EU

Online Censorship Is Coming--Here's How to Stop It

Glyn Moody — Tue, 02 Jul 2019 13:19:15 +0000

EU's upload filters are coming. Why and how the Open Source world must fight them.

A year ago, I warned about some terrible copyright legislation being drawn up in the EU that would have major adverse effects on the Open Source world. Its most problematic provision would force many for-profit sites operating in the EU to use algorithmic filters to block the upload of unauthorized material by users. As a result of an unprecedented campaign of misinformation, smears and outright lies, supporters managed to convince/trick enough Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to vote in favour of the the new Copyright Directive, including the deeply flawed upload filters.

A number of changes were made from the original proposals that I discussed last year. Most important, "open source software development and sharing platforms" are explicitly excluded from the scope of the requirement to filter uploads. However, it would be naïve to assume that the Copyright Directive is now acceptable, and that free software will be unaffected.

Open source and the open internet have a symbiotic relationship—each has fed constantly into the other. The upload filters are a direct attack on the open internet, turning it into a permissioned online space. They will create a censorship system that past experience shows is bound to be abused by companies and governments alike to block legitimate material. It would be a mistake of the highest order for the Open Source community to shrug its shoulders and say: "we're okay—not our problem." The upload filters are most definitely the problem of everyone who cares about the open and healthy internet, and about freedom of speech. For example, the GitHub blog points out that false positives are likely to be a problem when upload filters are implemented—regardless of nominal "exemptions" for open source: "When a filter catches a false positive and dependencies disappear, this not only breaks projects—it cuts into software developers' rights as copyright holders too."

So, what can be done?

As the Pirate MEP Julia Reda emphasises in her post summarizing the multi-year battle to improve the text of the Copyright Directive: "My message to all who took part in this movement: Be proud of how far we came together! We've proven that organised citizens can make an impact—even if we didn't manage to kill the whole bill in the end. So don't despair!" Specifically:

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Open Science Means Open Source--Or, at Least, It Should

Glyn Moody — Mon, 03 Dec 2018 13:00:00 +0000

by Glyn Moody

Why open source was actually invented in 1665.

When did open source begin? In February 1998, when the term was coined by Christine Peterson? Or in 1989, when Richard Stallman drew up the "subroutinized" GNU GPL? Or perhaps a little earlier, in 1985, when he created the GNU Emacs license? How about on March 6, 1665? On that day, the following paragraph appeared:

Whereas there is nothing more necessary for promoting the improvement of Philosophical Matters, than the communicating to such, as apply their Studies and Endeavours that way, such things as are discovered or put in practise by others; it is therefore thought fit to employ the Press, as the most proper way to gratifie those, whose engagement in such Studies, and delight in the advancement of Learning and profitable Discoveries, doth entitle them to the knowledge of what this Kingdom, or other parts of the World, do, from time to time, afford, as well of the progress of the Studies, Labours, and attempts of the Curious and learned in things of this kind, as of their compleat Discoveries and performances: To the end, that such Productions being clearly and truly communicated, desires after solid and usefull knowledge may be further entertained, ingenious Endeavours and Undertakings cherished, and those, addicted to and conversant in such matters, may be invited and encouraged to search, try, and find out new things, impart their knowledge to one another, and contribute what they can to the Grand design of improving Natural knowledge, and perfecting all Philosophical Arts, and Sciences.

Those words are to be found in the very first issue of the Royal Society's Philosophical Transactions, the oldest scientific journal in continuous publication in the world, which published key results by Newton and others. Just as important is the fact that it established key principles of science that we take for granted today, including the routine public sharing of techniques and results so that others can build on them—open source, in other words.

Given that science pretty much invented what we now call the open-source approach, it's rather ironic that the scientific community is currently re-discovering openness, in what is known as open science. The movement is being driven by a growing awareness that the passage from traditional, analog scientific methods, to ones permeated by digital technology, is no minor evolution. Instead, it brings fundamental changes to how science can—and should—be conducted.

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How the EU's Copyright Reform Threatens Open Source—and How to Fight It

Glyn Moody — Tue, 03 Apr 2018 16:15:45 +0000

by Glyn Moody

Open source is under attack from new EU copyright laws.

Open Source and copyright are intimately related. It was Richard Stallman's clever hack of copyright law that created the General Public License (GPL) and, thus, free software. The GPL requires those who copy or modify software released under it to pass on the four freedoms. If they don't, they break the terms of the GPL and lose legal protection for their copies and modifications. In other words, the harsh penalties for copyright infringement are used to ensure that people can share freely.

Despite the use of copyright law to police the GPL and all the other open source licenses, copyright is not usually so benign. That's not surprising: copyright is an intellectual monopoly. In general, it seeks to prevent sharing—not to promote it. As a result, the ambitions of the copyright industry tend to work against the aspirations of the Open Source world.

One of the clearest demonstrations of the indifference of the copyright world to the concerns of the Free Software community can be found in Europe. Proposals for reform of copyright law in the European Union contain one element that would have a devastating effect on open-source coding there. Article 13 of the grandly titled "Directive Of The European Parliament And Of The Council on copyright In The Digital Single Market" contains the following key requirement:

Information society service providers that store and provide to the public access to large amounts of works or other subject-matter uploaded by their users shall, in cooperation with rightholders, take measures to ensure the functioning of agreements concluded with rightholders for the use of their works or other subject-matter or to prevent the availability on their services of works or other subject-matter identified by rightholders through the cooperation with the service providers. Those measures, such as the use of effective content recognition technologies, shall be appropriate and proportionate.

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Three EU Industries That Need HPC Now

Ted Schmidt — Sat, 25 Mar 2017 06:03:14 +0000

by Ted Schmidt

The success of High Performance Computing (HPC) relies in no small part on the OpenPOWER Foundation, which was founded in 2013. The reason this open ecosystem is so important is that it provided members open access to the IBM POWER8 technology, which resulted in huge advances in innovation. One of those innovations came in the form of the NVIDIA GPU accelerator, which not only provides improved graphics capabilities, but also assumes some of the computational load stemming from simulations. IBM POWER8 servers are already capable of clock speeds of more than 4GHz and of providing 96 simultaneous threads. Include NVIDIA Tesla GPU Accelerators, and the result is an HPC system that is extremely fast, which ends up solving some tricky problems in three key industries.

Auto Industry Product Design and Testing
The EU auto industry faces increasing pressures to provide more fuel-efficient and safer vehicles, while at the same time providing new products like reliable, electric vehicles and even self-driving vehicles. Although the European Automobile Manufacturer’s Association (ACEA) continues to predict growth in the EU market, margins of 1-3% keep EU auto manufacturers looking for ways to gain efficiencies and cut costs.

One place the answers to these challenges can be found is in the ability to consume and make sense of data from a multitude of sources, and do it quickly and effectively. Fuel efficiency, for instance, is a product of data from not only engine components, but also braking systems, batteries, tires and the external environment as well. Self-driving cars must handle even more complex datasets, and they must do it in a reliable and safe way.

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