Im Interview spricht Francesca Bria, Barcelonas Chief Technology and Digital Innovation Officer, über „Digitale Soziale Innovation“ und passende Strategien, um die lokale Wirtschaft, Privatsphäre und die demokratische Teilhabe der Bürger*innen auch in einer „Smart City“ langfristig zu sichern und zu fördern.
Q: How do you fix this broken system? A: Overall the goal that I'm thinking about is that you have the private sector so overfunded and glorified that it seems like the only way to do things, but things could be much better serviced by the public sector without the profit motive that the private sector demands. Reclaim the wealth from capital, push back capital and fund public innovation... Right now the way it works is all these tech companies are predicated on a very particular way of regulating work and will hire people short-time and pay them nothing and not provide them with safety nets.
There are also companies that shouldn't necessarily exist. A lot of companies are being funded to do something the public sector could've provided. Instead of good public transit, we have Uber. Instead of a good social mobility system, we get paid scooters. What people want is to streamline a centralized system that is run in a way that is accountable and actually serves the public...
My Utopian view is to put tech companies in full public view. Expropriate platforms and turn them into municipal services, public services and make them open-source.
With Covid19, aka the coronavirus, come restrictions on people’s outdoor movements and gathering. This means that, while supermarkets are considered essential, it seems to be case by case for other food markets: instantly, farmers markets are shutting all over Europe with serious consequences for small producers. Digital food platforms have never been more urgent. In this new restricted mobility context, Open Food Network is perhaps the best example of a good food network that’s digitised, cooperative, open source, not for profit and ready for your community.
Our open source platform enables new, ethical supply chains. Food producers can sell online, wholesalers can manage buying groups and supply produce through networks of food hubs and shops. Communities can bring together producers to create a virtual farmers’ market, building a resilient local food economy.
Commissioner for Internal Market Thierry Breton said: “We need to act collectively with urgency, solidarity, and audacity. I am encouraging manufacturers to increase and diversify production, building on positive examples such as textile and shoe manufacturers starting to produce masks and gowns. I will do everything possible to support their efforts. I am pleased to announce that following contacts with the Commission, CEN/CENELEC has agreed to make freely available the standards needed for such companies to be able to produce masks and other protective equipment.” The standards are available for free download from the websites of CEN national members.
Repair specialist iFixit is building a database filled with repair information for the world’s hospital equipment in anticipation of the increased demand caused by COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. In particular, it’s calling for repair manuals for ventilators and BiPAP machines that can be used as ventilators. iFixit’s database can be found here, and the company is calling for people to create new device pages and upload photos and manuals.
In a great example of what can happen when smart, technically-oriented people come together in a time of need, an open-source hardware project started by a group including Irish entrepreneur Colin Keogh and Breeze Automation CEO Gui Calavanti has produced a prototype ventilator using 3D-printed parts and readily available, inexpensive material. The ventilator prototype was designed and produced in just seven days, after the project spun up on Facebook and attracted participation from over 300 engineers, medical professionals and researchers.
#Comment: The brute force attacks by the late capitalistic kleptocrats on the free software / open source movement is notably picking up speed. The famous saying "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win” comes to mind...
The deadly pandemic has brought back to life a long-running debate about companies profiting from the publication of research often freely supplied by the author. As the biggest names in the business respond to academics’ demands to bring down paywalls, new platforms are getting fresh studies out to the public.
Right now, thousands of scientific studies about the Coronavirus are locked behind subscription paywalls, blocking scientists from getting access to research needed to discover antiviral treatments and a vaccine to stop the virus. Although publishers have made some research available via Open Access, thousands of articles remain locked behind paywalls. Publishers must immediately unlock every scientific article containing the term “Coronavirus.” It is a moral imperative.
Academic Publishing Mafia Stats:
In 2013, the five editorial groups Elsevier, Springer, Wiley-Blackwell, Taylor & Francis, and SAGE Publications published more than half of all academic papers in the peer-reviewed literature. At that time, Elsevier accounted for 16% of the world market in science, technology, and medical publishing. (wikipedia)
Open Source COVID19 Medical Supplies: The high price of machine ventilators forces many hospitals in the poorest regions of the world to rely on a simple solution known as an Ambu Bag that requires constant manual pressure in order to get oxygen to the lungs.The Umbulizer is a mechanically powered version of the Ambu Bag.
An Italian hospital ran out of ICU valves. A local biz brought a 3D printer to the hospital, redesigned & produced the valves in a few hours. “At the time of writing, 10 patients are accompanied in breathing by a machine that uses a 3D printed valve.” Apparently the hospitals ICU valve supplier was not happy about this & refused to supply blueprints. (via)
#Comment: This is a nice example that the notion of intellectual property (IP) law is outdated & dangerous. Break all IP needed to save lives should be the directive.
Raymond made the following statement, on February 27, 2020, on his personal blog:
“I – OSI’s co-founder and its president for its first six years – was kicked off their lists for being too rhetorically forceful in opposing certain recent attempts to subvert OSD clauses 5 and 6. This despite the fact that I had vocal support from multiple list members who thanked me for being willing to speak out. It shouldn’t be news to anyone that there is an effort afoot to change – I would say corrupt – the fundamental premises of the open-source culture. Instead of meritocracy and “show me the code”, we are now urged to behave so that no-one will ever feel uncomfortable. The effect – the intended effect – is to diminish the prestige and autonomy of people who do the work – write the code – in favor of self-appointed tone-policers. In the process, the freedom to speak necessary truths even when the manner in which they are expressed is unpleasant is being gradually strangled. And that is bad for us. Very bad. Both directly – it damages our self-correction process – and in its second-order effects. The habit of institutional tone policing, even when well-intentioned, too easily slides into the active censorship of disfavored views.”
The monkey selfie copyright dispute is a series of disputes about the copyright status of selfies taken by Celebes crested macaques using equipment belonging to the British nature photographer David Slater. The disputes involve Wikimedia Commons and the blog Techdirt, which have hosted the images following their publication in newspapers in July 2011 over Slater's objections that he holds the copyright, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), who have argued that the macaque should be assigned the copyright.
This study reviewed 147 life cycle studies, with 28 found suitable for harmonizing food waste management methods’ climate and energy impacts. A total of 80 scientific soil productivity studies were assessed to rank management method soil benefits. Harmonized climate impacts per kilogram of food waste range from −0.20 kg of carbon dioxide equivalents (CO2e) for anaerobic digestion (AD) to 0.38 kg of CO2e for landfill gas-to-energy (LFGTE).
Schools in the German state of Hesse will no longer be able to use Microsoft’s Office 365 thanks to the EU’s GDPR rules, the state’s data protection commissioner has ruled. The Next Web reports that the issue arose after Microsoft closed its German data center in August last year, creating the potential risk for its users’ data to be accessed by US authorities. Cloud solutions from Google and Apple are also affected.
The GNU Manifesto opens with an explanation of what the GNU Project is, and what is the current progress in creation of the GNU operating system. The manifesto lays a philosophical basis for launching the project, and importance of bringing it to fruition — proprietary software is a way to divide users, who are no longer able to help each other. Stallman refuses to write proprietary software as a sign of solidarity with them. (via)
The Open Letter to Hobbyists was a 1976 open letter written by Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, to early personal computer hobbyists, in which Gates expresses dismay at the rampant software piracy taking place in the hobbyist community, particularly with regard to his company's software. In the letter, Gates expressed frustration with most computer hobbyists who were using his company's Altair BASIC software without having paid for it. He asserted that such widespread unauthorized copying in effect discourages developers from investing time and money in creating high-quality software. He cited the unfairness of gaining the benefits of software authors' time, effort, and capital without paying them.