On Monday 8. February 2016 12.31.28 Daniel Pocock wrote:
On 08/02/16 12:19, Mirko Boehm wrote:
I agree with your argument that groups aiming at improving democracy are better served with free software. I would be rather careful with connecting Richard’s statements with the demand for democracy in the EU. Mandatory software freedom as he demands and democracy are not inherently connected.
That statement could be written differently: enforced use of non-free technology (in voting machines, in schools, in communication with public bodies) is usually not compatible with a healthy democracy.
And what is happening now is that institutions and public bodies, having frequently chosen proprietary solutions that require people to buy certain products, are now taking the opportunity to use those solutions as a staging post for migrating their users into the cloud (with proprietary products still being promoted as the "best" way of using that cloud service).
So, although people could have joked a couple of years ago that you would sign in to a government service via Facebook to file your taxes, or whatever it is that people need to do, there is a real risk that people will be obliged (even more than they are now) to use proprietary products and services to interact with the institutions that their tax money is funding. Because it is suddenly "easier" if the public join the same cloud platform.
In the midst of all this, I've seen surprisingly little comment about privacy and data sharing, despite the supposed demise of the "Safe Harbor" [*] arrangement. My expectation is that under pressure from corporations, a magic wand will be waved to make everything seem legal again, but at the ground level I expect to see people being told to accept cloud provider terms and conditions at their own risk (which is, in fact, what I've seen in one institution that seems intent on imposing a proprietary cloud solution on its users).
The "hard sell" lies in persuading potential decision-makers to bring back services from the cloud, because they will then need to justify the money spent doing so, and such expenditure is more open to scrutiny in detail than some opaque cloud services agreement. Moreover, it also involves the hard work of maintaining institutional expertise, which as we know can be unfashionable in this day and age. Nevertheless, I am aware of public institutions who are attempting to hire more full-time staff supposedly to stop being exploited by legions of big-name consultants, so there may be one avenue of persuasion right there.
Paul
[*] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Safe_Harbor_Privacy_Principles