Transcript of SFP#22: All about "Public Money? Public Code!" with Johannes Näder
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WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:18.080 Hello and welcome to the Software Freedom Podcast. 00:18.080 --> 00:22.000 This podcast is brought to you by the free Software Foundation Europe. 00:22.000 --> 00:26.240 We are a charity that empowers users to control technology. 00:26.240 --> 00:31.040 I'm Bonnie Merring and our guest for today's episode is Johannes Näder. 00:31.040 --> 00:34.240 Johannes has joined the FSFE Starfighters last year 00:34.240 --> 00:38.880 and since then he has become a valued and esteemed colleague. 00:38.880 --> 00:42.000 He is the FSFE's German team coordinator 00:42.000 --> 00:46.560 and also the person responsible for the Public Money Public Code Initiative. 00:46.560 --> 00:49.840 If you have not yet supported or heard of this initiative, 00:49.840 --> 00:53.600 this is the perfect episode for you to learn all about it. 00:53.600 --> 00:57.200 Hello and welcome Johannes, thank you so much for joining me today. 00:57.200 --> 01:00.320 Hi Bonnie and thanks for inviting me. 01:00.320 --> 01:05.840 I'm really excited to learn all about your connection with free software. 01:05.840 --> 01:10.960 You have known about free software before you started working for the free Software Foundation Europe. 01:10.960 --> 01:14.880 But how did you get to know and love free software? 01:14.880 --> 01:19.360 I think yes, my first contact with free software was in the late 1990s 01:19.360 --> 01:24.000 a long time ago when I installed Sousa 6 with a friend. 01:24.000 --> 01:28.560 And I remember hours of excitement typing commands on his computer 01:28.560 --> 01:31.440 until we finally managed to boot into the graphical system. 01:32.240 --> 01:36.000 At the time, although I didn't know about the four freedoms, 01:36.000 --> 01:40.640 I remember feeling like I was owning a computer for the first time released 01:40.640 --> 01:45.040 something I never experienced with the proprietary software I had used before. 01:45.040 --> 01:48.240 So I think this was the first contact with free software for me. 01:49.120 --> 01:52.160 But in the following years, I learned more about free software concepts 01:52.160 --> 01:57.200 and I switched to using Linux, excited not only by how it empowered me to use computers, 01:57.840 --> 02:03.200 but also by how it could help society remain free and collaborative in digital age. 02:05.280 --> 02:09.200 I've been involved in free software policy work since 2010 02:09.200 --> 02:14.480 and today, second, November, it has been one year since I joined the free software 02:14.480 --> 02:16.480 foundation Europe as policy project manager. 02:20.720 --> 02:23.200 Oh my god, that's quite a journey for you. 02:23.200 --> 02:27.600 Like it's 1990s, so it's 30 years? 02:28.400 --> 02:29.680 No, let's say 25. 02:33.680 --> 02:34.640 Oh my god. 02:34.640 --> 02:35.680 Yeah, a long time. 02:36.480 --> 02:40.880 And you have a free software, have you ever had a feeling of regret 02:41.680 --> 02:46.000 where you're always excited and had the feeling, oh my god, yes, I'm the person in charge. 02:47.760 --> 02:51.200 I really stick to free software and for my private use, 02:51.200 --> 02:57.280 absolutely during my last job, I had to use some proprietary systems and software 02:57.280 --> 03:04.720 and I really felt like, oh, I didn't really think I ever had to go back to this. 03:04.720 --> 03:08.720 So, but now with the free software foundation Europe, that's of, 03:10.160 --> 03:11.600 yeah, good again. 03:12.880 --> 03:14.560 Awesome, I'm really glad to hear that. 03:16.320 --> 03:21.520 Also, you have worked for, or you have loved free software, let's say, like that for a long time. 03:22.320 --> 03:25.040 You recently started your work with the FSFE. 03:25.920 --> 03:30.720 So, in this time, you have mainly worked on the public money, public code initiative. 03:31.520 --> 03:37.600 Can you tell me a bit about what's this initiative, all about what's so important for you 03:37.600 --> 03:40.640 in this initiative? And yeah, just give me a quick introduction. 03:41.120 --> 03:44.880 Yeah, sure, tell me if it's too long, try to keep it quick. 03:45.760 --> 03:50.320 Yeah, so we have this very simple claim for our public money, public code initiative. 03:51.280 --> 03:56.560 We want legislation requiring that publicly finance software developed for the public sector, 03:56.560 --> 04:01.200 be made publicly available under free and open source software license. 04:01.200 --> 04:03.600 If it is public money, it should be public code as well. 04:04.160 --> 04:08.720 Code paid by the people should be available to the people, as simple as that. 04:08.720 --> 04:10.640 So, why are we demanding this? 04:11.280 --> 04:14.880 The free software foundation Europe has been around for over 20 years now, 04:14.880 --> 04:19.600 and since the beginning, we have been trying to convince public bodies to use and procure 04:19.600 --> 04:26.000 free software. There is a useful political lever here and public institutions are among 04:26.000 --> 04:31.520 the biggest buyers of IT technology. I think up to 27% of software companies' revenues 04:31.520 --> 04:37.520 from public administrations and institutions. So, at some point, we realized that we needed a 04:37.520 --> 04:42.960 dedicated initiative for this. And that's why we came up, I think, six years ago with the idea 04:42.960 --> 04:49.040 of public money, public code. This framework gives us the opportunity to get in touch directly 04:49.040 --> 04:54.640 with decision makers, but also people from the administrations and explain to them why they 04:54.640 --> 04:58.000 should use free software and how they can move in this direction. 04:58.720 --> 05:04.320 So, public money, public code targets the whole of Europe, all political and all administrative 05:04.320 --> 05:09.280 levels. And we deliberately speak of an initiative or framework, not a campaign, 05:09.280 --> 05:13.840 because pressure from the street is certainly not the means of choice in this kind of political 05:13.840 --> 05:20.160 work. One big success of public money public code is that we have made the topics of free software 05:20.240 --> 05:26.480 and public code accessible to parties from the entire political spectrum. So, it's kind of 05:26.480 --> 05:32.400 depoliticized in the sense of it doesn't belong only to one part of the political spectrum, 05:32.400 --> 05:39.200 it is opposed by the other parties. So, what do we do with this framework? This is really what 05:39.200 --> 05:45.280 you were asking about. We have this catchy and successful slogan, which is very good to explain 05:45.440 --> 05:51.200 what we want to achieve. And it's here everywhere, like everybody keeps saying public money, 05:51.200 --> 05:57.200 public code. Yeah, it has really become widely known during the last years, which is good. 05:58.800 --> 06:05.520 We have a special brochure for public money public code, which we have developed for politicians 06:05.520 --> 06:11.360 and administrations. It contains best practices, experiences, success stories of other institutions 06:11.760 --> 06:17.280 and administrations. There are definitions, arguments, information on the economic relevance of 06:17.280 --> 06:22.240 free software and procurement also. I think it's a great tool to get started with the topic and 06:22.240 --> 06:29.280 to convince people. It can be downloaded from our website, fsfe.org, and you can audit as well 06:29.280 --> 06:35.040 as a printed version free of charge. By the way, the brochure is by now some years old already, 06:35.040 --> 06:40.400 and we plan to publish a new version with new best practices in some time next year, 06:40.400 --> 06:48.560 probably mid 2024. What else do we have there? It's of course our open letter, which currently more 06:48.560 --> 06:55.840 than 36,000 individual signatories, and more than 200 organizations have decided to sign the open 06:55.840 --> 07:00.800 letter also, including several administrations that have committed themselves to public money 07:00.800 --> 07:08.560 public code. For example, there's this Norwegian labor and welfare administration, they account up for 07:09.280 --> 07:18.720 one third of the Norwegian state budget. We have as well big as small administrations 07:19.680 --> 07:24.960 committed to public money public code by signing the open letter. We have an explanatory video 07:24.960 --> 07:32.160 in many languages. You can find it as well on fsfe.org or media.fsfe.org, as well as 07:32.320 --> 07:37.760 campaigning material. We have dedicated mailing lists for stakeholders from German municipalities, 07:39.200 --> 07:45.920 and of course our website publiccode.eu, which is landing page and information page about the whole 07:45.920 --> 07:51.760 initiative. And with this initiative, we also want to be kind of a hub for the community for 07:51.760 --> 07:57.760 stakeholders and for public administrations, enabling them to connect and to learn from each other 07:57.840 --> 08:04.720 and see how they can benefit from the experiences made in other administrations. So more. Yeah, short 08:04.720 --> 08:10.400 introduction. To what it is about in all the campaign material, that's quite a lot. 08:11.760 --> 08:18.240 And it has grown. I have to feeling like it's become one of the most well-known initiatives 08:18.240 --> 08:26.240 by the fsfe. Yes, definitely. So I think as you already said, the slogan public money public code is 08:28.240 --> 08:33.920 widely known by now. Many administrations not only in our fsfe.org bubble. Let's put it like that, 08:33.920 --> 08:44.000 but also in the whole administration digitization scene. So if you come up with public money public 08:44.000 --> 08:52.720 code, at least most people get an idea of what you're focusing on and what you're talking about, 08:52.720 --> 08:59.600 and you can start explaining more about this then. Why do you think it's such an important initiative? 09:02.240 --> 09:07.520 Well, for administrations, we think it's very important to opt for using free software instead 09:07.520 --> 09:13.840 of proprietary software. And there are several reasons for this. First proprietary software comes 09:13.840 --> 09:19.120 with a vendor login, whereas free software and open standards enable interoperability across 09:19.120 --> 09:25.200 institutions, across systems, and across versions. So this is the prerequisite for independence, 09:25.200 --> 09:32.480 and I think the cornerstone also for digital sovereignty, which is a term which has been 09:32.480 --> 09:37.920 discussed a lot during the last years. Second, free software enables collaboration. So public 09:37.920 --> 09:41.840 administrations can work together and tender or develop software tailored to the needs. 09:42.720 --> 09:48.720 This kind of collaboration may still be new to many public administrations, especially when it comes 09:48.720 --> 09:54.160 to code development. However, as the benefits of free software become more widely known, 09:54.160 --> 09:59.040 more and more administrations also want to collaborate and learn from how others have done it. 10:00.640 --> 10:07.120 Third free software supports sustainability, because once these effects are just described and 10:07.120 --> 10:13.200 the one for all principle have taken full effect, administrations no longer have to constantly reinvent 10:14.160 --> 10:19.680 especially in local administrations, similar processes and services exist in many different places. 10:20.400 --> 10:26.720 If you, for example, think about dock licensing or something like that, which is really a service 10:26.720 --> 10:35.600 that is needed in practically every municipality, every community in all countries. So it's the same 10:35.600 --> 10:41.040 all over the world. Why do administrations all over the world buy licenses for this of proprietary 10:41.040 --> 10:45.280 software products? Why don't they work together and make sure they have a tool that really needs 10:45.280 --> 10:53.120 their needs? One more point, the long run free software will save money. If you think about how much 10:53.120 --> 10:59.280 money administrations spend on proprietary licenses, if they just invest that money into free software, 10:59.280 --> 11:08.160 tax money would be saved and used more efficiently. And by these administrations and public 11:08.160 --> 11:13.680 administrations can also strengthen local partners from the local economy, especially small and 11:13.680 --> 11:20.400 medium enterprises, which might or will probably lead to more innovation by opening up this very 11:20.400 --> 11:27.520 close market that we have now with the proprietary software market to new competitors. And finally, 11:27.520 --> 11:34.000 free software is transparent by default. So the code is verifiable by independent third parties 11:34.000 --> 11:38.400 and security vulnerabilities are more likely to be found and can be fixed immediately, 11:39.200 --> 11:45.840 which, as we know, also leads to a higher acceptance of the whole digitalization of administrative 11:45.840 --> 11:53.440 services by the citizens. I think these are really good reasons for administrations to think of 11:53.440 --> 11:58.000 moving in the direction of free software and think of implementing public money, public code. 11:58.000 --> 12:09.040 How and why do you think it has a wider acceptance with the public or the civil society 12:09.040 --> 12:16.880 if public institutions would use free software? Yes, so I think for for myself and I think also for 12:16.880 --> 12:24.240 many citizens, if I want to use a digital service, especially new digital service, where 12:24.240 --> 12:31.920 switch from analog filling out forms to using my computer to ordering something or 12:34.080 --> 12:39.440 with an administration, then I really want to make sure that the program does what it should do 12:39.440 --> 12:46.800 and doesn't do anything else that my data is being handled carefully and doesn't end up maybe on 12:46.800 --> 12:57.840 a server somewhere out our own jurisdiction, which is very important. So I think we also know 12:57.840 --> 13:05.840 from studies during the corona pandemics that if people see that the software they are using for 13:05.840 --> 13:16.320 these digital services is transparent, they will rather take a step forward to choosing to really 13:16.320 --> 13:22.320 use them. And to also trust that the data is handled carefully and don't just link to some 13:22.320 --> 13:28.240 large companies who then sell it for profit. This comes additionally, yes, absolutely. 13:29.520 --> 13:36.800 How can institutions support public money, public code? So like if there is a public institution 13:36.800 --> 13:45.040 out there that says, oh yeah, I know it's important that we stick to the data laws that we protect 13:45.040 --> 13:52.800 that of civilians that we also do not waste the taxpayers' money on millions and millions of licenses 13:52.800 --> 13:59.120 for proprietary software. And how can those institutions support public money, public code? 13:59.120 --> 14:05.200 Because they obviously can't just change the whole infrastructure. And we have talked about this 14:05.200 --> 14:10.880 for a long time. We have said, you don't need to change everything overnight. It's a policy 14:11.680 --> 14:21.760 decision. How can they support? So what we have in mind with public money, public code is a 14:21.760 --> 14:28.800 continuous long-term process towards free software rather than this big bang migrations that we already 14:28.800 --> 14:35.840 have seen failed in the past, which are really complex. And often I've seen as lighthouse projects. 14:36.080 --> 14:40.640 So if they fail, the public tends to blame free software for that failure. Also, it's not good for 14:40.640 --> 14:46.880 their administrations. So public money, public code, therefore, more aims for incremental movement 14:46.880 --> 14:53.760 towards free software. Yeah, and you were asking, how can they take the first steps if they really 14:53.760 --> 14:59.360 want to do that? So of course, they can start learning more about free software, public code, 14:59.360 --> 15:04.720 and about the benefits that it brings to their work and to society. I think our brochure, 15:04.720 --> 15:08.960 I already mentioned it with best practices and how to use a good introduction, a good first step. 15:10.400 --> 15:14.800 And as I also said for interested stakeholders from German municipalities, only Germany, sorry, 15:14.800 --> 15:20.400 at this point, we have a mailing list for exchange and seeking synergies registering. 15:20.400 --> 15:25.360 It's really easy. So maybe we can also put the link in the show notes. Yes. 15:26.960 --> 15:31.520 Yes. And we like to encourage administrations, 15:31.520 --> 15:37.280 willing to move into this direction instead of doing this kind of big bang migrations, 15:37.840 --> 15:42.880 rather start putting their own developments in the free software licenses and design tenders 15:42.880 --> 15:48.960 and procurement procedures to ensure that public code is created. And of course, we welcome all 15:48.960 --> 15:53.600 administrations committed to public money, public code to sign our open letter, calling for public 15:53.600 --> 15:58.560 code legislation as explained above. And I think we will also put this link in the show notes. 15:59.200 --> 16:06.400 Yes. Does signing the open letter has any immediate consequences or is it more taking a stand 16:06.400 --> 16:12.720 and saying, Hey, I'm in favor of this and showing also like the parliamentarians, 16:12.720 --> 16:18.880 oh, I would really like us as public institutions to follow those rules and to 16:19.600 --> 16:25.440 implement free software. Please help us with laws and guide us in this direction. 16:26.160 --> 16:33.760 It's I would say it's both of course. Yes. We want to give visibility to these administrations 16:33.760 --> 16:38.880 and public institutions that decide to support public money, public code. So we are adding 16:38.880 --> 16:44.320 the new signatories to our PMPC website, so public money, public code website. Sorry if I 16:44.320 --> 16:50.240 accidentally stick to PMPC, which is our abbreviation for it, which we also use it internally. 16:50.800 --> 16:57.360 So we are adding the new signatories to public code.eu. And with some of them, if they agree, 16:57.360 --> 17:02.480 we conduct interviews to be published also on our website and social media channels as best 17:02.480 --> 17:06.960 practice examples. And some of these examples can also be found in the public money, public code 17:06.960 --> 17:11.920 pressure. We believe that the more institutions commit themselves publicly to free software, 17:11.920 --> 17:18.000 the easier it will be for others to follow suit and do the same. So it's really something that 17:18.560 --> 17:25.440 does have effect for the administrations in the sense that we want to show that they are supporting 17:26.400 --> 17:35.840 this call, this initiative. How do you like contact public institutions or do the public 17:35.840 --> 17:42.080 institutions or public bodies find the open letter by themselves? And if you contact them, 17:42.640 --> 17:49.440 how do they react? Yes, again, also here, both happens. So there are administrations that 17:49.440 --> 17:55.600 are public institutions that contact us and say, hey, we like your idea of public money, public 17:55.600 --> 18:02.960 code. And we would like to be part of that. So how can we do that? But we also reach out to 18:03.600 --> 18:09.760 public administrations across Europe. And there we try to target administrations that already 18:09.760 --> 18:16.240 have some ties to free software or where we see potential. So we get all kinds of reactions. 18:16.240 --> 18:21.200 We see we can see that many administrations are curious about this idea of public money, public 18:21.200 --> 18:26.480 code. And this often leads to video call where we get to know each other, where we can talk about 18:26.480 --> 18:32.160 the concepts and benefits of public code. We can find out what their current situation is, 18:32.160 --> 18:38.160 where they are, if they already know a lot or at the very beginning, we can answer their 18:38.160 --> 18:42.880 questions and address their fears and reservations if there are any. And often there are some 18:44.240 --> 18:50.240 fears and reservations. So sometimes, of course, we also find that we are preaching to the choir 18:50.240 --> 18:55.360 and don't need to convince them to sign the open letter because they do it deliberately. 18:56.560 --> 19:00.800 However, we also see that many institutions are more interesting in learning about the topic 19:00.800 --> 19:05.920 and exchanging ideas with other institutions. So we can provide them with contacts or if they 19:05.920 --> 19:11.280 are from Germany, invite them to this mailing list I've been talking about. So these kinds of 19:11.280 --> 19:17.440 conversations are really valuable to us as well. And even if they ultimately decide not to sign the 19:17.440 --> 19:23.920 letter for now, not to commit publicly to public money, public code for now, they get the chance 19:23.920 --> 19:27.920 to learn about free software and they may be more open to the idea in the future. 19:28.080 --> 19:41.280 So those were the aims or those were the approaches that you focused on in the past. Now I hear they 19:41.280 --> 19:52.160 have been some changes in the strategy as well. Those changes, can you explain them a bit to me and 19:53.120 --> 20:03.120 yeah, let me know why there have been those changes in the strategy or especially in our work 20:03.120 --> 20:10.720 on public money, public code. Yes, public money, public code initiative has now been running for 20:10.720 --> 20:16.480 more than six years and we see more and more free software strategies and announcements and 20:16.560 --> 20:24.800 politics and administrations to move towards public code. That's paper doesn't blush. We are 20:27.040 --> 20:34.160 we are often, yes, if you see what's happening actually, we often are missing concrete progress and 20:34.160 --> 20:38.160 this is a decisive implementation of free software friendly papers and legislations. 20:38.880 --> 20:43.520 Also, many of these papers contain loopholes. For example, if you take the European Commission's 20:43.520 --> 20:50.160 free software strategy, it allows a nose citation to choose non-open technologies where 20:50.160 --> 20:55.680 there are good reasons to do so and to publish software under free software license only wherever 20:55.680 --> 21:03.200 it makes sense to do so. So what are these reasons and when does something make sense, this really 21:03.200 --> 21:08.480 remains undefined and this is a loophole that really allows at any point to step back and say, 21:08.560 --> 21:13.200 oh no, this time we rather use proprietary products instead of opting for free software. 21:13.920 --> 21:19.280 Also, what we see is that clear targets and indicators are often missing. More than good 21:19.280 --> 21:24.400 intentions, we need statistics on the actual development, on procurement and on the use of 21:24.400 --> 21:29.360 free software and public administrations because we want to see if there is any progress and at the 21:29.360 --> 21:37.040 moment we don't have these statistics so it's hard for us to judge. This is why we during the last 21:37.040 --> 21:42.800 year have decided to shift the focus of the PMPC or public money public code framework a bit. 21:43.440 --> 21:47.280 We still want to encourage decision makers and administrations to move into this direction, 21:47.920 --> 21:53.040 to move into the direction of free software, but at the same time we want to take a watchdog role 21:53.040 --> 22:01.520 where we see problematic developments. Okay, so this is called PMPC watchdog, right? 22:02.320 --> 22:12.400 Right. Do you then check out all the strategy papers or how does this work? Could you explain 22:12.400 --> 22:19.600 there's a bit more to me like how I now totally understand why it's needed as you already said, 22:19.600 --> 22:25.680 people tend to write a lot, but just don't mean that they really do that. 22:26.320 --> 22:33.520 Yes, let me first say that steps in the right direction are always good and even if they are slow 22:33.520 --> 22:39.040 and even if we sometimes wish for more and faster progress we want to support and help and give 22:39.040 --> 22:43.920 advice and encourage and connect people to work together towards public code and administrations. 22:45.440 --> 22:50.720 But why have we chosen this to take this or to focus on this watchdog part 22:51.680 --> 22:59.680 is that we think we have reached a critical moment for free software. Some years ago free software 22:59.680 --> 23:08.400 and digital sovereignty were always mentioned in the same breath just yeah so it was clear to everybody 23:08.400 --> 23:13.440 that digital sovereignty for public administrations could only be reached with free software. 23:13.440 --> 23:18.960 Now increasingly many argue that digital sovereignty can also be guaranteed with proprietary software 23:18.960 --> 23:23.680 if only the servers are located in Europe or in Germany or any other country in Europe. 23:23.680 --> 23:29.440 So this leaves the concept of digital sovereignty far behind its potential and another problem arises 23:30.080 --> 23:36.240 when the terms free and open are used inflationarily for software that is not actually free software. 23:36.240 --> 23:41.680 So when projects call themselves free software or open source although the four freedoms are not 23:41.680 --> 23:48.000 granted and not even the source code is available this is very problematic and it can harm public 23:48.000 --> 23:55.360 money public code and it can harm free software. This is why we want to go in this direction by 23:55.360 --> 24:00.960 identifying and naming such undesirable developments and hopefully preventing them. 24:02.480 --> 24:10.080 And you are asking about how we are actually doing this so if you want I could give you 24:10.800 --> 24:19.280 one or two examples from our current work. So these are both from Germany which I apologize for 24:19.280 --> 24:24.880 the reason is that I've been mainly working with a focus on Germany during the last year. 24:27.040 --> 24:33.200 But yes so the first one is the German governmental parties have in their 24:33.200 --> 24:38.800 coalition contract announced to come up with legislation in favor of public money public code. 24:38.800 --> 24:44.240 This was two years ago and the coalition has failed to live up to this promise until now. 24:44.960 --> 24:50.800 Even worse the federal government until now continues to rely on proprietary software. 24:51.520 --> 24:59.280 In the 2024 budget for example 3.8 billion of euros are marked for the proprietary oracle cloud 25:00.240 --> 25:07.600 why the at the same time they're already far too small funds for digital sovereignty and by this 25:07.600 --> 25:15.520 also for free software are to be cut by almost by half in the new budget so from they had been 25:16.640 --> 25:23.680 48 million compared to these 3.8 billion euros for oracle and now they're even cut. 25:24.640 --> 25:30.160 What we did here is we formed a broad alliance of civil society and the free software industry 25:30.160 --> 25:35.120 and we publicly criticized the German government and called it to implement the promised free 25:35.120 --> 25:42.720 software friendly policy and also to provide the necessary funds before the current legislative 25:43.200 --> 25:52.080 period is over so it's time now to act and we yeah we call the government to action here before 25:52.080 --> 26:00.080 it's too late and one other example with a bit different perspective for what watchdog means 26:01.840 --> 26:08.800 we have in Germany a situation where some politicians and decision makers have identified the 26:08.800 --> 26:15.920 need of a sovereign workspace for the public sector so this means a digitally sovereign office 26:15.920 --> 26:21.840 and collaboration suits including documents storage email calendar chat online meeting rooms 26:21.840 --> 26:26.480 so everything that people and administrations need for the daily work for the daily computer work 26:27.440 --> 26:33.200 and for long the most advanced approach to this was the so-called Definix suite 26:34.000 --> 26:41.440 Definix suite developed by the public IT service provider data port. Definix contains numerous 26:41.440 --> 26:46.560 free software components and is advertised as open source based on open source and also digitally 26:46.560 --> 26:52.160 sovereign and this gives the false impression that Definix suite is free software. Data port 26:52.960 --> 26:58.400 has really not yet released the source code for its workspace suit despite being repeatedly 26:58.400 --> 27:05.840 asked to do so by eligible parties. Data port also had an interest in transparent relationship 27:05.840 --> 27:10.080 with a with a similar project run by the center for digital sovereignty at the German 27:10.080 --> 27:16.560 Federal Ministry of the Interior which is called open desk and when being asked for its source code 27:16.560 --> 27:22.000 for the Definix source code data port officials usually refer to open desk where until the summer 27:22.000 --> 27:29.440 new code was also available either um yeah and after we were not successful in obtaining the source 27:29.440 --> 27:35.440 code of Definix from data port we decided to tackle this by sending a catalog of questions to the 27:35.440 --> 27:41.680 German Ministry asking about ties between both projects about funding and about their plans to 27:41.680 --> 27:46.640 publish the source code under free software license and how their current policy of not having 27:46.640 --> 27:52.640 published it complies to the plans of um yeah of the German government to move towards public 27:52.640 --> 27:59.440 money public code. We published this question catalog and we also published the answers on fsfe.org 27:59.440 --> 28:04.320 pointing out some promising steps in the right direction on in the right direction on the 28:04.320 --> 28:11.760 side of open desk but we also clarified that Definix is currently not free software and we demanded 28:11.760 --> 28:16.880 that they should either release the code under free software license or step away from claiming to 28:16.880 --> 28:24.320 be free software. So this is something that that we did during during the summer by now we see 28:24.320 --> 28:30.640 that open desk has since already I think end of June or July has published its source code so as I 28:30.640 --> 28:40.160 said there are some hopeful movements on this part and at the same time with data port and this 28:40.160 --> 28:47.760 Definix yeah what they did is they are not using the terms open source for themselves anymore 28:48.720 --> 28:58.960 so they don't claim to be free software anymore which is not what we would wish to it would be 28:58.960 --> 29:05.200 better if they it would just put the whole Definix suite under an open under free software license 29:06.480 --> 29:15.760 but if they are not willing to do that it's better they yeah they admit not to be free software 29:15.760 --> 29:25.600 than claiming to be yes and at the same time so while doing all this we we always try to keep 29:26.480 --> 29:31.120 discussion channels open so we remain open to discuss these issues with all stakeholders we try to 29:31.120 --> 29:35.760 find out if and how the situation can be improved and how we can help them with this this is also 29:35.760 --> 29:43.360 very important to us so it's not trying to suddenly start opposing administrations 29:45.520 --> 29:52.400 but try to keep in contact and try to see where we can help and how we can improve the situation. 29:52.880 --> 30:01.280 so there are kind of like two strategies currently there is the one of our people to start with 30:01.280 --> 30:09.360 public money public code and then there is the one that also tries to keep the name sticking to 30:09.360 --> 30:16.880 the basis of the or to the aims of the initiative so that public money public code as it has become 30:16.880 --> 30:26.320 a widely known slogan also still means public administrations should use public money for public code 30:27.280 --> 30:37.440 yes and it's also about helping and yeah guiding institutions in this direction or 30:37.680 --> 30:48.480 yes definitely it's it's both what you said so we want to encourage and we want to 30:48.480 --> 30:57.120 a bit guard the yeah at the same time take care that yeah that the terms free software and public 30:57.120 --> 31:05.120 money public code and digital sovereignty are not watered down so this is very important and 31:05.200 --> 31:10.240 because if we allow projects to decorate themselves with the terms up source of free software 31:10.240 --> 31:16.240 but do something completely different then this is bad for taxpayers for digital sovereignty for 31:16.240 --> 31:26.640 innovation and for society as a whole so I think maybe a catchy summary of what we want to achieve 31:26.640 --> 31:33.520 with this new watchdog focus is could be thank you for the thank you for the fine words now please 31:33.520 --> 31:39.920 let the did speak so we want public money public code to become reality across Europe not only 31:39.920 --> 31:45.440 fine words for this we really need progress we really need implementation of existing policies 31:45.440 --> 31:51.040 and papers we need statistics and of course we also need to speak up if something is going 31:51.680 --> 31:59.120 into the wrong direction totally wrong yes sorry you need to speak up if something is going totally 31:59.280 --> 32:10.000 wrong yes all right and how can people participate in the PMPC initiative how can people support you 32:10.000 --> 32:18.400 with PMPC watchdog and yeah let us know how we can join you yeah of course so one thing 32:19.040 --> 32:26.480 everybody can do is go to our website public code.eu sign our open letter which is which is 32:26.480 --> 32:32.640 really good if it does get more signatures even which increases the visibility of it 32:34.560 --> 32:42.080 download our material or the material from our website fsfe.org on public money public code spread 32:42.080 --> 32:47.200 the word spread the word in in your communities especially if you're working in in an administration 32:47.200 --> 32:53.920 or if you have contacts to people in in administration spread the word about free software and public 32:53.920 --> 33:03.040 money public code and we have developed yeah we want to empower people to do this with a workshop 33:03.040 --> 33:10.640 that we have and we can also offer to hold this workshop to tell them how they can reach out to 33:11.360 --> 33:17.920 to the administrations and what they should be aware of how they can start with all of this and 33:18.640 --> 33:27.600 how they how they get to open doors how how they get into contact and how they 33:29.120 --> 33:35.520 yeah how they can really also get some success and what does success mean in the end so we have this 33:35.520 --> 33:43.040 workshop format and we we try to yeah to give this workshop now and then to empower people to 33:43.760 --> 33:52.400 to move in this direction another thing that we have is detective detective is a is a tool to 33:52.400 --> 34:00.640 analyze European tender data which is publicly available but in a format yeah not so easy to 34:00.640 --> 34:06.720 be read by humans so our detective website helps people and our detective tools help help people 34:06.720 --> 34:14.080 who want to dig into this and see what to see what money in Europe is is really spent for in the 34:14.080 --> 34:23.360 MIT sector so do some you can you can go to this website start yeah also linked in the show 34:23.360 --> 34:34.160 north thank you and just start searching and digging digging into this a bit and see yeah where the 34:34.160 --> 34:40.240 money flows really go go there in the direction of proprietary license how much money is spent for 34:40.240 --> 34:47.280 proprietary licenses and how much money is actually spent on free software and other thing is of 34:47.280 --> 34:56.400 course if yeah anybody sees a problematic development then you can always just drop us a line 34:57.360 --> 35:05.520 go to fsv.org write us an email and inform us so we can see how we can step in there so 35:07.040 --> 35:11.760 so that's of course also something that you can do if you see problematic developments just 35:11.760 --> 35:20.240 inform us about this all right thank you so much for the short introduction to this initiative 35:20.320 --> 35:29.280 and also the introduction to all the strategies and the work going on there it's quite a catchy 35:29.280 --> 35:35.600 slogan and it's really a good initiative and a nice initiative to be part of and yeah thank you 35:35.600 --> 35:44.160 so much for also letting us know how people can so how people can oh my god now I'm missing the 35:44.720 --> 35:55.280 participates how people can participate all right I do have a last question for you okay so you know 35:56.080 --> 36:05.600 every year under 14th of February we celebrate I love free software day and even so we do this every 36:05.600 --> 36:13.120 year it's not an old fashioned initiative okay it's not an old fashioned celebration it is 36:13.120 --> 36:19.760 important and it's important to let people know we are grateful for their work because on 36:19.760 --> 36:25.760 this day we reach out to all three software contributors and say thank you thank you so much 36:25.760 --> 36:32.080 for the work you're doing for free software this helps them to stay motivated this helps us to 36:32.080 --> 36:38.960 have a nice interaction with each other and not too many salty comments on this day as we all 36:38.960 --> 36:46.560 know just happening there however it says somebody you would like to say thank you too because we 36:46.560 --> 36:51.840 should not only do this once a year we should really stick to this and do this more that's great I 36:51.840 --> 37:01.200 really love this and I remember that last time when you asked me about this I I think next cloud 37:01.200 --> 37:06.160 because next cloud is to me one of the most fascinating free software projects moving forward so 37:06.160 --> 37:10.960 fast every new version full of new ideas and new features that really help me in my everyday work 37:10.960 --> 37:17.600 and also in my private life because I'm also using it privately but yeah as I said I've already 37:17.600 --> 37:21.760 thanked the folks behind next cloud at the last I love it I said I can do it again so thank you next 37:21.760 --> 37:30.000 cloud but this time my thanks go to a project I just recently became aware of since I've started to 37:30.000 --> 37:36.240 use the backup solution bulk base and the desktop client vorta to backup my private data I feel 37:36.240 --> 37:42.560 much more relaxed when traveling with my laptop so thanks a lot to folks behind bulk days and vorta 37:44.240 --> 37:50.800 that's really good thank you I would like to add my thanks to them yes it'd be awesome 37:50.800 --> 37:59.520 doing it yeah yeah it really helps to know that your data is backup and that just in case you might 37:59.520 --> 38:06.480 need it there to back yeah absolutely really really good to know that all right thank you so much 38:06.480 --> 38:12.240 for being here Johannes and thank you so much to talking with me about public money public code it 38:12.240 --> 38:17.360 was really great and yeah thank you so much Bonnie it was really pleasure to be here thanks for having me 38:18.320 --> 38:26.320 thank you bye bye bye this was the software freedom podcast if you liked this episode please 38:26.320 --> 38:31.760 recommend it to your friends and rate it stay tuned for more inspiring conversations that explored 38:31.760 --> 38:38.240 the importance of software freedom and its impact on our digital lives this podcast presented to 38:38.240 --> 38:44.240 you by the free software foundation europe we are a charity that works on promoting software freedom 38:44.960 --> 38:50.320 if you like our work please consider supporting us with our nation you find more information 38:50.320 --> 38:57.360 under fsfe.org slash donate and of course in the show notes see you bye bye