the only one who was really active 08:25.000 --> 08:33.000 so from... yeah from early 2012 we went on with a small break 08:33.000 --> 08:38.000 because unfortunately later that year my eldest son died 08:38.000 --> 08:44.000 so I had to take some time out but then we restarted in 2013 08:44.000 --> 08:53.000 and had monthly meetings in the Hagger Space where it may be between two and twelve people 08:53.000 --> 08:57.000 I'm very sorry for the last person 08:57.000 --> 09:07.000 yeah thank you but yeah that was what it was but this went on until 2015 09:07.000 --> 09:20.000 in 2015 I was a co-worker organized the official Libra office conference for that year 2015 09:20.000 --> 09:27.000 my co-worker was or is very active in the Libra office community 09:27.000 --> 09:36.000 and he wanted to organize that conference in office and he lives in Copenhagen and works in Copenhagen 09:36.000 --> 09:43.000 so he asked if I wanted to be fit on the feet on the ground for that event 09:43.000 --> 09:51.000 and I did and I involved the FSFA local group in that so it was like a collaborative effort 09:51.000 --> 10:01.000 when we managed to mobilize quite a lot of voluntary effort to organize that conference 10:01.000 --> 10:11.000 which was also good because in the end there was about 10:11.000 --> 10:19.000 like that was about I think about eight thousand euros left of the official conference budget 10:19.000 --> 10:26.000 and we used that estimation for Libra office Denmark for the Ubuntu Denmark thing 10:26.000 --> 10:30.000 and we used them as donations for the local Hagger Space 10:30.000 --> 10:37.000 so in that way our work with the conference also gave something back to the communities it came from 10:37.000 --> 10:48.000 oh that's really nice yeah and but at that time I had moved on to some other interests 10:48.000 --> 10:57.000 which were not Free Software and I was also seeing that whereas people were actually showing up 10:57.000 --> 11:04.000 to our monthly meetings and whereas we actually had some good discussions going 11:04.000 --> 11:11.000 and really achieved something I think with the Libra office conference I also saw that 11:11.000 --> 11:17.000 I was the only person really driving it and if I stopped doing it it would not continue 11:17.000 --> 11:22.000 and then I thought at the time I had plenty of other interests 11:22.000 --> 11:32.000 I am not going to do this because I don't see a path to creating something that would continue after I stopped myself 11:32.000 --> 11:37.000 so from the long term perspective basically was missing right 11:37.000 --> 11:45.000 the long term perspective was missing because I didn't want to be like the only person driving it 11:45.000 --> 11:54.000 so at that time in late 2015 I closed down the group and said well we achieved something with this conference 11:54.000 --> 12:07.000 let's take a break and then instead for some years I was quite involved in like the European community 12:07.000 --> 12:15.000 in a way there were a lot of discussions with what was at that time called the fellowship of the FSC 12:15.000 --> 12:22.000 the fellowship of the FSC people did not really understand always what it was 12:22.000 --> 12:31.000 what it meant, what it was supposed to be, what relationship it had to the FSC and at the time I thought that 12:31.000 --> 12:41.000 it would be more logical to have like something as we call it now called local groups 12:41.000 --> 12:47.000 closer associated with the FSC because there were a lot of discussions about that 12:47.000 --> 12:57.000 and I took part of that and in the end that meant that in 2019 I think in 2018 actually 12:57.000 --> 13:07.000 in 2018 I wrote to Matthias and said that I felt that even though I was not organizing the monthly meetings in August anymore 13:07.000 --> 13:16.000 I still felt that I could contribute something to the FSC and I would actually like to be considered as a member of the GA 13:16.000 --> 13:26.000 and that meant that I was invited to the GA in 2018 where I couldn't attend and then I actually attended in 2019 13:26.000 --> 13:36.000 and as a result I was accepted as a member of the GA and for that I was very happy and very grateful 13:36.000 --> 13:43.000 so yeah that's how I got involved in the FSC. 13:43.000 --> 13:46.000 Wow that's quite a journey right? 13:46.000 --> 13:57.000 Yeah and yeah since then being a member of the GA until this day basically until this year 13:58.000 --> 14:10.000 Today we will also be talking about Free Software and Denmark so to have some bridge over to the topic 14:10.000 --> 14:16.000 that we want to approach I was wondering how is the local group Arhus today? 14:16.000 --> 14:20.000 I think you restarted meetings or? 14:20.000 --> 14:30.000 Yeah and that happened after Covid and what happened after Covid or during Covid was two things 14:30.000 --> 14:40.000 One thing was that a guy who really helped out with the Libra of Conference in 2015 like in 2021 14:40.000 --> 14:49.000 he emailed me and asked them if I didn't feel like restarting some activities around Free Software 14:49.000 --> 14:56.000 he said he would he was totally up for it if I wanted to restart some meetings and then I said yeah I might do that 14:56.000 --> 15:06.000 and then another thing happened some months later which is that a guy which you know who is called Oivin called me out of the blue 15:06.000 --> 15:15.000 and said that when looking for Free Software activities in Denmark he was like popping into my name all the time 15:15.000 --> 15:29.000 and wouldn't I like to do something and then I said yeah well finally so I got in touch with the other guy 15:29.000 --> 15:40.000 and paying some of the other people I knew from earlier and we restarted the meetings like in June 2022 15:40.000 --> 15:44.000 Wow I didn't know that Oivin was around all this time 15:44.000 --> 15:52.000 I'm very happy that he is because he's a co-editor of this podcast so yeah I'm very very happy about that 15:52.000 --> 15:55.000 Yes but he was around since 2022 15:55.000 --> 15:59.000 I should have a talk with him about that and figure this out 15:59.000 --> 16:04.000 and ever since then you meet regularly and everybody's welcome to join 16:04.000 --> 16:08.000 is it a local meeting in Oivis or is it an online meeting? 16:08.000 --> 16:16.000 How can others participate if they are from Denmark and would like to do something for Free Software? 16:16.000 --> 16:24.000 Well it is still a monthly meeting and originally at first we did all the meetings physically 16:24.000 --> 16:32.000 but then there was a guy who was there at all the first meetings who said that 16:32.000 --> 16:41.000 from a climate perspective and then ecological perspective he couldn't defend 16:41.000 --> 16:48.000 going like 40 kilometers in a car every time he had to attend a meeting 16:48.000 --> 16:52.000 why wouldn't we have online meetings sometimes? 16:52.000 --> 16:56.000 So we shifted actually to online meetings 16:56.000 --> 17:02.000 that was also because there were a lot of people who were from other parts of Denmark 17:02.000 --> 17:06.000 especially Copenhagen who contacted us and said 17:06.000 --> 17:10.000 why don't you do online meetings because we would also like to attend 17:10.000 --> 17:14.000 How far is Copenhagen from Arhus? 17:14.000 --> 17:16.000 350 kilometers 17:16.000 --> 17:18.000 Oh wow 17:18.000 --> 17:20.000 So it's quite some distance 17:20.000 --> 17:24.000 it's not just for taking the car on the train 17:24.000 --> 17:40.000 So yeah so actually we shifted our focus from local meetings in Arhus to online meetings for all of Denmark 17:40.000 --> 17:49.000 and then we ideally want to do some physical activity every three months 17:49.000 --> 18:01.000 and until this year we have kept it and some of these events have been related to other enseignments 18:01.000 --> 18:06.000 and some have been related to the ILOV Free Software day 18:06.000 --> 18:11.000 and some have been related to talks about digital sovereignty 18:11.000 --> 18:14.000 but that is basically what we want to do 18:14.000 --> 18:22.000 like meet up online every month but have some physical activity every three months 18:22.000 --> 18:26.000 That sounds like an ambitious plan to be honest 18:26.000 --> 18:32.000 How many people are there in the group currently? 18:32.000 --> 18:39.000 It's difficult to say because it's not always the same people showing up 18:39.000 --> 18:45.000 but I would say ten, twelve people who I would count 18:45.000 --> 18:51.000 I think at our last online meeting we were six people 18:51.000 --> 18:54.000 Yeah that sometimes this happens right 18:54.000 --> 18:56.000 and especially in the summer 18:56.000 --> 18:59.000 I can imagine that this is a bit of adult time 18:59.000 --> 19:03.000 How do you manage that you organize something every three months in person? 19:03.000 --> 19:07.000 This is quite a lot of work 19:07.000 --> 19:13.000 Well it doesn't have to be all that work 19:13.000 --> 19:25.000 We are fortunate enough that we have our collaborator, our member, our friend Espen 19:25.000 --> 19:33.000 used to be very active in the IT workers union in Denmark called Posa 19:33.000 --> 19:38.000 and as a result of their knowing him 19:38.000 --> 19:47.000 he has simply obtained like a card plan for using Posa as a location for doing whatever 19:47.000 --> 19:53.000 so we can use a meeting room to organize these public events 19:53.000 --> 19:58.000 all we have to do is book it with them and then everything is clear-sailing 19:58.000 --> 20:02.000 they are actually happy that we do that 20:02.000 --> 20:07.000 because then they will announce it as an activity for their members 20:07.000 --> 20:10.000 That's quite nice 20:10.000 --> 20:12.000 Indeed it is 20:12.000 --> 20:16.000 But you're really lucky in this regard that you have a dedicated IT union 20:16.000 --> 20:20.000 because I can tell you in Germany this is not the case 20:20.000 --> 20:24.000 we don't have a dedicated IT union 20:24.000 --> 20:28.000 So that's quite cool that you have that 20:28.000 --> 20:31.000 I gather from what you were saying that 20:31.000 --> 20:35.000 you are basically really widespread 20:35.000 --> 20:41.000 and that there are no other local groups in Denmark apart from the Aarhus local group 20:41.000 --> 20:47.000 but the Aarhus local group is more a group for like everybody in Denmark 20:47.000 --> 20:51.000 Yes, we widened our focus so to speak 20:52.000 --> 20:56.000 I'm really I'm really happy that this worked out 20:56.000 --> 20:59.000 and that you are able to do those online meetings 20:59.000 --> 21:02.000 and that people actually join there and yeah that sounds really nice 21:02.000 --> 21:06.000 Thank you so much for all the work you do in this regard cast 21:06.000 --> 21:09.000 I'm happy to do it 21:11.000 --> 21:15.000 This is a short break for our own cause 21:15.000 --> 21:18.000 Thank you for listening to the Software Freedom Podcast 21:18.000 --> 21:23.000 Working for Software Freedom and producing podcasts costs money 21:23.000 --> 21:30.000 Please consider supporting us with a donation on the fsfe.org/donate and end the shownotes 21:33.000 --> 21:38.000 There is also a lot of discussions going on in Denmark 21:38.000 --> 21:44.000 as you probably know about Free Software and digital independence 21:45.000 --> 21:51.000 Could you also take us through what the fsfe local group Aarhus is doing in this regard 21:51.000 --> 21:58.000 and yeah basically what's the stand there and what's the discussion all about 21:58.000 --> 22:01.000 Yes so very broad question I know 22:01.000 --> 22:03.000 I know 22:03.000 --> 22:12.000 As you probably know there has been some larger political issues or conflicts 22:13.000 --> 22:20.000 I think many people in Denmark and also many politicians in Denmark 22:20.000 --> 22:27.000 Many policy people in Denmark have had a very crude awakening with Donald Trump's threats 22:27.000 --> 22:32.000 to simply take over Greenland in some form 22:32.000 --> 22:36.000 because that was like completely unprecedented 22:36.000 --> 22:45.000 Until now like the gospel in the public sector among politicians, among policy advisors 22:45.000 --> 22:47.000 was all the time 22:47.000 --> 22:50.000 You can trust the big American companies 22:50.000 --> 22:53.000 because the US are our friends 22:53.000 --> 23:01.000 They will always be our friends and just as the US government will always be our friends 23:01.000 --> 23:05.000 so Microsoft will always be our friends 23:05.000 --> 23:09.000 Apple will always be our friends maybe not Google 23:09.000 --> 23:12.000 because there has been some skepticism towards Google 23:12.000 --> 23:14.000 but that's quite a beside the point 23:14.000 --> 23:19.000 but then all of a sudden this awakening 23:19.000 --> 23:24.000 our former best friend is actually actively threatening us 23:24.000 --> 23:34.000 and they can simply ask a huge company like Microsoft 23:34.000 --> 23:40.000 they could simply ask them to turn off something like Office 365 in all of Denmark 23:40.000 --> 23:47.000 and if they did that the entire Danish public sector would come to a complete stand still 23:48.000 --> 23:56.000 so they had kind of a crude awakening and this has inspired a lot of discussion 23:56.000 --> 24:01.000 a lot of interest around Free Software because there are these discussions 24:01.000 --> 24:12.000 what is really needed to be in a situation where we are not dependent on what some foreign government is doing in that way 24:12.000 --> 24:14.000 in our IT infrastructure 24:14.000 --> 24:18.000 and we have been active in telling people that yeah 24:18.000 --> 24:23.000 basically we have gone out with the message called public money, public code 24:23.000 --> 24:30.000 and like it's not a question of not being European 24:30.000 --> 24:33.000 it's not a question of not being American 24:33.000 --> 24:36.000 it's a question of not being free 24:36.000 --> 24:40.000 the problem is that the software needs to be Free Software 24:40.000 --> 24:47.000 so people who use it can decide what it's going to do on their behalf 24:47.000 --> 24:53.000 and that harkensberg actually to 2023 24:53.000 --> 25:00.000 where we had a public meeting in a process meeting room 25:00.000 --> 25:06.000 which was about saying goodbye to the tech giants 25:06.000 --> 25:09.000 getting the tech giants out of our lives 25:09.000 --> 25:16.000 and since all of this happened with the 25:16.000 --> 25:21.000 since all of this happened with the Donald Trump situation 25:21.000 --> 25:25.000 there has been a lot of interest in the public sector 25:25.000 --> 25:29.000 and a lot of intents to really do something about it 25:29.000 --> 25:38.000 and I know that in some ministries they are experimenting with facing in computers 25:38.000 --> 25:42.000 with GNU Linux instead of Windows 25:42.000 --> 25:47.000 they are experimenting with that kind of things in many places 25:47.000 --> 25:57.000 I would say that in the public sector that is still not the will to start the kind of 25:57.000 --> 26:05.000 investments that would really be needed to make a major transition to Free Software 26:05.000 --> 26:13.000 and especially get away from something like the huge Microsoft monopoly 26:13.000 --> 26:18.000 but there is definitely a lot of interest about it 26:18.000 --> 26:26.000 and I can see that when we reach out to people like from the FSFE 26:26.000 --> 26:37.000 I can see it in my day job and actually there was also last spring 26:37.000 --> 26:43.000 this winter there was a lot of discussion about a new digital wallet 26:43.000 --> 26:47.000 according to the new I think there is a directive from the EU 26:47.000 --> 26:54.000 that says that people should have a digital wallet with a digital identity 26:54.000 --> 27:02.000 and the EU directive explicitly states that this should be Free Software 27:02.000 --> 27:11.000 and the Danish government at the time was creating a digital wallet 27:11.000 --> 27:18.000 which they were actually doing as not Free Software 27:18.000 --> 27:22.000 they were actually doing it as a closed source software 27:22.000 --> 27:27.000 they were saying this is supposed to be as free as it can be 27:27.000 --> 27:31.000 or as open source as it can be as they put it 27:31.000 --> 27:38.000 but in the end that meant that the vendor was more or less at their 27:38.000 --> 27:42.000 the vendor could more or less at their own discretion 27:42.000 --> 27:45.000 make whatever they wanted of it closed and say 27:45.000 --> 27:53.000 how we can't do this because we can only do this with the non-free libraries 27:53.000 --> 28:00.000 but as a result of this there was a guy who joined forces with us 28:00.000 --> 28:07.000 and we formulated some questions for the committee which was working on this in the parliament 28:07.000 --> 28:10.000 so we sent these letters to the parliament 28:10.000 --> 28:17.000 and a lot of other questions we organized like a campaign of questions 28:17.000 --> 28:23.000 for this committee around why is this not 100% Free Software 28:23.000 --> 28:30.000 how come this will not be available on any mobile phone 28:30.000 --> 28:37.000 why is it only available on Google Android and Apple devices and so forth 28:37.000 --> 28:44.000 and in the end it actually meant that this specific application has ended up being 28:44.000 --> 28:48.000 much more free than it was originally 28:48.000 --> 28:55.000 and it even can install on like alternative Android systems 28:55.000 --> 28:57.000 oh like awesome ROMs? 28:57.000 --> 29:00.000 yes yes yes exactly 29:00.000 --> 29:07.000 but of course there are still some corners which are not of it which are not Free Software 29:07.000 --> 29:12.000 unfortunately because it's relying on some Google libraries which are not Free Software 29:12.000 --> 29:20.000 but with microG it will still run on custom ROMs so that is actually something 29:20.000 --> 29:28.000 but what I really want to say here is that in the policy world, in the politics world 29:28.000 --> 29:36.000 there is a lot of interest in the concepts of digital sovereignty 29:36.000 --> 29:42.000 and there are lots of interest in the concepts of using Free Software 29:42.000 --> 29:49.000 trying to be more independent of like big take 29:49.000 --> 29:59.000 or be more independent of like proprietary third party dependencies 29:59.000 --> 30:06.000 but there is very little understanding in mainstream politics 30:06.000 --> 30:10.000 and policy environments about these issues 30:10.000 --> 30:21.000 so yeah I would say we are in a position where what really needs to move forward 30:21.000 --> 30:27.000 in Denmark in my opinion is what you could call education of the political classes 30:27.000 --> 30:30.000 so they understand the issues at hand 30:30.000 --> 30:35.000 I was not wondering I do have several questions and related that 30:35.000 --> 30:39.000 but my first question dates back to the time frame 30:39.000 --> 30:47.000 so when you mentioned that this basically all started with Donald Trump's second term 30:47.000 --> 30:56.000 and the spoken of annexation of Greenland which has not yet happened 30:56.000 --> 31:03.000 luckily I was wondering was there not something also going on after Edward Snowden 31:03.000 --> 31:09.000 when it was publicly released that basically a lot of our data is collected 31:09.000 --> 31:21.000 there was and actually I myself organized a crypto party at the central library in Arhus 31:21.000 --> 31:26.000 in the wake of the Snowden revelations 31:26.000 --> 31:32.000 so the Snowden revelations definitely sparked a lot of interest 31:32.000 --> 31:40.000 but on the political level the interest didn't really take hold 31:40.000 --> 31:47.000 because everybody in mainstream politics stocked through the memo about 31:47.000 --> 31:55.000 or you would say stocked through the gospel about the US being our best friend 31:55.000 --> 32:02.000 and if we don't have anything to hide then we don't have to worry and that kind of things 32:02.000 --> 32:12.000 so the Danish politicians have when they have been in government generally been very pro surveillance 32:13.000 --> 32:21.000 okay so it did not spark the same conversation as it has sparked now with the second term of Donald Trump 32:21.000 --> 32:29.000 no mostly in community this Snowden revelations mostly had impact in the population in communities 32:29.000 --> 32:33.000 not really at the political level in the same way 32:34.000 --> 32:42.000 and you also mentioned that there is some lack in understanding or following through 32:42.000 --> 32:48.000 not understanding probably but following through with Free Software in all regards 32:48.000 --> 32:53.000 I was wondering like are you as a local group doing something about this 32:53.000 --> 32:58.000 and do you have meetings in this regard, do you have events in this regard 32:59.000 --> 33:03.000 to also talk with others about this and to do some outreach? 33:03.000 --> 33:11.000 Yes as you have heard about we are actually as a group in a dialogue with Johannes 33:11.000 --> 33:24.000 and Alex from the FZV organization about organizing an event with a headline of public money, public code 33:24.000 --> 33:32.000 whose target audience will be people from the public administrations 33:32.000 --> 33:38.000 and this event was originally scheduled to be in September 33:38.000 --> 33:47.000 but it turned out that there are some, there is another important municipal meetings around IT 33:47.000 --> 33:50.000 at the same date as we had a regular chosen 33:51.000 --> 33:58.000 so right now in Denmark and for that reason we have had to move it to a present 33:58.000 --> 34:06.000 we are looking at March and the venue we want to use is an auditorium in the main library in Ols 34:06.000 --> 34:15.000 and we will book it as soon as we can but they don't open the booking for that season until September 34:15.000 --> 34:21.000 so as soon as we can we will book the venue and then we will fix a date probably in March 34:21.000 --> 34:27.000 probably around 9, 10, 11th March if I remember correctly 34:27.000 --> 34:34.000 and then we will have this meeting like a one day conference centered on public money, public code 34:34.000 --> 34:40.000 where we will invite decision makers, IT versus IT workers 34:40.000 --> 34:47.000 from the public sector to come and discuss share their experiences 34:47.000 --> 34:56.000 and we will also try to gently direct the conversation in the duration of focusing on Free Software 34:56.000 --> 35:00.000 and not just non-American software 35:00.000 --> 35:05.000 that sounds really good and it sounds like a lot of work 35:05.000 --> 35:07.000 yeah probably probably 35:07.000 --> 35:14.000 you said that politicians will be the intercession makers are the main target group 35:14.000 --> 35:19.000 and that you will invite them but is everybody else also invited to join or will it be a closed event 35:19.000 --> 35:20.000 do you already know that? 35:20.000 --> 35:31.000 now in order for us to use that venue the event has to be open for everybody in all whose was interested 35:31.000 --> 35:33.000 because it's in the library 35:33.000 --> 35:35.000 because it's in the library 35:35.000 --> 35:43.000 so but we will only invite decision makers from the municipalities 35:43.000 --> 35:49.000 but everybody who is interested can show up and hear what we are discussing 35:49.000 --> 35:51.000 that sounds really cool 35:51.000 --> 35:53.000 thank you so much for taking me through this 35:53.000 --> 36:01.000 it has been an increase in people showing up after the discussion about digital 36:01.000 --> 36:05.000 independence and Free Software started in Denmark 36:05.000 --> 36:10.000 and has this been like a topic that people bring along to your group 36:10.000 --> 36:12.000 even if they are from the outside 36:12.000 --> 36:19.000 or even if they have not been involved formally in the FSFIs local group in our house 36:20.000 --> 36:26.000 yes it's definitely a thing that people are very interested in 36:26.000 --> 36:33.000 and that is definitely also something that I think we can contribute with 36:33.000 --> 36:44.000 how can people start building like their own infrastructure and not be dependent on the tech giants 36:45.000 --> 36:49.000 now if you will permit me to expand a bit 36:49.000 --> 36:59.000 of course I and OEVN have been very fond of using an operating system based on Debian 36:59.000 --> 37:01.000 which is called YUNOhost 37:01.000 --> 37:03.000 like spelled UNOhost 37:03.000 --> 37:09.000 which is a system that you can put on a virtual server 37:09.000 --> 37:11.000 you can put it on a physical server 37:11.000 --> 37:16.000 and it permits you to install a lot of services 37:16.000 --> 37:20.000 and run them yourself without actually knowing how to set them up 37:20.000 --> 37:22.000 because it will set it up for you 37:22.000 --> 37:26.000 so I am running my own version of Cast2Port 37:26.000 --> 37:29.000 which is podcasting software 37:29.000 --> 37:31.000 I am running that on my own server 37:31.000 --> 37:35.000 I am running my own Synapse and Element 37:35.000 --> 37:38.000 to do matrix communication 37:38.000 --> 37:41.000 I used to run my own method on server 37:41.000 --> 37:43.000 but that was a bit too heavy 37:43.000 --> 37:46.000 and if I wanted to take out the time 37:46.000 --> 37:49.000 I could run my own mail server there 37:49.000 --> 37:53.000 so you can actually be very non-technical 37:53.000 --> 37:58.000 and still do a lot towards simply building your own infrastructure 37:58.000 --> 38:01.000 instead of depending on the tech giants 38:01.000 --> 38:07.000 and that is something people have been very interested in talking to us about 38:07.000 --> 38:09.000 all right 38:09.000 --> 38:15.000 that's basically so there are more interested also in their way of 38:15.000 --> 38:20.000 being digital to run by themselves 38:20.000 --> 38:22.000 exactly 38:22.000 --> 38:23.000 I like that 38:23.000 --> 38:25.000 thank you so much 38:25.000 --> 38:28.000 and yeah I was also wondering last but not least 38:28.000 --> 38:31.000 what can other people in Denmark do? 38:31.000 --> 38:32.000 can they join you? 38:32.000 --> 38:34.000 how can they join you? 38:34.000 --> 38:37.000 that is currently happening because the PMPC event 38:37.000 --> 38:40.000 apparently is still some months away 38:40.000 --> 38:42.000 but in the meantime 38:42.000 --> 38:46.000 what can people interested in Free Software do to help you? 38:47.000 --> 38:48.000 well 38:48.000 --> 38:50.000 if they want to reach out 38:50.000 --> 38:52.000 they can reach out to me 38:52.000 --> 38:54.000 the Denmark coordinator 38:54.000 --> 38:57.000 or to Øjvind, the deputy coordinator, 38:57.000 --> 38:58.000 and 38:58.000 --> 39:00.000 they can search for my name 39:00.000 --> 39:02.000 and find my email address 39:02.000 --> 39:05.000 but we also 39:05.000 --> 39:07.000 actually have a 39:07.000 --> 39:12.000 we also actually have a matrix group 39:12.000 --> 39:14.000 FSFE DK 39:14.000 --> 39:17.000 which should be easy to find 39:17.000 --> 39:18.000 if you are on matrix 39:18.000 --> 39:21.000 and if you are not on matrix 39:21.000 --> 39:23.000 we have a mailing list 39:23.000 --> 39:28.000 which is arhus at lists.fse.org 39:28.000 --> 39:31.000 but if you go through lists.fse.org 39:31.000 --> 39:33.000 you can search for arhus 39:33.000 --> 39:35.000 and then you can join the mailing list 39:35.000 --> 39:39.000 and then you are very welcome to reach out to us 39:39.000 --> 39:42.000 and propose anything you want 39:42.000 --> 39:46.000 and the monthly meetings are always announced 39:46.000 --> 39:48.000 on the mailing list 39:48.000 --> 39:50.000 and on the matrix group 39:50.000 --> 39:51.000 okay 39:51.000 --> 39:53.000 anything you want to add? 39:53.000 --> 39:56.000 anything that is left from your site? 39:56.000 --> 39:57.000 yes 39:57.000 --> 40:01.000 that in discussions about digital sovereignty in Denmark 40:01.000 --> 40:05.000 we often meet the opinion 40:05.000 --> 40:08.000 in other groups working with this topic 40:08.000 --> 40:12.000 that it's about having European solutions 40:12.000 --> 40:16.000 not about necessarily having Free Software solutions 40:16.000 --> 40:19.000 so I have people telling me that 40:19.000 --> 40:21.000 I should ditch Firefox 40:21.000 --> 40:23.000 because it's American 40:23.000 --> 40:26.000 and then I should use the Vivaldi browser instead 40:26.000 --> 40:28.000 and then I point it out to them 40:28.000 --> 40:32.000 that the Vivaldi browser is actually proprietary firstly 40:32.000 --> 40:35.000 and secondly it's built on Chromium 40:35.000 --> 40:38.000 which is just as American and Firefox 40:38.000 --> 40:40.000 and thirdly 40:40.000 --> 40:42.000 Firefox is actually Free Software 40:42.000 --> 40:45.000 and there are a lot of derivatives 40:45.000 --> 40:47.000 you can use instead 40:47.000 --> 40:50.000 like LibraWolf or whatever 40:50.000 --> 40:53.000 so the distinction between European 40:53.000 --> 40:57.000 and American doesn't really make sense 40:57.000 --> 41:02.000 what makes sense is the distinction between free and proprietary 41:02.000 --> 41:07.000 the same way people are telling me that 41:07.000 --> 41:12.000 if I don't want to use the American proprietary 41:12.000 --> 41:14.000 artificial intelligent robots 41:14.000 --> 41:16.000 like those from OpenAI 41:16.000 --> 41:18.000 or Anthropic 41:18.000 --> 41:21.000 I should use something like mistrial instead 41:21.000 --> 41:24.000 because it's French and it's European 41:24.000 --> 41:27.000 but then I also need to point out 41:27.000 --> 41:29.000 that that's still proprietary 41:29.000 --> 41:31.000 and they are still not disclosing 41:31.000 --> 41:35.000 which data they have been training their models on 41:35.000 --> 41:38.000 so it's actually even though it's European 41:38.000 --> 41:40.000 it's just as bad 41:40.000 --> 41:42.000 some big proprietary European product 41:42.000 --> 41:45.000 is not better for being European 41:45.000 --> 41:47.000 it is better for being Free Software 41:47.000 --> 41:49.000 and if it's Free Software 41:49.000 --> 41:54.000 and that is something which really needs to be communicated 41:54.000 --> 41:58.000 and exactly communicating that kind of understanding 41:58.000 --> 42:00.000 is what I would like to do 42:00.000 --> 42:03.000 with our work in our group in Denmark 42:03.000 --> 42:05.000 oh that's very cool 42:05.000 --> 42:08.000 and nicely fits in in our communication 42:08.000 --> 42:10.000 as FSFE 42:10.000 --> 42:12.000 because we also communicate 42:12.000 --> 42:14.000 that by European 42:14.000 --> 42:17.000 it's not the solution to digital sovereignty 42:17.000 --> 42:20.000 and digital sovereignty can only be achieved 42:20.000 --> 42:22.000 as you said through Free Software 42:22.000 --> 42:24.000 and I think you really 42:24.000 --> 42:26.000 neatly outlined why this is the case 42:26.000 --> 42:29.000 and yeah, I just thank you very much 42:29.000 --> 42:31.000 so I'm very curious to see how you will 42:31.000 --> 42:33.000 how this will all come along 42:33.000 --> 42:37.000 especially with the PMPC event in Denmark 42:37.000 --> 42:41.000 yeah, thank you so much for taking the time 42:41.000 --> 42:45.000 to walk me through what's happening in Denmark currently 42:45.000 --> 42:49.000 and also what will be the next steps there 42:49.000 --> 42:51.000 thank you so much 42:51.000 --> 42:54.000 you're welcome, I was happy to be here 42:54.000 --> 42:57.000 alright, this was the software freedom podcast 42:57.000 --> 42:59.000 if you liked this episode 42:59.000 --> 43:02.000 please recommend it to your friends and rate it 43:02.000 --> 43:04.000 stay tuned for more inspiring conversations 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