It's time, everybody. It's time for the organizers panel, which is really the hot topics
panel, which I'm thinking maybe we don't do next year. We'll do a feedback portion of
this to like, if you were people like and don't like this year. All right, we're missing
some organizers. We're missing an organizer. All right, we'll start with
out Bradley. We can. We can. It's the end of the day. We're all totally exhausted. I
think that the you should come on in a little closer so that we're all in the camera.
No, we need this side is better. Yes. All right, so this is the time where usually the
two for six of us, you know, reflect on some of the topics that were raised during the day
and talk about some of the hot topics and things that we're thinking about that maybe didn't get covered
in the Deverem. I'm kind of tempted to just kind of open it up to questions and sets since the
number of people here is kind of ideal for kind of much more interactive session where
instead of talking at you the things that we think you want to hear about. You tell us what
we want to hear about. Why don't we just list some of the things we were thinking of talking
about and then you tell us if those are things you want to hear. Do you want to say what you
were thinking you might address? Yes. I was going to reflect upon is it 14 years of the legal
Deverem? Something like that. I was going to make a comment about some of the topics
we heard about today, the DMA, CRA and the open source AI definition. Just my thoughts
and maybe elaborate on that.
Yeah, I was going to mention the Neo4j case in the Amicus brief that we filed in generally
like the kind of issues facing the GPL family of licenses and what's going on with that.
I think what else was I going to talk about? Other things that I was going to mention
but I think that's the only one that no one else will raise.
Well, I have no prepared topics to talk about. I have been thinking a lot in general about the
effect of the panel that I moderated. What is the meaning of free slash open AI or open machine learning
or whatever terminology you want? That is something that has come up in a lot of my work in certain
ways and it's also a personal interest to me just as what I think is a very difficult topic.
But I have opinions on other things too, so. I remember one of the other things I wanted to
address in this panel, which was I was going to sort of talk about doing things in new ways
and finding new mechanisms to address the same old issues and not trying to approach the same
problems in the same ways anymore and just having new approaches like we've done in the
copy left enforcement space but in others as well.
So because in my head it was mainly like who raised their hands first and how do I make sure
that everyone feels treated equally. I made some notes. One thing was for me in a
Pam's talk that often in our community we think we have copyright. Let's fix all our
problems with copyright and I like this comment there to that this is something we should
talk about over come and think about other solutions there including like trademarks.
But I think there are many other things out there which we should think about and not just
we have this hammer. So always use this hammer because everything else is a nail.
Then the other thing for me was when we had to talk about by Denver for the case with
the AVM case that's something which for me again highlighted how important it is
in our movement also for the next the case that there are people who are persistent
patient and continue to do this work even so it can be very very frustrating to have
discussions with manufacturers and other people who are not playing by the rules and
reminding them about that and saying friendly during all that time. So I think that's a very
good skill set we need for the next few decades in our movement and the other thing
for me which I think is something very important is when we think about the how
Apple is arguing why certain things should not be done on their computers and they often
argue that that's not a computer is an iPhone. I think that's something we will see more
often that people try to tell us that their computers are not computers and the laws that
or the the rules that are out there for computers don't apply to them.
So.
All right. Yeah. So and I mean to to continue there I think I mean for me the obviously
there was a certain sector play the role in the last years and that's basically that
what we also wanted to showcase that it's a it's a very it's a process and the process is long
and you need to be around and while this process is happening there are also other files
upcoming so we can also talk about procurement directive or funding topics and I mean the
machine is still ongoing right so the department in the commission they they also work on
other files not only not not just only on on a T security we do have a new commission
where there is a tech commissioner for tech sovereignty which is quite interesting for
us I think and something we need to work on so the debate about digital or tech
sovereignty and also in Europe we discuss an idea of a one stack you will stack whatever
you want to call it in order to be more independent from whatever so this is a bit
unclear though but this is also debate should have at one point so I was late for the
late for the organizers now because there were like four people asking more CRA questions
on the hallway even though we just had like two hours on CRA so I agree with Alex that
it's been a very strange experience for me because right around the moment I received the
title which is more aspirational than actual because I have a lot of logistical work I do at
the time I think I'm going to see as well but I get this title policy fell I'm like
great I'm in charge of policy and I figured you know I'm a US person off to think about
US policy concerns and like three months after I get a title to GDPR stuff starts
and then now the CRA stuff started I'm like so so like I'm basically completely
ill-equipped to my job as a US American because Europeans are trailblazing generally speaking
good pretty good policy that that affects everybody around the world and I'm glad for
it because it's good policy but I feel like this constant fish out of water and that's been
an interesting thing to watch over the last few years the other thing that I think is happening
that's really interesting is I became to talk about software right through Pau stuff already
so my colleague Denver who's in the in the audience has done amazing work really
building community bridges between free software traditional free software people and folks who are
excited about the right to repair and I think mainly thanks Denver's work we've done a lot
in the US and Canada educating activists there that almost every piece of equipment that's larger
than like a toaster even some toasters now at this point are running software and therefore
if you have a right to repair the hardware but don't have a right to repair the software
which is basically the rights that copy left gives you then you actually don't have
the right to repair and we've been doing really interesting work and it's just a lot of
interesting stuff like happening the right to repair community it's I would love to see all
of you go build alliances with people who are excited about right to repair if you want
that's probably the most important thing to do is a free software activist right now
Kevin I was going to say who wants to
I did this work out the whole day so I'll continue
I so I don't mentioned 14 years ago and then no but that was for me the time we won
because until then my whole life was how do we get a free Java information we have that
and for me the feeling is we won and Java was the last hold out what's my question
my question is has it become easier it feels to me like it's now easier because
everybody knows you create something and it should be free software and that seems to
we were really working on those copyright assignments and being really precise
do you have the feeling that's all getting easier are there now other problems
do you mean is easier from a developer point of view
yeah sorry
easier from
15 20 years back it felt like people were fighting to prevent free software to be developed
so it feels like the article also was the last one that tried to restrict
I'm maybe I'm just an optimist but I love that you're an optimist mark that's
I've enjoyed collaborating with you yes I think it has got easier because people have
come to expect open source or free software and so many context and we understand the licensing
better we understand the agreements better and at the same time the software ecosystem
continues to get more complex we have network services that are software licenses for the
most part really didn't anticipate you know now we have you know what I'm going to put
call AI which includes a lot of different things right but you know we may not have really
fully anticipated that so well you know the code that we line of written 20 years ago
is much much easier because of open source our work as developer continues to be
complex for it because of all of these changes that continue to happen
I'm going to say the same thing and you're going to say it's normal how to go
I think the thing I have to tell you is our generation really made a big mistake
because I think we failed to communicate our values about software rights and freedom
to the next generation of developers and users and this is why in my opinion there isn't
really an interest in copyright licensing companies work really hard to convince people not to go
anywhere near copyright and we weren't out there explaining why we made the choices we did
in a way that they could understand and join in our communities we didn't want to write
in their languages we're all still writing and see and they're coming up writing in
I mean if I were to go back in time I'd become a JavaScript developer in 1999
or 2000 and bring copyrights to the JavaScript world and we didn't do that and so now
most open source and free software that most people use is in fact proprietary
because it's non copyrighted that has been proprietary by some company.
I have kind of a warped perspective on this I'm not a developer I mean I guess a lot
of you all are not developers like full time but I have seen I wouldn't I wouldn't
call myself an optimist about this sort of stuff I've seen a degradation over that time period
and I could disappoint me I don't talk about this too much but you know part of it is
the decline of interest in copyright some of it is a rise of interest in this is something
I see recently in the use of copyright as a sort of you know strong copyright protection
as at least US lawyers would say as a tool for advancing policies that you know for
you know developers might care about even if they're not exactly the same as the policies
advanced by traditional proprietary software developers I think I do see this kind of
generational change where people younger people sort of inherited this world and they
yeah I mean talking about this for a long time of course but they they don't they they
they seem to to not care about some of the principles that I thought were important let's
say that and maybe maybe I'm wrong to think they're important but but what I think of
is kind of this anti discrimination principle like you know maybe that's wrong maybe
that's like a vestige of 1990's techno libertarianism or something so I'm I'm actually
wondering if I some of the things I assumed were core to this you know I don't like
to think of it as a movement but I'll call it a movement or you know maybe wrong
and otherwise I see as I said like a kind of disappointing degradation in the sense
that people seem to not care as much about the things that I thought I saw them caring
about 14 years ago and that by the way if you've loved downwards spirals of pessimism
you should watch me and Fontana discuss false policy it's better than doom scrolling
I was gonna I'm gonna say something pessimistic and then I'll go to my my trademark optimism
the pessimist thing is that you know like this is nothing new exactly but in the time that
you're discussing here the corporate co-option of free software was complete and so we're in the
situation where my mother last week or three weeks ago was like you know there was a meta
ad in the New York Times that was a full page saying how much they loved open source
right and you know like what is it what is it deal with that and how is that really to what you do
when I go into policy spaces when I talk to legislators when I talk to policy makers
private foundations when I talk to real silent decision makers they are immediately
glazed over when they hear the term open source or even free software because they
think it means corporate interest they think it means that what corporations are going to use
and I have to explain that actually there's this thing called software freedom
and that there's a think called software rights and the water has become so muddied
that was interesting is that all this effort to separate to talk about the business
pragmatism was so effective that it not only caused what I think Fontana was talking about
in terms of like people sometimes losing sight of the beliefs that we thought that they had
but also resulted in in this you know the arguments about where we were so worried about
adoption also made us lose our way and I think it's been quite difficult
but the optimistic part about this is that ordinary people not necessarily
technologists understand so much better now that these issues matter and so when we talk
about software rights repair or when we talk about software rights people understand
that there's something there that's really important and that is so much easier
that is a very hard road right that is a road where we have to do this like huge
by the movement where we are all talking about our software rights and why the
owners and how we need to get our software freedom but we're starting
to place where those rights those principles are focused and that's really different
than what happened before
so I add one one other angle to the question so 2011
from my perspective in the policy work it was really hard
to get people to talk about free software topics
when you went there you still had most people pointed you talk to our
admins is that like I don't want to talk with you what which version of windows
you were installing there I want to talk with you about the technical
technological distribution of power about sovereignty about being in control
saving our democracy that's what I want to talk with you about
that was really difficult at the time now over the years with again
very persistent people who are going there talking with them
and then they also realized maybe I should think about those topics
or have my employees think about those topics there were more and more people
getting interested in that and we also have people at that time
the juniors interns often with whom we talked about those topics
who are meanwhile in the institutions
at positions where they have more decision making power
on the other hand there are now so many people out there
and they realize that that topics related to technology
they matter to society that we are flooded with questions about that
and that's really a problem because there are so many topics now out there
and so many people who want to do something about those topics
but the organizations working in those fields
we did not get an exponential increase in donations
and being able to hire more people to work on this
so one of the difficult things at the moment is really
we have to prioritize really really hard
there would be many possibilities out there to really create things
but you have to prioritize so hard for those questions
so this is really difficult because you see that there are people that
they want to talk with you the other one to talk to you
and you say well we can't work with all of you
even so you could make progress in all those different areas
so that feels harder sometimes than the old times when people
said like I don't want to talk to you I don't want to talk you
you were happy there was one person who wanted to talk with you
and wanted to help you
and that connects to what I was saying before
because those corporate representatives are always available
they are well funded
so the companies that are out there in the name of community
will always have someone who can afford to be there
who will speak for what they think is the open source community
and that is really really difficult
and I'd say that I appreciate what you're answered to that Matias
and like a true executive director
and I'd say that like the funding for a fast foundation
I should have mentioned this before from a policy perspective
all the things that we could talk about
is that funding has declined for all of these organizations
many of them have announced layoffs and shrinking
and every single organization in the charitable space
has experienced the pain of the declining donations
and we just you're right we just can't keep up
to the funding part
and since I also brought that up in the beginning
I also want to point to a funding death room
which is happening tomorrow
and very address all of these questions
from different perspectives
a whole day long
but do make a donation to the FCF Europe
and South of Freedom Conservancy please
before you leave the room
I'm really appreciative of everybody who's still here
because I've spent most of the day standing at that door
and occasionally having to yell at people not to enter
even though the sign said don't enter
because it was full in here
those of you that have stayed this late
after like what four five seven hours on CRA
and everything else means
means that you're really interested in what we're doing in this dev room
so I would like to turn over the audience to tell us
what did we not cover that you wanted to see
and what did we cover too much
do we cover the CRA too much
Hi, thank you very much
by the way, it was a great day today here
I have one last hint
maybe there might come some kind of shit storm
because since last week since the deep seek
and I'm not talking about the website
but also the API
and because we have had the discussion of free licenses
and free everything
in combination with AI
or better machine learning or digital parents
and at the moment the windows changing in Germany
for example there were several articles
by smaller companies hidden champions
so to say but if many rich customers
for example all banks
and they say
those open source or open source license
so models are a danger for national security
this is a fresh new turn
since last week I can send you the articles for example
just so we need more people like you
for helping the society and this community
thanks
Hi, thank you so much for an excellent day
I know that you must be exhausted by this point in time
but it's been really rich and really interesting to listen to everything
so a couple of points that come to my mind
that potentially be answered by you
or in a future panel is first of all more related to my PhD
I'm at the University of Cambridge
it's Karen and some others
and I'm looking at global governance of open source software
so I'm really interested in what the CRA
and other moves from states and regional powers
etc. mean for the potential fragmentation of open source
if you have any initial responses to that
happy to chat afterwards as well
and then the second thing is a discussion that I was having earlier
with Eva Black
like with the Trump administration now coming into power
what does that mean for the changing approaches of CSR
and others within the US administration
when it comes to the obscurity of open source software etc
thank you
Should we first gather some more and then we
yeah
one quick response I'd make to that I think
is that I'm reminded of when I was undergraduate
and there was something on about the US congress on TV
and I said to my roommate I was like
I never get anything done it takes so long to
and it looked at me and he said
you don't want to live in a society where the law is changed overnight
you want to live in a society where it takes a long time
so that people can digest and get feedback and so forth
and it was one of the most insightful things anybody ever said to me
I think what I feel right now
given that I'm from the US is
things were changing overnight
and it even feels that way with the CRA
feels like it was rushed
and that's very frustrating
I think for all of us in policy work
and open source and free software
I mean you saw us in the panel like I'm asking Alex and Alex is asking me
and we're trying to figure it out in real time
and as Matthias mentioned we're underfunded
so and then care much as well
so I mean I think that's our big, my biggest fear is that
we can't complete the task in the time a lot
okay yeah a question
then or a comment since you asked what you had done
and what was maybe left out
I think it was a great day here
as maybe let's say a practitioner
I think what we see is a little bit of anxiety around
about the CRA and so on
and a lot of the people in this room
have good ideas
and for instance the representatives of the commission say
now come talk to us
or if you do this and that I think it would be fine
and I think it would be really be good
if there was some way to lower the barrier to entry
especially small developers
maybe by some documentation that can help
say if you do this then you will be fine
templates you know I get up
that you can clone where there are more files
with some legal text that somebody has written
and so on I don't know if it's in the scope of this
step room but then maybe a small brother to this step room
I mean I think we have several resources on this
and maybe it's a good idea to pull them
for the next step room together
and share some links as well
so I think it's a pretty good idea to
for the next year to show at least what we have done
what we have worked on on the topics that we present here
and maybe ask the speakers to also add some more like resources
that they think that should be shared
so I think that's a pretty nice idea
Thank you
Thank you so firstly I would suggest that you get the
Jansen stage for the next year
and I think the biggest concern I have
that I'd like to see discussed
I suggest you get Jansen stage next year if you will
worth it
and in terms of topics for next year
I'd like to see the question of whether open source software
and the freedom of computer users can survive
mandatory identity verification
which is something that just being proposed
in all corners of the world
and it's part of the proposed chat control
regulation in the EU
it's already a possibility for the UK regulator
to acquire it
as I'm sure there are similar things in the USA
so that's what I would like to see discussed next year
I want to quickly address the space issue
so what's happened with this devroom
is we were way before our time
and there have been so many devrooms that have
spun off from us
I mean the S-Bond Devroom which I was making jokes about this morning
I mean S-Bond was a topic for this devroom
and they decided they didn't like
how we were going to get made
it's just teasing you
but it was good reason
because there was enough interest
in a separate devroom which of course
then puts us in competition
was stuff that used to be under our topic
so it's been difficult
we've had lots of negotiation with the Fossil Morgan
I think the best thing you can do for us is email them
Hey, I was at the legal policy devroom
and it was line out the door
and I really hope it's in UA next year
because I think they will listen
oh and two days again
I don't know if we're going
I don't know if we're going back two days
and I sure like it when I have a day off in Fossil
one once in a while
I did pay off two days again so
but we had very very nice proposals for talks
and we had to decline a lot so
and I think there's also from the topics
we're putting up here
we definitely have room for two days
to discuss things
also with one detail maybe
Please don't suggest that we go back to UA
I like UA
There are other larger rooms
yeah because
some of you were here
those years where you had to
trap through the mud
to get to the room
one
two
the UA
if you're up in the fifth floor
as we were
once we had accessibility issues
I like
luckily I advocated about my heart condition
and you know people know that I was born
or the heart condition
two years ago I had a regular heartbeat
and I could not walk up five
flights of stairs
at that time
and so I don't want to go back to UA
that's what he that's what was suggested
I read that was the original suggestion
was Jensen
but we you know we just do the best we can
we're so glad you're here
definitely email them to say that you enjoyed
this track if you did
and wait wait a second I come with the microphone
quickly about the other topic with the identity thing
I think very important topic
there are people out there who try to
who are working on solutions there with free software
there are some very strange policy decisions there
to hand all the identity stuff over to proprietary software providers
so definitely a topic
encourage people you know to submit a talk for next year
yeah I think also rounding
and free software
in a comprehensive way might be really
because that's always an evergreen topic
that is only more relevant
I just add that
identity
is it not working
is it now okay
I'll also just add that identity is a topic
that's near and dear to my heart
I think it's a very important topic
and I do see a relationship with free software
just wanting to be aware of
if someone tells you that the answer
to identity is the blockchain
question them
so that was the first
introduction
so it's first time that somebody's
I looked at it
and then
someone in the audience I wanted to film the video
some of the audience shouted
it will be the same for AI
in a few years
it will be just like blockchain
I can't agree with that
more
it's totally correct
one thing I want to say when we're talking about
like topics and submitting talks
one of the things we have tried really hard
and we used to have more time to do more outreach
but we'd love for you to do the outreach
we want people
who are developers to come in and talk about policy topics
we find that developers feel like they don't
know anything
and they usually know a lot more than they realize
and historically
the talks we've gotten from developers about policy topics
have been absolutely excellent
so even if you're just new to a topic
and do some research and say
oh maybe I could learn a couple things
because it doesn't take long to be
I think it's not working
Richard
I think it's not working
Richard
I see
just kind of further to what Bradley said
I think we use
and the sort of the 14 year retrospective theme
I think we used to get earlier on
and the history of the devroom
more talks
from developers
talks on legal topics
I remember some of them very well
and I think that there are fewer now
I haven't tried to make us a study
but I think we have more
not that other perspectives aren't good
like what could be better than you know
Pam's talk on trademarks
Pam, right
but we used to get so many interesting talks
from developers
and that was the original vision I think
for the devroom
and I think
I think that
that has declined for some reason
but that said, I really like that we have
we bring in outside experts
and having that precisely a lot of nodding
so I really liked that we had folks from the European Commission
in the room
lots of nodding
and that we have had an anti-trust expert
and people who aren't as this early coming from our space
and for deep within
so that we get additional perspective
so look at that
lots of nodding
So before we continue to circle
on the stage, I hand over
just a comment that
by this time next year
the US identity
would be provided by a single company
by a single person
I think that's the goal
and what's happening this weekend
yes
I mean that
this weekend is happening
lots of things are happening there
okay, yes
one other question
if you consider doing something like
a policy come
next to foster
like you had a couple of left come
I liked it
but maybe it's too much work
I love that idea
we did once you were twice
in a coffee left con
after
a policy that happens around
phosem
but it is effectively
invitation only
or it's hard to get an invitation
to it
which is interesting
because we at this in this
Deverem was founded
as a way to make a
policy room that was available
to all
so I think that that sort of
what this was meant to be
I think there's still a hunger
for these topics
and an ability to do workshops
other similar things
I don't know
do you want to mention policy?
yes
so there is a conference
that it's a far
field from here
but there's a conference coming up
in the very end of July
beginning of August
called Fosse
for you know open source software
yearly
and this will be the third year
for it so the name is now true
and it's in Portland, Oregon
and run by software freedom
conservancy
and we have tracks that are open
and we follow the Fosse model
with volunteer organized tracks
and so the call for tracks is now open
so if there is something you would like
to see mark
or anybody else in this room
please submit a check
and then we provide all the infrastructure
and then we'll have
you know you'll have the day
that you would like
and we're happy to help
maybe one
anecdote
so the first year
I was here was in 2005
and for me at that time
Fosse was very, very technical only
and there were very few
very few talks
that were not technical
and I actually there was an
Fosse of Ibooth
in the age building here
and there was Ellen Cox
and he talked with an MEP
there was an MEP at a time
who was here at Fosse
and Ellen Cox was talking with him
and was explaining him
that when you're sending around
Doc documents
that you can find out a bit about
a history of that file
and the MEP was looking
at him a bit like
what?
and I was standing next to him
and was like
like nodding and the MEP was looking
and he said
do you also know about that?
and
he said
yes
and he
you just saw
how his brain started to
oh my god
what was in those documents
before I was sending them out
and that was something which at that time
there were very few other talks
here
than the technical talks
I think our deaf room here
was one of the deaf rooms
that actually had those other aspects here
and I think
as good as their other events
it's good that there are other events
who are focusing on other topics
but what we want to make sure
is that people who mainly care about
technical aspects
that they have an easy way
to also enter other topics
and that it's easy for them to just say
well I do
technical technical technical talk
but there is this one talk about
this year a there is this one talk
about trademarks there is this one talk
about license compliance
and it's easy for me to enter that
and also get a bit of
another perspective on the topic
so I think it's important
that there are now more of those topics
here and that we have more of those discussions
because
technology is not
something that is not political
it's not something that is not a
a problem for like
as a society it's not something
which is completely out of the economic
equations so it's something we need
to think about on all those different
angles that's why I'm really glad
that we have this variety of
more topics here that are not just
covering the technical aspects
I just want to yes and
what materials we're just saying
that moment in 2005 when he
described to 2011 when
thanks to Tom Marble who is
is the hero of this
devourum has always been he had
experienced running
he had experienced running
the co-wending the Java
devourum for many years the free
Java devourum and he came to
us a couple of us initially
and said you also do like a
legal devourum thing you know all the stuff
and we great at fuzz them
that and he talked us into doing
a proposal and we got a lot of pushback
there was one specific fuzz
the organizer I'm not going to name
was like nope this is technical
only conference that's why they're called
devourum that's not dev that's
legal or something and we had
talk about inaccessible rooms like
anti-accessibility our first year we were in
this room in AW that you had to walk
up this winding staircase
and as I was remembering that today
doing crowd control because I
searched on the top of that staircase
because it only seated like 20 people
and we would line we would have to
only have to and we'd line people
all the way down the spiral staircase
in one side and then we'd slowly
let the people out down the other side
and we went back to that fuzz
organizer and he said well
maybe you should have a slightly bigger
room and it's been as much
as I like to tease like so
in the s-bomb devourum
I was being recorded
I don't know if he's going to know it
I think it's actually wonderful
that we have these spinoff devourums
that are now doing issues that are not
technical
per se I mean there's technical parts of
s-bomb's but
Simon Fips has his devourum
that he's running tomorrow
we have the funding devourum now
that Matias and Alex are also
co-writing community
community was the first one
and that was the I forgot about that
they were like well we want to do a whole
community devourum because there's
talks used to be in our devourum
and so I mean as much as we get jealous
when other devourums get bigger rooms
they're all that sort of thing
we're much more happy
we get a little bit jealous
it's true but we also are very proud
that we were able to create
that at fuzzum and it's spun off
and there's so many excellent devourums now
in parallel and on other days
in hours okay but I think the net
discussion about this devourum is really quite boring
and we're
no no no no it's not your pod we've all gone there
and I love it but we do have like
possibly ten more minutes to talk about something
that is substantive
so if anybody want to ask us a
substantive question of the topics
that we suggested or something else
you're supposed to go
and that but I don't know about
oh
then first of all thanks so much for
organizing this it's been super interesting
I've been using free and open
software for many years but it's my first time
at fuzzum and I was really happy to see
that there's a legal and policy
devourum because I have a law background
and working international law
and I was wondering
something that kind of struck me a little bit
in the talks today
was that it was mostly US and EU
focused
you know
of other like or is that something
that you're thinking about for future
iterations or is there another
conference that is a bit more global
I mean I know for instance rights
con that is sort of human rights
in the digital age
but in terms of sort of I'm really interested in
in flaws focused events
that have a you know copi left
aspect and like that kind of mindset
so I was wondering if there's others
that are a bit more international
not just EU and US.
This sort of tends to be a little bit more international
that was this year but bear in mind
that the lunar new year
made our the speakers that we're planning to come
to fuzz them this year
unable to come so we had a couple of
speakers who really had topics that were quite relevant
that couldn't come so
so I think that that's you know
if there are places in particular
that you think we should reach out to
to experts in those places
we would love to include them too
and one problem we also saw
going back to funding
is that we also had people
like from for example china
or other areas where
who were interested to give it
talk here but at the moment
a lot of there are a lot of
problems to find travel funding
to get people here so
that's of course and also restricting
it a bit
and whom you cannot invite
let me just add that
in the past I had
the privilege of attending
a large open source conference
in South America called Fisley
which is typically in Brazil
and I found that to be remarkable
it was a lot of
young enthusiastic developers
and really cool like
almost half women which was really great
I've never attended Foss Asia
but I understand that that's
an Asian open source conference
and so maybe there would be
I mean I would love to have
that truly global content
it's tricky to get those speakers
from my experience
this room has been the most global one
that I've experienced
and if we can get those Asian and South American
and Antarctic contributions that would be great
yeah funding definitely has been a problem
for South America for this year as well
okay
I think if someone else didn't
okay
can I just add that the open chain community
has quite a few conferences
based in East Asia
and those tend to be a little more
corporate than the volunteer
conferences including Foss Dem
but they have loads of talks about
compliance with GPL
about governance for free
and open source software
and that might be a good place to look
if you want something more focused on Asia
than you knew it
so a special is
you're such the king of
understatement
I just want to point out that he said
they are a bit corporate
they are extremely corporate
they are primarily conferences for
corporate entities to talk about
that I think you're referring to
my impression
I'm biased on my
but I get the impression they're primarily
designed and this is why they won't
speak there to figure out how to get around
copy left and so they don't get together
to say like how do we do more GPL
violations and a lot of those conferences
so it's really and I think this is
I'm starting to go mad about Foss Dem again
but this is a special place
and a special thing that's happened in history
it relates to the fact that the university
is going to be a bit different
and it's going to be a bit different
I think this week and they let people
they have a culpable deniability
about how many people are here
and that's why we have to watch the room
because the one rule is
don't violate the fire code
and I think we're trying to reproduce
that in the US with Fossy
but I think it's challenging to reproduce it
the thing I try to keep in mind
is the first Foss Dem
25 years
and two
and just that we have that on one's on record
this is a conference
which is mainly organized by volunteers
and this is a conference that wouldn't happen
if all the people who are running around here
with those yellow shirts
wouldn't spend many, many hours to do that
and when you look out for other conferences
it's often like they are organized
they get a money, they pay people to organize it
not that this is bad
but this thing here is quite unique
at that scale
so let's record some applause for
all the Foss Dem volunteers out there
Thank you
I let you repeat the comment
or no?
Okay, but I have one last question
you have ten minutes left
right?
I had a question about right to repair
policy
it's a very pro right to repair
but software
I think is a little bit more complicated
than hardware
is there are there any limitations
in your mind on
who gets the right to repair
and what protections they have?
You want to start?
I guess the first comment I want to make
is
sorry
is to
be software exceptional
and this
goes back to
the assertion by Apple
that the iPhone is not a computer
it's obviously a computer
and really what we're doing
in free software
among other things is
to educate people
that there's a war on general purpose computers
everything with a microprocessor
as a general purpose computer
and people have tried to lock it
from putting our own software on it
and I think that that's false
and so I think that software
is probably the most
repairable
of everything
and so it's really important
that we insist on that
and it's just on
software
repair as it is combined with hardware
yeah
I agree with
I love it when Tom is more radical than me
it's always fun to have somebody more
when you're usually the most radical person in the room
the thing I would add to that
is that
we have
we have this really interesting thing
about software so to go to a little bit
down the software acceptials and route
we actually invented our community as a whole
invented a software rights repair license
it was called the general public license
and it is the most widely deployed license
in software
devices that don't give you the right to repair
so what I'm saying is
most of the things that people want to repair
are running Linux
and violating the GPL
so what's happened is these companies
have redefined tried to redefine
with the GPL means
they somehow there's this place
in section three where it says
the scripts used to control compilation
and installation of the executable
and somehow every lawyer for every company
like stops reading when they hit those words
and claims they're not there
and so we have this great opportunity
to do software rights repair
because the companies
have to make a choice now
they're so other than Apple
they're so relying on Linux
that they cannot produce their products
without giving people the right to repair
if they're going to comply with copyright
so we should give it to them
I know you would want to say something about this
and just the only thing
you wanted to wrap it up
one last question okay
I trust
oh, Denver wants to
okay
so to address that question a little bit
I think
it sounds like you were talking a little bit about complexity
of software repair versus complexity
of hardware repair
and so I think
my take on that is
it's kind of a timeline thing
like I think cars were really complicated
to repair in the beginning
and then they got simpler
like my father really likes
repairing vehicles
and things
and when they were just hardware
that was basically a solve problem
and now
when they added software to cars
they didn't give us the source code
and now my father can't fix his car anymore
because
not because it's software
but because it's software
he's not allowed to repair
and so I think all of these people
who knew how to repair these things
they would have naturally learned software
if that was available to them
but I don't think it's a complexity thing
I think it is an access thing
and I think that as we get more access
as people are able to reinstall
modified software
onto their devices
that we will get the same thing that we had
in repair
for software.
We were complaining
earlier about our lack of resources
and how few people we have
and how much work there is
and that's a true of what I'm about to say
but believe it or not
one of the most exciting things
about being at software freedom
the violation reports come in
because they're from people
who are so excited to do something
with the equipment that they have
they want to make repairs
they want to make improvements
and they don't have that
if they had access to the source code
would do something about it
and one of the things that we're trying to do
with use the source
is to be able to put all of that
in a place where people can collaborate together
and they can learn together
repairs are much more practical
and we have the infrastructure
and social support to be able to do it.
Shall we now mute this
and have a last round?
Yeah.
So, thank you for coming
for 14 years
and spawning a lot of children
devrooms and keep these topics going
it's really great.
I also want to acknowledge that
you know, economically
this is a very difficult time
for the non-profit
organizations in our space
and I really would encourage you
to if you can
try to support
organizations like software freedom
and the free software foundation
that are doing a lot of great work
in advocacy for us and for the whole community
so thank you so much for coming.
I wanted to
thank you all for coming
and also we would love your
input into what to do
for next year's devroom
this year we had a input session
before we submitted our track
proposals so that we could get
people on the community to participate
so I want to just call for that
participation now
that when they open the
devroom proposal
I assume some of us here will
want to participate in doing it again.
Raise your hand if you want to see this
event.
If you have a good
attendance here for the video.
But, yes.
Definitely engage.
We would love to hear if you want to hear more
international participation.
We would love to hear if you want to hear
about governance issues.
Whatever it is that you are interested
in and it will give us time to get the right
experts in.
an impotent. So definitely we want you to be a part of this and we don't like what we think is important is not necessarily the most important thing and so you need to tell us.
Well, so I I have been away for a few years and yeah, so this is so this this is actually I mean I haven't really talked about this publicly very much or at all actually but this
This devroom that Tom largely helped create has been very special to me. This, you know, coming to Faustum this weekend
Coming to Brussels this weekend became a very special thing for me personally that I looked forward to but then after, you know, after COVID, I didn't want to
I was reluctant to come back. I think because I felt well what I liked about Faustum was not Faustum but was sort of escaping the US for a few days and coming to Brussels, which I
I really I had never been to before before this devroom got started and actually is a city I like a lot
But it is good to be back and I don't like this room, but
I I I it's good it's good to be back and I do I do hope to have an opportunity to help out again and also I want to say that not every
Lawyer in a company stops reading the GPL when it at certain words, even if even if some of them do
There are other lawyers in the country.
Yeah, I I just want to thank you again for all the questions your feedback that you gave during the day that you
Yeah, and the tier for for ages in this
Darkroom and yeah, it was a lot of fun and yeah, happy to be back next year
I know that it can be very overwhelming to hear about all those topics and see so many developments in our area
I would like to encourage you don't start acting when you think that you are now feeling ready to be a hero or
That you're waiting for someone else to be the hero who will solve those topics
But just start with something small start with some activities there. We don't need to wait for heroes
Every one of us can do something it can be something small in total the sum of all our small actions that will be the thing that will accomplish change in society
So start with something small now do something else tomorrow next week another small thing and let's all do that together and then I think we will make great progress
And I never miss a trick as you all know so I didn't mean against the wall merely because I was doing crowd control all day
I knew it would give me the last word when we did this
And I was I was actually going to say something that was contradicting what Matthias just said
So I was going to tell people to be a hero, but I think he's he said this a little bit better
There's somebody at this conference not in this room right now
Who basically lives a double life they they are a free software activist under completely different name and they're you know the real legal name they work for a major
Corporation that's very unfriendly different software
Now I don't expect you all to become double agents like that that's a lot to ask but there are sort of almost double agents like Richard found out it's kind of almost
But there's there's a lot you can do if you're working for a company
One of the biggest things I encourage people to ask questions don't just you get orders ask questions why and try to suggest that maybe policies ought to change
Companies are not democracies so you don't get a vote, but
irritants get things done. I mean I've based my entire career around that
So I do think there's things that you can do with regard to submitting I agree with Karen
I think the CFP opens now even though it's not technically open one last thing on that
I wanted to tell everybody is that the panels you see in this bedroom going back years they are generally built from people
Four or five people who submitted a talk on that topic and we're like well everyone's talking about this let's put them together
Let's get them talking to each other before the conference so they can come in and present all the different views on this topic and so
So if you want to be on a panel just submit a talk about the thing you want to go talk about and we may just come back to you and ask
Or you could say that that's true you could submit you had permission to submit I would like to be on a panel about this here's my bio
Is that good with everybody? Okay, so definitely do that and thank you. Thank you all for coming
I and especially the people who are still here at the end of the day. I see I see the faces who used to camp back when we were in small rooms like the faces who there was discussions
I this is just so funny I have to tell it people were trying to figure out how they could go to the bathroom because you lose your seat
And then you have to get back in line so I'm glad we have a large enough room. They don't have to do that anymore
But I'm so glad you all came and that you continue to come. Thank you
Thank you