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Transcript of SFP#23: What is Free Software? A Christmas podcast to learn about Free Software

Back to the episode SFP#23

This is a transcript created with the Free Software tool Whisper. For more information and feedback reach out to podcast@fsfe.org

WEBVTT

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Hello and welcome to Software Freedom Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by the free

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Software Foundation Europe and we are a charity that empowers users to control technology.

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For today's podcast, I have a bit of a special surprise for you. I have a whole bunch of very

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nice people here with me. I have Tobias, our system administrator. Yes, so one of the system

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administrators. That's right. I have Matthias Kirschner, our president of the Free Software

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Foundation Europe. Hi Matthias. Hello. And I have Gabriel Kuwebin, our part of the legal

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team. To be anonymous. I never said I prefer to be anonymous. I said I prefer to be an enigma.

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Oh, yeah, right. I'm sorry. I can't believe it. Hi. And thank you so much for joining me for

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today's podcast. So I have prepared something very special. Okay. I want to bring free software

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terms out there and to explain them a bit more to other people and yeah, to just spread the

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word about free software and also to make it easier for others to learn about free software.

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So to give them the basic introduction to free software, I have a back here. I love

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the Christmas back with a lot of free software terms in it. Some are more related to free software

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than others, but they all have something to do with free software and computers and all that

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stuff around us. So you all have to take one of them. You have to describe it to the others

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and the others then have to guess what it says. All right. Okay. So we make it a bit more fun to

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explain free software and yeah, that we also have some fun ourselves. I will just start if

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that's okay for you. So yeah. I'm nervous because I'm not sure which one I will pick. I can't

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I wrote some of them, but not all of them. So you need to wrestle a little bit more so that

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the viewers can hear that you're picking something a lot of them in there. And what of our listeners

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also don't don't see is that the small bag is very much matching with Bonnie's jumper.

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So it's very Christmas. I love Christmas. I can't tell you how much I love Christmas,

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but now to my free software term that I have, it's a set of tools that we all daily use

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on our daily life that we use on our computers. There are a whole bunch of different software

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projects under this term. Operating systems? No, and it's more about like we also have to mask

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card. So the news software projects. Yes. Okay. Well, then I think it started in the 80s, right?

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Yes. 1983. We celebrated 40 years of Knu this year. Oh my gosh. What does Knu stand for?

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That stands for Knu is not Unix. It's a recursive acronym and that's something that hackers like.

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So and a lot of people don't get that, but a lot of other people they find it very fun. And then

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they like to combine those acronyms, right? So GIMP is then the Knu image manipulation program.

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And so you get a whole family tree of acronyms out of it.

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This I knew gets often one of the biggest problems how to name your project and the rest of

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then is then just implementation, but this part is a really hard part of a project.

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All right. To be as it's your turn. All right. So to get all those nice tools running on the one hand,

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we have the free source code. Yes, we leave a compiler to translate it the source code into the

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binary file that is then run on our beloved computers. Yeah. Well, you need to wrestle it louder.

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Okay. Let me see.

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Okay. So if someone wrote a nice piece of free software and other people

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are proposing changes to this, they usually put a request.

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That's it. That's it. So they open a pull request and say, hi, here's a patch and you can apply this

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and then it's getting reviewed and reviewed again and then it's closed or merged.

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So and how do we check that you didn't know which ones are in there?

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Yeah, because Bonnie wrote all the over party terms in there. Do you honestly believe that I

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could give them in my head? Well, I also noticed that you know, each of the cards are like

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different size and different shapes. This is how you identify them from the back. Yeah, sure.

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Okay. Okay. I'm picking one. Okay. Oh, this one has a do not say a word on the card.

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Then you're not so. Yeah. Oh, this is this is tricky.

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Those are the advanced ones for the senior staff.

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When you have, when you want to give people permission to use your source code that you have

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copyright over, you use exactly. And when two of these conflict with each other or they do not

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conflict with each other, this is a concept called license incompatibility. Well, it's license

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compatibility here, but I'm going to say that that is also correct. Yeah. Not the way how I'll pronounce

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this, but yes. For the license compatibility. Is there a license that's really easy to use?

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It's like that's really compatible with a lot of projects or is there also license that's not

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compatible at all. If you stop for license. Yeah. I mean, this is a tricky question because there's

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like inbound and outbound compatibility. But I mean, it's if you take something like a very

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permissive license like the MIT license, then you know, anybody can do whatever they want with it.

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And generally, if something is licensed and the MIT license, then you know, because it's so

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permissive. I think there's there's a little bit of a problem with your question, though,

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because like I wouldn't come wouldn't say like one license is totally the most compatible license

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because there's no such thing. You know, you should think of compatibility as the ability to abide

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by all the requirements in a license while still using another license. If that makes sense.

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Yeah. Yeah. How compatible a license is depends on which two licenses you're talking about,

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rather than just saying like one license is super compatible with everything. So you need to you

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need to think about which two licenses you're talking about. So it's a case. It's a case by case

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basis. As a lawyer, it's always it depends. It can become a little bit more tricky when

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it's about copy left licenses. So if you have two licenses that both say, well, if you want to make

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modifications to this, it has to you have to again, then put it under this license. And that's

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what both licenses say. That's of course trickier than if one of those licenses says, well,

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you don't have to put it under the same license again. Well, speaking of that, I mean, since it's

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Christmas, you know, and we are inviting a lot of people over for dinner. I really like this

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example by Heather Mika, where she talks about license compatibility as kind of like hosting a

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dinner party for a lot of like guests with different types of like dietary requirements.

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So like if if someone is a vegan and refuses to eat anything or refuses to participate at the

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dinner, where if there is meat at the table, and then there is someone who says, like, I refuse

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to eat if there's a vegan at the table, then you can invite these two people to the same party,

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exactly. So if there you have a license that says like, I am, yeah, I think you can invite them

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both to the party, but they cannot eat at the table. Sure, sure. Yeah, you cannot invite them if

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you want there to be peace. But yeah, exactly right. They cannot eat at the table together.

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All right. Jeff, a prominent example where license compatibility fossil huge problem.

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I swear Gabriel doesn't my last question about this and I'm sorry to throw them all at you.

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No, I need to think about this. I mean, I think the the the the very standard one is just like

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Matthias said, a copy of life license with a permissive license because a copy of life license

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requires you to license any derivative or redistribute a copies under the same license terms,

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whereas the permissive license is that, you know, yeah, you can do whatever you want with the

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derivatives. So, you know, there is a bit of a conflict there. There have been some examples of

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with the UPL that they included one part in there that it's easier to also use this code than

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under GPL because else you cannot bring code from UPL and GPL together under certain circumstances.

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So they introduced a compatibility clause in there that you can go from UPL to GPL.

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Don't remember the exact versions, but I mean, I think for the podcast that's you can then go to

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to this other license and publish it under the other license so that there is the way of

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mixing code or mixing code in the end of project. All right. I'm going to move on now from

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license compatible compatibility. I don't know what he has started it now. It's stuck.

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He said this should be funny. And I will take one. I'm not supposed to look.

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Okay. There's new plus linux out there, but there are also other free operating systems.

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Yes, one of them. One of them. Yeah. Yes, free. Yes, free. Yes, it is.

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Thought you just used that to promote nicks or as a little bit more. No, next slide is a

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line of space. It is. And one of our consortium partners in NGI. Really?

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I didn't know that. Do you know that I just like to ask her quite a time. Oh, okay.

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Cool. Thank you. And we won't mention why the podcast.

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No, no, no, it has nothing to anyway. Now it's to be as a stern.

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He was looking at me like, that's what really mean. Yeah, I'm just thinking about the term.

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And if I get that correct, which I think I don't get correct, but so beside of free BSD and

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other BSD, there is a huge umbrella of other operations, operations systems as well. And

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this one is kind of special, I think. Oh, do you have to templow as card?

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Yes. So so now you can just try why that one is special because I was.

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I think I looked at it once and it was kind of interesting, but I never got into into actually

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installing and trying it out. I have never used the reader. I'm not planning to do it.

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Temple OS. At least you got it.

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Okay, well, then I.

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According to Gabriel, we have to do the sound.

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Oh, that's an easy one for me. I published the book

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and the door's conditions. Creative comments. Yeah. You're right.

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And what is creative comments? Creative comments is a set of licenses for

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mainly non-software pieces. I mean, it's also sometimes used for for software, but creative

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comments says about most of their licenses. You shouldn't use it for a software.

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And so there are some components there. What you what you can add to your license. The

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general one is that it says you can distribute it to others and share it with others. You can then

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can then add or the the clause is added that the name of the author or creator of the work should

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be named. So that's the by edition creative comments by then there is one about a copy left effect

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so that if you make modifications to the work or if you do if you further distribute it, it has

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to be under the same license. That's the share like option. Then there are two other options,

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which one of them is non-derivative so that you are not allowed to make any modifications to the

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work. And the other is non-commercial so that you can do all of that by just if it's

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non-commercial or so there were there were long debates about what is commercial and non-commercial

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in this. And so a lot of organization rather encouraged not to use a non-commercial

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FSFE being one of them. Yeah, it's interesting because you know,

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creative comments the the goal of the licenses is to explicitly to cover the areas that are

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where people want to share stuff. And in the in the area between everything being copyrighted

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and everything being in the public domain. So there's a there's a there's a range in between

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there that the creative comments licenses want to cover. But with the non-commercial licenses,

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I mean it's the same it's the situation unlike free software licenses because if you have a

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non-commercial clause in a free software license or in a license then that makes it non-free.

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So it's interesting to me I guess because the creative comments licenses are not meant for

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software or not intended for software that you know, they have these exceptions that are

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that don't straddle or that don't overlap with what the free software licenses are trying to

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accomplish. Yeah. So and the non-commercial license there's also sometimes used by

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people who say, well, yeah, it is free software. And then if you look deeper, then you might find

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some pieces in there that are under CC by non-commercial. And yeah, then it's a proprietary software

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with this part in there. So that's one piece there. The other thing about creative comments that's also

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worth noting is that it was founded by Lawrence Lessig. And Lawrence Lessig was beside that

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also the author of from my perspective, a very important book. It's called Code and other

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laws of cyberspace. And I mean at least for me that was one of the most influential books I read

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where it's explained how people are regulated and how people are influenced by markets, by social

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norms, by laws, and by architecture where code is one part of that. And I think that's if you

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haven't read it yet, I would highly recommend to read this book. I will link it in the show notes.

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Thank you. All right, your turn.

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Ah, okay. Well, I mean, we've already talked about this a little bit. I would just say MIT.

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Permissive license. It's very good. The answer on this card is permissive license. And the MIT

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is, it's a lot of people understand it to be a permissive license by FSFE. We understand the term,

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or we prefer to use the term non-reciprocal license because I mean, we prefer the terms reciprocal

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license as well to describe copy-left licenses because it's more descriptive and of what they

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accomplish. You have to reciprocate with the license terms when you create a derivative or when you

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distribute a copy. And for permissive license, I mean, the descriptive term is non-reciprocal license

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because you don't have to reciprocate the terms on any derivatives or distribute a copies.

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Does that make sense? No. Can I explain it again?

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So I mean, when you reciprocate, like, when someone does something, you do something back for them,

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right? So if someone shares with you a piece of code under certain terms and then you reciprocate

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by sharing it with others under the same terms. So that's a reciprocal kind of relationship.

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And when the license requires you to reciprocate, then we call their reciprocal license. And generally,

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there's also, there's a copy-left license, you know, you get it and then you reciprocate the

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license terms to any derivatives or distributed copies. And when you have a non-reciprocal license,

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like the MIT license, the copyright holder grants you the rights to use the source code or the

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program under certain terms, but you don't have to reciprocate the terms. So under non-reciprocal

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license or a permissive license, this is written on the card. Yeah, you can do whatever you want.

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Yeah, you can do whatever you want. You can make a derivative.

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I think it's a little bit careful about that you can do whatever you want. I just recently had

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a call with a company and they were very upset because they found out what obligations they have

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with some of those licenses and they got some emails from people about what they haven't done

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on their website with naming all the projects there and paying attribution there. So, sure,

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maybe I'm being a bad lawyer when I say do whatever you want because whenever I say do whatever

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you want, I'm thinking of in terms of licensing terms. I do whatever you want in terms of

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re-licensing derivatives and stuff like that. So one drawback about non-reciprocal slash permissive

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licenses is that they can turn up derivatives of them can end up being proprietary software.

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So, yeah, we're talking about license terms. I mean, the license itself requires you to have

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different fields and obligations. All right, I haven't paused it on yet.

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Okay, we already covered it before that why we wouldn't recommend that in some of those

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in some areas that where you can decide what rights people should get and which they shouldn't get.

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No clue. So, okay, then maybe you already forgot about that. Our listeners might remember it,

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but okay, when you want to allow people to do something, you do that in a license.

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Good, so that's the second part. Now, the first part is about, okay, it's actually it's easier

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with the new, so if you make money, the non-commercial or commercial licenses. Yeah, so the,

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you don't want to make money with, you don't want to allow that people can make money with it.

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So, the non-commercial license, yeah, so it was written non-commercial license here.

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Well, I thought I can do a shortcut.

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I mean, one sec. Could you also, before we move on to the next card, okay? Could you also quickly say

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what is commercial? Like, is commercial if I start selling it, is commercial if I get donations?

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That's exactly the problem. So, it's not a very easy thing and people should not kind of use it lightly.

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I mean, as we've already covered before with the creative comments licenses, it is something where

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there's a lot of debate about it, what is covered and what is not covered. And so, in a lot of cases,

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the license does not achieve the goal the people had before, while adding a lot of barriers for

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people whom they would have liked to benefit from the license. So, if you are very cautious,

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then you don't use it because it could be a border case, for example, in the FSFE,

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while we could put it maybe on a sticker if we don't sell it and just give it out,

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but if we use the same thing on a t-shirt that might be considered commercial, on the other hand,

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we are non-profit. So, ah, yeah, not sure. So, we rather not use it. And for others who don't

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care that much about the license, you just do it because the enforcement there might be pretty low.

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And, yeah, so, it's a bit, for me, one of those licenses where you're preventing something,

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or you're trying to prevent something, and by trying to do that, you prevent a lot of good things

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you don't want to prevent. A little bit like it, we also had the discussions about

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anti-military clauses and licenses, which are also very, very difficult to

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clarify what exactly it means, to enforce, and thereby preventing a lot of people from

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using the software for great things, which are good for humanity.

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All right, thanks, human tears. Okay, I'm going to pick one. Oh, I have to say I did not write all of

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them because I also wanted to have some surprises, and then it doesn't spawn off them. It's quite hard for me.

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So, it's kind of like you can do mathematical scripts with this language, and it's very commonly

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used fun. Pison are. No, no, no, a bit different. It's like you can also

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design graphs with it, and it's like people using a lot and do also write papers with it,

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if they are really interested, some of three sufferners are really, really interested,

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and they just love this type of language to do, to not calculate, but to write scripts with,

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for example. Okay, no, not as good running, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Okay,

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the other one I know, which is famous for calculations is Fortran, but I don't guess it's not

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calculating. It's not about calculating. It's more about like you can write form you lost with it,

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for example, late hack. Yes. Okay, okay, I wouldn't have thought about that at the beginning,

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but yeah. Okay, yes, it's already smiling. Yeah, I'm processing the information on the card.

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So we have for computers, we have many distributions of operator systems, and for smartphones,

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we have them as well, but in a different form and under ROMs, yes, that is the ROM with the

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second part of the labes. Yes, custom ROMs. And they can be used to free your phone.

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They can be used to free your phone under some circumstances. Yes, so custom ROMs usually

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don't support just every phone you might have in your pocket, but they have a list of

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phone models that they support, and then you can use custom ROMs to, if the custom ROM

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is free software, then you can use the custom ROM to free your phone, basically, yeah.

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So many years ago, we started helping people with flashing those custom ROMs on their phones

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in our free your Android workshops. And now recently, we had the upcycling Android campaign,

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and there we also organized workshops where people can flash free software ROMs on their phones,

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and we also had some devices with us there, so people are not lose a little bit the

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fear of the contact. Yeah, the fear to modify their expensive device, which is very important

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for a lot of people, because a lot of the tasks that the daily tasks are done with the device,

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so we also had some devices that were with us where you can test it, and you could install

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a replicant, which is an Android ROM that is focusing a lot on being completely free software,

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and we also have people with colleagues who ask, which is more like focusing on privacy,

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and then also postmarker to ask, which is not an Android, but Knollinox version, then,

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to install on operating systems, so we help with those, and also when people

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requested some others, we also showed that to them, so that they could try that out.

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Awesome. And on the upcycling Android page, we have a list of different custom ROMs,

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right, where they can also read a bit more about the custom ROMs, and also find out which one

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is more suitable for them, and which one they are interested in.

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Yes, we have a list of Android alternatives, because all the custom ROMs I know of are basically

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meant for Android phones to be an alternative operation system, and on our website,

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we have a collection of nice information on the different ROMs.

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Also linked in the show notes. But also like postmarker to ask for other Knollinox operating

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systems you can flash there. They are also mentioned there, and we also have video,

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some video examples where you can have a look at how this is flashed, also covering from

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replicant to colleagues who ask to postmarker to ask, and I mean, they are there also other

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operating systems out there that you can use on mobile phones that are out there.

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But for those, we want to pick some examples to explain this better,

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and why that also helps you to use your phone for a longer time, and thereby be more sustainable.

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All right, thank you, and you turn.

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Oh, okay.

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Well, if you want to buy a train ticket, you go to buy it.

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Website?

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It's on the platforms, and there are those booth machines, not a word for those machines.

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How do you call those machines?

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Dispenser?

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Okay, and I'll do it the other way. I was using a matte male client before, and the

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dead was running in the terminal. Yes, okay. Thank you.

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No, I have it. Okay, I get it.

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Can you explain very quickly what is a terminal used for how like there are a lot of

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terminologies around terminal? I mean, you can buy train tickets.

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I just learned you can buy train tickets with them.

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Terminals most often refer in the surrounding of new Linux systems to

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a program that you can use to interact with your computer, not on a graphical interface level,

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where you click on an icon, and then the program starts, but on a textural level.

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So you type in some commands, and then those commands are executed, and you get a

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different way to interact with the computer.

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So it's a way for you to, for example, run commands, and say find me this file.

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Yes, or find out this, let me see what's in this file.

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Yes, or what's in the directory, or also to copy files from one computer to another

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computer, or log into a computer somewhere connected via the internet.

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All right. I mean, one thing I like about it is often that at the beginning,

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it for beginners, it looks a little bit like not being intuitive or being complicated,

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but on the other hand, if you once understand the concepts of it, and what you can do on the terminal,

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and how you can connect different programs with each other to accomplish your tasks,

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it is also something that is very good to understand and quite intuitive there, while for other

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programs, it can be quite difficult to find the right options or the right menu to accomplish

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something. So yeah, that's one of the things, which I still think that for depending on what

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users you have, that's a very intuitive way of communicating with the computer, and I think

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it's also something that helps you to understand how better understand how computers work.

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No, I can't totally agree. I have nothing more to add. No questions to all.

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All right, you turn.

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Okay, this is in my wheelhouse, I guess.

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Okay, so when you have a software project, and you have a lot of people,

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a free software project, and you have a lot of people who want to submit pull requests,

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what is a way to control, oh gosh, and control system. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. What is a legal

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instrument that you can use to control or manage what they are giving to your software project?

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Contributor license agreement? Exactly. Yes.

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But if we now want to go into that subject, then the podcast, it's quite a complicated subject,

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right? It is. Yeah. Can you really briefly give us an overview about what makes it so complicated

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without going into a lot of detail? I mean, I think the, what makes it so complicated

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is that whenever you draft, whenever anybody drafts an agreement, it's always about what terms

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you want to put in, and different people have different needs regardless of whether it's a software

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project or whatever kind of agreement, but let's say in the context of a software project,

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different people have different needs, different people want to retain different types of control,

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and it becomes whenever you're drafting agreement, the complexity arises because of people

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and what they want out of the relationship that they have, right? So I'm just going to leave it at

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that and say that, you know, if you're contributing and you're trying to put a pull request,

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you might have different interpretations of what you want to get out of that, and then the

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project runner will also have different interpretations of what they want to get out of your

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contribution and your pull request. So that's where all the complexities arise and I will

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leave it at that. All right. Thank you so much. I now have a final question for all of you.

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It's a bit of a surprise. You know that every year, every year on the 14th of February,

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we celebrate our free software. Yes, and I really like to say because it helps us to reach out to

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all those people contributing to free software in different ways, not only by code, but also by

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track translation or by opening an issue and reporting a bug or even fixing this bug. Say,

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a lot of ways to contribute. And it's very nice to reach out to those people who are behind

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those free software projects that we use and say thank you because this really helps to motivate

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them. This helps to create a lovely and friendly community. And I would now like to ask you,

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if you have a free software project that you would like to say thank you to.

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Yes, I will go with to be a first. To be a free software project that you would really like to say

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thank you to. It's not a it's not one project. I would like to say thank you to but it's a bunch of

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projects that are running under the terms of the Fediverse, contributing to a large decentralized

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social networking sphere in the internet that people can join and use free software projects or

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mostly free software projects to do social media. So micro blogging or sharing images or

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sharing podcasts or stuff like that without being drawn into a wallet garden system of social media

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platforms. Thank you. Matthias, is there a free software project that you would like to say thank you

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to. Yeah, many. That's always a problem and that's maybe also a nice thing for the I love free

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software day at least in the Berlin group we use to have that big round of every people can say

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present their loved software project and we always find projects that nobody else has so far heard of

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and yeah, that's that's true. It's very good tradition we have there. So but I would still like to

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thank some people because I say I love the software day it's not just about thinking like one

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project but you can also thank some contributors and I would like to thank all the contributors

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out there who are contributing to email software. I think nowadays a lot of people don't value

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email as much as they should maybe from how significant it is and I also think that for

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quite a time people did not spend that much work on further improving email and making it really

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usable for private users but also for for professional users and I'm very happy about those

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people who work hard on improving email client software on there for for the for their laptops

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or mobile phones but also server software where I think when yeah when more efforts are done you

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can really heavily still improve this very reliable system we which was created there and I'm

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very happy that at that at I foster them there is this year there is in 2024 now a track about

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modern email and so that's something where I would like to to thank all of the people out there

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writing good email clients good email server software good tools around email that make it easier

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for people to communicate by that with everyone around the world. Thank you. Now Gabriel same question

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is there a free software project that you would like to say thank you to. That's tricky. I again I

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won't limit myself to one project but as someone who is as terminally online as I am and who

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works with a next-generation internet project from the European Commission that seeks to reverse

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the end-shedification of the internet as a platform. Yeah I would like to thank all the developers

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who are working on like alternatives for internet infrastructure whether it be things like Firefox

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you know browsers that you know respect your privacy or just extensions like ad blockers or

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things that language apps that that make the internet more accessible to like people around

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the world or accessibility features for disabled people blind people for example to be able to

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access the internet more readily. Yeah so there's a lot of free software developers involved in

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building a better internet to connect everybody and yeah I am very grateful for their work and

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all right and Bonnie. No I'm not doing that because I can't take up just one project. Yes it's

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reciprocal. Oh gosh okay. There's a contributor to the FSFE that I'm really grateful for and to

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also manage just the PETube instance for example I'm appending and to have me out quite a lot with

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my free software project ideas because I'm not the best code at all and then yeah I'm really

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grateful that he does a lot of work with PETube it takes him hours to update the software but it's

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a really great software. I'm not saying anything against PETube. And when Alvar came up you

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didn't you cannot see that but Tobias as one of the people from our system team was also starting to

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not directly here. I think we can all agree that we would like to thank Alvar. So that's my

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ending phrase and now I have done a lot of things. All right I also want to thank you guys.

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Thank you for being here today. Thank you for doing the podcast with me. It was a great pleasure

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and yeah I hope you all learned a bit more about free software and the terms around free software.

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I still have some in my bag. And now it's up to you as the listeners to decide if we should do

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this format again in future and if you want to stand in terms so that it's not Bonnie who can

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then cheat and know some of the things also she says that she doesn't remember all of them

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then we can put it on a fairground. All right thank you so much for listening to this software

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freedom podcast episode. This podcast is brought to you by the free software foundation Europe.

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If you liked this episode please recommend it to your friends and rate it.

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And I hope to meet you next time. Bye bye. Very Christmas.

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