[00:00.000 --> 00:12.280] All right, I have the pleasure of introducing our next speakers, Marcel Helaja and Hans [00:12.280 --> 00:13.280] Grossefstein. [00:13.280 --> 00:14.280] Thank you. [00:14.280 --> 00:24.560] Right, so we have 25 minutes in front of us to speak about EU alternatives to app stores. [00:24.560 --> 00:29.360] What is this about? [00:29.360 --> 00:37.080] So I will lead you through a tool that is called a pilot project that I have initiated [00:37.080 --> 00:40.520] as a member of the European Parliament and what are the potential opportunities that [00:40.520 --> 00:45.960] I see here for the free software and open source community. [00:45.960 --> 00:50.200] So first, a little bit introduction of myself. [00:50.200 --> 00:54.120] As I said, I'm a member and also a cluster of the European Parliament. [00:54.120 --> 01:03.520] I'm a member of the Bureau of the European Parliament and I focus my work on policies [01:03.520 --> 01:09.520] that I will show you in the next slide in the committee on the internal market and consumer [01:09.520 --> 01:12.160] protection and also culture and education. [01:12.160 --> 01:18.360] I'm also working in the committee to investigate the use of Pegasus and Equal and Surveillance [01:18.360 --> 01:19.360] Pyrir. [01:19.360 --> 01:22.760] I'm sure you've heard about that scandal. [01:22.760 --> 01:26.080] And I am the first Vice President of the Czech Pirate Party. [01:26.080 --> 01:31.400] So what is my focus in policy making? [01:31.400 --> 01:37.720] The top two I believe are interlinked, free and open source technologies and freedom on [01:37.720 --> 01:42.520] the internet because I think that one cannot exist without the other. [01:42.520 --> 01:48.480] Then I also work on transparency and independence of media. [01:48.480 --> 01:50.800] Now what are we going to speak about? [01:50.800 --> 01:57.720] We're going to speak about the fact that the EU developed, of course, for public money, [01:57.720 --> 02:02.960] some applications that you can find, for instance, in Google Play. [02:02.960 --> 02:05.200] This is the list from Google Play. [02:05.200 --> 02:13.360] So I'm not sure you can really read, but you can see there a couple of applications that [02:13.360 --> 02:19.400] may help you to understand your passenger rights or you can see the EU Charter of Fundamental [02:19.400 --> 02:21.000] Rights. [02:21.000 --> 02:28.680] You can account majorities in the council and all sorts of other things that has been, [02:28.680 --> 02:30.960] again, developed with public money. [02:30.960 --> 02:32.800] Now what's the problem? [02:32.800 --> 02:37.320] The problem is that, first of all, I believe that we should adhere to the principle public [02:37.320 --> 02:39.000] money, public code. [02:39.000 --> 02:44.200] What is developed for public money should, the result should also be public. [02:44.200 --> 02:51.120] I believe that EU institutions should lead by example, and therefore I believe that it's [02:51.120 --> 03:01.720] also not sufficient only that public money that is invested into software then results [03:01.720 --> 03:12.960] into public code, but also the applications need to be accessible for the citizens. [03:12.960 --> 03:19.560] The current situation is that the applications that are developed for public money are dependent [03:19.560 --> 03:24.040] on proprietary app stores, pretty much only two. [03:24.040 --> 03:33.680] One for the Android platform, one for iOS on Apple, and that creates a high barrier for [03:33.680 --> 03:40.240] smaller providers to enter the market, and also I believe that is a less choice for consumers [03:40.240 --> 03:45.680] because if you for instance have an Android phone but you don't want to have an account [03:45.680 --> 03:53.440] with Google, then you basically cannot access these applications at all. [03:53.440 --> 04:02.720] Now let's keep that in mind, and now I will explain you what a pilot project is. [04:02.720 --> 04:10.640] So a pilot project in this EU terminology together with Preparatory Actions which is [04:10.640 --> 04:17.960] a follow-up to pilot projects, they are tools introduced in the EU budget that aim at testing [04:17.960 --> 04:24.920] new policy initiatives and preparing the ground for the adoption of future measures. [04:24.920 --> 04:28.560] Such pilot projects and Preparatory Actions give members of the European Parliament the [04:28.560 --> 04:33.600] possibility to initiate innovative policies and fund them in advance of a legal basis [04:33.600 --> 04:34.600] being set. [04:34.600 --> 04:35.600] What does it mean? [04:35.600 --> 04:41.000] That means that every member of the European Parliament has this opportunity to propose [04:41.000 --> 04:49.480] a project that they will ask a funding for from the EU budget, and if it gets approved [04:49.480 --> 04:53.800] as part of the EU budget, which means that the Commission needs to be on board, the Parliament [04:53.800 --> 04:59.760] needs to be on board, and the Council needs to be on board, then this project is started [04:59.760 --> 05:08.440] and then it's up to the Commission to deliver on that project as it was defined. [05:08.440 --> 05:16.280] The project can live for maximum two consecutive financial years and then it can be extended [05:16.280 --> 05:20.360] to a so-called Preparatory Action. [05:20.360 --> 05:28.240] Now that sounds great, what can we do with that? [05:28.240 --> 05:37.120] So what I have done is that I have tabled a pilot project that is called Demonopolised [05:37.120 --> 05:40.680] Access to EU Applications. [05:40.680 --> 05:47.880] In the past I have also tabled another pilot project that is currently in the making. [05:47.880 --> 05:55.400] So results are very much possible and should be expected. [05:55.400 --> 06:05.040] So what the pilot project speaks about, modern smartphone tablet and desktop environments [06:05.040 --> 06:11.560] have established marketplaces such as Google Play or Apple App Store for the installation [06:11.560 --> 06:13.600] of maintenance apps. [06:13.960 --> 06:18.960] These marketplaces offer convenient and curated apps that come at the cost of high barrier [06:18.960 --> 06:24.320] to entry on the market for smaller providers and less choice for consumers. [06:24.320 --> 06:35.360] Now the thing is that the European Union has already realized that reliance on large big [06:35.360 --> 06:42.520] tech corporations is a bad path forward and that's why the Commission proposed the Digital [06:42.520 --> 06:43.760] Markets Act. [06:43.760 --> 06:49.120] I worked on the Digital Markets Act as a shadow repertor and one of the provisions in the [06:49.120 --> 06:58.400] Digital Markets Act is that these so-called gatekeepers where Google and Apple definitely [06:58.400 --> 07:05.880] fall into the scope, they have to enable on their operating systems in the phones installation [07:05.880 --> 07:14.720] of applications from other sources than from the official app store which is not the case [07:14.720 --> 07:18.360] in iOS at this moment. [07:18.360 --> 07:26.040] And that provision basically enables using other repositories, it doesn't have to be [07:26.040 --> 07:33.760] a store but package repositories if you will, to install them on the phone and to use the [07:33.760 --> 07:40.480] applications from there that decreases the dependency on this big tech. [07:40.480 --> 07:48.560] But then I think again as I said the EU institutions should lead by example and therefore this [07:48.560 --> 08:00.360] project pilot project aims that the European Union uses other repositories such as Ifdroid [08:00.360 --> 08:12.240] to put the applications there so that they can be installed by the users from these let's [08:12.240 --> 08:19.840] say alternative app stores to use the EU terminology. [08:19.840 --> 08:27.640] Now the objectives from my perspective definitely is that the EU institutions should release [08:27.640 --> 08:33.320] their applications on various repositories that aim at promoting applications released [08:33.320 --> 08:40.400] under free and open source software licenses and of course releasing the source code then [08:40.400 --> 08:47.760] enables people to build, study, improve the application so basically use their rights [08:47.760 --> 08:58.120] that they are entitled to according to free software rules basically for freedoms. [08:58.120 --> 09:08.960] So this of course is a potential opportunity or these are potential opportunities for the [09:08.960 --> 09:17.560] free software community because who else than the free software community can help with [09:18.360 --> 09:23.160] releasing these applications into the free software domain. [09:23.160 --> 09:26.960] I'd like to remind that the implementation is done by the European Commission, not the [09:26.960 --> 09:29.480] European Parliament. [09:29.480 --> 09:37.320] The Commission's website for funding and tenders is over here and I believe that the Commission [09:37.320 --> 09:43.400] of course is not going to do everything by themselves so they are going to open tenders [09:43.400 --> 09:50.400] to deliver on this pilot project and here I need to say that there are some eligibility [09:50.400 --> 09:59.120] criteria and admissibility requirements such as and I quote from the Commission's rules [09:59.120 --> 10:03.840] that tenders must have the necessary technical, professional, economic and financial capacity [10:03.840 --> 10:09.280] to execute the contracts which in other words means well not every entity can actually be [10:09.280 --> 10:17.360] a tender but what is important is that joint tenders and subcontracting are also allowed [10:17.360 --> 10:25.120] which I believe can also enable the free software community to take part in that. [10:25.120 --> 10:32.800] That's all from my side, you can follow me on social networks, obligatory slide, but [10:32.800 --> 10:39.800] now I give the floor to Hans Christoph who can speak more from the developer's perspective. [10:49.560 --> 10:59.920] So I guess I can start with my personal experience of this, someone working in free software [11:00.040 --> 11:06.920] for almost 30 years, you know, the rise of the pirate party movement, something I felt [11:06.920 --> 11:16.640] very close to, but where I live it's not so much a thing and then out of the blue, I work [11:16.640 --> 11:20.960] on effedroid, out of the blue someone comes to our chat room and says oh did you know [11:20.960 --> 11:26.280] there's a pilot project in the EU budget that mentions effedroid and for me it was like [11:26.280 --> 11:31.680] okay whoa okay this is interesting and we look and it comes from of course also out [11:31.680 --> 11:39.720] of this feeling, you know suddenly it was a blast to the past of like this is what I [11:39.720 --> 11:44.160] want to see happen but it seems impossible and then here it is oh no this is political [11:44.160 --> 11:53.160] change coming through free software and pirate party, so I just want to thank you for that. [11:53.400 --> 11:56.760] My pleasure. [11:56.760 --> 12:07.760] So now to effedroid, I think we're talking about free software in the mobile sphere, [12:07.760 --> 12:11.520] I think that we can say that the effedroid community is one of the biggest forces pushing [12:11.520 --> 12:26.280] free software in the, I mean certainly the android ecosystem but maybe even beyond and [12:26.280 --> 12:31.840] we have gotten there because we have, we're this volunteer led organization where people [12:31.840 --> 12:38.520] come because they believe in free software and they want to use all their computers including [12:38.520 --> 12:44.880] their phones that's all free software and there's a lot of kind of thankless work where [12:44.880 --> 12:49.680] you know someone wrote their app and they say I think it's free software and then they [12:49.680 --> 12:56.640] submit it to us we review it and you say well actually you know the Google tools don't make [12:56.640 --> 13:00.720] it that easy to publish free software they make every step easy to like oh look at this [13:00.720 --> 13:05.640] lovely library just pull it in so easy put this line in and then you're tied into the [13:05.640 --> 13:13.480] proprietary ecosystem and so we're very often the people who have to say I'm sorry I know [13:13.480 --> 13:22.760] you tried but this unfortunately includes proprietary software. [13:22.760 --> 13:31.720] So this has I think been, I mean now we're done through you know starting out with much [13:31.760 --> 13:40.560] more volunteer apps small scale now after 12 years of doing this going on 13 we have you [13:40.560 --> 13:50.480] know well-known names in free software like NextCloud coming to us and relying on us to [13:50.480 --> 13:57.280] do this kind of review and then our other organizations which want to go through the [13:57.280 --> 14:08.600] process say okay we believe that our publishing free software will make our users trust us [14:08.600 --> 14:19.320] more and so we've had companies like Tutanota and Proton VPN go through this process where yeah [14:19.360 --> 14:27.880] it's a kind of a thankless tax but people now are willing to do it because of the four freedoms [14:27.880 --> 14:33.960] and because this question I think which doesn't come up that much in free software is this question [14:33.960 --> 14:42.400] of trust we now see that it's very easy to make software that does things transparently that [14:42.440 --> 14:49.240] we really don't like you know we can talk about tracking you can talk about you know software [14:49.240 --> 15:02.200] that's designed to be addictive and these kind of things and this this when we have free software [15:02.200 --> 15:08.960] then we have the possibility of actually having anyone we trust review it and say like this is [15:09.280 --> 15:15.400] doing something that you know this is this is checked out like this software is not doing [15:15.400 --> 15:20.760] anything that I would eject to we take the user's point of view say is this something that I want [15:20.760 --> 15:27.680] to use and if not we want to flag it and make sure that others who use it also are aware of the [15:27.680 --> 15:38.000] things and this in the nephroid terms is anti-features and now this to me is a very exciting [15:38.040 --> 15:46.080] opportunity to say okay like this is I live I live in the EU I'm a citizen of a country in the EU [15:46.080 --> 15:52.480] this is my government and I would like to do provide these services as well I mean and I'm [15:52.480 --> 16:01.280] strong believer of course in public money public code so yeah I feel very fortunate to be in this [16:01.280 --> 16:13.640] position and now we also I think I mean this may be this is purely my kind of feeling but a lot [16:13.640 --> 16:19.840] of people get involved in free software because they think that other avenues don't really work [16:19.840 --> 16:28.320] like government and I was kind of like that I guess as an activist it gave me an opportunity to do [16:28.360 --> 16:33.720] something alone starting out myself like this is wrong but I can do something just by myself but [16:33.720 --> 16:39.800] now after doing this stuff for long I see like but government can play a role and when it does it [16:39.800 --> 16:46.520] get the impact you can have is huge and so to bring these you know these are complicated processes to [16:46.520 --> 16:52.000] even learn about this EU pilot project but I hope that this really opens the door to lots of other [16:52.000 --> 16:57.360] projects to say like okay this is this is our government let's get involved let's see what we [16:57.360 --> 17:11.520] can do with it well so yeah what else can I say I think the last piece of this I mean to me this [17:11.520 --> 17:17.200] is a learning experience like how we're gonna engage with the European Commission are we gonna [17:17.200 --> 17:24.280] do just advise them in the process are we going to do public tender I'm very interested to see [17:24.280 --> 17:31.040] how it goes I'll try to also publish your blog post or something on what I can to so others can [17:31.040 --> 17:41.520] learn from this experience and then a simple ask from from everyone is you know what what [17:41.520 --> 17:47.960] of these please look at these apps that our government is producing and what's what's the [17:47.960 --> 17:52.520] ones that we you know we're doing a pilot project what's the ones that are most important I would [17:52.520 --> 17:58.720] love to have feedback on that I think with that I'll say thank you and I think we can take some [17:58.720 --> 18:12.960] questions okay we also have some time for questions so could you raise your hands then I collect and [18:13.760 --> 18:15.400] start we have one over there [18:15.400 --> 18:28.160] thank you for presentation I have a question about payments in the stores so as we know [18:28.160 --> 18:38.400] currently Apple and Google don't provide an alternative for okay currently as we know [18:39.000 --> 18:45.720] Google and Facebook don't provide the alternatives to payments as we have it in the web because in [18:45.720 --> 18:52.320] the web we have a lot of providers a lot of alternatives a lot of different ways to do the [18:52.320 --> 18:59.040] payments to roll back the payments and so on there are basically no quote unquote regulations [18:59.040 --> 19:05.080] but with this with the title of the topic I would like to raise also the question not about open [19:05.080 --> 19:11.160] stores but what if the EU applications would actually require some payment let's say we would [19:11.160 --> 19:19.720] like to pay for some for some unenforced unlawful behavior for our for our debts with government [19:19.720 --> 19:26.920] what what are you going to do then what if what if that happens maybe you then want to go into the [19:26.920 --> 19:34.680] payment route maybe fdroid would be able to well not not exactly only fdroid but maybe alternative [19:34.680 --> 19:42.360] stores should be able also to include the payment ecosystem or payment some something like that and [19:42.360 --> 19:50.240] not only not it doesn't only include the payments for you apps but if that would be possible maybe [19:50.240 --> 19:58.160] other apps could use alternative stores and also have payments which which are not subjected to [19:58.160 --> 20:04.720] oligopoly that we have or monopoly that we have currently from my perspective there is no [20:04.720 --> 20:12.720] neither technical nor a business reason why other stores could not be connected to payment systems [20:12.720 --> 20:18.320] and provide this functionality as well but maybe Hans Christoph wants to add something from a [20:18.320 --> 20:24.320] technical perspective but I don't see a reason why why why this this shouldn't be possible yeah [20:24.320 --> 20:28.400] there's definitely no technical reason why this should be totally possible but after it we've [20:28.400 --> 20:32.800] actually made that we're trying to stay out of that business because it's a very different business [20:32.800 --> 20:41.000] than free software okay also I would like to add on that one that this is also relevant to the [20:41.000 --> 20:47.560] digital markets act that I that I mentioned because one of the reasons why this provision about app [20:47.600 --> 20:59.640] stores is there is because there were past cases that basically anti-monopoly cases according to [20:59.640 --> 21:07.520] competition law where where companies were complaining that that Apple is abusing their [21:07.520 --> 21:13.800] position on the market to charge them 30% fee like Spotify versus Apple for instance so so this is [21:13.800 --> 21:23.720] definitely a very valid area that that something needs to be done about yeah so do I understand [21:23.720 --> 21:31.800] correctly that you're basically or is I'm practically screaming in the microphone well try again so [21:31.800 --> 21:43.400] do I understand correctly that the EU is embracing after it in this case the EU is what is like [21:43.440 --> 21:51.920] embracing the use of after it or or or totally a releasing after it or no no no no no yes yes [21:51.920 --> 22:07.360] the question is if if the EU is yeah embracing after it so no after this basically only an [22:07.400 --> 22:14.240] example in order to understand what is behind the idea of the pilot project nevertheless that's [22:14.240 --> 22:21.920] just an idea and it should be independent of anyone basically so so it would be up to the [22:21.920 --> 22:28.320] commission to assess which direction they want to go but apparently I mean we cannot we cannot [22:28.480 --> 22:37.320] avoid using the the the major free software repository for Android applications as an example [22:37.320 --> 22:50.640] I can add real quick maybe for the stream okay all right that I think relevant here is that free [22:51.000 --> 22:58.440] after it is all the free software needed to create create an app store so you know by [22:58.440 --> 23:03.280] decentralizing this you know maybe the EU is embracing free software in the sense of [23:03.280 --> 23:10.480] anyone can create their own app store and and but yes it's not an official like EU app store [23:10.480 --> 23:20.840] right very quickly I was told so you said the the goal of the pilot is kind of to test the [23:20.840 --> 23:27.600] waters for new policy new laws does that mean that your ultimate goal would be that something [23:27.600 --> 23:33.680] like this would be made mandatory for the European Union to publish their apps in asteroid or other [23:34.000 --> 23:43.360] open app repositories well that's not I don't think that at this moment we can put it like that the [23:43.360 --> 23:49.400] the tool the pilot project is not necessarily for legislation but it's also for let's say what the [23:49.400 --> 23:55.080] institutions should do so basically it's very clear that putting the applications not only on [23:55.080 --> 24:02.960] on Google Play and Apple App Store but also elsewhere will also cost some operational money so [24:03.000 --> 24:08.480] that's why we have this tool to actually allocate money in the budget give it a try and then at the [24:08.480 --> 24:13.280] end of the pilot project it will be evaluated how successful it was and then the Commission can [24:13.280 --> 24:19.320] of course make a permanent allocation in the budget to run it there's not necessarily a [24:19.320 --> 24:34.320] need for legislation at the end of the pilot project how can people try to make the pilot [24:34.320 --> 24:42.640] project succeed how can they help make it succeed the project right that's a very good [24:42.640 --> 24:50.920] question and that's basically the whole purpose of this talk so I would so I would recommend [24:50.920 --> 24:58.400] the follow the Commission's website there was a link and and see what the Commission is going to [24:58.400 --> 25:05.360] open as a tender and then basically anyone in the free software community can contribute as [25:05.360 --> 25:14.880] Hans Kristof said either by running for instance jointly in the tender or advising maybe in some [25:14.880 --> 25:24.480] you know side capacity to the to the Commission or being a subcontractor of the main tender so that [25:24.480 --> 25:32.560] that I think would be the main goal and I can visit the volunteer aspect like the list of apps [25:32.560 --> 25:40.480] is public you and you can go get these apps and you can try to review them yourself you can reach [25:40.480 --> 25:45.520] out to us we're happy to help people get started on what it takes to review apps so there's easy [25:45.520 --> 25:46.600] small steps you can take as well