If we could all have a moment of discovering our desks, and without further ado, may we
have a round of applause to welcome Johannes.
Thank you.
Yeah, thanks everybody for stopping by at the community, the room, or for staying here.
I'm glad to see so many of you.
Maybe some of you have seen this morning my colleague Lina's talk at the public code
dev room about the PMPC campaign in Europe.
So in my talk, I will focus more on the PMPC campaign and how you can get involved in it,
what you can do with it at your local level, at your region, in your country.
Yes, my name is Johannes Nader.
I'm working for the Free Software Foundation Europe, and for those who don't know us, the
Free Software Foundation Europe is a charity that empowers people, users to control technology.
As software is deeply involved in all our lives, it's important that it empowers us
rather than restricting us.
And we think that free software is crucial for that.
We've been around for more than 20 years, have been campaigning legally and politically
for free software and open source software, and we're relying on a strong community across
Europe.
So to give you a brief outline of my talk, first I'll talk about why does it make a difference,
why does free software really matter, not only for your daily coding work, for your daily
computer work, but also in building a sustainable and digital Europe that's ready for innovation
and freedom.
And a lot of the things that I'm going to tell you in the first part of my talk will
be familiar to you, but I think it's good to put it together so you can use it as arguments
when talking to your local administrations or to your politicians.
So in the second step, I will show the PMPC campaign to you, which has been, yeah, we
have been running it since 2017, and during last years it has gained a lot of momentum
and has become a key part of the push for free software all over Europe.
And the last part, which will be the main focus of my talk, is how you can get involved
in promoting free software.
So let me start with a brief explanation of free software.
I think definitions are important, and also if you talk to politicians and to administrations
always make sure that you have the same understanding of what you're talking about.
So I think you're all familiar with the U.S. military chain of commands, the Unified
Combat Commanders, the Secretary of Defense, and on top of the hierarchy, of course, we
have the President.
He's the one who has to decide to press the red button or hopefully not to press it.
But what about the guy, what about the girl or a woman, the person who installed the red
button?
Can we be sure that it does what it should, and can we be sure that it works only when
it's pushed?
This is of some importance for us too.
And this is one problem that free software can solve, but there are a lot of others.
So what is free software?
Free software grants everybody, everyone, for fundamental rights or for freedoms, the
freedoms to use, to study, to share, and to improve the software.
What does this mean?
You can use anybody.
Everyone can use the software for any purpose.
There are no restrictions.
You can do with it whatever you want.
You can look into the code, you can study it, and you can analyze it, and also others
can analyze it and find out what is going on behind the curtains.
You can share the code.
The software can be shared without limitations.
And of course, you can also earn money with it.
You don't have to sell it, but you can make money with it, depending on your business
model.
Many people do, many developers do that, and many companies.
And you can, of course, improve the software.
So to make it better, you can, of course, also make it worse, but hopefully make it
better and give it back to the community, so others can work on it too and use it too.
So why does free software matter to public bodies?
Why should public bodies support free software?
There are two fundamental maxims that are important for public bodies.
One of them is digital sovereignty.
So in order to establish trustworthy systems, public bodies must ensure that they have full
control over the software and the computer systems at the core of our state digital infrastructure.
This is very important.
And the other basic maxim is tax money must be spent in the most efficient way possible.
So public bodies are financed through taxes, they must make sure that they spend the funds
in the most efficient way possible.
And both maxims are undermined by the use of proprietary software.
So let's have a look at some of the problems with proprietary software.
First, there's no interoperability, so you all know situations where somebody sends
you a file made with a proprietary software and you have to buy the software in order
to open it or work with it or even buy a new computer, install a proprietary operating
system.
This, of course, also applies to administrations.
And it leads to a vendor lock-in.
So administrations have to stick to their software solution if they use proprietary
software not to lose compatibility, to be able to work together.
And this is a big problem and it leads to unpredictable costs.
You never know what next year's license cost will be.
You have to pay for the upgrade in any way.
You have to do it.
You lock in and you have no chance to escape that if you're using proprietary software.
And yeah, these investments that you are making, they are lost.
They go to the vendor for the license and you don't know if the software is made better
with your money or even not.
Maybe some features implemented you as an administration can't benefit from.
So you don't have much control over new features.
It's the vendor's decision.
There's lack of transparency.
We know from research and also from experience, for example during the COVID pandemic, that
there's low acceptance among citizens for proprietary digital services.
So for example, the COVID tracking apps, we know that people respond better to them
and tend to using them more if they are open software, free software, open source.
And if they know that their privacy, their fundamental rights and data protection also
are guaranteed.
And this leads also to the last point, security concerns.
Trust is good.
Trusting proprietary software can be dangerous.
You never can show that there aren't any bugs, aren't any security holes or backdoors.
So the solution for all of this is, of course, free software.
With free software, you have interoperability through open standards.
Free software and open standards are crucial for that and crucial for working across borders
or across systems from other vendors.
Free licenses give you independence.
There is no vendor lock-in.
Administrations are free to move to different solutions.
And you can also, in the long run, save costs by using free software through collaboration.
So free software, as we all know, is based on collaboration.
Public bodies will benefit from this if they adapt existing software or decide on joint
procurement.
For example, they can share risks and save money in the long run.
And more and more examples for this kind of cooperation exist.
I will come back with some examples a bit later.
If you, as an administration, as a local government, are using free software, you can empower your
local partners.
You can, if you opt for free software, empower local IT companies instead of paying license
fees to international or transnational corporations.
And your local economy will benefit from this tax money.
It will often be small and medium enterprises, SMEs.
This makes a huge difference for your region, for your city, for your, yeah, for your country
and the citizens.
Free software is transparent by default.
This validates privacy, full data protection and fundamental rights.
And as I said, this is key to a higher acceptance by the citizens.
And finally, free software code, as we all know, can be audited.
We can look into it.
Of course, it's not automatically free of bucks.
And security problems, but publicly verifiable code, is a prerequisite for finding these
bucks and security problems and not leaving the security of critical infrastructures to
proprietary companies.
So let's have a look at, yeah, government's effect on IT companies.
Which effect can a free software policy have on the IT industry?
Governments are among the largest, the largest IT purchases accounting for up to 27% of software
companies' revenues.
If we convince governments to spend money on free software rather than licenses, this
can really make a huge difference for the whole IT economics.
And we have a huge influence on economy, especially SMEs again, and your local economy.
Given these numbers, what if public bodies decide on free software when procuring?
What if free software becomes default locally, regionally, but also in your country or throughout
Europe?
First, as we said, that tax savings, similar applications, don't have to be programmed from
the scratch every time.
So tax savings in the long run.
If you can use software, apart from other projects, improve and adapt it, share and
give back so others can do the same.
Second, there's collaboration.
Major projects can share expertise and costs.
Third, you serve the public by using free software, so applications paid by the public
should be available to everyone.
And lastly, fostering innovation.
If you, yeah, with transparent processes, others don't have to reinvent the wheel and
you can use brands and money to invent something new, to come up with new solutions and new
ideas.
Instead of funding the same corporations for the same products again and again, and again
SMEs can benefit from this.
So let's have a look at some examples.
France, for example, implemented a free software-friendly policy for steps in that direction back in 2012.
And what happened?
In France, we saw up to 5.4 yearly increase in companies that use free software.
We saw up to 18% yearly increase in the number of IT-related startups.
Up to 14% yearly increase in the number of individuals employed in IT-related jobs.
This is very impressive, I think.
And interesting side note, also up to 16% less software-related patents.
So yeah, if you, as a government opt for free software, you can really make a difference
also for your economy.
And some more examples, looking at the city of Barcelona, which is a very famous example
for the implementation of free software.
They decided some years ago to spend 70% of their IT budget on free software projects.
It's not everything, it's not 100%, but it's better and a lot better than nothing.
And they decided to collaborate with other cities.
What happened, from 3,000 companies involved in the local IT business, 60% were SMEs.
Many from the region, of course.
So the reasons for using free software in your administration, in your region, are not
only technical, it's not only sovereignty, tax efficiency, but there are also good economic
reasons to do so.
And this is very interesting for politicians, of course.
So Barcelona took a very important decision.
They decided not to switch all systems at the same time, but one step by step.
We know from other examples, from Munich, for example, with the Linux project that they
decided to do a really fast change to free software to Linux in their administration.
And it wasn't well accepted by many people working there, and it led to complexities.
So we think the better idea is to do it step by step.
So whenever new software is procured, go for free software, whenever a license runs out,
go for free software.
And one other example, this time from Germany, there's a collaboration of nine municipalities
from southern Germany.
They call themselves Ready, and they decided to develop solutions together.
So the starting point was during the COVID crisis, when they started using a JITSI implementation,
called it Palim Palim, and they found it to be very useful for doing library lectures
online, and other cities found it to be also very fitting their needs, and they decided
to collaborate and exchange knowledge and work together on this and also on many other
projects.
So to kind of actually start, why should administration support free software, regionality, autonomy,
efficiency?
Regional SMEs can become strong partners, free software heads to develop and maintain
tailored software that suits your needs, not just the vendor's business model, and with
transparent processes, others don't have to reinvent the wheel.
Major projects can share expertise and costs.
Yes, of course, I gave you some examples, but there are many, many hundreds, thousands
of cities throughout Europe who have not yet adapted free software.
This is why we as the FSFE, Free Software Foundation Europe, decided back in 2017 to
start the public money, public code campaign, and we have a long way to go.
This is why we started this campaign.
Our goal is to make free software the default in all public bodies at all levels across
Europe and maybe also outside Europe, but for now across Europe.
This is why we started the campaign demanding to use taxpayers' money only for free software.
The mission statement that we have here is very easy.
We want legislation requiring that publicly financed software developed for the public
sector may be publicly available under free and open source software license.
If it is public money, it should be public code as well.
We have an open letter.
You can find it on this website, publiccode.eu.
If you haven't signed it yet, you can do so now.
There are already 34,000 people until now who have signed this letter and not only individuals,
but also many organizations have decided to support our campaign.
I think it's, yesterday I checked, it was 220 organizations throughout Europe backing
our campaign and you will know many of the logos here, so many organizations backed the
public money, public code demand.
And among them are also some administrations, some supporting administrations.
Barcelona, I already mentioned, here I think I have only six, it's seven by now.
They are from Spain, from Germany, from Sweden and Luxembourg.
Yes, but thousands haven't made their commitment yet.
Many have a positive attitude towards free software.
We saw that three weeks ago we had an online event on the current situation in Dortmund,
in Germany, where pro-free software policy is just being implemented and there were,
I think, about 170 people joining in the event and there were administrations all over Germany.
So not only from Dortmund, but interest is there in many, many administrations, not only
in Germany, all over Europe.
They're interested, they need encouragement, they need good arguments, and they need a
good idea of how to start, and this is why we'd like to invite you to help.
You can make a difference, you know your city and your region, and if you start an initiative
coming up to your politicians with ideas and with demands, they will take you more seriously
because it's their job, you are the citizens.
So what can you do?
With a campaign we developed some tools for you, you can use.
I already talked about the open letter.
By the way, have you signed it?
I think everybody has now.
Yes?
I just tried to sign it, it results in a 404.
I will try it more and more.
Okay, this goes directly to our tech admins, but thank you for the effort.
It is out there in 22 languages, the open letter and also the website.
Take it once we fix the form, send it to your local administrations, send it to your city
councils, send it to your members of parliament and ask them to sign it to this demand.
Or even better or in the next step, make an appointment and talk to them about PMPC, explain
them the idea of free software, explain them the idea of public money, public code and
tell them about the open letter.
We have a for sure, it's this one, 30 pages, gathering the above mentioned arguments, the
best practices that we have and ideas of how to start and giving them good arguments for
public money, public code.
With this we are targeting experts from administrations, also politicians, but also you, it can help
you with finding good examples and good reasons for public money, public code to come up with.
I think at the moment we have it in six languages, there are more to come, also here if you want
to help translating something, just come up to us, we always need help in translating
our campaigns to different languages.
We have many stickers, we have postcards, order them for free at our website, fsfe.org,
or come up to our booth after this talk, it's in the Cade building and get some there.
We also have a campaign video, I wanted to show it but I think there's no time left now.
So you can find it on our website too, on the public code website.
You have 10 minutes if you like to show the video.
I will use that better than for the video, or maybe in the end.
And the video I think is also out in about 10 languages, so you can use it for your regional
and country.
So if you want to contribute to the campaign, where can you start?
You can of course focus on the national or international level, but you have to be aware
that there's a long way to go and a lot of work.
So if you have a long breath and same power, then go for it.
But there are other levels to start with, you can, for example, your university, or you
can talk to your library, your local job agency, or the school administration where
during the COVID, again the COVID pandemic, everybody started to use Zoom or Google Teams
or something like that, Microsoft Teams, yeah.
And now maybe the next invoices for the next license are already on the table of the head
of the department, or they see that they need something more sustainable, or they are even
not really aware that there is something else like Big Blue Button or GC.
So go to them and tell them.
So acting on a local or regional level will be easier, and success there will be a lower
hanging fruit for you.
Who can you reach out to?
Who can you approach?
Of course decision makers, so your city council, regional parliament, it makes sense though
to talk to people from different institutions, so also from different parties, and maybe
also to an admin from your IT apartment, you might even find allies there who share the
same view and help you.
Don't be afraid of talking to people who might not share your views or to a party you're
not leaning towards.
Reach out, meet, talk, be friendly, even if they don't support you at first, you don't
have anything to lose.
You can just win.
In the long run, you will maybe even change their minds.
So really try to talk to everybody, not just to the persons you know that they are probably
already convinced of public money, public code.
What can you do?
So how?
Use the definitions, the examples, and arguments I was talking about before.
Read out for sure for more information on that.
Adapt your examples.
This is very important.
So if you're from Spain and you want to talk to a Spanish government, then maybe use the
numbers from Barcelona or from Asturias, better than from France or vice versa.
Choose your arguments wisely.
So if you're talking to somebody from a left-leaning party, maybe it's not so good to emphasize
the economic arguments but more sustainability and empowering the people.
If you're talking to someone from a liberal party or leaning towards the liberal side,
economic is of course good.
And conservative parties might be more interested in national sovereignty and how it is threatened
by vendor lock-in and free softwares, of course, the gold standard in security.
And most important thing, even if you don't have success at the moment, remain friendly.
So an example, what you can achieve, again from Germany, CDU is the biggest conservative
party in Germany and back in 2019, they decided to back our demand for public money, public
code.
This is also possible.
And of course, don't hesitate to welcome such decisions.
It's important to convince everybody of free software because it's making us as a community
independent from who is having the government at the moment.
And finally, when, so timing matters, what could, well, I was a bit fast, yeah, when,
timing matters for your activities, keep your eyes open for relevant developments in your
region.
Are there any news about plans for a new IT strategy?
Is there a new head of the IT department?
Are there problems with school video conferencing tools?
Don't miss these opportunities.
Step in and talk about the best alternatives.
But also don't wait for things to happen.
Don't wait for such occasions, rather be proactive, writing or talking is never wrong.
Keep in mind, if you do that, answers will take time.
Be patient, maybe write a friendly reminder after some weeks when you didn't get an answer.
And after an appointment, be sure to always follow up and keep the communication going.
Be always friendly.
Very, very important, I said that before, because angry tweets or toots will close doors rather
than opening it.
So finally, one more example, again from Spain, so very, Spain and Germany focused here.
Yeah, we, this time from Orviedo, it's a community in the region of Asturias.
Maybe somebody, the picture is also in the room, I don't know.
There was a little hack lab, the pica-pica hack lab, and they decided back in 2015 to
start demanding public money, public code from their local authorities.
And they didn't have success at first, but then they got into contact with our campaign
and they used our materials and they really had a, yeah, had a long breath reaching out
to communities and used these arguments to all parties, towards all parties, and convinced
many people.
They wrote emails and they managed to get face-to-face meetings, which is very important
if you reach out to politicians and they had a little social hack.
So once you're inside the parliament, you have to get inside somehow and people, somebody
has to let you in.
But once you're inside, you can just knock doors and doors will open.
So find somebody who lets you in the parliament.
So what they managed to do is the parliament of Asturias, of the bigger region in Spain,
stating the parliament of Asturias commits itself to the international public money,
public code campaign.
This is not legally binding, but it's a first step and what is also really, really important
people now there understand free software, the politicians.
What does success mean for your approaches?
So if you can get somebody to sign the letter, if you can get a government to sign the letter
or parliament, this is of course really, really good.
But don't be frustrated if a library board decides against free software or if the city
council PMPC statement has loopholes or things move slowly in administrations, sometimes
you really need to have a long breath.
But you've talked and you've convinced someone and we have time, we have a long breath and
we will finally succeed.
So that was the main thing of my talk.
Finally if you want, you can come up to our booth at a set in Building K, level one, just
take some material there and also if you want to support the FSFE's work, you can do that
with a donation.
We would be very grateful for that because we're charity and we depend on donations and
you have the chance also to get your copy of this really lovely children's book which
explains the idea behind free software to children.
So thank you for listening and yes, I'm open for your questions.
We have time for one question and I have seen one hand, excellent.
Maybe two questions if people speak quickly.
Yeah, I think that's, it did not come out from your talk if there's public money, public
codes, this means they save a lot of money if they now choose open source software, how
much developer do they hire?
Do they do audits or it says now just all the open source software projects have much
more users which are not developer?
The open source projects have now much more users and these users have ideas and maybe
find bugs but the amount of developers seems not to increase or who does the audits for
the software that the public domains are using now, is this also in your plan from the free
software foundation just to save some money?
For what?
Yeah, the question is to say these companies, public companies, public money and use public
codes.
So they save a lot of money, they say hire any open source developer and so the idea is
to say audits, who has the work?
The idea is of course not to take away the money from the companies, the idea is of course
that the money is used in a better way and we all know that software developers have
to be paid somehow but it should be rather through maintenance fees and through development
of new features or audits than through your license fees and this is what we also try
with this campaign to tell them.
Okay, so only one question.
It is only one question, yeah.
Building K for more wonderful people.
Yeah.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.