At OW2con 2021, I presented REUSE to an audience deeply involved in Open Source infrastructure projects and close to public authorities and French businesses. The talk emphasized how REUSE makes Free Software licensing accessible and manageable for everyone – from individual developers to large organizations managing complex codebases. This was particularly relevant for the OW2 community, where projects often involve multiple contributors, dependencies, and licensing considerations across international boundaries.
At LibrePlanet 2021, I presented the REUSE initiative as a set of best practices for declaring copyright and licenses in Free Software projects. LibrePlanet is the Free Software Foundation’s annual conference celebrating software freedom, making it an ideal venue to discuss how REUSE helps uphold the principles that the community values most. The talk focused on how clear licensing and copyright information benefits both developers and users of Free Software.
At FOSDEM 2021, I delivered a presentation on REUSE best practices for declaring copyright and licenses in Free and Open Source Software projects. The talk was part of FOSDEM’s OpenChain track, where developers and legal professionals gather to discuss these critical topics. I focused on how REUSE provides a practical, standardized approach to one of the most common yet frustrating problems in FOSS development: maintaining clear licensing information.
Ich war als Gast bei der sechsten Ausgabe des GnuLinuxNews-Podcasts zu Gast, wo wir über verschiedene Themen aus der Welt von Free and Open Source Software sprachen. Der GnuLinuxNews-Podcast richtet sich an die deutschsprachige Linux- und Freie-Software-Community und behandelt aktuelle Entwicklungen, Projekte und politische Themen rund um Freie Software. In dieser Ausgabe diskutierten wir insbesondere über Android und dessen Beziehung zu Freier Software sowie über “Public Money, Public Code”.
In the recent weeks and months, the FSFE Web Team has been doing some heavy work on the FSFE website. We moved and replaced thousands of files and their respective links to improve the structure of a historically grown website (19+ years, 23243 files, almost 39k commits). But how to do that most efficiently in a version controlled system like Git?
Im Librezoom-Podcast LZ20 mit dem Host Ralf Hersel gab ich ein Interview zur Frage, ob mehr Freiheit zu mehr Sicherheit führt – ein scheinbares Paradoxon in der IT-Sicherheitsdebatte. Viele Menschen assoziieren Sicherheit mit Kontrolle und Einschränkungen, während Freie und Open Source Software auf Offenheit setzt. In diesem Gespräch ging ich der Frage nach, warum diese scheinbare Dichotomie in der Realität keine ist und wie Freie Software tatsächlich fundamentale Voraussetzungen für echte IT-Sicherheit schafft.
For the 4th time, and less than 5 months after the last meeting, the FSFE System Hackers met in person to coordinate their activities, work on complex issues, and exchange know-how. This time, we chose yet another town familiar to one of our team members as venue – Lyon in France. What follows is a report of this gathering that happened shortly before #stayhome became the order of the day.
Beim Winterkongress der Digitalen Gesellschaft Schweiz hielt ich einen Vortrag über den fundamentalen Zusammenhang zwischen IT-Sicherheit und Freier Software/Open Source. Die Kernthese war provokant formuliert, aber technisch begründet: Echte IT-Sicherheit ist ohne Freie Software nicht möglich. In einer Zeit, in der Cybersecurity zunehmend als kritisches Thema für Gesellschaft, Wirtschaft und Staat wahrgenommen wurde, argumentierte ich, dass proprietäre Software strukturelle Sicherheitsprobleme mit sich bringt, die nicht einfach durch bessere Praktiken gelöst werden können.
A few days ago I’ve sent an announcement email for today’s I Love Free Software Day to a large bunch of people. Most of the remarkably many replies have been positive and a pure joy to read, but some were a bit sceptical and critical. These came from Free Software contributors who are maintaining and helping projects that they think nobody knows and sees – not because these software projects are unused, but because they are small, a building block for other, more popular applications.
At FOSDEM 2020, I presented “Go REUSE to license your code” in the Legal and Policy Issues Devroom. This talk marked an important milestone in the REUSE initiative’s evolution, as we were seeing increasing adoption across diverse projects and growing recognition of licensing clarity as a critical aspect of software quality. The presentation encouraged developers to adopt REUSE practices for their own projects, showing that proper licensing doesn’t have to be complicated or time-consuming.