SFP#40: How to tackle Openwashing?
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SFP#40: How to tackle Openwashing?
WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:04.800 Before we start with the podcast, we would like to say thank you to all of you who support 00:04.800 --> 00:11.760 the FSFE's work of money. Working for software freedom and producing podcasts costs money. 00:12.800 --> 00:19.040 Please consider supporting us with our nation and the FSFE.org slash donate and in the show notes. 00:30.000 --> 00:39.120 Let's get started. Welcome to the software freedom podcast. The podcast is brought to you by 00:39.120 --> 00:44.880 the Free Software Foundation Europe. We are a charity that empowers users to control technology. 00:45.520 --> 00:49.280 I'm Bonnie Mehring and today I'm here with my colleague Johanna Näder. 00:49.920 --> 00:56.800 Johanna's is the FSFE's German team coordinator and he's also the person responsible for 00:56.800 --> 01:02.640 the public money public code initiative and today we will talk about open washing. 01:02.640 --> 01:07.520 Johanna's does sounds a lot like green washing but first of all thank you so much for being here. 01:07.520 --> 01:11.520 Thank you so much for making the time. I'm really looking forward to our chat. 01:12.240 --> 01:19.360 Thanks for having me for you always a pleasure. So open washing, it sounds a lot like green 01:19.360 --> 01:26.080 washing but what is it? Yes indeed so I think this is one of the first thing that people think of 01:26.080 --> 01:31.360 when hearing the term open washing and not knowing about it so it's similar to sound similar to 01:31.360 --> 01:38.160 green washing so somehow it must be a misleading market behavior mislabeling your product or 01:38.160 --> 01:45.760 something like this to fulfill certain criteria but so if you want to have a look at what it exactly 01:45.760 --> 01:51.440 means in the field of Free Software. Yeah it's a bit different already and in the last spring so 01:51.440 --> 01:58.080 in 2024 as the FSFE we conducted a community survey so we reached out to our community to get a 01:58.080 --> 02:05.120 better overview of examples of opinions and strategies of open washers and this led to our 02:05.120 --> 02:12.000 definition that we came up with and this definition is open washing means distributing 02:12.000 --> 02:17.680 propriety software while creating the misleading impression that it is Free Software. 02:17.680 --> 02:23.120 So we have two criteria that must be fulfilled the one thing is the product distributed must be 02:23.120 --> 02:29.040 proprietary so the software is not or not completely Free Software and second criteria and 02:29.040 --> 02:33.520 criterion is that there must be some sort of misleading communication around this so the 02:33.520 --> 02:39.680 manufacturer somehow suggests in his communication that it is Free Software although that is not so 02:39.680 --> 02:45.760 it's a form of mislabeling and typically it's used to have some sort of market advantage for 02:45.760 --> 02:54.320 proprietary software products. Yeah that's so much about the definition I think maybe we should 02:54.320 --> 02:58.800 take one step back because I already said something about proprietary software and Free Software 02:58.800 --> 03:05.680 and a lot of our listeners will know what this means of course but I think it's especially important 03:05.680 --> 03:11.760 for this topic because it's a lot about terms it's a lot about definitions and a lot about confusing 03:11.760 --> 03:16.960 these definitions and terms so it's important for us to be very clear about against what free 03:16.960 --> 03:23.200 software is and what it is not so to just make clear how open washers work so if we talk about free 03:23.200 --> 03:30.480 software we mean software that yeah gives the users gives all users for basic freedoms for rights 03:31.440 --> 03:37.440 which are the rights to use to study to share and to change or to improve the software 03:38.240 --> 03:44.400 and these are granted by licenses they are lists of licenses and yeah if one of those 03:44.400 --> 03:49.520 freedoms is not granted to the users then it is not Free Software so all of those four freedoms 03:49.520 --> 03:56.400 must be there yeah I think this is exactly the point where open washers try to confuse terms 03:56.880 --> 04:05.840 yeah all right I do have some questions here yeah sure let me shoot them so thank you 04:05.840 --> 04:12.560 first of all for the distinction between Free Software and proprietary software my question now is 04:12.560 --> 04:19.920 you already mentioned that it could be a Free Software that is not fully free or that it could be 04:20.560 --> 04:29.120 like in part free would this then also count as a washing or is the second criteria the one about 04:29.120 --> 04:36.960 the communication around it does this also is the case if a Free Software product has some parts 04:36.960 --> 04:44.560 that are for example an extra function or something like that that would not be available would that be 04:44.560 --> 04:54.720 count as open washing I know what you mean yes this depends again so if we have those types of software 04:54.720 --> 05:01.120 that some people call open core or sometimes we have a community edition and there's an enterprise 05:01.120 --> 05:06.560 edition so the community edition is Free Software and the enterprise edition comes with additional 05:06.560 --> 05:13.280 add-ons which are proprietary this can be open washing not necessarily but washing can happen here 05:13.920 --> 05:21.120 if the public gets the impression that everything is Free Software so if you have a community 05:21.120 --> 05:26.320 edition and enterprise edition for example and the manufacturer gives the impression that 05:26.320 --> 05:32.160 everything is open source of Free Software but you need the enterprise edition in order to have 05:32.160 --> 05:36.800 those add-ons that you really need for your purpose and those are proprietary but you're not well 05:36.800 --> 05:44.560 informed about this and you cannot obtain the code even if you receive the yeah the software you 05:44.560 --> 05:49.840 don't get the code and you don't get the full freedoms that you need so in this case it would be 05:49.840 --> 05:55.920 open washing if this misleading communication is around that does it make this this part clearer 05:55.920 --> 06:03.520 already it does it does now I'm very curious about other strategies that are around open 06:03.520 --> 06:09.600 washing I can imagine that different companies or that different projects have different strategies 06:09.600 --> 06:16.400 and that there are a lot of strategies that exist in this kind of marketing space you know what I 06:16.400 --> 06:23.680 mean so can you elaborate a bit on them yes we it's also something that we asked the community 06:23.680 --> 06:30.080 in this community survey and yeah people that answered our survey and contributed there came up 06:30.080 --> 06:36.480 with several examples and also yeah informed us about strategies or by that we could collect those 06:36.480 --> 06:43.920 strategies and one thing that definitely happens a lot is bus wording or misleading names so companies 06:44.800 --> 06:50.080 have a lot the word open in their communication or free but mostly it's the word open that they have 06:50.080 --> 06:55.040 in their communication around the product that it's that is proprietary or even they have misleading 06:55.040 --> 07:02.160 names so a very prominent example here is open AI the company that property you are know of course 07:02.160 --> 07:08.640 that's behind chatty pt which is of course not open but it's already the name of the company so 07:08.720 --> 07:14.000 people who don't know about we software will have the feeling that wow this is very open so this 07:14.000 --> 07:21.360 kind of bus wording of misleading names is meant to confuse things so whenever you come about something 07:21.360 --> 07:28.080 that's only open then you can it's it's not you cannot be sure that it's open washing but you 07:28.080 --> 07:33.520 should maybe have a closer look if the code is really there if you really get the far freedoms so 07:33.600 --> 07:40.400 this would be one thing one other thing is misleading licensing or hidden license changes it's 07:40.400 --> 07:47.120 something that we've seen a lot during the last years that some manufacturers had a software that 07:47.120 --> 07:53.680 was released under Free Software license but then at some point they added something to the license 07:53.680 --> 07:59.280 and to the Free Software license and then it wasn't the Free Software license anymore because there 08:00.080 --> 08:06.320 additional condition like can only be used for private purposes and not for business purposes 08:06.320 --> 08:12.640 or something like that and the public wasn't really informed about this there was a license change 08:12.640 --> 08:18.560 and it wasn't really Free Software anymore so this is I think pretty pretty popular of course 08:19.760 --> 08:28.400 there are also companies that start from the beginning with a license that it's not a Free Software 08:28.400 --> 08:34.480 license but really sounds like one so and they also say it's Free Software it's open source 08:35.040 --> 08:39.600 and then you take a look at the well known software so Free Software license lists that are 08:41.280 --> 08:45.920 you can you can take a look at the Free Software Foundation or at the Debian project or at the 08:46.480 --> 08:52.880 open source initiative they have those lists of Free Software of acknowledged Free Software licenses 08:52.880 --> 08:58.080 and if this software license isn't there then it's probably not Free Software and it's not a free 08:58.080 --> 09:06.000 software license yes one other thing one other strategy might be having Free Software client software 09:06.960 --> 09:14.320 but depends on proprietary server so far instance if you have telegram it's a Free Software client 09:14.320 --> 09:20.480 but it depends on proprietary server and you can't really use it without the server one other 09:20.480 --> 09:26.960 strategy there there even more but maybe this is worth mentioning is manufacturers who try to 09:26.960 --> 09:34.160 secretly redefine open source they continue to do the open source bus wording and say we are 09:34.160 --> 09:39.280 very open source here's the source code the source code is available that source available 09:40.240 --> 09:44.960 and of course this is not not enough because if you have the source code it's not sufficient to make a 09:44.960 --> 09:50.720 software Free Software if you don't have the other rights if you can modify it if you can distribute it 09:51.280 --> 09:57.200 so source available source available software isn't the same as open source software and 09:58.240 --> 10:04.080 or Free Software and if companies try to give this impression they try to confuse the terms 10:04.640 --> 10:09.840 and this as I said a lot what's happening here so confusing the terms making people unsure 10:10.480 --> 10:16.160 giving people the wrong impression that it is Free Software and in the end it is not 10:16.880 --> 10:22.080 okay so that sounds like there are a lot of strategy around open washing to be honest like 10:22.080 --> 10:28.640 there's a lot of different approaches how to do this but is there also a clear cut where you say 10:28.640 --> 10:34.720 okay this is not open washing and this is not a Free Software project anymore because it was 10:34.720 --> 10:40.960 realized and this was communicated very clearly can you also state some things that you would say 10:41.040 --> 10:46.960 they are not open washing yes absolutely so you already mentioned it so if a proprietary software 10:46.960 --> 10:52.640 product is clearly labeled as proprietary so if they don't do this open bus wording around if they 10:52.640 --> 10:58.800 don't claim it to be Free Software or open source then it's also not open washing also if someone's 10:58.800 --> 11:03.920 forking a Free Software and releasing fork as proprietary but being very honest about this saying 11:04.160 --> 11:11.360 this is proprietary then it's not open washing and also if a company is taking the code made by 11:11.360 --> 11:18.320 others of a software product and selling it without giving back to the original producer this is not 11:18.320 --> 11:22.640 really open washing it doesn't have anything to do with it so I think we should be very precise 11:22.640 --> 11:27.920 in our communication around open washing while those examples may be problematic for us free 11:27.920 --> 11:33.520 software and we criticize them and we are not very happy that this kind of stuff happens let's 11:33.520 --> 11:38.480 still not call them open washing to remain very clear in our analysis let's always check those 11:38.480 --> 11:43.440 two criteria in the beginning it must be proprietary and there must be misleading communication 11:43.440 --> 11:49.040 suggesting that it is Free Software or open source software all right maybe there are also some 11:49.040 --> 11:56.000 borderline cases so is it already open washing to call a proprietary product open blabla open 11:56.000 --> 12:04.000 something so open AI or is it already open washing to call a software open or source available 12:04.000 --> 12:10.000 without mentioning open source of Free Software I would say yes in my personal opinion it is 12:10.000 --> 12:16.160 because it confuses the public about what is really Free Software and this is what open washing 12:16.160 --> 12:23.600 is all about all right thank you very much Johannes for this introduction to open washing my last 12:23.600 --> 12:29.040 question in disregard of the introduction is the survey you have mentioned the survey in our 12:29.040 --> 12:35.840 few times and I would like to know is it available for the public is there can others look into it 12:35.840 --> 12:42.400 and how was the survey conducted and what stuck out for you the most in this in those answers what 12:42.400 --> 12:50.400 was was there something that really surprised you so first yes it's available we don't link it 12:50.400 --> 12:57.600 on our website because so we I usually have a QR code in my in my parks when I talk about this 12:57.600 --> 13:03.520 and we I think we can also add the link in the in the show notes so everyone who's listening here 13:03.520 --> 13:08.480 if you have something that you want to contribute there you can of course still do that so it's 13:08.480 --> 13:15.840 open and we receive your answers what struck me the most is that there it was so pretty much everyone 13:15.840 --> 13:23.040 who answered there agreed about what is open washing and so it seems to be pretty pretty clear 13:23.040 --> 13:28.080 in the end at least in the in the community at least in that part of the community that took part 13:28.080 --> 13:36.960 in our survey it seems to be pretty clear and everyone came up with with examples also and everyone 13:36.960 --> 13:44.160 was also very clear in the in stating that it is a huge problem for Free Software and it's a 13:44.160 --> 13:51.680 huge problem for the idea of public money public code so that if we if public administrations 13:51.680 --> 13:57.360 spend money on software then it should be also Free Software because it misleads the public about 13:57.360 --> 14:02.400 taxpayer funded software and somehow it also cements the vendor lock in and its hampers 14:03.360 --> 14:09.600 tax guarantees so everyone in this survey was very very much agreeing on this point that is 14:09.600 --> 14:13.920 that it is a big problem for public money public code for Free Software and for 14:14.640 --> 14:22.800 the idea of tax sovereignty through Free Software I'm very happy to add that link and I find 14:22.800 --> 14:29.360 it's very fascinating that this is something that everybody is aware of even if there has not been 14:29.360 --> 14:35.280 quite a clear communication around this before because I think you started this like in the last 14:35.280 --> 14:42.560 year and I find this really fascinating that it has been a topic of people before we started 14:42.560 --> 14:47.440 the communication around this you know what I mean it has been definitely so we are not the first 14:47.440 --> 14:52.560 ones that are talking about it and being honest of watching is not new and so it has been around 14:53.280 --> 14:59.200 since yeah basically since people started to sell Free Software or sell services around free 14:59.280 --> 15:06.640 software so it's really something that has been around for decades now and as a topic also it has 15:06.640 --> 15:13.120 been discussed for many years sometimes under other labels but open washing is pretty much the term 15:13.120 --> 15:22.800 that's being used today still I think it's growing I have a feeling and also many people from 15:22.800 --> 15:27.600 those from the survey had the feeling that it's growing issue because there's more interest now 15:27.600 --> 15:34.160 in Free Software especially from the public sector so we see debates about digital sovereignty 15:34.160 --> 15:40.240 or tech sovereignty across Europe and several member states also on the European level and many 15:40.240 --> 15:45.200 experts also we as the FSFE say that Free Software is a prerequisite for tech sovereignty 15:46.320 --> 15:51.920 yeah suddenly there's more public interest in Free Software to get closer to this idea of 15:51.920 --> 16:01.680 tech sovereignty and in this situation apparently also there's more money in the game so states and 16:01.680 --> 16:06.400 administrations start to spend more money for Free Software or also we want them to even 16:06.400 --> 16:13.200 spend more money for Free Software in the future and if there's more money then they're certainly 16:13.200 --> 16:19.920 parties around that want to get their piece of the cake and yeah there are different strategies to 16:19.920 --> 16:26.000 get there one is to really produce Free Software but if you don't want to do that for several reasons 16:26.000 --> 16:32.720 then you might come to the idea that it's good idea to do open washing but of course it is not so 16:35.680 --> 16:40.160 all right um Johannes you already mentioned quite a lot of the problems around 16:40.960 --> 16:47.520 open washing and especially also in regard to public administration but can you drive into them 16:47.520 --> 16:55.440 again for me and elaborate a bit more on them yeah sure so I already mentioned public money public 16:55.440 --> 17:02.800 code so that's our initiative our initiative we started some years ago to to make it clear that 17:02.800 --> 17:09.200 wherever administration spent money on on software public money on software then it should be 17:09.200 --> 17:15.280 Free Software it should be open source software so public code and yeah open washing 17:15.280 --> 17:21.840 misleads the public about taxpayer finance funded software and the idea of this public money 17:21.840 --> 17:27.600 public code is that the state public administrations are nowadays pretty much in a vendor lock-ins 17:27.600 --> 17:35.120 so they are dependent from vendors with a lot of market influence that use their product being 17:35.120 --> 17:41.200 proprietary to lock the administrations in and make it very very hard for them to to change 17:41.840 --> 17:48.800 to move to another software to another product and now the whole idea or a big part of the idea 17:48.800 --> 17:54.800 of public money public code is to use Free Software to break this vendor lock-in and to help 17:54.800 --> 18:00.240 administrations to break out of it to break out of this vendor lock-in and yeah we in the future 18:00.240 --> 18:06.960 hopefully at some point we'll have some thing like mandatory Free Software first policies 18:07.520 --> 18:13.280 or public money public code legislation that makes it mandatory for administrations 18:13.920 --> 18:22.000 if they procure software then it must be Free Software and then if companies in those tenders 18:22.000 --> 18:30.000 in those procurement process try to place their proprietary products secretly calling it open 18:30.000 --> 18:35.120 source calling it Free Software then this is really a problem because in the end we again have 18:35.120 --> 18:40.480 proprietary software we again have the vendor lock-in and for the administrations nothing really 18:40.480 --> 18:46.720 changes and this of course is a yeah it's a big problem also for the debate around tech sovereignty 18:46.720 --> 18:54.160 about digital sovereignty because what what is meant by this is in the end public administrations 18:54.160 --> 19:03.280 have the chance to control to modify to change their and to to to change it also to to being 19:03.280 --> 19:09.920 control of their digital infrastructure which is only possible with Free Software not with proprietary 19:09.920 --> 19:15.680 products even if they are made in Europe which is which is now a big discussion by European 19:16.400 --> 19:23.280 as an answer for as an answer to the dependencies that we have on software companies from the US 19:23.280 --> 19:28.720 from China from other countries so but by European is not the solution because in the end it will 19:28.800 --> 19:35.040 lead us again lead our administrations again into dependencies from from proprietary products from 19:35.040 --> 19:40.160 companies who sell proprietary products so Free Software is what we need there and open washing 19:40.160 --> 19:46.160 again it confuses a lot here we must somehow do something against it 19:48.080 --> 19:56.320 and how can we counter open washing is there other strategies or yeah how can we step up and 19:56.480 --> 20:02.960 promote or advocate more for a Free Software because this is what we do we want to have Free Software 20:04.000 --> 20:10.800 yeah of course let's maybe distinguish there what can public administrations do and what can we 20:10.800 --> 20:15.680 all do so public administrations and of course we want and we as the Free Software Foundation 20:15.680 --> 20:22.320 Europe want to help public administrations on on this way they should try of course to reduce 20:22.320 --> 20:27.600 the risk of open washing when awarding contracts and for this they need expertise 20:28.800 --> 20:35.680 they need reliable structures and institutions that know about this problem that somehow come up 20:35.680 --> 20:43.280 with knowledge and strategies how to reduce the risk of open washing and very important for 20:43.280 --> 20:50.640 procurement we think is a tendering criteria so procurement criteria that try to keep open 20:50.640 --> 20:56.400 brushes out of the game in the end always a good checkpoint good checkbox for public administrations 20:56.400 --> 21:02.960 is do we with this and that product maintain the ability to change at some later point or do we 21:02.960 --> 21:08.960 run into a new lock-in and also important is the willingness to learn so it's good to learn how 21:08.960 --> 21:16.080 we can avoid traps how we can avoid pitfalls and like open washing in this process and of course 21:16.080 --> 21:22.000 it's important also for public administrations because they are also in in some cases developing 21:22.000 --> 21:29.600 software to avoid their own open washing so also by this it's good to have license criteria which 21:29.600 --> 21:40.000 licenses to use they can use tools like our reuse tool which helps them to yeah also to 21:40.560 --> 21:48.720 to label and licensing of their software products it's good for them to do open development to code 21:48.720 --> 21:54.880 in the open to do that maybe on on the open code platform so the code sharing platform for public 21:54.880 --> 22:00.960 administrations in Germany or in other countries the respective open code platforms they should try 22:00.960 --> 22:08.560 to be compliant and get their products maybe included in Linux distributions they should aim at 22:08.560 --> 22:13.840 multi-stakeholder participation to make it less likely that there happens something like open 22:13.840 --> 22:20.880 washing or they run into vendor lock-ins and also yeah to build up expertise to not run into 22:20.880 --> 22:27.120 open washing situations so that's on the part of the public administrations what can we all do of 22:27.120 --> 22:32.000 course we all can if we if we are programming if we are coding we can try to and we should and 22:32.000 --> 22:38.800 definitely should try to avoid own open washing also I think is what we're working on is that we 22:38.800 --> 22:43.760 all should try to develop a deeper understanding of open washing of the strategies of red flags 22:44.640 --> 22:50.880 yeah that might be a hint to open washing and if we understand it better ourselves then it's 22:50.880 --> 22:56.720 important that we start to raise awareness for the topic by talking about it in the public so give 22:56.720 --> 23:03.120 talks about it talk to public administrations to decision makers to politicians to raise awareness 23:03.120 --> 23:12.640 and also we should monitor open washing so be very yeah yeah keep our eyes open to see what happens 23:13.520 --> 23:19.680 if it happens somewhere if we see it happen it's good to ask to educate to convince so go there 23:19.680 --> 23:24.160 talk to the people ask them why did they change your license why do you call it open if it's not 23:24.880 --> 23:31.440 in some cases this might really help so there's an interesting maybe you can also add this in the 23:31.440 --> 23:38.400 in the show notes there's a person who's running a repository and collecting open washing cases 23:38.400 --> 23:45.120 there the then brown also trying to he's also trying to contact people behind those open washing 23:45.120 --> 23:50.960 cases to convince them to stop this behavior and to go back to releasing it Free Software or at least 23:50.960 --> 23:55.280 saying clearly that it's proprietary so in some cases this also works this also helps 23:55.920 --> 24:00.640 but in many cases of course it will not and then it's really important that we so we as the 24:00.640 --> 24:06.240 FSFE also we as the Free Software community that we identify and that we criticize 24:06.240 --> 24:12.480 open washing cases that we speak up if this happens let's not remain silent I think this is very 24:12.480 --> 24:20.720 important to to not let it happen and to yeah to yeah have a public debate about this because it's 24:20.720 --> 24:28.320 really a problem if it happens and yeah keep us from reaching our goals in terms of having more 24:28.320 --> 24:33.440 Free Software in public administration of having public money public code and also it's a problem 24:33.440 --> 24:39.440 for ourselves if we cannot be sure that software that we ourselves want to use is free or not because 24:39.440 --> 24:46.720 it's really somehow confusing I would love to link this repo I think this sounds very interesting 24:46.720 --> 24:52.960 I find it very fascinating that Dan Brown is actually reaching out to the projects there 24:53.840 --> 24:59.920 do you have any experience in how it is when you reach out some of the projects or do we be 24:59.920 --> 25:04.480 do this as Free Software Foundation Europe and reach out to projects that are going in the 25:04.480 --> 25:12.960 direction of open washing and what is the reaction that you experience the most there yes actually 25:12.960 --> 25:19.200 we do that and we we have done it in the past for example yeah in a case that happened in Germany 25:19.200 --> 25:26.400 two years ago when data port data port is a public IT provider provider when data port offered 25:26.400 --> 25:34.480 digitally sovereign workspace for public administration so workspace a suit of tools for public 25:34.480 --> 25:41.440 administrations the so-called DE-Phoenix suite and it was of course funded with taxpayers money of 25:41.440 --> 25:48.000 course I promised two digital sovereignty to German public administrations and it was actually 25:48.000 --> 25:53.600 also based on Free Software components like Nextcloud, Jitsi and Colabora and they even called it 25:53.600 --> 26:00.000 open source but of course we found out yeah if you look for the code the code of the whole product 26:00.000 --> 26:05.440 wasn't released there were links to some yeah to some repos of the original components but you 26:05.440 --> 26:10.240 couldn't install the whole thing on your server or deploy it yourself and it was also not handed 26:10.400 --> 26:17.840 to eligible parties so we received the lock-in to the to the product but we never received the code 26:17.840 --> 26:23.600 when asking for it so data port is owned by several German federal states and apparently they 26:23.600 --> 26:28.000 wanted to make sure that they were the only ones to be able to deploy the software suite 26:28.000 --> 26:34.640 as the software suite to make the most money out of it and yeah so we asked them about the code 26:35.200 --> 26:40.880 we asked several times we didn't get it we criticized this internally towards them and they were 26:40.880 --> 26:50.480 apparently seeing that there is a problem but yeah saying that at some point at some later point 26:50.480 --> 26:54.960 it will be released and please have a look at those original repos that we are linking on our 26:54.960 --> 27:00.080 website but it wasn't the whole code so we at some point started to criticize this publicly and 27:00.160 --> 27:07.840 others also did and we followed up regularly as I said we tried to be in this watchdog role around 27:07.840 --> 27:13.520 this case and what happened at the same time is that the German center for digital sovereignty 27:13.520 --> 27:20.960 and so centers released a similar product product to DE-Phoenix and this was Free Software so at some 27:20.960 --> 27:26.160 point during the last two years data port must have realized that with this kind of critical 27:26.160 --> 27:32.480 publicity from our site and from others and also with the site of Free Software competition from 27:33.200 --> 27:40.800 centers their open washing strategy doesn't work so today they don't have DE-Phoenix they don't have 27:40.800 --> 27:46.400 this open washing suite on their portfolio anymore of course we would have preferred if they had 27:46.400 --> 27:52.160 decided to release the full code under Free Software license but still one case less of open 27:52.160 --> 27:59.680 washing for us this is a success so if we talk to organizations to companies to also to public 27:59.680 --> 28:05.600 administrations about this topic about potential on open washing we are glad if they pick up our 28:05.600 --> 28:10.720 arguments and if they try to to go in the direction of Free Software and public money public code 28:10.720 --> 28:16.880 rather than open washing if this doesn't work if it's not the case yeah they can be sure that at 28:16.880 --> 28:25.520 some point we will speak up about this and I think it's also important that yeah that we as a 28:25.520 --> 28:34.080 community that we do that you mentioned speaking up but I guess there's no central institute that 28:34.080 --> 28:39.760 others can contact and say oh there's an open washing case so what happens if somebody of our 28:39.760 --> 28:46.960 listeners would now encounter a product a Free Software product for example that would go in a 28:46.960 --> 28:53.120 direction of open washing or that would go in a direction of open core what could they do I mean 28:53.120 --> 29:00.480 there's also no legal option for them so do you have any advice yeah so as you said it's a 29:00.480 --> 29:05.600 it's a bad practice it's harmful towards Free Software and our communities but in most cases it's 29:05.600 --> 29:10.640 not a legal so the legal options are really limited you cannot just go there and say I'm going to 29:10.640 --> 29:16.560 sue you because you're doing open washing in most cases it's not possible and as you also said there 29:16.560 --> 29:22.480 is no such thing as a reporting center for open washing so as a consequence the whole debate around 29:22.480 --> 29:28.960 open washing is always a debate around public opinions around political views decision-making 29:28.960 --> 29:34.400 and also around best practices so what you all can do what we all can do is to have a deep 29:34.400 --> 29:40.160 understanding of the problem it's reasons the strategies the consequences and that to raise 29:40.160 --> 29:47.760 awareness to talk to people about open washing also like like I already said to can't give it 29:47.760 --> 29:53.280 to try to talk to potential or obvious open washes but it's very good if you find cases and you're 29:53.280 --> 29:57.680 not sure about how to deal with that and you really think it's important and also important for 29:57.680 --> 30:05.040 yeah it might help our public money public code you can always contact us and tell us about this 30:05.040 --> 30:11.200 so as I said this the survey in the in the show notes you can use this or you can also just write 30:11.200 --> 30:18.320 an email to contact at FSFE:.org and this will really help us we will in many cases not go there 30:18.320 --> 30:23.600 and convince them or not will be able to convince them that they stop this behavior stop this 30:23.600 --> 30:30.240 open washing behavior but we can use those examples for the debate we can use it for raising awareness 30:30.240 --> 30:36.400 around the topic and we give sometimes counsel to public administration to public administrations 30:36.400 --> 30:41.360 who want to go in the direction of public money public code so we can also tell them about those 30:41.360 --> 30:47.200 examples to help them better understand the situations and also to help them better understand 30:47.280 --> 30:55.680 where our potential players that go more in the direction of open washing thank you 30:57.040 --> 31:03.440 do I think I find this a very helpful advice let me maybe add one thing which you always can do to 31:03.440 --> 31:08.960 support our case against open washing become a supporter of the FSFE: so that's really easy just 31:08.960 --> 31:15.680 go to FSFE:.org slash donate also I think you will find the link in the in the show notes and yeah 31:15.760 --> 31:21.920 start supporting us with a regular donation every month this really helps us because our work is 31:21.920 --> 31:28.720 funded by donations mainly and yeah really depend on your donations so this would be really something 31:28.720 --> 31:33.200 where you can also contribute and if you want to become active it's also something that you can do 31:33.200 --> 31:39.840 check out our website there are described many ways how you can become active with the FSFE: 31:39.840 --> 31:45.360 but again donations are the easiest thing it's really easy just yeah maybe consider to help us 31:45.440 --> 31:52.000 that way which will also really help Free Software and public money public code thank you so much 31:52.000 --> 31:56.880 for being here thank you so much for your time thank you so much for elaborating on open washing 31:57.440 --> 32:03.200 and yet taking us on this journey there and letting us dive into this topic thank you so much 32:03.200 --> 32:09.600 Bonnie that's really pleasure to talk with you thanks all right dear listeners thank you so 32:09.600 --> 32:14.960 much for being with us thank you so much for listening to us this was the software freedom podcast 32:15.440 --> 32:22.160 if you liked this episode please recommend it to your friends and rate it stay tuned for more 32:22.160 --> 32:27.440 inspiring conversations that explore the importance of software freedom and its impact on our 32:27.440 --> 32:33.840 digital to lives this podcast is presented to you by the Free Software Foundation Europe 32:33.840 --> 32:40.880 there are a charity that works on promoting software freedom if you like our work please consider 32:41.520 --> 32:49.600 supporting us for the nation you find more information under FSFE:.org slash donate thanks bye bye 32:56.000 --> 33:03.040 hi i'm Daragh from the FSFE island next you will hear Bonnie and I talking about how and why I got 33:03.040 --> 33:08.720 involved the Free Software Foundation Europe and Free Software as a whole my first contact with 33:08.720 --> 33:14.560 the FSFE: was actually the software freedom podcast so thank you for that it's um I'd gotten 33:14.560 --> 33:19.520 into Linux for a while i'd been using open source because uh I was opening my computer every day 33:19.520 --> 33:24.000 and it felt like I had to personally fist fight Microsoft every morning and I was going insane 33:25.040 --> 33:29.600 so I started looking more into kind of the ethos around open source and I find the software freedom 33:29.600 --> 33:33.840 podcast and I really loved it I thought it was really interesting stuff with really great content 33:33.840 --> 33:40.240 really insightful talks so then I applied for an internship at the FSFE: because I noticed there was 33:40.240 --> 33:46.000 an opening and I happened to get it after a very entertaining interview I will say it was 33:46.000 --> 33:49.920 pretty funny at the time because uh I accidentally joined the wrong room and then there was some 33:49.920 --> 33:56.480 chasing around so do you know those scenes and cartoons with scooby-doo when they're all coming out 33:56.480 --> 34:01.520 of doorways and then someone's coming out of another doorway I was doing this for about 15 minutes 34:01.920 --> 34:06.480 uh I think at some point I might have ended up fun like a team skull with someone else somehow i 34:06.480 --> 34:11.760 don't even know what FSFE: doesn't use teams it was uh an entertaining disaster zone for 15 minutes 34:12.320 --> 34:18.000 but finally it went well enough I don't know and then i've got an internship so then I worked 34:18.000 --> 34:22.560 with the FSFE: as an intern and i've stayed on as a volunteer fixing some things around the place 34:23.120 --> 34:30.720 and uh I think that's about that that's a really really funny story I don't know 34:31.920 --> 34:39.760 yeah okay so you knew the FSFE: before but why what made you stay like what was the reason for 34:39.760 --> 34:46.160 you to say oh yeah I do this internship and then after this internship you stick around I stay 34:46.160 --> 34:52.240 around at the FSFE: and work with the FSFE: because I think the FSFE: does really incredible work with 34:52.240 --> 34:56.880 the governments of Europe in particular the European Union there's a lot of Free Software projects 34:56.880 --> 35:01.120 and they do their best writing great code and doing really great community work but to properly 35:01.200 --> 35:05.600 support them there needs to be organizations talking to government and talking to large organizations 35:05.600 --> 35:10.160 to make sure those people get the support they need and I think the FSFE: is one of the premier 35:10.160 --> 35:14.880 organizations on the planet are doing that right now so I'm happy to be a part of that really excellent 35:14.880 --> 35:22.000 work thank you and what would you say to a person that you wouldn't meet and that wants to join the 35:22.000 --> 35:29.680 FSFE: by they should join the FSFE: so support or volunteer I would say that people should work with 35:29.760 --> 35:34.960 and support the FSFE: because if you want to get up every morning and use tech devices and not 35:34.960 --> 35:39.120 feel like the entire time like you're fighting with someone who wants to steal all of your information 35:39.120 --> 35:44.720 sell it to someone and also make you buy like new shoes or something you should work with the 35:44.720 --> 36:03.760 FSFEe because otherwise that's what it feels like every day thank you