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Meet Andrei and David, two first edition YH4F participants

The coding period of the Youth Hacking 4 Freedom hacking contest has been running for almost three months now. The competition continues to be a fun contest for young hackers to test and develop their skills. The previous edition ended with 35 great projects submitted with inspiring stories behind them. Read about Andrei's and David's projects.

The rules for the contest are simple: the projects must be Free Software. There are no limits to the possibilities on the kinds of projects that can be submitted. Any technical idea is welcome. This gives each participant the chance to create a project according to their wishes, skills, and interests. At the end of the first edition of the Youth Hacking 4 Freedom competition, 35 amazing projects had been submitted. Each of these projects has an inspiring story behind it. Let us introduce you to two of these amazing projects. Take a look at Andrei's handy tool for dmenu and David's "OpenCV Hand Gesture Control" project.

Before joining YH4F, Andrei was already involved in the Free Software world. He has not only used various GNU/Linux distributions as his main operating system, but also made sure it stays fun with games available for everybody. He recently helped port Minetest (a Free Software game) to the cross-platform library "Simple DirectMedia Layer" (SDL), which helps developers to make sure their games are working on different types of operating systems. But instead of sticking to only a technical world Andrei channels his artistic energy into both shell and film scripts.

The mind behind "OpenCV Hand Gesture Control" is David. David has a passion for Free Software and software development. He learned the basics of Scratch programming in Grade 3. Since then he has improved his skills and widened his knowledge of programming. David started writing scripts in Python and Bash and has now moved on to learning Rust. After the YH4F contest David has also continued to work on projects such as the Matrix-Modbot, which is a bot that automatically moderates Matrix rooms.

FSFE: Hello Andrei and David. Thank you for joining us.

FSFE: How did you come into contact with programming and how did you learn to program?

David: When I was in China, in grade 3 I was introduced to Scratch programming and immediately became fond of it. Then I learned through experimenting with the program to create simple animations and games. When I got my first computer, I started to learn Python from a video series for beginners. After learning the basics, I began to write some small scripts in Python and Bash for myself. And last year, I managed to secure an internship position at a software company. There I learned a lot and this experience also led me to learning about python OOP design and software design in general. Now I am learning Rust and working on a project called Matrix-Modbot, which is an automated bot for Matrix.

Andrei: I used to go to a programming club a friend of mine invited me to. We were writing C++ to solve some mathematical problems (things like greatest common factor, factorial etc.) though we (unofficially) spent too much time playing games there as well.

FSFE: Andrei, can you tell us what was your first contact with Free Software?

Andrei: When I was going through The Odin Project they required at some point to install a derivative of Ubuntu (they said nearly half of software engineers use it and it’s easier to install software and so on). I was convinced my computer would stop booting but went along with it. Xubuntu installed fine! Later on I learned all about the parts of the free GNU/Linux operating system and how they work together so now I have started writing package files (PKGBUILDs) on Arch so that I may too try and contribute to this freeing ecosystem.

FSFE: Andrei, you have already coded before and used Free Software in your daily life. What motivated you to participate in the YH4F contest?

Andrei: I did not know the FSF had an European sister organisation before and I was really happy to get involved! I really liked the way the contest gives an opportunity to choose a concrete, practical task and go through with it. (Too often I get stuck halfway on coding a cool thing, and that’s not great.)

FSFE: David, what motivated you to join the YH4F contest?

David: I saw the advertisement on Mastodon and became interested in the competition, so I joined and used my free time to work on the project.

FSFE: David, how did you come up with your project idea to use your hand motion for executing commands?

David: It actually started while I was trying to read novels or to watch movies on my laptop. When I read, I am usually in a relaxed position and I find it cumbersome to reach for the mouse or the keyboard to turn pages, so I thought: What if I can turn pages or pause the video with the wave of my hand? And that is how I got my idea for the project.

David demonstrating his "OpenCV Hand Gesture Control" project.

FSFE: Andrei, could you also give us an overview of your project

Andrei: I added clipboard functionality to a dynamic menu program called bemenu. Pressing ctrl-Y inserts the system clipboard into the command's command buffer now.

FSFE: What motivated you to work on your project?

David: It was mainly to solve my own problem, and my program could also be used on smart TVs or other devices with a camera to control the device without using a keyboard or a controller.

Andrei: The bemenu project is written in C, and it sounded nice to maybe learn to do some advanced tasks in C like programmatically copying and pasting. That it would solve a practical problem for me was a nice bonus too.

FSFE: Andrei, could you briefly explain what a dynamic menu like bemenu is?

Andrei: A dynamic menu takes in a list of things, for example some URLs, or some commands, or usernames, and allows matching and selecting one of them. For example, typing in fire or fox will match firefox but still allow selecting fire or fox by itself. This means, for example, that finding and running a command is made much easier. Think of it as a start menu, except one that can be programmed to be taken into other programs, like for example using it as a password prompt or a confirmation box. This works because it always gives back the thing that was selected, and that can be used by a different program.

FSFE: Did any of you encounter any problems during the coding period or the building period?

David: I did encounter many issues, and they were mostly some design flaws that I did not anticipate. At that time I had little knowledge about software design and was struggling to make the code clean and cohesive.

Andrei: It turns out getting clipboard data is not the same everywhere! It is one thing on X11, and a different thing on Wayland. At first, writing a clipboard manager myself sounded fine (a likely story!), though eventually I decided on using wl-clipboard and xclip. I am glad I learned to not be excessively afraid of pulling in dependencies where it really solves a complex problem that writing by hand would make little sense.

FSFE: David, can every user define the shortcuts themself and do you have an example on how your program works?

David: Yes, and there is an example config file in the git repo of the OpenCV-Hand-Gesutre-Control. For example three fingers to the right open a terminal window.

FSFE: How did you train your tool to recognise your hand movements?

David: The hand movement recognition is based off OpenCV, however I used a 3rd party library to provide a trained model as implementing the same model myself would be “reinventing the wheel”, but this time the wheel would probably not spin as well.

FSFE: Andrei and David do you think you will continue working on your project and what would be some next steps you would like to realize?

Andrei: I think I am happy with how the project is right now! They may say code never stops changing, but when something is really finished that is great feeling. I’m sure I’ll be back at it if something feels like it needs improvement though! My confidence is certainly there now.

David: I think I will work on the project in the future and re-factor the code as it is currently quite messy and somewhat buggy. To make the detection more accurate, I could use the power of python’s data science libraries to make better sense of the input data.

FSFE: Thank you for your time and we wish you both good luck with your next steps.

The coding period for the second edition of YH4F is still ongoing. For more information about the contest please visit yh4f.org.

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Greece adopts new rules on Router Freedom

The Greek regulator has adopted new rules introducing Router Freedom in the country. Since 2021, the FSFE has been working with policymakers to protect the interests of end-users. Supporting civil society and industry organisations backed the FSFE and contributed positively to this new law.

Greece is in the list of countries regulating Router Freedom. Check here the status of your country

Routers and modems are gateways to the Internet. As with any other digital devices, consumers should be able to choose such an important piece of equipment. In order to make this right happen, telecommunications law in the EU has been passing through complex legislative reforms since 2018. The process has been slow and marked by nuances. Not all EU countries have taken Router Freedom as a priority. Greece, on the other hand, has been working on the issue for several years and is now among the European countries regulating how end-users can use their own routers and modems to connect to the Internet.

Two years of engagement and a lot of teamwork

At the end of 2020, the Greek telecom regulator (Hellenic Telecommunications and Post Commission - EETT) started the reform of the telecommunications law and launched the process to set new standards for Router Freedom. In April 2021, the FSFE coordinated an alliance with several civil society organisations and industry representatives to provide input to EETT’s public consultation on the new regulation. At that time, we backed the regulator’s preliminary conclusion that Router Freedom would be fully compatible with Greek legislation, and would not cause market restrictions or interoperability issues.

In April 2022, EETT published the first draft of the regulation. However, in the proposal, the regulator excluded fiber connections (FTTH), a decision that has the potential to negatively impact end-user rights. The FSFE submitted a comprehensive analysis on why Router Freedom should encompass fiber and why it is essential to strike a balance between the rights of ISPs and those of end-users. FSFE’s arguments were supported by the same alliance of organisations and group of volunteers.

In March 2023, EETT adopted the final version of the regulation (EL) regulating Router Freedom in the country. The new rule confirms the freedom of terminal equipment for all network topologies other than fiber. The regulator has taken a stricter approach for FTTH and decided to keep the optical network equipment (ONT) within the domain of the ISPs. Although the regulator allows end-users to require a separation of the ONT and routers, this restricts users from plugging their fiber router directly into the network.

The future: room for improvement and pushing against violations

We acknowledge the efforts the Greek regulator has put over the last few years in the regulatory process. The national regulatory agency has involved different stakeholders and communicated well with them. These are good practices for a transparent and inclusive process for norm setting.

We regret, however, that EETT has decided to exclude fiber networks as a default for Router Freedom. Although the regulator allows end-users to separate the router from the ONT, other European countries, such as Finland, the Netherlands, and most probably Belgium, have set higher standards by allowing consumers to plug the fiber router directly to the public network.

Even with Router Freedom established in the legislation, ISPs can still violate the rules.

Notwithstanding this compromise, Greek consumers are better served by a clear framework for Router Freedom. Legal uncertainty plays against consumers, who now have clear rules to demand their rights from ISPs.

We encourage the regulator to make the new rules effective. More than only a technical issue, freedom of terminal equipment represents a policy demand and requires constant monitoring of ISPs’ commercial practices. Even in countries with clear-cut rules, ISPs can still violate them, especially when:

• Customers are contractually prohibited from using their equipment or ISPs impose disproportional disadvantages upon users with private routers;
• ISPs do not inform customers of their rights regarding terminal equipment or manipulate users through their customer service in favour of the ISP’s routers;
• ISPs advertise their routers as the only ones compatible with the network, or use non-standard plugs or proprietary protocols;
• ISPs do not provide users the login data to the public network or make no support available to customers.
• ISPs do not offer the same level of service (e.g. IPv6, bandwidth, etc) for customers using their own router.

Community work paid off

FSFE’s work has been empowered by an amazing network of supporters, volunteers, and partner organisations. We would like to thank the Free Software organisations GFOSS and GreekLUG, the digital rights group Homo Digitalis, the network association Sarantoporo.gr, the Greek consumer organisations KEPKA and EKPIZO, the industry representative VTKE, and all our Greek volunteers for their commitment and engagement in these years for making a change in favour of end-users in Greece.

There is no Router Freedom without Free Software. You are invited to join our volunteer groups and support software freedom!

Router Freedom and Device Neutrality

Router Freedom is the right of consumers of any Internet Service Provider to choose and use a private modem and router instead of equipment provided by the ISP. Device Neutrality protects end-users against discriminatory restrictions on Free Software on their devices. With Router Freedom, end-users can install a customized operating system on their equipment and exercise control over the technology. Please consider becoming a FSFE donor; you will help make possible our long-term commitment and professional dedication to defending people’s rights to control technology.

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Happy Women’s Day!

Today we are celebrating Women’s Day. Thank you to everyone who is making the tech sector more inclusive! Let’s continue working together to achieve gender parity and embrace equity. There might be problems coming our way, but we also have each other. Join us and meet the FSFE Women team.

Women’s Day

“Women's freedom is the sign of social freedom.”

Rosa Luxemburg, philosopher and socialist

Many women (as well as other under-represented groups) still have to ask for security and equal opportunities in the workplace and in other areas of their lives. Women and diversity bring different skills, viewpoints, and experiences to the workforce. To thrive we need women in technology and in Free Software, both as developers and as part of our movement. In 2018, women made up only 22% of AI professionals worldwide, and in 2021 they made up only 16% of computer systems managers in the US.

Women should be involved in shaping our digital infrastructure, bringing their own ideas to solve collective problems. It is paramount to harness women’s talent while building technology that addresses their needs. They should also have a voice in key decisions. We invite everyone to join us in making technology an inclusive space that improves our society.

"Diversity drives innovation – when we limit who can contribute, we in turn limit what problems we can solve."

Telly Whitney, computer scientist and former CEO & President of the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology

Join FSFE’s Women group

The FSFE Women group was created to help women -and everyone who identifies as female- to make connections and go deeper into technological issues. FSFE Women meets online every month to discuss different topics related to Free Software. The group is women-focused and open to inter, trans and non-binary people as well. You can join the group:

• through its Matrix chat room,
• join the FSFE Women mailing list,
• drop by the FSFE Women’s next team meeting Monday the 20th of March 2023 starting at 8 pm CET, or
• contact the FSFE community coordinator.

One of the activities of this group has been compiling a list of Women groups in Free Software to increase networking and lead those who want to code to existing Free Software programs.

"Coding is today's language of creativity. All our children deserve a chance to become creators instead consumers of computer science."

Maria Klawe, Harvey Mudd College President, Computer Scientist

Moreover, the Women group has contributed to the FSFE wiki page with resources on programming for children. Let’s get more girls to code too!

Technology can empower users to achieve equality

"If we want technology to serve society rather than enslave it, we have to build systems accessible to all people -be they male or female, young, old, disabled, computer wizards or technophobes."

Anita Borg, computer scientist, founder of the Institute for Women and Technology and the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing.

Access to technology is a crucial aspect of achieving gender equality and creating a more democratic society. Technology must be at the service of everyone. And Free Software can respond directly to people's needs. Because it allows users to adapt it to their needs, it is a powerful tool to develop and bring technology to populations that lack coding skills.

Free Software can help close the gender gap. The use and development of Free Software, by providing accessible digital tools, supports the process of digital transformation and provides women and other under-represented groups with digital skills and the opportunity to develop their own software according to their needs.

For all the amazing potential of technology to be useful it must be unrestricted. We need Device Neutrality, for example, so that users can install and uninstall any software they want.

“We encourage women to crash computers and to put it all back together again. Preferably with an improved installation.”

Genderchangers, a network for women, technology and freedom of information

We need software that does not restrict the users. With Free Software we can use a program fully without restrictions or trials, and we can understand, adapt, and share its code. We need software freedom.

Did you know?

The FSFE has implemented a code of conduct clarifying that in our communication channels people are expected to behave excellently towards each other. We formed a Care Team so that if you have experienced or become aware of behaviour contrary to the principles enshrined in this Code of Conduct, you can report it there. We have also taken measures to improve diversity within the FSFE.

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“Political work should also be pleasurable, sociable, fun. If we can’t create organizations and enterprises and cultures like that, we’re not going to succeed.”

Barbara Ehrenreich, American author, activist

In the Free Software movement we try to combine our work for software freedom with fun times. Stay strong and restless, but do not hesitate to chat with our community if you are just interested to meet like-minded people.

Sources

In this article we brought together quotes and artwork from women and non-binary people. Special thanks to Gwenn Seemel for sharing their art.

1. Rosa Luxemburg text, picture
2. Telly Whitney text, picture
3. Maria Klawe: text, picture
4. Anita Borg text, picture
5. Genderchangers via Aileen Derieg: text, picture
6. Barbara Ehrenreich: text, picture

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Medical Devices Should Use Free Software +++ 25 New Videos

In this issue we have a podcast episode about the need that medical devices have Free Software. Watch our talks from FOSDEM and videos about legal issues when developing. Participants of YH4F are already coding. Thanks to all your contributions, our fundraising ended successfully. We bring community news from 9 countries.

My Medical Device, My Software

Karen Sandler relies on a medical device to keep her heart pumping. She had a critical moment when her defibrillator misread her condition and she had no access to tweak the device. Since then, Karen has been on an odyssey to persuade doctors and manufacturers to embrace software freedom in medical devices. She recalls a case of a neurotechnology company that ended its support of retina implants. Despite such cases, things can improve in healthcare as more tech savvy people need medical devices. Listen to Karen’s interview in our Software Freedom Podcast

Binge-watch our videos

We have published 25 videos this month!

• What is copyright? Can I copy someone else’s work? Read and watch our explanatory videos on Frequently asked legal questions.
• ‘Refund of Payments for Pre-Installed Software’, ‘De-Monopolizing Access to EU Applications’ and many more hot topics from FOSDEM 2023.
• 10 new ‘Thank you!’ videos to Free Software programs from our I Love Free Software Day.

Niharika thanks Big Blue Button.

In our own Peertube instance you can always find our latest videos and leave comments! So, how to do it? If you have an account on any ActivityPub-compatible instance, e.g. PeerTube, Mastodon, or Pleroma, copy the URL of the video and paste it into the "Search" box of for example your Mastodon’s web interface. Comment from there!

Updates

• The coding period of the second Youth Hacking 4 Freedom competition is on! Our 70 participants are meeting online regularly and engaging in discussions while helping each other and networking in a Matrix chat until the end of the coding period.
• Thanks to your valuable contributions, we have reached our fundraising target. Thank you for your confidence and support, even in these difficult times.
• Check out the iheartsteam teachers’ podcast series which hosted Matthias Kirschner for the book Ada & Zangemann.
• Our community loves Free Hardware too! This ‘thank you’ note to the Libre-SOC project is one of the latest articles you can find in our Planet.

Events

• Online & 🇩🇪 Germany: On 10 March 2023 Johannes Näder, FSFE Policy Project Manager, will participate in the workshop "Free and Open Software as a central component of diverse, sustainable digital ecosystems" in the German Bundestag [DE]. You need to register in order to watch it livestreamed..

• 🇩🇪 Germany: An author reading of “Ada & Zangemann – A fairy tale about software, skateboards and raspberry ice cream” will take place in the German city of Traunstein. Kulturforum Klosterkirche Traunstein on March 14.

• 🇸🇪 Sweden: On 24-25 April the FSFE invites you to join the foss-north conference.

• 🇺🇸 USA: An author reading of “Ada & Zangemann” will take place in Boston at the Convention and Exhibition Center on March 18.

FSFE community

Group picture from Madrid

Our community celebrated ‘I Love Free Software Day’ all around Europe. The FSFE local groups in Spain, England, Portugal, Greece, Germany, and Switzerland took up the call of the FSFE to get together and celebrate their love for software freedom in person. The Italian community organized an online event and even Free Software contributors from outside the FSFE joined the call and organised meetings like the ones in Austria and Barcelona.

Special kudos to the FSFE Greece local group that celebrated this day in Thessaloniki, their first time organizing an event in this Greek city.

🇩🇰 Denmark: The FSFE local group in Aarhus gave a presentation about "Free Software and Permaculture" at Højskolen Mors discussing the importance of sustainability through refurbishment and resource-saving Free Software.

In other news, one hot topic for the Aarhus FSFE local group is the current discussion by the Danish Data Protection Authority about whether the use of Chromebooks and Google Workspace for Education in schools is legal.

Øjvind Fritjof Arnfred from FSFE local group Aarhus. Denmark, February 2023

🇩🇪 Germany: The local group Berlin and the LinuxWorks LUG discussed Berlin elections, addressed server configuration problems of private servers, and noticed that old accounts in the Fediverse revived after the recent changes at Twitter.

On Stage! In Berlin

🇮🇹 Italy: The Merano group created its own wiki.

🇳🇱 Netherlands: The FSFE country team Netherlands had a core meeting to discuss its strategy and will meet again on 15 March.

🇨🇭Switzerland: The next meeting is on 9 March.

Cool vibes in Zurich

👩🏽‍🔧 Women: The FSFE Women team discussed wiki software: Gollum, a git-based Wiki, and PmWiki, a wiki-based content-management system (CMS) for collaborative creation and maintenance of websites.

Contribute to our Newsletter

If you would like to share any thoughts, pictures, or news, please send them to us. As always, the address is newsletter@fsfe.org. We're looking forward to hearing from you! If you also want to support us and our work, join our community and support us with a donation or a monthly contribution. Thanks to our community and all the volunteers, supporters, and donors who make our work possible. And thanks to our translators, who enable you to read this newsletter in your native languages.

Your editor, Fani Partsafyllidou

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"I Love Free Software Day" 2023: Meet & Connect

On the 14th of February Free Software enthusiasts celebrated the 13th edition of the “I ❤️ Fee Software Day”! Hundreds of people and numerous organisations shared their love for Free Software and reached out to the ones behind these projects. Thank you for taking part in the celebration of our favourite type of software: Free Software.

For this years’ celebration of “I Love Free Software Day”, the Free Software Foundation Europe has organised several meetups and events all across Europe. The FSFE local groups in Spain, England, Portugal, Greece, Germany, and Switzerland have taken up the call of the FSFE to get together and celebrate their love for software freedom in person. Even Free Software contributors from outside the FSFE have joined the call and organised a meeting, like the one in Austria and Barcelona.

Celebrating "I Love Free Software Day" in Madrid (Spain), Berlin (Germany), and Thessaloniki (Greece)

Apart from the visible presence on Twitter and in the Fediverse, the FSFE has also said thank you, in a more old-school way, to numerous projects with our newly designed postcards.

Thank you postcards sent by the FSFE to Free Software projects

This activity has been well received and it was awesome to see how much joy a thank you can spread. The Free Software project DAVx⁵, who was among the recipients of the postcards, shared their happiness about the postcards in the Fediverse and thanked the FSFE for such a kind gesture.

Those are just some of the actions that took place for this years “I Love Free Software Day”. For all of you who want to continue sharing your their love for Free Software take a look at our share-pic generator or watch the new thank you messages on our Peertube-instance.

Amandine “Cryptie” Jambert saying thank you to nextcloud and DAVx⁵

There are many more thank you messages and blogposts out there highlighting the work of Free Software contributors. It is touching to see so many people, companies and organisations joining us for this special day and reaching out to the people who work for software freedom. For the longer read we recommend reading the full "I Love Free Software Day: Meet & Connect" report.

Thank you for joining this years “I Love Free Software” celebrations ❤️ ❤️ ❤️

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