Sign F-Droid up as "Public Money? Public Code!" supporter

@oF2pks raised a very good point in a previous conversation:

… strangely F-Droid is missing in the supporting list of Public Money? Public Code!

I’d love to add F-Droid to https://publiccode.eu/en/. Given of course that we’re in consensus of doing so. @contributors

This is the open letter we’d be signing:

Public Money? Public Code!

Digital services offered and used by our public administrations are the critical infrastructure of 21st century democratic nations. In order to establish trustworthy systems, public bodies must ensure they have full control over the software and the computer systems at the core of our state digital infrastructure. However, right now, this is rarely the case due to restrictive software licences that:

  • Forbid sharing and exchanging publicly funded code. This prevents cooperation between public administrations and hinders further development.
  • Support monopolies by hindering competition. As a result, many administrations become dependent on a handful of companies.
  • Pose a threat to the security of our digital infrastructure by forbidding access to the source code. This makes fixing backdoors and security holes extremely difficult, if not completely impossible.

We need software that fosters the sharing of good ideas and solutions. Like this we will be able to improve IT services for people all over Europe. We need software that guarantees freedom of choice, access, and competition. We need software that helps public administrations regain full control of their critical digital infrastructure, allowing them to become and remain independent from a handful of companies. That is why we call our representatives to support Free and Open Source Software in public administrations, because:

  • Free and Open Source Software is a modern public good that allows everybody to freely use, study, share and improve applications we use on a daily basis.
  • Free and Open Source Software licences provide safeguards against being locked in to services from specific companies that use restrictive licences to hinder competition.
  • Free and Open Source Software ensures that the source code is accessible so that backdoors and security holes can be fixed without depending on one service provider.

Public bodies are financed through taxes. They must make sure they spend funds in the most efficient way possible. If it is public money, it should be public code as well!

That is why we, the undersigned, call our representatives to:

“Implement legislation requiring that publicly financed software developed for public sector must be made publicly available under a Free and Open Source Software licence.”

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:100: I fully support signing this! What do they need from us to include us there?

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A friendly email should suffice to enlist.

While I am far away from being a real contributor to Fdroid, I think that this makes totally sense!

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I’m 100% behind this as well.

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I’m behind this 110% (“110” is an emergency number in Germany – and I find this topic has been ignored much too long) – count me in!

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Okay, it’s been a week, there’s a lot of support and zero objections! :heart:
I’ll check with Ciaran now and if he does not object (or reply), I’ll sign us up.

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Good news everyone, F-Droid is now listed as supporting organization on https://publiccode.eu

Oh, and Ciaran is also in full support.

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what does this even mean? :slight_smile:

Slightly different, I noticed ToS;DR classification in DuckDuckGo : obviously F-Droid should be rated A+ instead of B+ (due to: Unknown Privacy Practices ?)

https://tosdr.org/classification.html

Is possible to also feature it on the F-Droid site?

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