#rC3 How Proprietary IP and Copyright Models Fail Society and What We Can Do About It

preroll music

Herald Angel: Welcome back to the hacc stage
this year on the remote Congress three. We

are here again to host you an amazing
talk: How proprietary IP and copyright

models failed society and what we can do
about it by Mario. He will be talking

about some examples where IP or the
current IP system failed us. And I think

in general, a lot of people would agree
that not everyone is content with how IP

works today. So I have nothing more to add
to this. And I give my voice over to

Mario.

Mario Behling: Thank you very much. This has been
a very kind introduction and I appreciate

the support of the entire team and
community. And I'm happy to give this talk

here today. It's a question that really
concerns me for many years, honestly, more

than 20 years since I started my journey
in the open source, in the free software

and the open hardware community. And yeah,
I have quite a few things to share. And so

but before I talk about all these problems
that we see, especially this year, I want

to talk about the positives, my experience
over many years, how open systems can

benefit society and people's lives. And I
want to talk about what I experienced and

where I connected to people first, because
for me, this is kind of proof that open

systems can work and that they are ready
to be the mainstream in society. So

shortly about myself, I'm working here in
Berlin with my company, OpenTec. I lived

many years in Asia and usually I spend
still a lot of time in Asia every year.

And actually I stayed there until April.
And when I came back at the beginning of

the Corona crisis, then to Germany to be
close to my parents and I love learning

languages so on, not only into tech,
always had this excitement, the kind of

inspiration when I meet people from other
countries and try to speak their

languages. And yeah, that's what I really
love. And people don't believe it

sometimes when they see my photo in the
driver's license where I have long hair

and I used to play in a rock band. So
that's also in my life. And yeah, I

believe in open tech as a solution for
many of our global problems. So in 2006,

for example, I started a journey with a
mesh network community here. And I would

like to share something that I did there
that I hope to inspire others. And it's a

video which I want to show you a few
seconds here, to get you into the mood. So

let me quickly switch to the video. And
here it's from Flo Fleißig and one video

that I created at that time.

Video: singing Flo Fleißig, Flo Fleißig,
Flo Fleißig olala. Flo Fleißig, Flo Fleißig,

Flo Fleißig olala.

Ich bin Florian, und das ist meine neue
Wohnung. Wir sind gerade hier eingezogen.

Und, ich hab kein Internet. Jedenfalls
hatte ich keins. Aber in Berlin gibts ja

Leute, die verschenken Internet. Und das
Allerbeste? Es kommt auch noch durch die

Luft. Und ich zeig' euch wie.
Kommt mal mit. Hier ist mein

Wohnzimmer. Kommt rein, kommt rein. Na,
wie sehen die Schuhe aus? Gut. Und das ist

mein Computer. Und der brauchte Internet.
Und wo kommt das her? Erst mal aus nem

Kabel. Und das Kabel geht durch die Decke.
So, kommt mit, ich zeig euch wo das hin

führt. Das ist meine Dachterasse. Und von
hier komm ich immer aufs Dach. Kommt

schon, kommt schon! Von hier aus kann man
über ganz Berlin gucken. Da hinten ist der

Fernsehturm. Da kommt mein Internet aber
nicht her. Guckt mal, hier kommt mein

Kabel raus. Und das geht in ne Tupperbox
da unten. Und da kommt noch Strom hin und

dann kommt noch 'n anderes Kabel raus
Mario: And I don't want to show the entire

video. But I want to give you an example.
What I did and how I got into the

community, how I got excited. So in, for
example, for the free wireless mesh

community. And I kind of forgot that it
was German, I was switching it in. But

it's about a guy who gets the Internet
through Wi-Fi, who uses open source

software, uses networks and like as much
as possible open things, and then like it

creates a network, participates in a
network and so on. We make videos about

Wikipedia and so on. So actually, that was
a pretty exciting time because it just

seemed everything's possible. People were
talking about blogging, changing the media

and so on. So, yeah, looking back from
2020, it seems kind of like a utopian time

where we thought so many things are
possible. And then we had like many events

here called The Wizards of OS, and they
happened like every two years at that

time. And I was excited. So I went there.
And one year I also got the chance to help

with the press there. So I met a lot of
the drivers of that time there. So, for

example, like here in this slide, we see
Volker Grassmuck who organized the

Wizards of OS, with a team and with a
community. And some people we welcomed

back then were Jimmy Wales, Lawrence
Lessig. And yeah, that was a really cool

time with all these people came from all
over the world. And like everything seemed

possible and and we changed it. So and at
that time, I also, of course, made a video

with Lawrence Lessig and. Yeah. And he
said something very important for me. It

is extraordinarily important to have
openness really in every layer of the

network. The physical infrastructure needs
to have open and free resources, the

logical and the application needs to be
open and the content layer too has to be

opened. These things work together to
encourage a wide range of innovation and

creativity. This just sounded so cool to
me. Everything just needs to be open. And

yeah, I believe in this until today. And I
see that people around the world and also

I personally, we have a lot of benefits
through open things. So I finished

universities then and I wanted to do good.
So I worked in some projects, for example,

here in Berlin at the TU Berlin, where we
trained Afghans. And I also then had the

chance to go to Afghanistan with a
position in the Foreign Ministry, they

funded like some training programs in
Afghanistan. And I went there and yeah,

that was really cool so I could help
people in the university. We were training

there. We were doing like presentations,
lectures and so on in the university over

a period of one year and also worked with
the Goethe institute. Later on I met a

guy who like crazy from crazy way to think
of it. He started his company in Afghanistan

and then he collaborated with all kinds of
organization and projects. And at that

time we got in contact with the one laptop
per child project and we ended up to

distribute 10,000 OLPCs, the XO laptops in
Afghanistan, but not just distributing

them. What we actually did is we set up
and networks there so the kids could have

access to knowledge from the Internet to
Wikipedia. And we even like did all this,

like we installed a localized Wikipedia
version on a computer. And so you didn't

have to go all the way to the Internet.
The Internet connection was bad, right,

like you can imagine, for example, in
Jalalabad, it was really difficult to get

a good Internet connection. So we set up
like a local server on a Eee PC at that

time and with like kind of stripped down
version of Wikipedia. And then we had our

local network there. So. Right. I mean.
Whatever we always talk about we actually really

tried to make it happen and we did it and
and there were so many more ideas at that

time. I mean, for example, the Goethe
institute, I had proposed to them back in

2006, to make a content management system
or a wiki or something like that and

collect educational materials. And I
thought, like, maybe we could have one or

two people at the Goethe institute working
on educational materials instead of like

selling books to kids. And, you know, all
this thing where you have to, like,

distribute books around the world and so
on. I thought, like, we can do so much.

And why not start with a German institute?
Unfortunately, already 2006, there wasn't

any positive feedback. They said, oh,
that's really nice. They wanted to hire me

right away as for their development
team to to take care of their website, but

actually I was always interested in
creating open knowledge. And yeah,

unfortunately, until today, we still have
the problem that the digital divide is

here right now in in Germany. And yeah,
it's still not there. So unfortunately, no

progress when I first proposed that 2006
to the Goethe institute. So I stayed

longer in Asia and later on I went to
Singapore, then to Vietnam, and I started

a company in Vietnam. We did kind of Linux
systems for the Swiss post. And so that

was nice, right? I mean, you could earn
income with open source. Fantastic. And we

had this idea to connect with the global
community. There was always this feeling

that we are a bit disconnected. Yeah. I
mean, we're in Asia, we see all these

things happening online and somehow we
don't meet these developers that we

usually meet at conferences, for example,
in Europe. So we thought we are in Asia.

It's not just me I'm talking about we,
because, of course, you're always

embedded. You always meet friends,
developers, designers, a lot of

community people. So we thought, like,
let's make a event in Asia and here in

Vietnam and we love FOSS and let's call it
fossasia then because we are in Asia. And

yeah over the years we developed different
activities and different streams here,

fossasia.org, where we of course then
develop software and hardware. I mean if

you have events and when you have events,
I mean then you meet other people and they

have cool ideas, you have cool ideas. But
it's not that you only talk about it, you

actually do it. You open a GitHub
repository, for example, and then create a

project and some projects move forward and
yeah, become real and people use it. So

one of these projects, for example, is
eventyay.com that we use to organize our

open source events. And then like we also
connect developers, for example, through

programs like codeheat. So happy to see
you guys there checking it out. And it

would be great to see you on one of these
platforms. And yeah, a few pictures of

people who are contributing and we always
have big numbers. Right. And but like,

it's not just big numbers, of course, like
people come and go. A lot of people

register but like then they come back.
Some people continuously work over a long

time. Maybe you see some familiar faces
here from other events. These are a few of

the contributors in the fossasia
community. So we have a lot of merged pull

requests. There are 5,000 developers
registered, as I said, big numbers. You

know, some people stay, some people go.
It's always come and go. But we have a lot

of activity going on. We have hackathons
and we have a lot of coding programs. So

back to 2009, then we started to organize
events here with the help of the GNOME

community we hosted GNOME.Asia. We started
development. And that's what I say, like

openness, open systems. They really
bring together people to share

knowledge and, yeah, to build a better
world. And we continued over many years

here, for example, fossasia Summit 2011,
where we had a mini debconf. And so we

were very happy to welcome debian
developers from all over the world.

That was really nice. And we moved to
different places. For example, Phnom Penh

in 2014 where we were at Norton University.
People again came from many different

places. So that was really inspiring. And
not just like summits and events here.

Also we have coding contests and here,
for example, there's an information event

about coding, about codeheat in India. So
it's not just us, people actually started

to make their own events without our help,
so that was really lovely to see here in

India. And yeah, so then I thought, like,
OK, all this free and open source, it's

working. We have the software. We have
people working on hardware. How about open

architecture? And it happened that like I
was in Vietnam and we had a small patch of

land and we had planned to build a house.
And then we said, why not build something

really nice, like a slightly bigger where
we can also welcome people from the

community that we can say that we build an
open source business here and we decided

to build an open source hotel. So
basically a hotel that uses as much as

possible open source tools and software
and also a hotel that should have like

follow the idea of ecology. And so we put
on top of the house, for example, water,

solar panels that are known to be really
efficient. So the entire building is like

uses hot water through solar panels, for
example. And of course, we use Linux

system where people can go to into the
Internet. We use openWRT for our network

and so on. Whatever is possible,
unfortunately, is not entirely possible.

Because in Vietnam it's also like guests
are usually supervised by the police. So

the police demands that you install an app
on the hotel computer and when you submit

every evening which guests are in the
hotel. So that one is the only laptop that

runs with Windows, there in the building.
Yeah. And that was cool and then I thought

like but like what's happening in Germany.
So I went to Germany and I met a lot of

people who were working on knitting. Yeah,
knitting. And then there were

people who are interested in fashion and
technology and we thought like, why not

bring these people together? And there was
also there was also a time where some

disasters happened, for example, in
Bangladesh. And so we had the, there was a

building that crashed down. A lot of
people died there and so on. So basically.

That was big in the news and then there
was big in the news that the textile

industry harms the environment like in
many different ways, especially in those

emerging countries. So we thought, what
could we do about it? And the TU Berlin

and Melanie and Andre, few friends here,
they said, let's make it happen. Let's

let's make an event happen where we
bring some people together. And, yeah, I

would like to share another video here
with you to give you some impressions from

that time.

German TV Narrator: Computer trifft
auf Mode.

Auf der MeshCon kamen zum ersten Mal
Softwareentwickler, Strickenthusiasten und

Vertreter der Textil- und Modeindustrie
zusammen. Entwickelt werden unter anderem

digitale Strickmaschinen als
umweltschonende Konkurrenz für

Billiganbieter aus Fernost. Ein nur 3€
teurer WLAN-Chip zum Beispiel ins Hemd

eingenäht, lässt die Kleidung mitdenken.
Mario: Für den Gesundheitssektor ist das

sehr interessant, denn hier kann man
sehen, wie verschiedene Parameter

funktionieren. Man kann den Herzschlag
abnehmen, man kann Blutdruck und so weiter

dann aufzeichnen und direkt per WLAN
übertragen.

TV Narrator: Ziel der MeshCon ist es,
durch digitale Anwendungen eine

umweltfreundliche Textilproduktion nach
Deutschland zurückzuholen.

Mario: So, yeah, right, I mean, like that
was 2014 and again, you might say, well,

yeah, it's the same topics that we hear
today. I mean, like that's like six years

later, right? It's "umweltfreundlich",
environment. Right. Environmental friendly

textile industry. What can we do with
technologies to improve the situation

here? And yeah, like this is something
that we can do with free and open source

hardware. And then we had the CCC event
again that year and there Hong Phuc

presented her like talk about textile
machines. And there was this vision of a

open textile production line. That's a
huge thing. And we thought, like, let's

make a revolution for the textile and
garment industry. The system is broken.

So already 2014 and onwards like we
already knew that the system is broken.

And it's just the same situation as today.
And there was a video, I think I don't

have so much time to show this, but we
have our friends from the hackerspace in

Munich and different ones like in this
video. I recommend you to you to have a

look online after this session and the
links and slideshow will be provided. But

it's really amazing what they do. And it
shows that. Like textile production, local

production is possible with free and open
tools. We just need to develop them into

the right direction. And of course, it
takes a lot of resources. So that was one

cool thing. And then we continue our
fossasia events, of course, here at Phnom

Penh, for example, we had Pravin. Pravin
was from India and he is a physics teacher

there, and he introduced to us the idea of
a pocket science lab that he could use for

himself to teach the students. So we
started that project and it's unbelievable

what we have now achieved in 2020. We now
have a small science lab here and you can

find more information on pslab.io. And
this science lab is completely open. Here

you see the board. So you can connect it,
for example, to a computer, you can

connect it to a smartphone and you can
start to do experiments. There's a lot

more work to do, but we have already
achieved versions that people all over the

world can use. And yeah, even you can
connect small robots and learn about this.

So that's really cool. And this is, again,
a positive vision. And we produce this in

China. Of course, I always say local
production, but we do what is possible, of

course, with fossasia. We have a lot of
connections across Asia. So here we

actually got the knowledge to do this. We
started a small company that facilitated

the production. So that's all possible.
And then, of course, it's about education.

Here we see how people like go around in
different places, for example, a

Hackerspace Maker Fair in Singapore and
so on, and do this. And then another thing

that we did, I already mentioned
eventyay.com. We now integrated Jitsi and

Big Blue Button. Again, a positive example
how you can collaborate in the open

community. They're like completely
different projects. We don't even know

always the developers, but we can find
their projects online and we can build

amazing solutions. So of course, like
always, the Chaos Computer Congress here.

And this is the place where our
contributors here from Europe, but also

like from Asia, come together.
Unfortunately, this year it's not

possible. But we're really looking forward
to hang out again with you guys so hello

here from Berlin right now at the moment
to everyone. So this is a great place to

meet. So we see amazing things are
possible. And I could give you more

examples from my own life, like free and
open source technologies and knowledge and

all these things are possible and they
can be an example. But fast forward to

today. What are the news that we are
seeing? We are seeing information about

how proprietary IP and copyright models
fail society every day. And let me go

through a few news here. So, for example,
here already in March: Everything is

missing. That was reported on
Süddeutsche.de and it was reported that we

don't even have like the simplest masks
everywhere. And I have to say now it is

the end of December, 10 months later. And
still my father went to the pharmacy. He's

85 years. And what happened? They don't
have masks. Yeah. So this is something

simple. We are living in a high tech
country here in Germany, but. We don't

have masks. Yeah, and even the masks that
we have, I mean, like, if I would think

like 10 months have passed, what high
quality, high tech masks could we have

possibly now if we bring all our knowledge
together? But it is a market focused

economy here and a market focused society
that we have a lack to even imagine,

something that could work with a power of
community. And I was very pleased to see

here our friends from Potsdam and
Brandenburg here giving a talk at the CCC

about how they took action and produced
masks themselves. And it's unbelievable

how actually we rely on citizens to take
the initiative where we have like so much

money in the economy and businesses and
the government. I mean, like, we really

need to do and change something here. But
this is just like one example. And I want

to move forward. Then just a few days ago,
I read this here: our health minister,

they have the right to... We have patents,
right? Like patents and for... People

do research and they develop like some
kind of formula. They develop a process.

And so a lot of companies use patents to
ensure they can earn money with this. But

what happens if there is a war or if
there's a huge crisis like now the

pandemic? The government is allowed to
stop this. The government is permitted to

take the patents and say they're invalid,
for example, for some time, and they can

use, for example, their power here to
produce more vaccinations right? But how

long do we have to wait until vaccination
is available for everyone? And I mean, six

months, one year, and then is it available
for everyone around the world? I mean,

right now, the vaccination like, it's a
business, right? And the companies that

create the vaccination, they don't have
any interest commercially to quickly

vaccinate everyone. I mean, you can read
about it on the Internet everywhere. I'm

not going into detail here. There was also
a talk about patents here at the CCC. So

this is another bad example, how we fail
society because of our policies. There was

also this example in the corona crisis
where some media reported that actually a

company tried to stop makers here in
Milano in Italy, and these makers had

produced spare parts for ventilators. And
they were really like running out of

ventilators. And that was a big problem.
And yeah, this company, of course, didn't

want to help and they couldn't provide
design files to actually save lives! So

this is just so sad that copyright and
patents actually, you know, like you can

only be in a loss of words when you think
about it. It's like people die because of

these kind of like... Yeah, and we have
this here, patents are dying. So there are

initiatives that actually mention this and
ask European governments to follow up. So

then another example like I can, I have a
lot of examples. I don't know if I have

enough time in this talk. But now let's go
to examples here. The pandemic amplifies

trouble with restrictive licensing and
text e-books. So, of course, education is

a big topic like students are at home,
they can't get materials that they need.

You can find examples all around the
world. And then we have the World

Intellectual Property Organization here,
WIPO. What are they doing? "Copyright and

Covid-19: Has WIPO learned nothing from
the pandemic?" are the news that we are

reading here. So basically they don't want
to change their policies. People don't

have access to education, to knowledge,.
Even the pandemic they have to stay at

home and it's just not possible to adjust
the policies. Everything is just for

copyright. WIPO's missed opportunity to
produce guidance on copyright exceptions

hits education during pandemic. And here,
for example, a quote from a spokesperson

for African countries. In light of the
Covid-19 pandemic, never before has the

subject of copyright limitations and
exceptions been more pertinent for

educational and research purposes. It is
just so clear, he continues: Open source

publications on health research are
essential to the common human endeavor to

find a solution to this global health
challenge. Furthermore, children in

developing countries have been denied
online access to educational research

material because of copyright
restrictions. This is just unbelievable.

It is inhumane to learn about this. And
yeah, why did it take so long before

reading time arrived to distance learning?
Copyright, of course, is a quote here of

Mike Masnick that I found online. And he
goes on how like, for example, teachers

have to get permission to use reading
materials online. And it is just silly if

you think what he says here. No one would
ever expect that if you walked into a

kindergarten classroom that a teacher
would first need to get a) a permission to

read aloud a book and b) state before
reading that he or she had permission from

the copyright holder. This is happening in
kindergartens, it's just insane. So a lot

more examples and I will switch a bit
forward because I don't have too much time

here for the entire thing. What else
happened here this year? The youtube-dl

source repository went offline. The I...
R...I... RIAA used the same law that stops

farmers, creators and security researchers
from modifying or repairing devices they

bought and own from tractors and toasters
or smart speakers and smartphones. And we

could just go on and I think many of you
remember what happened. They just took off

a source repository, basically without
rights. And of course, my favorite here:

Apple. Apple crushes one-man repair shop
in Norway's Supreme Court after a three

year battle. Maybe some people are
confused. I don't know who's listening. If

you're listening from Germany, if you're
listening from Australia or any other

country, you could actually find similar
news everywhere in the world where Apple

prevents people from repairing their
phones or from making any changes to their

devices. And think about this in regards
to the environment. Do you think this is

good? If you can't repair your device and
always have to buy something new?

Definitely not. The example like the EFF
just referred to it in the same path:

Farmers fight John Deere over who gets to
fix an 800,000$ tractor. So. John Deere is

one of the biggest like companies that
create machinery, agricultural

machinery, and they told the copyright
office that farmers don't own their

tractors because computer code snakes
through the DNA of modern tractors,

farmers receive an implied license for the
life of the vehicle to operate the

vehicle. OK, again, copyright and
intellectual property, so-called. And just

like now, I don't know if people already
have the chance to go through the Brexit

treaty. What do we read now on the Brexit
treaty? A party shall not require the

transfer of, or access to the source code
of software owned by a natural or legal

person of the other party. Basically, this
means. This is a trade agreement, and in

this trade agreement, we say if, for
example, the EU or Germany, for example,

demands that any software that we buy from
Britain and if the software is, for

example, security related or for our power
grid or something like that, we are not

permitted to ask a British supplier to
open the source code to us. This is like

how politicians continue here in this
crisis. So it's all heading in the wrong

direction. And these are just a few
examples. We are living here in a market

society, but the market is failing to
solve the pandemic, the climate change and

poverty around the world. This is just
what we see here. And I want now some

outcome here. I want demands. In my view,
we are in a state of digital emergency. To

solve the problems of our planet, from
climate change to the pandemic and

poverty, we need a new open digital deal
for global collaboration. And this is what

I showed to you before. I showed to you
how, from my own experience, I can

collaborate and work together with people
all around the world. I can meet them. We

can create something new. We did create
many things. And in my view, this is an

example here that we should follow as a
society. And that's why I have demands and

here's some key things that I think we
need. So of course, we need global

knowledge sharing to solve our problems.
We need open access to knowledge and

information. We can't afford anymore to
block access to our books and knowledge.

And of course, that also means open
science. We shouldn't say open science

because science is like by definition
already open. But unfortunately, it is not

always, often scientific sources are not
released. And I think many people who are

working in science and in university can
talk a lot about this. So local

production, of course. Of course, it's not
achievable from one moment to the other.

But right now, like we already saw how,
for example, for some health equipment, we

are dependent on other regions of the
world. It's very monopolized and

centralized and for the environment and
for the benefit of a lot of people like

locals who want to make income. We need a
circular economy. So that, yeah, that is

important. And of course, like it's an
ongoing topic. And I know a lot of people

in Asia and in other parts of the world
who suffer because they don't have

privacy. And yeah, privacy is a human
right, but there are many human rights

that are violated, unfortunately, all
around the world. Well, probably this list

can be extended. These are a few key
points that I see. All this is possible

already today. If we could leverage the
advantage of open collaboration, we have a

proof. I have a proof that FOSS, open
hardware, open knowledge, open data

works, openness works. And I want to leave
you in a few moments with this list here

that I created. My demands for new open
digital deal for global collaboration.

It's not sorted in a specific order. There
are some thoughts. I think, like if people

are interested to contact me and work on
this, I'm happy to extend and define this

list. But here are a few points how we
could achieve in this new open digital

deal. So we could, for example, declare a
state of digital emergency. I think that's

what we should do. Digitalnotstand in
German, like it's so apparent, it's on

every corner and every school are these
problems, companies have these problems

it's just everywhere. And this demands a
state of digital emergency. We need a new

vision of openness everywhere. And of
course, we are a market society. But this

state like is active on so many layers and
so much money is handed out. Where is the

billion euro funded package to develop
freely licensed open technologies on all

layers by the European Union? We need this
now and participatory making just needs to

be everywhere, a makerspace in every
library and substantial tax benefits for

open source businesses associations as
well. It's not just businesses who improve

society, it's associations, there are
individuals. There are many different

forms how you can benefit society and
people around you. And for example I could

imagine in Germany, a Bundesstiftung Open
Source. And copyright should be defined as

the right to copy, not is like right now,
it's the other way around. It doesn't make

sense at all. Right? So, yeah, another
idea, priority for businesses,

associations and individuals that provide
benefits to society. I think I already

mentioned that. And all this will help us
with more resilience and the digital

sovereignity. So we are not dependent on,
like, for example, China or like companies

in the US. We don't know what they are
doing. And we already experienced like

what happened, for example, the last few
years with Donald Trump. And yeah. So

definitely we need to stop the
colonization of Europe and the rest of the

world by monopolistic platforms. I think
you can imagine which platforms there are.

And it's even very difficult to get out of
these platforms. And unbelievably, they're

hardly paying any taxes here in Europe. So
there are gatekeepers everywhere. Privacy

is a human right. And I will leave you
here with this list that you can also

review. Afterwards, there's not so much
time left. But I think you understand in

which direction we need to head. And I
demand that we do this right now. So this

is my end slide and I'm open for a few
questions. And I hope I can follow up with

more of you. And there's a fossasia summit
happening in March. We'll do it entirely

online. And I would be happy to connect
with you guys and with all our friends

again there. So thank you very much for
this talk. And moving back to the demands,

I want to leave this as the final slide.
We need openness on all layers, and I'm

really fed up after twenty years. I have
this experience, but I don't see that we

really, you know, like it must be on all
layers of society. We can't wait anymore.

The climate change, pandemic. And maybe
it's not the last pandemic. We don't know.

All these things are happening and I think
we need to change this now. So thank you

very much for giving me the opportunity
here for this talk. And I don't know, do

we still have time for question?

Herald Angel: Well, we are a bit over time
already, but I think I have three

questions right here. And I think I'm just
going to ask them. We still have some time

before the next talk. So are you still
active in the open Internet scene, or

like Freifunk or like the thing you showed
at the beginning?

Mario: Yeah, I think right now I'm not
like involved in the Freifunk community,

but like, of course, like we all use it. I
mean, you know, so it depends, define

active, right? So definitely I'm
supportive of the network community. And I

think, like, it's on a lot of different
layers. And I try to do my part to bring

things forward. I think at the moment, my
main focus personally is on open hardware,

for example, the pocket science lab. And
I'm also trying to support people who want

to run events with free and open source
software only. We even see a lot of events

that, you know, like free and open source
operating systems, but they use closed

source platforms. I want to help
everyone to move to an open layer. And I

think the wireless mesh community,
Freifunk and so on, they have been very

successful already. But in my view, we
need companies, yeah? Because like we are

in a capitalistic society. So if we try
to, you know, to do too many things at

once, yeah? Yeah, it's difficult. It's
very difficult. So I'm focusing on more

narrow things personally, but as I show
here in the demands, I think we can have a

much wider achievement, if we do this on
different layers, if we for example, if we

force the government to go into the
copyleft instead of the closed strict

copyright, you know. We need to
change the policies and like an

association by itself doesn't have the
same resources as, for example, an entire

state, and we need this open and free and
open systems must become mainstream.

Herald Angel: Okay jumping back again into
the open infrastructure like

infrastructure for everyone. What are your
thoughts on Starlink or if there could be

a way to make this kind of Starlink open
source open hardware style? Starlink is...

Mario: I didn't get enough startling? What
is it?

Herald angel: Starlink is, I think from
Elon Musk, a company trying to get

internet into all the remotest places via
a satellite mesh network.

Mario: Sorry, Starlink. Absolutely. So
this is a very good initiative. And of

course, Elon Musk, even though I thought
many times that he is a supporter of free

and open source, he's just one figure and
he depends on venture capital. And it's

not like that he has all the money and
does it. He has a lot of partners there,

venture capital, and there are limits to
venture capital. They want to make money.

Their main priority is to make money, while
my main priority is like to do good for

society. So I'm definitely happy to earn
money to have like a nice glass of wine

and so on. But right there, there are
limits to this. So I want society to

benefit as a whole. And if we could have
Starlink, for example, to run entirely

with open source and like follow an open
approach, and I would be very happy. Definitely.

Herald Angel: Last question,
we are a bit short on time

now. Are you more in the organization part
of fossasia or are you more focused on

single projects?
Mario: OK, so I think it is, it is both,

yeah, and like honestly, like fossasia, it
sometimes seems like a huge organization

that people say, oh, so many people
subscribe and this and that. And we do

events and people ask, how can we also
become like that and so on. Actually, we

don't do this to become a huge
organization. Of course, like we invite

everyone to star repositories, to invite us,
to come to events and so on. But it's not

like for the benefit of like having a lot
of stars or something or having a lot of

members. Our goal is to bring people
together and also to like I think it's

much better if they write on their GitHub
profile: I'm a member of a FOSS

community, then if they say I'm a
Microsoft university student or something

like that. So a lot of the things that we
do somehow scale because of this community

effort and one person tells the other. So
even though it might sometimes look big,

we are actually relatively small, I have
to admit, and I try to support on every

different layer. So my personal focus
changes over time. So right now, I have a

strong focus on enabling people to do
online events. And I believe that in many

parts of the world the virus situation
will continue the way it is now,

unfortunately. And so we need a solution
to connect to these people and we should

do this with free and open source.
Herald Angel: Alright I think thats a nice

way to conclude this talk. No more
questions came in, as for now. So I'm just

going to say from our side, this talk is
over. I will give the word back to you for

a few last words and then all the viewers
can go watch another great talk or go

around in rC3 world.
Mario: So I only would like to say thank

you very much to the team, it has been an
absolute pleasure and how you helped to

make everything happen. And it's really
nice to connect with you guys. And I feel

like I'm really like at the CCC myself, so
and I follow everything. So I appreciate

all your efforts and what you are doing.
So keep it up and everyone out there and

let's get on board and let's add more
demands to my demands and let's make them

happen and bring them to
politics and so on. Unfortunately, the

Pirate Party is not like, didn't progress
in the way we would have all loved to do

it. But hopefully we can achieve this in
other ways. So please let us join efforts

and make all this happen. And new open
digital deal for global collaboration. So

thank you very much.

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