Julia Reda ended the QtCon, a conference for +the Free Software community, with a closing keynote on, among other +things, Free Software in the European Public Sector. +
+ +Ms Reda, a member of the EU Parliament for the Pirate Party, +explained how proprietary software, software that forbids users from +studying and modifying it, has often left regulators in the dark, +becoming a liability for and often a threat to the well-being and +health of citizens.
+ +An example of this, she said, is the recent Dieselgate scandal, in +which auto-mobile manufacturers installed software that cheated +instruments that measured fumes in test environments, only to spew +illegal amounts of toxic exhaust into the atmosphere the moment they +went on the road.
+ +Ms Reda also explained how medical devices running proprietary +software posed a health hazard for patients. She gave the example of a +woman with a pacemaker who collapsed while climbing some stairs due to +a bug in her device. Doctors and technicians had no way of diagnosing +and correcting the problem as they did not have access to the +code.
+ +Also worrying is the threat software with restrictive licenses pose to +democracy itself. The trend of substituting traditional voting ballots +with voting machines is especially worrying, because, as these +machines are not considered a threat to national security, their +software also goes unaudited and is, in fact, unauditable in most +cases.
+ +And, although voting machines are built and programmed by private +companies, they are commissioned by public entities and paid for with +public money, money taken from citizens' taxes. However, there are no +universal EU regulations that force companies, or, indeed, public +organisations, to make the source code available to the citizens that +have paid for it, said Ms Reda.
+ +Furthermore, she noted that, despite the fact Free Software +technologies (web servers, CMSs, email servers, and so on) are used +extensively throughout the public administration, the public sector +assumes very little responsibility in the way of giving back to the +community via patches or even bug reports.
+ +Ms Reda said that the solution to this very dismal state of affairs is +a multi-pronged one. She commended the Free Software Foundation Europe +for its work in advocating for all software commissioned by public +entities and paid with public money, be made available under +free/libre licenses for everyone. She also noted that to get +governments on the side of Free Software it is essential to make them +see its merits.
+ +Only like this, she said, would it be possible to make legislators +regulate coherently in favour of free/libre technologies.
+ + + + +