The struggles of @LilithWittmann to make the Handelsregister of Germany freely available and easily accessible reminded me of our own struggles with different German state-level organizations, trying to get access to open data for rivers and water ways in 2014. 1/
Continue reading “The Pegel Alarm Open Data Challenge (a Thread)”Open Source and the Hyphen
You may have seen the repeated fights over whether open-source software should be spelled with a hyphen or not. It just flared up on Wikipedia, again.
The rules are clear, in my opinion. Still, the situation is a misery.
Continue reading “Open Source and the Hyphen”Open Source is Not The Infrastructure of Modern Society…
Cloud services are the actual infrastructure. Open source is the blueprints and building materials of our digital infrastructure. Infrastructure should be built from open source, but it is important to understand the difference between software and a service, because there is a person in the middle, the one operating the service. There will be no digital sovereignty just with open source, only with transparent services. The combination creates the necessary infrastructure and resulting sovereignty.
Continue reading “Open Source is Not The Infrastructure of Modern Society…”A Simple Fun Example of How a Computer Reads Intent Wrong
I read an article about India and wanted to know how much money “2 lakh” is in Euro. The search engine responded as follows:
Whose Open Source Freedom is it Anyway?
It is 2021 and there is still a lot of fighting about “freedom” in open source software development. Here is an analytical breakdown of the issues.
Freedom can refer to people or artifacts (source code). When it refers to people, it is typically freedom of choice regarding what to do. There are three main roles in open source: The original programmer, an intermediary (another programmer or a software vendor), and the users or customers of the vendor. I’m simplifying, but this matches the distribution use-case in which license clauses put the most obligations on people.
Continue reading “Whose Open Source Freedom is it Anyway?”Funding Universal Basic Income with Rent From Your Data
A person’s universal basic income (UBI) is income that this person is guaranteed to receive whatever their living circumstances. The income should allow the person to have a humane life, i.e. pay for food and housing, healthcare and so forth.
Continue reading “Funding Universal Basic Income with Rent From Your Data”Open Source and Public Policy (Slides)
In this talk, I explain the significance of the software industry for a country’s economy and how to strengthen it using open source. It is directed at public policy makers and the general public. This is the slide deck of a previously posted video.
The deck is also available as a PDF for download.
Open Source and Public Policy (Video)
In this short video, I explain the significance of the software industry for a country’s economy and how to strengthen it using open source. It is directed at public policy makers and the general public.
Next to the Youtube embed, there is also an ad-free version courtesy of FAU, my main employer, as well as a simple download available. Fast forward to the slides as well.
Open Source im Blickpunkt der Politik (Video, in German)
In diesem kurzen Video erkläre ich die Bedeutung der Softwareindustrie für die Wirtschaft eines Landes und wie Open-Source-Software diese stärken kann. Es richtet sich an Public-Policy-Maker und alle interessierten Personen.
Die englische Version dieses Videos folgt; die Folien wurden vom FAU Sprachdienst aus dem Englischen ins Deutsche übersetzt (und von mir nachkorrigiert).
Neben obigem Youtube embed gibt es eine werbefreie Version auf der FAU Website sowie eine runterladbare Datei.
The slides are also available (English only).
Digital Sovereignty for Germany?
Last week the German government published a commissioned study on how it depends on software and services vendors (local copy). The day after the publication, Cathrin Schaer of ZDnet called to ask for my thoughts on the study and digital sovereignty for Germany: Is it even possible? Cathrin’s resulting article picked up some of our discussion, but I wanted to take the time here to elaborate on my thoughts.
Continue reading “Digital Sovereignty for Germany?”