A great article by @APC looking back at @NGIZero and software and community sustainability in #FOSS
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A great article by @APC looking back at @NGIZero and software and community sustainability in #FOSS
"So, rather than begin our discussion with questions such as: “How can we democratise FLOSS services and/or FLOSS research and development?”, we should ask ourselves: "What sort of working conditions would serve the needs of actual communities and societies?" Another important question is: where do discussions about the future of FLOSS take place, and who can join them? "
Communicating a free internet of the future
Since July 2024, we have been publishing interviews in our series, “Building a Free Internet of the Future”, speaking to people who have received grants from the European Next Generation Internet Zero (NGI0) programme, as well as talking to those working in the consortium that runs it. With funding from the European Commission, NGI0 supports open source, open data, open hardware and open standards projects – both financially and in a myriad of practical ways, including mentoring, testing, security tests, accessibility, dissemination and so on.The underlying idea for the Building a Free Internet of the Future series was for us to play a role in promoting both the NGI0 cascade funding programme and the emerging projects that benefit from its support. Since 2019, NGI0 has distributed more than 1,500 grants, with some projects receiving funding multiple times for different technical developments. There are other concomitant spaces where voices from NGI0 express themselves on various platforms, such as the NGI0 podcast or through regional representatives from nine countries and their social media accounts. The series, which I would describe as a veritable grove in this programme bush, has 20 interviews to date. Through it, we chose to create a space where multiple voices could discuss and reveal various approaches, highlighting the diverse concerns that make up the jumble that is NGI0 for those outside the project. We have also tried to be consistent with our idea of explaining what is being done in NGI0 and to enable other groups grasp what is going on in the projects that have received the grants. This includes those outside Europe – a reminder that NGI0 applications are open to individuals and organisations both in Europe and outside of it.In this article, I would like to share some reflections from these discussions and meetings.Encouraging dialogue within the European FLOSS tech landscape and beyondNGI0 is a European project, but it is open to participants from outside Europe. But Europe is beset by inequality: genre, gender, ethnicity, age, geography, ableism, religion, etc. Admittedly, there are variations in the severity of these inequalities between countries; also admittedly, there are initiatives at various levels and on various scales to mitigate these inequalities. Free and open source technology and the social groups that produce labour are no exception to this architecture. So, rather than begin our discussion with questions such as: “How can we democratise FLOSS services and/or FLOSS research and development?”, we should ask ourselves: "What sort of working conditions would serve the needs of actual communities and societies?" Another important question is: where do discussions about the future of FLOSS take place, and who can join them? For over two decades in Brussels, every year between late January and early February, thousands of people from the tech world have the privilege of converging on the Belgian capital and meeting at various events: FOSSDEM, EU Open Source Policy Summit, and EU Open Source Week, among others.From the vice-president of the European Commission for Technological Sovereignty, Security and Democracy (the EU's digital minister) to freelance developers, SMEs, larger companies and NGOs, this is a pivotal moment for meetings and announcements concerning free and open source technologies and political programmes. Over the years, I have met people there, including interviewees for our series, Building a Free Internet of the Future.Obviously the FLOSS technology scene and people exist outside Brussels, and in greater diversities and gatherings elsewhere. The Global Gathering in Estoril, Portugal, is one such event, and I, along with others, shared some feedback on it with NGI0 included. You may also consider events in Turkey, Cyprus, Slovenia, Greece, Poland, Ukraine, Moldova, Croatia and other regional representatives.But the annual grand rush of European open source is a “big club”, and if you ain't in it, then maybe you might like to engage in discussion in our series – and I sincerely invite you to do so.Communication is one of the layers in technology stacks and is enabled by tools that allow us to interact with each other. But taking it further, where can we work together? We can start by discussing what would benefit communities and society at large, and then consciously demonstrate what has been built in this sense. It is from this perspective, among others, that I reflect here and now on the Building a Free Internet of the Future series. And it is from this perspective I would like to invite people to come aboard for discussions with me. Seeding the ground for the futureNGI0 is contributing to a world that is a little less centralised and more open, with technological means that hold the promise of empowerment and emancipation.However, there is still a huge amount of work to be done on issues such as diversity, accessibility (see the Diversity and Inclusion Guide by Maja Kraljic, APC.), and inclusion, which must be continued and, above all, geared toward the post-NGI0 future. This means addressing questions and issues regarding the means of production and maintenance of technology, and other backend operations that are not very visible. A column published with questions and answers is one way to do this. Esther Payne, a community manager and privacy advocate at Librecast, told us in 2024: “The code we create and the tools we use can help or harm humanity. We write our political values into our code”. It is Esther again, this time elsewhere, who puts it so well: “We didn't realise that rather than a market garden, we have wandered into a different bounded realm,” in Digital Poppets – How the Modern Fae Hold Power Over You. She describes the current “realm” of trade and labour, often unpaid, in the age of globalised digital technology, where the rules are set by Big Tech and we do not really appreciate the price we pay at every moment, both for having a (false) sense of ease and for providing Big Tech with the fruits of our labour for free and without our real consent.“Digital poppets can be used to deny us healthcare. Digital poppets can be used to target us, so that we persuade other people on behalf of the Fae to undermine our democracies.”– Esther PayneFor free software to exist, it is necessary to ensure that the individuals and groups who contribute to it through various activities (maintenance, use, communication, promotion, legal assistance, security, dismantling − a task very often entrusted to highly invisible people − etc.) are also part of a system that allows them to pay for their basic daily needs. And that diversity with inclusion is also effective for these individuals and groups. To continue the metaphor, we must take care of our vegetable gardens, our bushes, our fields of flowers, our forests where we cultivate our rights, our hopes, our promises and our technologies; where the means to take care of ourselves flourish and blossom. We deserve infrastructures-done-differently that are re-humanised infrastructures. In the need for transparency, explanation, communication to others and material to understand what is at stake, we must make an effort to communicate using various forms (documentation, archiving, storytelling, reports, case studies, interviews, etc.). Let me tell you a little story about communication and dissemination. In 1936, an Irish teenager, Brendan Behan, wrote a lament entitled The Laughing Boy for his mother, who adored the independence leader Michael Collins. This song has “travelled”, which often happens with content, and then it was translated − as it can happen sometimes with content. Across seas and mountains, across decades and cultures, this lament became To Gelasto Paidi (Το Γελαστό Παιδί), a powerful anthem of resistance to the dictatorship that ruled Greece in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was translated into the Greek by the poet Vassilis Rotas and revolutionary student activists sang it until the end of the colonels' regime in 1974.My point here is that Building a Free Internet of the Future is not just a series of promotions and dissemination of the EU NGI0 programme. It is one of the spaces where important passionate expressions of demands, rights to be asserted, knowledge, and experiences can be said and written, which can then be shared, debated, translated, reused and adapted.In the FLOSS tech scene, the people and organisations, grantees of NGI0, are a group of workers who produce value. Such an ensemble needs a means of communication to express itself and make itself heard and understood.“I think it all boils down to one thing: giving control back to people.”− Pouhiou in PeerTube, a network of independent, self-managed and interconnectable platformsXavier Coadic is a consultant for the NGI0 consortium, and a free/libre open source software activist with 15 years of experience in free open source cultures and communities (software, data hardware, wetware, policy makers and political groups, research and development).
Association for Progressive Communications (www.apc.org)
@onepict @APC @NGIZero Anyone can join them. Anyone can start new conversations.
My personal take is that we need to rally around a core set of values that sets out the principles of post-FLOSS, and we actually have those already. You start from human rights.
When you do, you quickly find that the OSD is flawed. It's a compromise for sure, but its "any use" policy includes "may be used to violate human rights", which frankly is not good enough.
You also quickly find that protection of...
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@onepict @APC @NGIZero Anyone can join them. Anyone can start new conversations.
My personal take is that we need to rally around a core set of values that sets out the principles of post-FLOSS, and we actually have those already. You start from human rights.
When you do, you quickly find that the OSD is flawed. It's a compromise for sure, but its "any use" policy includes "may be used to violate human rights", which frankly is not good enough.
You also quickly find that protection of...
@onepict @APC @NGIZero ... the commons is not sufficiently covered.
Enclosure is somewhat addressed in copyleft, but leaves massive loopholes. And extraction is actively encouraged, it seems, through the insistence of the blanket "any use" principle.
A human rights first, commons oriented movement is what is required.
Quite a few folk here understand this, but the vast majority seems to be struggling with those concepts. But there is your future of FLOSS.
Anything less won't cut it.
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@onepict @APC @NGIZero ... the commons is not sufficiently covered.
Enclosure is somewhat addressed in copyleft, but leaves massive loopholes. And extraction is actively encouraged, it seems, through the insistence of the blanket "any use" principle.
A human rights first, commons oriented movement is what is required.
Quite a few folk here understand this, but the vast majority seems to be struggling with those concepts. But there is your future of FLOSS.
Anything less won't cut it.
@onepict @APC @NGIZero The hack of copyleft, cute as it is, is a hack - by the best definition of it. It tries to use the weapons of license restrictions against those who wish to enrich themselves via license restrictions.
That's fine, but our problem tend to consist of constraints similar to copyright, which work against the spirit of maintaining a commons - make such things unnecessarily hard.
From questions of "ownership" of IP, via establishing organising entities, entering contracts...
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@onepict @APC @NGIZero ... the commons is not sufficiently covered.
Enclosure is somewhat addressed in copyleft, but leaves massive loopholes. And extraction is actively encouraged, it seems, through the insistence of the blanket "any use" principle.
A human rights first, commons oriented movement is what is required.
Quite a few folk here understand this, but the vast majority seems to be struggling with those concepts. But there is your future of FLOSS.
Anything less won't cut it.
@jens I think it's hard for folks to understand what the harms are, I'm quoted:
" [.]in Digital Poppets – How the Modern Fae Hold Power Over You. She describes the current “realm” of trade and labour, often unpaid, in the age of globalised digital technology, where the rules are set by Big Tech and we do not really appreciate the price we pay at every moment, both for having a (false) sense of ease and for providing Big Tech with the fruits of our labour for free and without our real consent."
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@onepict @APC @NGIZero The hack of copyleft, cute as it is, is a hack - by the best definition of it. It tries to use the weapons of license restrictions against those who wish to enrich themselves via license restrictions.
That's fine, but our problem tend to consist of constraints similar to copyright, which work against the spirit of maintaining a commons - make such things unnecessarily hard.
From questions of "ownership" of IP, via establishing organising entities, entering contracts...
@onepict @APC @NGIZero ... that might enable sustainable development, let alone the question of taxation for donations towards public interest work: all that is unnecessarily complex, because at their core, all those regulations are also hacks.
They're hacks of a regulatory framework that at its core - falsely - assumes that "commercial activity" is the rule, and commons tending the exception.
Nothing could be more unnatural to human beings.
The opposite is the case, that we engage in...
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@jens I think it's hard for folks to understand what the harms are, I'm quoted:
" [.]in Digital Poppets – How the Modern Fae Hold Power Over You. She describes the current “realm” of trade and labour, often unpaid, in the age of globalised digital technology, where the rules are set by Big Tech and we do not really appreciate the price we pay at every moment, both for having a (false) sense of ease and for providing Big Tech with the fruits of our labour for free and without our real consent."
@jens Big tech very much is a part of FLOSS now, in the recent Python Documentary, I found it informative just how much resource Facebook put into working with the language.
There's a lot of who didn't realise the Faustian bargain we made.
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@onepict @APC @NGIZero ... that might enable sustainable development, let alone the question of taxation for donations towards public interest work: all that is unnecessarily complex, because at their core, all those regulations are also hacks.
They're hacks of a regulatory framework that at its core - falsely - assumes that "commercial activity" is the rule, and commons tending the exception.
Nothing could be more unnatural to human beings.
The opposite is the case, that we engage in...
@onepict @APC @NGIZero ... commercial activity - hold down jobs - because commons tending needs to either fly under the radar (fully legal stuff: I bake a cake and invite my neighbours, for example), or disguise itself as commercial activity via hacks.
Because commons tending as a primary activity is not imaginable nor imagined by law.
So what the future of FLOSS needs to do in the short term is to commoditize those hacks that make the disguise work, to enable much easier access to them.
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@jens I think it's hard for folks to understand what the harms are, I'm quoted:
" [.]in Digital Poppets – How the Modern Fae Hold Power Over You. She describes the current “realm” of trade and labour, often unpaid, in the age of globalised digital technology, where the rules are set by Big Tech and we do not really appreciate the price we pay at every moment, both for having a (false) sense of ease and for providing Big Tech with the fruits of our labour for free and without our real consent."
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@onepict @APC @NGIZero ... commercial activity - hold down jobs - because commons tending needs to either fly under the radar (fully legal stuff: I bake a cake and invite my neighbours, for example), or disguise itself as commercial activity via hacks.
Because commons tending as a primary activity is not imaginable nor imagined by law.
So what the future of FLOSS needs to do in the short term is to commoditize those hacks that make the disguise work, to enable much easier access to them.
@jens I think you've the kernel of a blog post there Jens.
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@onepict @APC @NGIZero ... commercial activity - hold down jobs - because commons tending needs to either fly under the radar (fully legal stuff: I bake a cake and invite my neighbours, for example), or disguise itself as commercial activity via hacks.
Because commons tending as a primary activity is not imaginable nor imagined by law.
So what the future of FLOSS needs to do in the short term is to commoditize those hacks that make the disguise work, to enable much easier access to them.
@onepict @APC @NGIZero And in the long term, the position in law has to shift. Commons tending as a primary activity for people to support a decent life needs to be enshrined, and commercial activity needs to become an unapologetically supportive role in this.
Politics. Can't pretend to keep it out of FLOSS.
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@jens I think you've the kernel of a blog post there Jens.
@onepict I know! And finally it's not directly a rant about AI slop
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@onepict @APC @NGIZero ... commercial activity - hold down jobs - because commons tending needs to either fly under the radar (fully legal stuff: I bake a cake and invite my neighbours, for example), or disguise itself as commercial activity via hacks.
Because commons tending as a primary activity is not imaginable nor imagined by law.
So what the future of FLOSS needs to do in the short term is to commoditize those hacks that make the disguise work, to enable much easier access to them.
I wholeheartedly agree, of course, as we have discussed these matters at length in the past on Social coding commons channels.
The most interesting part starts directly after the "what [we] need to do" i.e. after defining the SX solution on a sticky note, in Social experience design terminology.
We know generally very well what we ought to do at scale, as a movement, and we try to deduce what we can do as individuals to move in that general direction.
Our challenge then shifts, and the wicked problem becomes one of prolonged coordination between many people in an utterly chaotic commons, on operational, tactical, and strategic levels. The struggle isn't grasping the concept, but picturing how to get to that desirable future state. Paving the path to a solution, and walking it.
This is where SX focuses, and unique oppprtunities exist on the intersection of social networking technologies, sustainable FOSS (i.e. SOSS), and chaordic commons organization.
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@onepict @APC @NGIZero ... the commons is not sufficiently covered.
Enclosure is somewhat addressed in copyleft, but leaves massive loopholes. And extraction is actively encouraged, it seems, through the insistence of the blanket "any use" principle.
A human rights first, commons oriented movement is what is required.
Quite a few folk here understand this, but the vast majority seems to be struggling with those concepts. But there is your future of FLOSS.
Anything less won't cut it.
@jens @onepict @APC @NGIZero
People treat the "for any purpose"/freedom 0 requirement of free/open software definitions with near *biblical* reverence. But it is arguably anti-labor to require allowing corporate exploitation, apart from numerous other wrongs.I think one of the biggest questions is how do we move to more ethical licensing while preserving at least some of the broad license compatibility we enjoy today.
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@jens @onepict @APC @NGIZero
People treat the "for any purpose"/freedom 0 requirement of free/open software definitions with near *biblical* reverence. But it is arguably anti-labor to require allowing corporate exploitation, apart from numerous other wrongs.I think one of the biggest questions is how do we move to more ethical licensing while preserving at least some of the broad license compatibility we enjoy today.
@jens @onepict @APC @NGIZero I find no inherent problem, ethically, with SSPL but it is fair to admit that if you have an SSPL-licensed component involved you have fun and exciting license compatibility concerns if you need to combine it with any other licenses. You can sort of assume it's "like AGPL as long as you don't sell that software as a service" in practice but the line is fuzzy.
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@jens @onepict @APC @NGIZero I find no inherent problem, ethically, with SSPL but it is fair to admit that if you have an SSPL-licensed component involved you have fun and exciting license compatibility concerns if you need to combine it with any other licenses. You can sort of assume it's "like AGPL as long as you don't sell that software as a service" in practice but the line is fuzzy.
@ocdtrekkie @jens @onepict @APC @NGIZero
Imho the biggest 'mistake' is in how we generally treat FOSS-the-software and FOSS-the-movement of its creators as one and the same, leaning way too heavily on licensing of the software as the sole tool to assure the sustainability of participants in the movement.
"Ethical licensing" is a fundamentally weird concept, if you come to think of it, yet we discuss it because of this dogmatic license focus.
If one wants to conduct ethical sustainable business, we choose partners that align to our values, and we address externalities of our work. That last bit also involves not delivering our goods to the bad actors.
In FOSS the whole working-in-public paradigm has cultist proportions and imho has serious ethical flaws to which the people involved are myopic.
https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116316524763055082
Yes, by all means lets take licenses as a tool. But let us not by default also deliver the Ring of Power at Sauron's doorstep.
We need a commons-based value economy.
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@ocdtrekkie @jens @onepict @APC @NGIZero
Imho the biggest 'mistake' is in how we generally treat FOSS-the-software and FOSS-the-movement of its creators as one and the same, leaning way too heavily on licensing of the software as the sole tool to assure the sustainability of participants in the movement.
"Ethical licensing" is a fundamentally weird concept, if you come to think of it, yet we discuss it because of this dogmatic license focus.
If one wants to conduct ethical sustainable business, we choose partners that align to our values, and we address externalities of our work. That last bit also involves not delivering our goods to the bad actors.
In FOSS the whole working-in-public paradigm has cultist proportions and imho has serious ethical flaws to which the people involved are myopic.
https://social.coop/@smallcircles/116316524763055082
Yes, by all means lets take licenses as a tool. But let us not by default also deliver the Ring of Power at Sauron's doorstep.
We need a commons-based value economy.
@smallcircles @ocdtrekkie @jens @APC @NGIZero
Yeah we do need a commons based ecosystem, but that does also mean being open about our values and recognition of when perhaps they are utterly incompatible.
See for example Framework (hardware) and the desire of its founders to have a "big tent" for it's community, to justify it's support of DHH and Omarchy.
We can't expect licenses to fix that, nor can we expand the conversation to folks on the sharp edges of society if we aren't explicit.
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@smallcircles @ocdtrekkie @jens @APC @NGIZero
Yeah we do need a commons based ecosystem, but that does also mean being open about our values and recognition of when perhaps they are utterly incompatible.
See for example Framework (hardware) and the desire of its founders to have a "big tent" for it's community, to justify it's support of DHH and Omarchy.
We can't expect licenses to fix that, nor can we expand the conversation to folks on the sharp edges of society if we aren't explicit.
@smallcircles @ocdtrekkie @jens @APC @NGIZero This is where choosing a certain kind of licence is part of that. How often are projects advised or think choosing MIT over the GPL to appeal to corporate?
In the same way as we must be explicit in our values and understand we can't and shouldn't try to appeal to everyone. After all we're on here because we are trying to create new spaces for this conversation to happen.
But more than one space can and should exist.
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@smallcircles @ocdtrekkie @jens @APC @NGIZero This is where choosing a certain kind of licence is part of that. How often are projects advised or think choosing MIT over the GPL to appeal to corporate?
In the same way as we must be explicit in our values and understand we can't and shouldn't try to appeal to everyone. After all we're on here because we are trying to create new spaces for this conversation to happen.
But more than one space can and should exist.
@onepict @smallcircles @ocdtrekkie @APC @NGIZero I've also been on the corporate side of FLOSS licensing more than once, and I think a fair few licenses don't actually serve businesses all *that* well.
Nor does SPDX's license list, FWIW.
Though CC doesn't apply well to code, at least the CC framework is very explicit about what your rights and obligations under a license are. Other licenses need to be analyzed to arrive at the same understanding. That alone is a major hurdle to clear.
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@onepict @smallcircles @ocdtrekkie @APC @NGIZero I've also been on the corporate side of FLOSS licensing more than once, and I think a fair few licenses don't actually serve businesses all *that* well.
Nor does SPDX's license list, FWIW.
Though CC doesn't apply well to code, at least the CC framework is very explicit about what your rights and obligations under a license are. Other licenses need to be analyzed to arrive at the same understanding. That alone is a major hurdle to clear.
@onepict @smallcircles @ocdtrekkie @APC @NGIZero But I agree fully that it should not start with the license, but with a set of shared values, which would be similar to, but ultimately incompatible with the OSD or FSF's requirements.
Which, to get back to the core of this, is really the main issue. I mean, I wrote some about this a while ago: https://interpeer.org/blog/2024/04/in-search-of-foundational-floss-freedoms/
It's been two years now. Feedback at the time seemed to have been largely positive, but nitpicky about the details. I still...
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@onepict @smallcircles @ocdtrekkie @APC @NGIZero But I agree fully that it should not start with the license, but with a set of shared values, which would be similar to, but ultimately incompatible with the OSD or FSF's requirements.
Which, to get back to the core of this, is really the main issue. I mean, I wrote some about this a while ago: https://interpeer.org/blog/2024/04/in-search-of-foundational-floss-freedoms/
It's been two years now. Feedback at the time seemed to have been largely positive, but nitpicky about the details. I still...
@onepict @smallcircles @ocdtrekkie @APC @NGIZero ... think it's one of the better starting points, if I do say so myself. But it seems it wasn't catchy enough to get people engaged beyond a few comments and discussion threads.
