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 you’re 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. It’s important to send a message to organisations that purport to champion freedom that they cannot do so while being funded by surveillance capitalists.
💕
@fsi @conservancy Update #2: Looks like @fsfe – Free Software Foundation Europe – 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 don’t even know what to say anymore. Disappointed doesn’t even begin to cover it.
We did not suspect that Google is since 2013 not only **a** sponsor, but **the main** sponsor, of the Free Software Foundation Europe @fsfe :
https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus-2013.en.html . Thanks for the hint!
This is like if ExxonMobil was financing Greenpeace.
Just like for the SFC @conservancy above, we removed the #FSFE from the white paper.
@fsi @aral @xerz @fsfe @conservancy Like that Privacy Conference at the University of Amsterdam some time ago. Main sponsors were Google and Palantir.
@fsi @aral
I don't think "main" is quite accurate: rather "the biggest", many years in a row.
@fsfe : for more transparency and the concerns raised here, how about publicly stating a precise percentage for any donator above 10%?
I do see that in 2017: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus-2017.en.html and 2018: https://fsfe.org/donate/thankgnus-2018.en.html
Google's donations to FSFE covered no more than 10% of the budget.
This suggests that there are statistical fluctuations of the Google contribution to FSFE oscillating around 10%.