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<h1>Transcript of SFP#29: How South Tyrol is taking a step in the direction of software freedom</h1>
<p><a href="/news/podcast/episode-29.html">Back to the episode SFP#29</a></p>
<p>This is a transcript created with the Free Software tool Whisper. For more information and feedback reach out to <email mailto="yes">podcast@fsfe.org</email></p>
<pre class="transcript">
WEBVTT
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Before we start with the podcast, we would like to say thank you to all of you who support
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the FSFE's work of money.
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Working for software freedom and producing podcasts costs money.
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Please consider supporting us with our nation on the FSFE.org slash donate and in the
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show notes.
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Hello and welcome to the software freedom podcast.
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This podcast is brought to you by the free software foundation Europe.
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We are a charity that empowers users to take control of technology.
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I'm Bonnie Merring and today we have a special episode.
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Marta Andreoli, who is the Italian deputy coordinator, is talking to Paul Lundjili
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about the first project.
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And with this I would say let's explore what all the fuss is about.
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Hello everyone, my name is Marta and I'm the deputy coordinator for the FSFE Italy
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project.
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I'm here tonight together with Paul Lundjili, who is the technical inspector for Italian
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schools in the autonomy of Bozzano Italy.
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Welcome Paolo.
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Hi.
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Hi.
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Nice to see you, Marta.
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Good.
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I'm really happy that you're here with us tonight with me, actually.
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And Paolo is also the coordinator of the FUSE project.
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Paolo can you tell me and can you tell us a bit more about what the FUSE is all about?
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Yeah, FUSE stands for free upgrade in software schools.
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We modified a little bit the acronym into free upgrade for a digitally sustainable school.
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And this project was born in 2005 with the idea of giving students and teachers the
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possibility to use free software, not only at schools but also at home.
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Okay, that's amazing.
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Thank you Paolo.
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I'm really fond of this project, I'm a big fan.
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And I know that this project is also really very much considered a project of public value.
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And I also know that the project has some ties with the FUSE campaign, public money,
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public code.
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So I would love for you now to share a bit more on this.
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Yeah, several projects and institutions around the world recognized not only to our project,
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so to the FUSE project, but also to all free software projects around the world that
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they bring, they constitute public value and why?
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Because especially for projects that are, let's say, funded by public administrations,
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those, that money that is used to develop those projects is converted into public code.
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And this is what happened with FUSE.
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We not only reused a very good free software starting from the Debian GNU Linux distribution,
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but we also reused a lot of applications that constitute all the, let's say, educational
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applications that we installed in the FUSE distribution.
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We also developed a lot of code using public money and this is why it is considered that
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the outcome of this is a public value.
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So the public code, the documentation, and everything that comes out of the project
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is, let's say, given back to the whole community.
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Okay, wow, that's really amazing and it's really a complete target for what the FUSE stands
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for for the public money, public code campaign.
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Could you tell me then a bit more about who uses the project and do you also have some
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metrics in terms of numbers of users?
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Yes, the FUSE project is used by all Italian schools of the autonomous province of Bolzano.
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And so the numbers are that it is used by around 16,000 students and 1,900 teachers.
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It is used in 74 schools and the number of PCs and desktops and the notebooks we have
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is around 4,500 and we also have 64 servers which have a complete free software stack starting
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from Proxmox and ending it to Debian and all software that is needed to run a school
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network.
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Okay, amazing.
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I was once in a presentation with you and I remember that you told us and you shared
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that you were saving a lot of money because you actually used this project.
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So I was wondering if you perhaps remember now without having the data with you, how much
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money did this project make you save and by you, I mean the province of Bolzano?
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Yeah, consider that before 2005, we were spending around 300,000 euro for proprietary software
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licenses.
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Starting from 2005, okay, we spent some money to exit the proprietary lock-in and starting
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from 2007 till today practically, consider that in 16 years we spent less than what we
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spent for one year of proprietary software licenses.
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So in 16 years from 2007 till 2022, we spent around 303,000 euro which is less than one
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year of proprietary software licenses.
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Wow, that's really amazing, Paolo and big congratulations for that.
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And because of what you just shared, I have a question that I think the audience that
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is listening to us might be interested in hearing and especially they might be interested
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in hearing your answer to this question.
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And my question would be if someone wants to replicate this project, do you have a blueprint
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that you created through the years and can you share it with us?
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Would you be willing to share it with us?
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We were in contact with some other schools and people around Italy.
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So first of all, I would like to say that Fuss is not only used in South Tyrol, it's
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also used for example in one high school in Venice.
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It has been used for several years.
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It's used in Florence, in a so-called Lichero, Nicolò Rodolico in Florence and some other
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schools in Italy for example, Ancona.
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We were asked by Liguria for example to give them a blueprint to replicate a project and
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we work with them towards a document for replicating it.
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And the last effort was doing more or less the same thing with the schools in Venice.
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So we were contacted by the region of Venice and they asked us to give them some help in
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recreating the ingredients for replicating Fuss in the region.
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Okay, that's beautiful and did you already achieve this?
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Did you do it?
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They decided to start with the three schools.
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So they chose three schools and the schools are going to start with Fuss.
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Okay, so I'm looking forward to hear the results of what they will do as well.
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And I hope many listeners to our podcast will also decide to get in touch with you where
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we share the podcast, we will also share your contact if that's okay with you so that
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people can get in touch.
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But before closing, I also wanted to touch on another point because I've seen by reading
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newspaper articles and links that you also sent me and other friends shared that this
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project also can be called as a social project because you interacted with other realities
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from the territory.
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And I'm really also always fascinated by these kind of corporations.
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So I would really love if you can elaborate a bit more on these and share your experience.
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Sure.
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I mean, together with the local Linux user group, the Linux user group, Bozano-Bulsana,
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we started in 2017 and so called Open Linux Desk where people could come and we were
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helping them in installing Linux and free software on their machines.
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And starting with a pandemic period, we saw that it was a great, two big digital divide
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in families and we decided to gather a lot of used PCs and believe me, there are companies
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that throw away and also public institutions that throw away very good PCs and we decided
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to gather them and install GNU Linux and lots of free software, practically the FUSD
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distribution for students and consider that in three, four years we were able to give
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to families and students in particular 800 PCs.
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So following this idea, we were also able to get in contact with other projects, for
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example MiniBizet, which is a project that started several years ago in order to create
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a small city for children and there are several other projects in Europe of the same kind
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as the one here in Bozano.
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And in 2024, so this year, this was the first year where they wanted to digitalize the
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whole city and they needed around 80 PCs.
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And so what we proposed them was to start a circular economy project where we gathered
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all PCs as we did with the school swap project and we installed free software on that.
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So the same FUSD distribution, so they've been GNU Linux and a lot of educational software
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and they were able to let's say work in a small city using computers for the first time.
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Yes, and computers with free software installed on it.
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Of the amazing, amazing, really great work and thank you for sharing with us.
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I hope listeners will be inspired by your stories.
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That's the whole purpose of having this interview with you.
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And yeah, to wrap it up, we touched on so many points and especially I think so many
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important values came up from the talk that we just had.
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So to close our talk, I would like to ask you if you can give us a bit of a summary of
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the main pillars that actually build up this project and that are at the core of the project.
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I heard some of them, for example, we talk about free and open source software, about
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open standards, about open teaching materials, open access and I would also say open hardware.
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Of course, if you can.
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Yes, we are talking very often about the concept of digital sustainability.
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So sustainability is a concept that has been used a lot, especially in the past few years,
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but we insist on the fact that we don't have only to talk about free software,
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but also, as you said, about open standards, the importance of using open standards in schools,
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because I work in schools and for public administrations.
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And the importance of starting creating open teaching materials, there's a lot of work that
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has to be done, Wikimedia projects as Wikibooks are working in that direction.
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And also Vikiversity, for example.
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So we very often say we don't need to reinvent or reuse or say redevelop new platforms
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for storing their teaching materials, for example.
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And of course, open access is quite important as one of the several pillars of digital sustainability,
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because without open access, we couldn't access neither free software and all other resources.
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And these four pillars are, let's say, built one of the most important things that we also have,
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we need in schools, this is one of the big objects of schools, which is knowledge sharing.
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So without, I mean, this main point, which is knowledge sharing, we couldn't have the other four resources
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that we're talking about.
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Yeah, and knowledge sharing is also the point of our podcasts and of sharing these experiences with you all.
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So I thank you, Paolo, for the talk we had.
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It was a very inspiring chat, and I look forward to many more.
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And thank you also to all the listeners who tuned in for the podcast episode on the FUS project with Paolo Dunjili.
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And see you next time, stay tuned for the next guest.
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Bye-bye.
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This was the Software Freedom Podcast.
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If you liked this episode, please recommend it to your friends and rate it.
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Stay tuned for more inspiring conversations that explore the importance of Software Freedom.
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This podcast is presented to you by the free Software Foundation Europe.
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We are a charity that works in promoting Software Freedom.
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If you like our work, please consider supporting us with our donation.
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You find more information under fsfe.org slash donate.
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Thanks.
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<p><a href="/news/podcast/episode-29.html">Back to the episode SFP#29</a></p>
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