Civil society needs Free Software hackers
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00:00
Hacker (term)Open sourceSoftwareSelf-organizationCivil engineeringFreewareComputerComputer animation
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SoftwareCASE <Informatik>Process (computing)Cartesian coordinate systemRule of inferenceWage labourUniverse (mathematics)Flow separationFilter <Stochastik>State of matterLabour Party (Malta)Likelihood functionComputer animation
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Client (computing)DivisorState of matterSoftwareLengthMeasurementLikelihood functionSelf-organizationCivil engineeringNumberGroup action
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Self-organizationGroup actionSoftwareAreaCivil engineeringSource codeCASE <Informatik>Computer animation
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SoftwarePersonal digital assistantOpen sourceSelf-organizationSource codeResultantExpert systemCASE <Informatik>Open sourceSoftwareMathematical analysisBit rateComputer forensicsHand fanFreewareError messageTorusComputer animation
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SoftwareDefault (computer science)Source codeFreewareInformation privacyAreaDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Right angle
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QuicksortSoftwareAreaSelf-organizationCivil engineeringFreewareIntegrated development environmentInformation privacyComputer hardware
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SummierbarkeitFreewareCivil engineeringField (computer science)SoftwareDefault (computer science)Integrated development environmentSelf-organizationComputer animation
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Local GroupCore dumpSoftwareSoftwareFreewareSystem administratorArithmetic meanState of matterSelf-organizationGroup actionGame controllerCASE <Informatik>Covering spaceSoftware developerOffice suiteProper mapLengthMathematicsExpected valueOpen sourceCodeImperative programmingDirection (geometry)Computer animation
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Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:06
Hello, everyone, and welcome to Fostern. Can you hear me in the back? Yes, perfect. My name is Matthias Kirchner. I work for Free Software Foundation Europe, and I'm here today to encourage you
00:21
to get active and support civil society organizations. So nowadays, computers are everywhere around us. They are in the form of computers as most of people know it, like desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones, tablets, or Wi-Fi routers.
00:41
But they are also in shapes where people usually don't recognize them, like, for example, cars, trains, airplanes, washing machines, dishwashers, lightning bulbs, you name it. They are everywhere, and they are deciding what we can do with those devices and what we cannot do with those devices as a society.
01:02
And when we don't understand how they work, we don't know how our society works. And sometimes they are not even around us, but they are actually directly attached to our body or even inside of our body, like with hearing aids or with defibrillators.
01:22
So all those devices control what people in a society can do or what they cannot do and are controlled thereby by the people who develop them, who know the rules in there. So there's a huge difference in power. And nowadays, more and more of processes around us
01:43
are also shaped by software. Here is an example, it's from France. In France, a software decides which pupils will be allowed to go to which university. So this software was kept secret for a long time.
02:04
And nobody knew why some people were allowed to go to one university, and some others might not be allowed to go to university at all. So in that case, a pupils organization there,
02:20
they sued the government and said they want to have access to the source code so they can see what is going on there and there could be a debate about if this is right or wrong. After some back and forth and that they cannot publish the source code because then it could be hacked, in the end, they were successful.
02:40
And then they could have a debate about if those assumptions made in the software and the rules implemented in the software, if that's good for society. It turned out that pupils who live close to a university have a higher chance to be admitted to the university, which in the case of very prestigious universities
03:03
means that children from richer families, because the surroundings of those prestigious universities usually have very high rent rates, that they are more likely to be admitted to one of those prestigious universities, which in turn also increases the likelihood that those children will have a better pay job afterwards.
03:24
So it's very difficult for pupils from lower-income families to change the income of the family in the long run. And in this case, they were able to do this. They were able to have a discussion about that and could think about if this assumption
03:42
which a programmer made there, oh, it would be nice if someone who lives close by a university has a higher chance to go there if this is something which is fair and which is good for society or if it should be changed. Going from universities to job applications. In the UK and the US,
04:02
a lot of the job applications are filtered with software before any human will ever see them. So it's the software by a few companies, proprietary software by a few companies, which filters all of those job applications. And when you apply for a job,
04:23
it might turn out you will never be invited to have a job interview. And people don't often know why this is the case. There are court cases where sometimes they find out some stuff why this is the case, but it's not clear. And so as a labor lawyer, as unions,
04:45
as someone who wants to find out why you are not getting invited to job interviews, it's very difficult to have a debate in society if those rules are right or wrong and if they are discriminating people when we don't want to discriminate them.
05:03
Going further, almost all federal states in the US nowadays use the software to calculate the likelihood of a criminal offender to become criminal again. And this percentage will then be considered
05:20
by the judge for some additional measures. And in some states, they also say that it's even considered for the length of the sentence. How this software works and what factors are exactly calculated in for coming to this percentage number, that's not clear.
05:41
The lawyers, they don't know what factors are included in this and why their client might have to go to jail a few years longer than someone else. So in our society nowadays, more and more organizations,
06:01
more and more civil society organizations, groups are affected by software and they are affected by not having the ability to understand what the software is actually doing. They are not able to see what assumptions were made by the people who implemented the software.
06:20
And that's a problem, that they are not able to do that. And they cannot fulfill their work, which they did before or have more difficulties to fulfill that. And in future, there will be many, many more organizations in all kinds of areas in our society who will be affected by that.
06:41
In the case of the French Pupils Association, we saw that people were asking for source code and said that they would like to have access and want to see what the software's actually doing so that they could have a debate in society about that. There are too little people asking for this. I mean, here, there is an example
07:01
where I wouldn't have expected it. It's about DNA analysis software in forensics. And you read an article about how horrible the situation there is and that this proprietary software which is used there in some cases has almost 70% failure rate to predict if that's really the DNA of a person
07:21
and if the person's going to jail because of a false DNA analysis. And they say, well, neither the experts nor the defendants have access to the source code to see why this software is having those results and why when you send it to another laboratory, you get another result. So that's not possible. And in this case, someone asked about that.
07:42
But we need more people, more organizations to ask for access to source code, that there is more transparency there that we can have those debates. And you, as free software hackers, you have the tools for that. You know how to argue why it's important
08:00
to have access to software to see what is actually going on there and what assumptions are made, what ethics and values are included in this software. So you can argue about that. You can also explain them that in some areas, it's the default that you are able to see what the software is actually doing.
08:20
And you can also explain them that the argument that if a company is publishing source code that they then cease to exist, that this is not correct and that it's a legitimate question to ask for having access to software and what this is doing for certain institutions,
08:40
for people who are affected by this. So lots of you care about different values, about different causes. Some of you care a lot about privacy. Some of you care a lot about animal rights, public health, about different aspects,
09:01
environmental regulations. There are lots of organizations working in those areas. And some of them, they also work in a direction when they are successful that some other organizations, their goals will not be achieved. That's why it's important that each one of you thinks about what is important for you
09:22
and then supports these organizations with your knowledge and so that they can better fulfill their role there and help them to make software freedom the default in the area as well. It's important to know that software freedom, free software issue in all those topics
09:41
where these civil society organizations are working, it's one small piece in the puzzle. There are many other things which have to be considered. I mean, just in the IT area, you also need people who argue why access to data is important or transparency of the hardware involved
10:01
or privacy issues are important. But it's a very, it's an important detail in this puzzle. Free software is necessary there. It's not enough, but it's necessary. So I would like to encourage you to get active there, to reach out to civil society organizations
10:23
you care about, tell them about free software, that they are aware about that, that there is the possibility to shape the environment where they are working in, maybe help them to improve that free software, software freedom becomes the default there so that the playing field they are operating in is changing and is more beneficial
10:41
for what they want to achieve there. So please go out, do this. And it's in the end not what one of us is doing there, but it's the sum of all of the activities we are doing and we are equipped with this knowledge. So please go out there and help those organizations so that they can fulfill their role for society.
11:01
So thank you very much. And if you have any questions which we cannot cover now, I will be at the FSFE booth. Where this is, it's over there. I also tomorrow at 12 have a talk about the values of software freedom.
11:22
Beside that, I would like to thank all the donor supporters of the FSFE who enable our work. So please also support our work for software freedom. And now I would also like you to give a big applause to the FOSTM volunteers and organizing team. They are outside there as well. So big applause for enabling this, thank you.
11:49
Thank you. Okay, shall we take one or two questions? Or there's one question over there.
12:07
I mean, yeah. Else just come to the FSFE booth.
12:25
Hello, thank you for the talk. So you mentioned some cases where effectively software impacts on lives of people and in ways that are terrible, like for example, on the length of your sentence, for example.
12:42
But I was wondering whether the issue might not be actually proprietary software rather than the adoption of proprietary software from the state because the state has got some imperativity on you. I mean, it can oblige you to do things
13:01
such as go to prison, for example. And if that is, if that thing is not based on something that we can all agree upon, for example, such as for example, the source code, I see it, I can see what are the assumptions, et cetera, then it's not obviously a good thing.
13:23
So is there maybe a quid pro quo in the, I don't know. I mean, for software which is developed by governments, we are also running this campaign, public money, public code. So we believe that when governments, public administrations are using taxpayers' money
13:41
to develop software, that this should be free software and that we should be able to see what this software is actually doing, that we should be able to reuse that. But in the cases which I mentioned there, there's also lots of software where the software is actually written by some companies who are then controlling that. And even in those cases, we should have a debate
14:02
which institution in our society, which groups in our society should still have access to this, even it's not a direct free software problem, but they should still have access to this software and see what this is doing so we can have a debate in society about that. And that's affecting lots of organizations there.
14:22
So I think it's both there as needed. Thank you very much. Have a good course, then.