86 satır
3.3 KiB
HTML
86 satır
3.3 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<html newsdate="2016-09-07">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>Julia Reda, MEP: "Proprietary Software threatens Democracy"
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</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>Julia Reda, MEP: "Proprietary Software threatens Democracy"
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</h1>
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<center>
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<video controls="controls" width="640" height="360" crossorigin="crossorigin">
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<source src="https://download.fsfe.org/videos/summit2016/MEP%20Julia%20Reda%20-%20Closing%20keynote%20QtCon%202016.webm" type='video/webm' />
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</video>
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</center>
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<p>Julia Reda ended the QtCon, a conference for
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the Free Software community, with a closing keynote on, among other
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things, Free Software in the European Public Sector.
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</p>
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<p>Ms Reda, a member of the EU Parliament for the Pirate Party,
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explained how proprietary software, software that forbids users from
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studying and modifying it, has often left regulators in the dark,
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becoming a liability for and often a threat to the well-being and
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health of citizens.</p>
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<p>An example of this, she said, is the recent Dieselgate scandal, in
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which auto-mobile manufacturers installed software that cheated
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instruments that measured fumes in test environments, only to spew
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illegal amounts of toxic exhaust into the atmosphere the moment they
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went on the road.</p>
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<p>Ms Reda also explained how medical devices running proprietary
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software posed a health hazard for patients. She gave the example of a
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woman with a pacemaker who collapsed while climbing some stairs due to
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a bug in her device. Doctors and technicians had no way of diagnosing
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and correcting the problem as they did not have access to the
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code.</p>
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<p>Also worrying is the threat software with restrictive licenses pose to
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democracy itself. The trend of substituting traditional voting ballots
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with voting machines is especially worrying, because, as these
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machines are not considered a threat to national security, their
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software also goes unaudited and is, in fact, unauditable in most
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cases.</p>
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<p>And, although voting machines are built and programmed by private
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companies, they are commissioned by public entities and paid for with
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public money, money taken from citizens' taxes. However, there are no
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universal EU regulations that force companies, or, indeed, public
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organisations, to make the source code available to the citizens that
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have paid for it, said Ms Reda.</p>
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<p>Furthermore, she noted that, despite the fact Free Software
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technologies (web servers, CMSs, email servers, and so on) are used
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extensively throughout the public administration, the public sector
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assumes very little responsibility in the way of giving back to the
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community via patches or even bug reports.</p>
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<p>Ms Reda said that the solution to this very dismal state of affairs is
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a multi-pronged one. She commended the Free Software Foundation Europe
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for its work in advocating for all software commissioned by public
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entities and paid with public money, be made available under
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free/libre licenses for everyone. She also noted that to get
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governments on the side of Free Software it is essential to make them
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see its merits.</p>
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<p>Only like this, she said, would it be possible to make legislators
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regulate coherently in favour of free/libre technologies.</p>
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</body>
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<tags>
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<tag key="front-page"/>
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<tag key="fsfe-summit">FSFE summit</tag>
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</tags>
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</html>
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