We prepared a white paper for the #EuropeanCommission containing recommendations about #OpenHardware as encouraged last November:
https://wiki.f-si.org/index.php/White_paper_for_the_EC,_January_2020
Please discuss it or endorse it by replying to this thread.
The paper will be delivered on January 31.
A first draft was shared in December with:
* april.org @aprilorg
* fsfe.org @fsfe
* fsf.org @fsf
* Aral Balkan @aral
* waag.org @waag
* sfconservancy.org @conservancy
* gpl-violations.org
* commonsnetwork.eu
@fsi This is an important, timely, and well phrased report and the framing of temporarily-open licenses vs forever-open licenses is brilliant.
PS. @conservancy is funded by Google (https://sfconservancy.org/sponsors/) and I protest at my name being included in a list that includes them. If youāre happy taking money from surveillance capitalists like Google, we have nothing in common.
We were not aware that @conservancy is financed by Google. Thanks for pointing this out!
The choice of including the Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) in the paper was inspired by the role of Bradley M. Kuhn in the creation of the Affero GPL (https://sfconservancy.org/blog/?author=bkuhn).
Since an involvement of Google conflicts with our standards (as stated in our statute https://wiki.f-si.org/index.php/F-Si_Statute), we have removed the SFC from the white paper. Anyhow, they have not provided any feedback to it.
@fsi @conservancy Thank you. Itās important to send a message to organisations that purport to champion freedom that they cannot do so while being funded by surveillance capitalists.
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@fsi @conservancy Update #2: Looks like @fsfe ā Free Software Foundation Europe ā is also funded by Google (https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus-2018.en.html)
The Free Silicon Foundation has now removed them from the whitepaper also.
I donāt even know what to say anymore. Disappointed doesnāt even begin to cover it.
@aral @fsi @conservancy @fsfe donāt let it get you down. You can only take one step at a time. Well done for noting and pointing out where funding issues are a conflict of interest. Others may now consider there own initial sources of funding going forward if they wish to be in theses spaces/ debates of privacy and free software.
