Transcript of SFP#10: How to support Free Software and a sustainable digital infrastructure
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WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:17.920 Welcome to the Software Freedom Podcast. 00:17.920 --> 00:22.320 This podcast is presented to you by the Free Software Foundation Europe, where a charity 00:22.320 --> 00:25.040 that empowers users to control technology. 00:25.040 --> 00:28.640 I'm Matthias Kirschner, I'm the President of the Free Software Foundation Europe, and 00:28.640 --> 00:31.440 I'm doing this podcast with my colleague Bonnie Merring. 00:31.440 --> 00:34.560 Hello, our guest for today is Elisa Leninger. 00:34.560 --> 00:39.440 Elisa is the Managing Director of Super, Lab and a freelancer researcher of technology 00:39.440 --> 00:41.040 and culture. 00:41.040 --> 00:46.320 In her work, she focuses on civil societies, and she has also consulted Free Software and 00:46.320 --> 00:52.560 open infrastructure communities, as well as she has organized conferences and events. 00:52.560 --> 00:57.520 As a trained archaeologist, Elisa has worked in the intersection of culture and computer 00:58.480 --> 01:03.680 and in her current research, she focuses on open digital infrastructure and how social 01:03.680 --> 01:08.160 practices, norms and values within tech communities shape its development. 01:08.800 --> 01:10.400 Hello, Elisa, nice to meet you. 01:12.240 --> 01:13.440 Hello, Bonnie, hi, Matthias. 01:14.240 --> 01:15.920 Hi, and thank you for being with us, Elisa. 01:18.000 --> 01:25.440 So, Elisa and Francesca, first, I was wondering you also worked on how communities around 01:25.440 --> 01:30.800 Free Software can be supported, and so I was wondering what problems do you see that Free Software 01:30.800 --> 01:32.560 contributors are facing? 01:36.560 --> 01:42.160 I think one of the biggest problems that people kept telling me about during my research and 01:42.160 --> 01:50.320 the interviews I conducted for those was a very old story that is very common to Free Software, 01:50.320 --> 01:56.720 I believe, and that is the balance between developing new code and maintaining it, 01:57.360 --> 02:00.800 because developing new code is on the one hand kind of attractive. 02:00.800 --> 02:06.240 You know, it is this puzzle you have to solve, you make things working, and you get kind of an 02:06.240 --> 02:11.120 instant gratification out of this. I think everyone of us knows this and can relate to that. 02:11.760 --> 02:20.640 And on the other hand, you have a working product or a working code base, and people start 02:20.640 --> 02:27.360 adopting it, which in the beginning is great to see, but then the more and more people adapt 02:27.360 --> 02:33.120 this technology that you build, the more and more they demand things or ask for things, 02:33.120 --> 02:38.320 wanted to work in this environment or that environment. And in the end, it's not anymore, 02:38.320 --> 02:43.600 you know, building things that work, but keeping them from breaking all the time. 02:44.480 --> 02:51.360 And you're not thanked as much anymore if you maintain your product, but it's more, you know, 02:51.360 --> 02:55.840 you see all the complaints, all the tickets coming in, all the bug reports, and that can be really 02:55.840 --> 03:02.800 tiring. It's also a problem when it comes to fundraising, you know, it's easier to get new 03:03.280 --> 03:11.120 attention for like a new software, a new library. It's really hard to get this kind of attention 03:11.120 --> 03:17.120 that also then gets financial rewards out of it for a product that is already there and that you 03:17.120 --> 03:24.800 just, you know, with all strings attached. I'm not saying it's easy, but yeah, that you basically 03:24.800 --> 03:32.640 just work to keep working. So that's something which is very common also in other areas that 03:32.800 --> 03:37.440 new stuff, that's the stuff which people are interested in, they want to support you. And when 03:37.440 --> 03:43.200 you talk about the same project again in a year or in five years, they say, oh, that's so old, 03:44.720 --> 03:50.080 can't you start something new? But there are projects, there are, there is work where you have to 03:50.080 --> 03:59.360 keep on working on them for many, many years, sometimes decades. So what can you do to motivate 04:00.080 --> 04:07.200 contributors to do this work, which they don't like so much, like maintaining software they 04:07.200 --> 04:14.400 wrote five years ago for the next five years? Yeah, good question. And I think there is no easy answer, 04:14.400 --> 04:21.120 otherwise the smart people out there would already have found it. I believe that one key to solving 04:21.120 --> 04:30.640 this problem is community management. To have a successful piece of software of code running 04:30.640 --> 04:38.240 and keep it running, I believe you have to, you know, share it with a group of people who can 04:38.240 --> 04:43.840 help each other out because none of us can be dedicated to a project 24, 7 over a decade or longer. 04:44.560 --> 04:52.240 And this is, I think, also quite current that the older a project gets, while the 04:52.240 --> 04:58.400 contribution numbers are dwindling and the people who actually contribute towards it are in the 04:58.400 --> 05:03.920 single digits and that is just not sustainable. And this is actually interesting because one of 05:03.920 --> 05:08.560 the stories that I love to tell about free software is that it is actually quite sustainable, 05:08.640 --> 05:13.760 right? I mean, the energy footprint is quite low because you don't have, you don't have 05:13.760 --> 05:22.320 blood wear usually at least. But then again, the working behind it is not very sustainable because 05:22.320 --> 05:27.520 people are burnt out quite easily. And this is a phenomenon, I guess that we see all over the field 05:27.520 --> 05:33.040 much more than in the IT sector in general. Why do you think that's different in free software than 05:33.040 --> 05:41.680 in the general IT sector? I believe the structures are kind of different. I mean, you have company 05:41.680 --> 05:49.200 structures in free software as well, of course, very successful ones. But you also have these 05:49.200 --> 05:54.720 company structures with clear business hours, with paid leave and everything. But they work 05:54.720 --> 06:00.400 closely together with communities of freelancers who have to take care of that on their own, 06:00.400 --> 06:05.040 which is sometimes very hard to be mindful of yourself and of your health and your well-being. 06:05.680 --> 06:11.360 And also volunteers who work at a different schedule, who work in different time zones, 06:11.360 --> 06:18.320 so to bring all those different needs and also wishes that people bring to the table together. 06:18.320 --> 06:23.280 I think for this you believe proper community management, people who take care of the well-being, 06:23.440 --> 06:30.400 who facilitate, if there's a conflict or just a communication problem sometimes, and who also 06:30.400 --> 06:36.240 take care that if new people come to a project, this is also something that we saw. There is a high 06:36.240 --> 06:43.200 drop-off rate at the beginning because there are often no clear onboarding processes, how to 06:43.200 --> 06:47.680 join a project and what you actually have to learn, who you can ask if you have a problem. 06:48.400 --> 06:53.680 And the barriers of joining a mailing list where sometimes the tone can be a little rough, 06:54.880 --> 07:00.000 yeah, those hurdles are actually quite high and many people don't make it that far. 07:03.040 --> 07:09.040 But they have some concrete suggestions how the situation can be improved and what would be needed 07:09.040 --> 07:13.600 that those who do volunteer work for open infrastructure and free software receive the support 07:13.600 --> 07:18.320 they need, except of community management. Good question. 07:21.520 --> 07:27.360 I heard in the interviews that many people who work on software projects are very dedicated, 07:27.360 --> 07:32.080 but they complain about that they cannot do what they actually would like to do. So they are stuck 07:32.080 --> 07:40.400 in the finances, in organizing events, in doing like travel organization or budgeting. 07:41.040 --> 07:46.720 And I think this is something that came up so often in the interviews that this seems to be a 07:46.720 --> 07:51.280 core problem. So community management really is just one part of it. Maybe it's an outward 07:51.280 --> 07:56.960 facing part. This is why it seemed to be so visible to me, but there's more to that. So in order to 07:58.480 --> 08:05.360 solve these problems that there are so many different tasks piled upon individual developers, 08:05.360 --> 08:10.000 you need to diversify, you need to bring new people to a project with a different set of skills. 08:10.000 --> 08:15.360 If you are a successful developer, you shouldn't be doing finances, you should be writing code. 08:16.240 --> 08:20.960 And there are people who are really good at finances. That's their skill. Why not get these 08:20.960 --> 08:26.720 experts on board? The same again with community management. There are experts for that who are 08:26.720 --> 08:33.040 really good at this. Get them on board, but also acknowledge them for the skills and for the work 08:33.040 --> 08:38.960 that they are doing. It's really hard to approach a project and say, hey, I've got no idea about 08:39.040 --> 08:44.480 how software works, but I want to contribute with my skills. Who would these people even talk to 08:44.480 --> 08:49.760 if they want to join a project? Because the way that you usually join is by starting to 08:49.760 --> 08:57.200 committing code, right? And then you join the mailing list and you get part of the community, 08:57.200 --> 09:02.880 and then you find your spot and see how you can contribute further. So I think this is really a 09:03.360 --> 09:12.480 key problem. So make it a bit more about coming. Yeah, a little bit more open. 09:15.760 --> 09:21.680 And Elisa, when you talk about that, it seems a bit, I mean, there are some steps which 09:22.400 --> 09:29.280 companies can easier do like at a certain scale. They can say, well, beside those five developers, 09:29.280 --> 09:34.800 we have on those projects. Let's now also get someone who is focusing on the community management 09:34.800 --> 09:41.200 to include others in this project as well. While for volunteers who run projects, it's more 09:41.200 --> 09:48.080 difficult to do this like one developer might attract another developer. Also, he doesn't like 09:48.080 --> 09:55.200 to do community management. He will work in his small community of the two developers then, 09:55.200 --> 10:01.440 then there might be a few more. But then, I mean, it's difficult when you are at a lower scale 10:01.440 --> 10:07.200 to attract someone who loves doing community management because it's still a small community, 10:07.200 --> 10:13.200 while it will not grow when you don't have someone doing it. So do you also see this chicken egg 10:13.200 --> 10:21.760 problem there? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there is kind of a chicken egg problem. But I'm not quite sure 10:21.840 --> 10:29.520 that people wouldn't volunteer if they have, if they are experts in community building to work 10:29.520 --> 10:33.760 for a project that has a very small community. I think that is actually quite an attractive thing 10:33.760 --> 10:38.960 to build up a new community and see how this can be made at a healthy environment for everyone. 10:39.840 --> 10:49.360 So I really believe that if you start a problem, try to think ahead, not just in technical terms, 10:50.240 --> 10:55.520 and in terms of technical scale, but also in terms of social scale, of team scale, 10:55.520 --> 11:01.040 of outreach scale, and then see which people, which skills you need and reach out to them. 11:01.040 --> 11:05.360 Because I believe those people are not there. This is not just about community building, it's 11:05.360 --> 11:11.120 also about design. I don't know whether you've heard, but some people criticize the usability 11:11.120 --> 11:15.920 of some free software projects. And I think this is something that we've heard over the past years as 11:16.400 --> 11:20.640 well. Do you have examples there? I'm not sure if I've heard anything like that ever. 11:22.080 --> 11:24.720 I would have to look them up, but I can send them over, yeah. 11:26.080 --> 11:31.120 No, but this is also an ongoing theme, right? In the discussions about a free software, 11:31.120 --> 11:39.760 why it isn't adopted as widely? Because there is a hands-on spirit to it. You have to 11:40.480 --> 11:49.040 get in up to your elbows and be able to figure out problems and solve them on your own at some 11:49.040 --> 11:57.920 point. And this is something that could be at least a little bit eliminated by getting 11:58.960 --> 12:07.520 UX experts, professionals on board on a project earlier, to see how workflows break if people 12:07.520 --> 12:11.600 don't bring a certain knowledge to the tables and where people drop off using your product. 12:12.320 --> 12:17.360 And that, again, if you involve those people, would make your product more usable, it would also 12:17.360 --> 12:20.960 broaden the user base, which is also kind of rewarding, right? I mean, you want to have a product 12:20.960 --> 12:29.440 that gets a depth that you don't build code that is not used. So if I understood you correct, 12:29.520 --> 12:37.760 you also argued before that all those other tasks around outside of the technical skills in 12:37.760 --> 12:43.840 a project that they are sometimes undervalued by the people who have to do them, but who would 12:43.840 --> 12:50.320 rather like to code. But your suggestion would be if you would like to run a free software project 12:50.320 --> 12:55.520 and would like to develop something, and you can concentrate on the technical things, but you 12:55.520 --> 13:01.200 should not forget about those other factors. And you should make sure to also consider them 13:01.200 --> 13:07.200 and include people who would focus on this in order to make sure that your technical project 13:07.200 --> 13:15.040 will be sustainable. Did I understand you correct there? I do agree with the second part. So yeah, 13:15.040 --> 13:19.760 you definitely, if you start a project, should get all sorts of people to the table as early as you 13:19.760 --> 13:24.800 can. Test often test early works in every kind of dimension, not just in the technical one. 13:25.840 --> 13:35.840 I wouldn't exactly say that people, developers especially, undervalued these skills, 13:35.840 --> 13:40.720 because once they have to do them themselves, they realize how hard they are to do. 13:41.600 --> 13:46.320 It's just that it's not the first in their mind if they set up to do a new project. I think 13:46.320 --> 13:50.240 this needs to change a little more like product thinking. I know this is a very business 13:50.240 --> 13:56.240 term, but it's something that actually makes sense if you are developing products. 13:58.640 --> 14:04.000 So at least have one other question. So there are also organizations out there like foundations 14:04.000 --> 14:10.240 who want to support free software contributors. What way do they have to better support 14:10.320 --> 14:17.200 free software development? First of all to all the foundations out there who are considering 14:17.200 --> 14:22.560 supporting free software. Yes, please do. Your contribution is really, really needed and also 14:22.560 --> 14:29.440 very welcome and valued. We recently published a report that tried to touch upon that subject a 14:29.440 --> 14:37.280 little more. The report is called World Works ahead. And I'm sure we can link to it in the show notes. 14:38.160 --> 14:43.760 And it outlines several recommendations for funders who want to interact and support 14:45.200 --> 14:52.160 software communities out there. And maybe I'll just highlight a few of the most important 14:52.160 --> 14:58.080 findings that we had. What we came across was kind of a circle of reinforcement 15:00.000 --> 15:06.400 of a few problems that are evident in software communities. For example, this 15:06.400 --> 15:11.520 concentration of people with skills in development that we already touched upon. 15:13.440 --> 15:22.880 And foundations often support developer work, but don't really like to invest in these other 15:22.880 --> 15:31.920 skills that I mentioned like UX design, translation, localization, community management, finances, 15:31.920 --> 15:37.840 especially finances. Those positions are really hard to fund externally. 15:39.600 --> 15:46.080 And at the other hand, the developers, of course, would like to support their own positions first. 15:46.080 --> 15:50.880 I get that, but it also means that they are stuck with all these tasks. They don't really like to 15:50.880 --> 15:58.080 do. So what I would like to see from funders is to actively encourage, to actively encourage 15:58.080 --> 16:05.760 software projects to rethink their own structure and the positions that are covered by their 16:05.760 --> 16:12.560 teams and what new positions need to be created and then, again, supported by foundations 16:12.560 --> 16:16.960 to make the team more resilient and more healthy and more balanced. 16:18.320 --> 16:22.400 Thank you, yeah. I think that's a very important point. And actually, there's also one 16:23.040 --> 16:29.760 positive example there. We are involved in Horizon 2020 project, NGIS zero. And there they build 16:29.760 --> 16:37.680 a consortium of organizations who are then also paid in this framework to support the development 16:37.680 --> 16:44.160 projects, which are which get the funding there. And the other organizations then can help those 16:44.160 --> 16:50.480 more technical people with other aspects like UX design, but also then about security, 16:50.480 --> 16:57.760 with SDFSFE, we do help them with legal questions. And there are many different ones who support them 16:57.760 --> 17:02.640 then in community building and so on, where then it's not just focusing on the technical part, 17:02.640 --> 17:07.840 but then also on those other areas, which in the end are our important part for sustainable 17:07.840 --> 17:11.280 growth and development of those technical tools there. 17:11.360 --> 17:22.400 After we now talked about free software contributors and how the developing part of free software 17:22.400 --> 17:30.080 needs support, you also had formalized some claims to support the work for a resilient and 17:30.080 --> 17:34.800 sustainable digital infrastructure. So we are getting a more broad of you here now. 17:35.360 --> 17:43.600 Well, could you summarize those for claims for us? Sure, yeah. But first, maybe let me give you a 17:43.600 --> 17:54.240 short rundown how this actually happened, because all of us have been in this field of advocating for 17:54.240 --> 18:01.440 free software for quite a long time. And if you now hear these demands, you will realize that 18:01.520 --> 18:11.200 none of them are new. But when earlier this year, the COVID pandemic hit and we all, you know, 18:11.200 --> 18:18.880 we're sent to our home offices and kids had to do school from home and we had to reach out to 18:18.880 --> 18:26.400 our loved ones and friends, over digital platforms. I think society at a whole 18:27.040 --> 18:37.200 and witnessed a digital transformation and I know that this is a very planned term that has 18:37.200 --> 18:42.080 like digital transformation has been here since the 1970s and it still isn't done. I think it will 18:42.080 --> 18:48.640 never be done. It's just we saw an acceleration of digitization in every aspect of our lives. 18:49.600 --> 19:02.320 And all the good tools to manage this digital transformation are out there. We have good products, 19:02.960 --> 19:08.400 but when push came to shove and things, you know, suddenly there was time pressure, 19:09.280 --> 19:15.920 organizations, companies, families had to find tools that worked for them quickly. They did not 19:15.920 --> 19:25.280 turn to free software at a rate that we all would have loved to see. Instead, we have this whole 19:25.280 --> 19:32.160 zoom conversation over and over again. And I think there is no arguing that zoom is a problematic 19:32.160 --> 19:40.320 tool, not just because of a lack of encryption or an unclear state of its encryption, the way it 19:40.320 --> 19:47.120 routes its traffic through service in China, but also the way it now starts to censor online 19:47.120 --> 19:56.000 discussions that discuss zoom, safety and security. This is a problem like we cannot be reliant on 19:56.000 --> 20:04.240 these things that then censor our discussions about whether technology works. So when we saw this, 20:04.240 --> 20:09.440 we thought, okay, we have made these demands over years and I know that the free software 20:09.440 --> 20:14.240 foundation Europe has been one of the most outspoken advocates in the world about these topics. 20:15.200 --> 20:21.520 But we thought, okay, now this is a good time to recap this and write it down once and for all 20:21.520 --> 20:27.920 that there is good software out there. But there are a few things that people need to change, 20:27.920 --> 20:37.040 politicians also need to change to make its adoption easier. So with this rather lengthy explanation, 20:37.840 --> 20:45.760 we came down in a very collaborative process with a number of organizations, mostly from Germany, 20:45.760 --> 20:54.400 but it was later signed by other organizations as well. We came down to four basic recommendations. 20:55.280 --> 21:03.360 The first one is to open political decision-making processes for input from the digital civil 21:03.360 --> 21:13.840 society. I believe that at least from my German perspective, it is very frustrating to see all these, 21:16.000 --> 21:20.240 it's very frustrating to see all these commissions in the German parliament who discuss 21:21.520 --> 21:30.960 several aspects of technology that are held without any involvement of civil society, 21:30.960 --> 21:36.240 who will be most impacted by this technology in the end and this needs to change and we need to 21:36.240 --> 21:44.080 involve civil society much earlier and not just in hindsight into the discussion how technology 21:44.080 --> 21:55.280 is supported, how money is spent on technology and also how we make legislation around the regulation 21:55.280 --> 22:01.200 of technology and I think this is something we would like to see. The second demand was, 22:01.200 --> 22:08.480 the second recommendation was to have more targeted funding for digital civil society. 22:09.920 --> 22:20.640 We have seen that with, for example, with a corona app that was developed by a consortium of 22:20.640 --> 22:29.040 different actors, universities, a few companies, freelancers, that there was a broad discussion 22:29.040 --> 22:39.840 in Germany whether this corona app will be made open source. You mean the German corona app, right? 22:39.840 --> 22:44.720 The German corona app. What's mainly developed by Ted Deutsche Telekom and SAP, right? 22:45.680 --> 22:52.960 I think that is the back end. Yeah, yeah, the back end. But in the beginning, so there was this idea 22:52.960 --> 22:58.240 to, first there was this pitch that there will be just a closed source app, a proprietary app. 22:58.880 --> 23:02.960 And then there was a broad discussion on Twitter but also then in the tabloids everywhere, 23:02.960 --> 23:11.200 it was really broad that to have an application that people actually trust and are willing to use, 23:11.280 --> 23:16.560 there needs to be some sort of transparency to this project and the best way to achieve this 23:16.560 --> 23:21.120 would be to release the code publicly and put it on an open license. 23:22.560 --> 23:26.720 And there was so much pressure done from civil society that this actually happened, 23:26.720 --> 23:32.880 which is a good thing, at least for the front end application. 23:33.920 --> 23:40.560 And this is something that civil society does in their free time. We do advocacy for 23:40.560 --> 23:49.680 digital civil rights over and over again, by cross-finding based on donations. And this is 23:49.680 --> 23:56.320 something that is problematic because there are few, very few advocates in the political field 23:56.320 --> 24:01.840 that strive towards the same goals and support them. So we really need to support 24:02.880 --> 24:08.480 these digital civil society organizations to do advocacy in a better way in a more meaningful way. 24:11.040 --> 24:19.520 Okay, can you just quickly before you say, what ideas do you have, how to better support 24:19.520 --> 24:24.480 those civil society organizations? Because I mean, I think we all agree, especially from 24:24.480 --> 24:29.120 efforts of East Side, who also would like to have more donations to support this work. We are 24:29.120 --> 24:35.600 doing there and also partly doing with employees who can then follow up there and explain politicians 24:35.600 --> 24:41.920 by is it important that that such an app is free software? Why is it a problem that the frameworks 24:41.920 --> 24:47.440 which those apps are using like on the Apple side and the Android side that those frameworks 24:47.440 --> 24:52.400 are still proprietary? So that there's a lot of work you have to do there, a lot of groundwork 24:52.400 --> 24:58.560 explaining basic things about technology. And there are other organizations also doing this. So 24:58.560 --> 25:02.400 what can be done there that there is a better way on supporting those? 25:02.880 --> 25:10.720 I believe that one solution would be to get the entire discussion about digital technologies 25:10.720 --> 25:17.360 and software away from this innovation narrative that is always about new products, about 25:18.640 --> 25:23.280 cutting edge, new technologies, about whatever artificial intelligence and blockchain. I mean, 25:23.280 --> 25:28.640 you all know that this is something that the political discourse is very much about. Instead, 25:28.640 --> 25:37.280 we need to talk about basic digital services that need to be rolled out and how we can make them 25:37.280 --> 25:44.640 possible. And this could be done, for example, through a foundation under public law. There are 25:44.640 --> 25:51.760 examples in other countries that have realized that already and put that into action that is equipped 25:51.760 --> 26:00.400 with public money, but does not necessarily have to run exactly along the lines of public 26:00.400 --> 26:07.120 procurement. It can be a little more risk-happy if that's what you're making use here, 26:07.920 --> 26:12.960 with a mission of promoting the development maintenance and also the provision of digital 26:12.960 --> 26:19.200 technologies for society, so not for profit, which is something that public investment mostly 26:19.200 --> 26:26.480 focuses on, but really for the public interest. Do you have other examples from other countries there 26:26.480 --> 26:34.080 where they are doing this well, this part, about not just focusing on bus routes, which people 26:34.080 --> 26:39.760 have to include to get funding and not just getting funding for new innovative stuff, but doing 26:39.760 --> 26:45.600 also this groundwork, this maintenance, and also the parts which you mentioned, which are not 26:45.600 --> 26:53.360 just about coding in free software, but general explanation of free software, and the community 26:53.360 --> 27:01.760 management in projects, and the explanation to people how to use technology there. Are there 27:01.760 --> 27:09.200 other good examples you know from other countries in Europe? Those were a lot of aspects, and I 27:09.280 --> 27:16.720 think no country in the world checks all of these boxes. I think that the countries that actually 27:16.720 --> 27:21.200 have a digital service unit that is attached to the government, but kind of 27:22.720 --> 27:28.400 gathers all the different ideas of the different ministries and government bodies about digital 27:28.400 --> 27:36.480 technology and software, and informs them and kind of manages the different endeavors and 27:36.560 --> 27:42.400 points them all towards one direction, for example, free software, and that is something that would 27:42.400 --> 27:47.600 already help. In Germany we have this situation that there are three or four. I lost count to be 27:47.600 --> 27:51.920 honest. Ministries are claimed to be the digital ministry, which is basically ridiculous. 27:53.680 --> 28:01.520 And one country that really does a good job in building e-government software and also civic 28:01.600 --> 28:08.240 tech applications, applications that enable people to take part in the political debate, 28:09.120 --> 28:17.520 would be Taiwan. Taiwan also has a fantastic digital minister, Audrey Tang, and this digital 28:17.520 --> 28:25.920 ministry does a really good job at testing new modes of digital participation, digital representation 28:26.000 --> 28:33.440 of the citizens, and all that code is released under a public license. So that is one thing that is 28:33.440 --> 28:38.320 yeah, that is clear for them that this technology needs to be free software. 28:41.360 --> 28:42.240 Okay, thank you. 28:42.240 --> 28:55.360 So the third claim I think I don't need to explain it further because this is a very successful 28:55.360 --> 29:01.680 campaign by the Free Software Foundation Europe. It is public money, public code. We added to it 29:01.680 --> 29:10.320 public money, public good, because this is the idea of these recommendations that everything 29:10.320 --> 29:17.200 about technology needs to be turned towards being an investment for the public good and not 29:17.200 --> 29:26.160 for private companies interest. And the fourth recommendation was the development of a public 29:26.160 --> 29:34.160 digital infrastructure. We all know that very much of our digital infrastructure is privatized, 29:34.880 --> 29:42.720 and this brings along many problems, social inequality, also the investment that public 29:42.720 --> 29:52.160 bodies do put into the digital sector, then in the end only benefit private companies. We need 29:52.160 --> 30:01.120 to understand that digital infrastructure is no different than roads, and we need a public 30:01.120 --> 30:08.080 road network to get to work or to transport goods from one place to another. And we also need 30:08.080 --> 30:13.040 a digital infrastructure that is public and that allows us to communicate under a set of rules 30:13.040 --> 30:23.760 that is not made up by private companies. So it's a call for pop up bicycle lanes on those 30:23.840 --> 30:30.240 public infrastructures so that we don't forget the individuals. Exactly. 30:31.840 --> 30:40.400 Okay. Then yeah, I think from my side, the main question for those claims is what are the next 30:40.400 --> 30:47.040 steps now? So you formulated those. Other organizations signed it. The FSFE was also amongst the 30:47.040 --> 30:54.240 first organizations who signed those claims. What are the next steps now? Do you need more 30:54.240 --> 30:59.440 organizations joining and what are the next things we have on your road map there? 31:02.240 --> 31:09.040 Well, we would have thought that with almost 80 organizations from Germany but also from Switzerland 31:09.040 --> 31:15.280 from Austria, we would have thought that it would have some impact and lead to some sort of 31:15.280 --> 31:24.400 discussion and it was it was sad to see that it didn't. I believe that we need to get more involved 31:24.400 --> 31:31.040 into the policy processes, into the political debates actively and we need to get ourselves 31:31.040 --> 31:38.080 in there and to the table to put down these points again and again until people, especially 31:38.080 --> 31:45.040 political decision makers, can't ignore them anymore. So what we try to do now is with the 31:45.040 --> 31:52.240 upcoming German federal election next year to bring this to a state level and for this we are now 31:52.240 --> 31:58.960 have also a mailing list, quite revolutionary, where people can join. So I think instead of 31:58.960 --> 32:04.640 signing these recommendations, which of course organizations can do, I invite them to join 32:04.640 --> 32:09.840 the mailing list and join that discussion actively and see how we can join forces in order to 32:10.800 --> 32:15.360 influence the public discourse about technology in a way that is more in all of our interest. 32:16.320 --> 32:22.880 And I mean those claims were at the moment focusing on Germany, but then they are also now all 32:22.880 --> 32:28.880 translated into English and the discussion on the mailing list is that something Germany specific 32:28.880 --> 32:33.120 or is that something which you would like people from all around Europe to join you there? 32:34.080 --> 32:41.840 That is a good question. I think right now it is a growing discussion. I would love to have 32:41.840 --> 32:48.160 an exchange with people all over Europe because I think the struggles are the same in each of the 32:48.160 --> 32:56.320 countries and people in other countries might have tested out things and have experiences that we 32:56.320 --> 33:01.600 could absolutely learn from that would be very valuable for us. And then again, of course we are 33:01.600 --> 33:07.440 also happy to share our ideas and our approaches. So I would invite everyone to join if they don't 33:07.440 --> 33:12.640 mind that one of the other email might be written in German, but then again, I think we have good 33:12.640 --> 33:20.880 translation services for those. So far on civil societies can support those for claims on your 33:20.880 --> 33:27.600 website. Is there also a way for individuals apart from the mailing list to join in and to support you? 33:28.400 --> 33:42.640 The decision for limiting the signing for organizations was a technical one we didn't want to 33:43.360 --> 33:52.960 put people's names on a public website because you might be faced with take down requests 33:52.960 --> 33:57.440 in a couple of years and that would result in a lot of work for us. We're doing this now 33:57.440 --> 34:03.680 free time and of course we don't want to have data out there public if people don't like it, 34:03.680 --> 34:07.840 but then again, there was also a lot of work to manage that for years and years to come. That's 34:07.840 --> 34:15.600 basically why we decided to limit the list to organizations. So this was not meant to shrug off 34:15.600 --> 34:21.280 individuals and know the important work that they do. If they want to support is yes, do join 34:21.360 --> 34:28.800 the mailing list and let us know your ideas. The discussion is really definitely open to individuals as 34:28.800 --> 34:37.600 well. Thank you Alisa for all the answers. In regard to the time, I would now go to our last 34:37.600 --> 34:45.520 question. This one is last but not least and it's a question we usually ask everybody on the end 34:45.520 --> 34:52.800 of our podcast. Every year on the 14th of February, you know that we set a bright Valentine's Day 34:52.800 --> 34:59.280 but the FSFE organizes also the I love free software day and the I love free software day is a 34:59.280 --> 35:06.480 chance to thank contributors for their work for free software and at the FSFE, we also believe that 35:06.480 --> 35:12.000 we should not only thank contributors once a year because as you already said, it's really important 35:12.160 --> 35:18.160 to say thank you and to be open and to be welcoming. So we would like to give you the chance to 35:18.160 --> 35:23.760 thank someone. All right. I want to thank a huge group of people and I'm not sure I know anyone 35:23.760 --> 35:31.040 of those people personally but I wanted to know that I and many many others use what you build 35:31.040 --> 35:37.040 on a daily basis on an hourly basis. I know that you know this but maybe it's nice to have that 35:37.200 --> 35:43.200 side out loud. I really appreciate the Linux kernel because it makes my computer tick and it makes 35:43.200 --> 35:48.960 me able to do what I do. It wouldn't be possible without you folks and I really appreciate you. 35:51.440 --> 35:58.160 Thank you Alisa and from my side before we finish up, thank you very much for all the work you 35:58.160 --> 36:05.760 are doing there for many many years now. I know it can sometimes feel like there isn't that much 36:05.760 --> 36:12.320 change. Why are all those ministries fighting with each other? Why can't they agree and get some 36:12.320 --> 36:19.440 steps forward there? Thank you very much for continuously reminding people about free software 36:19.440 --> 36:29.120 and other topics about free society in a digital area for your work with the prototype fund you 36:29.120 --> 36:37.440 have done before and your work on researching how free software contributors can better be supported. 36:37.440 --> 36:41.280 So thank you very much about that and please keep up your good work there. 36:42.880 --> 36:46.240 Thank you all and thank you all for listening. I have a lovely day. 36:48.400 --> 36:52.400 This was the Software Freedom Podcast. If you liked this episode, please 36:52.400 --> 36:57.680 recommend it to your friends and rate it. Also subscribe to make sure you will get the next episode. 36:58.640 --> 37:02.960 This podcast was presented to you by the free software foundation Europe where a charity that 37:02.960 --> 37:07.680 works on promoting software freedom. 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