WEBVTT 00:00.000 --> 00:09.000 Thank you very much everyone for joining us in the meantime. 00:09.000 --> 00:10.000 Please take a seat. 00:10.000 --> 00:12.000 We'll move with the next presentation. 00:12.000 --> 00:15.000 I'll let them introduce themselves please. 00:15.000 --> 00:16.000 Hi. 00:16.000 --> 00:17.000 My name is Nick Gates. 00:17.000 --> 00:19.000 I'm from Open Forum Europe. 00:19.000 --> 00:23.000 I'm here today representing a project that we participate in called 00:23.000 --> 00:24.000 NGI Commons. 00:24.000 --> 00:26.000 We'll talk a little bit about what that means. 00:26.000 --> 00:29.000 I'm going to turn it over to Jan to introduce himself. 00:29.000 --> 00:30.000 Hello everybody. 00:30.000 --> 00:36.000 My name is Jan Kriva and I'm working for the Open Future Foundation and I'm also 00:36.000 --> 00:38.000 part of the NGI Commons project. 00:38.000 --> 00:41.000 Happy to be here. 00:41.000 --> 00:46.000 So by a show of hands, how many people are familiar with the next generation 00:46.000 --> 00:47.000 Internet? 00:47.000 --> 00:48.000 Great. 00:48.000 --> 00:49.000 So about half of folks. 00:49.000 --> 00:55.000 So the next generation Internet is a flagship horizon Europe project that 00:56.000 --> 00:59.000 gets funding into the open source ecosystem for next generation projects. 00:59.000 --> 01:03.000 There's an over a thousand innovations that have been funded so far. 01:03.000 --> 01:07.000 There's some uncertainty around the future of NGI, but I'm sure we'll come to that in the 01:07.000 --> 01:09.000 fiscal discussion. 01:09.000 --> 01:14.000 Really what the NGI is tried to do over the last years is to create kind of more 01:14.000 --> 01:19.000 policy kind of coherence also around kind of open source as a form of digital 01:19.000 --> 01:20.000 common. 01:20.000 --> 01:30.000 And since 2022, that has led to what we're calling NGI Commons and the goal of NGI Commons 01:30.000 --> 01:36.000 as a coordination and support action down there is really to ensure strategic 01:36.000 --> 01:41.000 alignment and integration of the NGI efforts within the broader kind of European digital 01:41.000 --> 01:42.000 Commons context. 01:42.000 --> 01:46.000 So it's really building policy coherence but also creating a policy basis for more 01:46.000 --> 01:48.000 investment in digital commons over time. 01:48.000 --> 01:53.000 So yeah, apologies for rushing through that, but that's really the core of what we're trying 01:53.000 --> 01:54.000 to do. 01:54.000 --> 01:58.000 It's a three year coordination and support action and we're hoping to kind of support the 01:58.000 --> 02:03.000 digital commons ecosystem and we'll talk more about that term in just a second. 02:03.000 --> 02:09.000 So let me also quickly ask you who is familiar with the concept of digital commons. 02:09.000 --> 02:13.000 Okay, that's also a good start, but maybe just taking coming back a little bit, 02:13.000 --> 02:16.000 whereas this interest in digital commons coming from. 02:16.000 --> 02:19.000 So where is this concept coming from? 02:19.000 --> 02:24.000 So first of all, the idea behind digital commons is that it's a digital resource. 02:24.000 --> 02:29.000 So we are mostly talking about open source software, but we're talking about open data, open source 02:29.000 --> 02:31.000 hardware, open designs. 02:31.000 --> 02:34.000 So but there must be some kind of resource. 02:34.000 --> 02:38.000 The second ingredients, let's say, is that there's a governance system and this 02:38.000 --> 02:43.000 comes very much from the work of the economist in Austria, who said that basically 02:43.000 --> 02:48.000 there are goods that are commons not just because of their economic features, 02:48.000 --> 02:53.000 but because people decided to manage them as commons. 02:53.000 --> 02:57.000 And so she said that basically all around the world, you can find people who are able 02:57.000 --> 03:02.000 to self organize, to produce and maintain goods in a sustainable manner, 03:02.000 --> 03:05.000 even without the support of states or firms. 03:05.000 --> 03:12.000 And the last ingredient that's very important to understand the concept of digital commons. 03:12.000 --> 03:16.000 For instance, a contribution of your high bank loan, a common space peer production 03:16.000 --> 03:23.000 is the idea that those are goods that are produced outside of strictly speaking 03:23.000 --> 03:29.000 the coordination forms within firms of subordination of markets which are price signals. 03:29.000 --> 03:34.000 So it's people who as peers can coordinate and work together to build and 03:34.000 --> 03:37.000 maintain the resource. 03:37.000 --> 03:41.000 However, and I think this builds on something someone said earlier, 03:41.000 --> 03:48.000 there is a misconception that those would be only very marginal projects outside of the 03:48.000 --> 03:51.000 realms of what corporations do or states are doing. 03:51.000 --> 03:55.000 And this is entirely wrong because you can see that many of these projects 03:55.000 --> 04:00.000 are actually part of the backbone of the digital infrastructure we are relying on. 04:00.000 --> 04:04.000 I think here is not the place where I need to explain that further but what we are trying 04:04.000 --> 04:09.000 to show to policymakers is that this mode of coordination that includes private firms 04:09.000 --> 04:14.000 that includes many different actors is actually responsible for maintaining 04:14.000 --> 04:17.000 many of the key infrastructures we are depending on. 04:17.000 --> 04:23.000 So we are compiling the different research results that exist out there that show the actual value 04:23.000 --> 04:28.000 economic value and also social value of these goods that are managed this way. 04:28.000 --> 04:35.000 And so basically you could even talk about this infrastructure as something that has become 04:35.000 --> 04:36.000 very complex. 04:36.000 --> 04:41.000 So as a kind of accidental megastructure of these forms of collaboration. 04:41.000 --> 04:44.000 And next slide. 04:44.000 --> 04:52.000 So the origins of this project and this interest in comments comes a lot also from a working 04:52.000 --> 04:57.000 group that was that published the report in 2021. 04:57.000 --> 05:05.000 And as really looking at comments as a way to produce infrastructure and to support digital 05:05.000 --> 05:11.000 sovereignty something that is not well understood enough by policymakers who usually think 05:11.000 --> 05:17.000 in terms of classical state interventions or market intervention and who do not see the power 05:17.000 --> 05:24.000 and the possibility to mobilize this mode of coordination and production to provide public goods 05:24.000 --> 05:31.000 in a much more efficient manner and as like key components of the some of the critical resources 05:31.000 --> 05:36.000 that depend on. 05:36.000 --> 05:40.000 So I want to talk about some real world use cases very quickly. 05:40.000 --> 05:43.000 We won't have run all of these because we have limited time. 05:43.000 --> 05:47.000 But this is all part of broader effort around digital sovereignty. 05:47.000 --> 05:51.000 So we titled it Pillars of digital sovereignty. 05:51.000 --> 05:58.000 So this is really kind of a larger policy focus and we see that in the year stack initiative for example. 05:58.000 --> 06:03.000 And important note, you know, I regard digital comments as a policy tool individual projects are digital 06:03.000 --> 06:08.000 comments but there's also the linking of comments to policy objectives and policy implementation. 06:08.000 --> 06:12.000 And so these larger use cases are also a commons in and other themselves. 06:12.000 --> 06:18.000 And yeah, as I mentioned digital commons are part of a number of different emerging initiatives in Europe such as the euro stack initiative. 06:18.000 --> 06:22.000 The digital commons edict and the commission's proposed plan for an open internet sack. 06:22.000 --> 06:24.000 Maybe we'll get to that. 06:24.000 --> 06:26.000 Here's a great example. Open desk. 06:26.000 --> 06:30.000 This was talked about and it's going to be talked about in the government collaboration 06:30.000 --> 06:31.000 bedroom. 06:31.000 --> 06:35.000 But this is really kind of a bundling of different projects together. 06:35.000 --> 06:36.000 Oh, and backwards. 06:36.000 --> 06:41.000 We have Matrix and Element, which is a great example of a digital commons. 06:41.000 --> 06:46.000 It's a massive dawn in peer tube. Also great examples of communications platforms. 06:46.000 --> 06:49.000 And finally, blender. I'm a big movie person. 06:49.000 --> 06:55.000 We recently saw that blender was the foundation for a Oscar nominated best animated feature called flow. 06:55.000 --> 07:01.000 So really, this is a great example of the creative economy in Europe leveraging digital commons as well. 07:01.000 --> 07:08.000 And then young's going to talk a little bit more about some of the policy implications and some of the policy review work that he did over the last year. 07:08.000 --> 07:13.000 Yeah, so one first step in the context of this and enjoy commons project. 07:13.000 --> 07:22.000 As we are trying to make like policy recommendations and define a strategic agenda of how like European commission, 07:22.000 --> 07:26.000 but European member states can support mobilized digital commons. 07:26.000 --> 07:33.000 One first step was to actually look at what have past policies been doing in supporting digital commons. 07:33.000 --> 07:36.000 So we just produced a report that you can find on our website. 07:36.000 --> 07:42.000 We've been looking at the policies in Europe to support digital commons for the past 20 years. 07:42.000 --> 07:46.000 So the objective was to kind of try to provide this overview. 07:46.000 --> 07:58.000 It's not fully exhaustive, but it's an overview of not only open source software policies, but also open data, open source hardware, all the different sub elements of digital commons. 07:58.000 --> 08:11.000 And so what we have been looking at these different types of resources that I've just mentioned, we see that especially in the early 2000s and up until the 2010 years. 08:11.000 --> 08:17.000 Many policies were mostly focusing on supporting the availability of open resource. 08:17.000 --> 08:19.000 So the focus was very much an open access. 08:19.000 --> 08:24.000 You can see that even though I guess many here think that it has not gone far enough, 08:24.000 --> 08:30.000 that Europe, more than other countries have supported the adoption of open source in public sector. 08:30.000 --> 08:35.000 The open access to scientific publications funded by the public sector, etc. 08:35.000 --> 08:43.000 So they've been pioneering athletes here in Europe and the shift that we then see more in like the 2010 years, 08:43.000 --> 08:50.000 where after the Snowden revelations, but also the growing dominance of a few private platforms, 08:50.000 --> 08:58.000 the stronger interest in digital sovereignty, and they're looking at some of the critical elements of infrastructure is looking how they are governed. 08:58.000 --> 09:08.000 So not only focusing on open access, but also, for instance, in the field of culture, not just supporting open access to data of cultural institutions in Europe, 09:08.000 --> 09:17.000 but also doing initiatives like Europe, China that is actually creating the norms standards and infrastructure for sharing that data between public institutions. 09:18.000 --> 09:25.000 And so we've looked at different policies that have supported digital sovereignty here, mobilizing digital comments. 09:25.000 --> 09:36.000 So some are very much focused on allowing states to actually participate in rural making, for instance, when they're promoting interoperability and different open standards. 09:36.000 --> 09:42.000 Some policies that are starting to slowly mobilize digital comments in the context of industrial policies. 09:42.000 --> 09:54.000 So as a tool to catch up technologically, you see that a lot in Asia actually, for instance, in China, where investments in open ship designs are open AI seem to pay off a little bit. 09:54.000 --> 10:11.000 And then finally, policies that are really supporting the distributed ownership of resources, not only for states, but also organizations and individuals, communities who use this tool to be able to have a self-determined, 10:11.000 --> 10:17.000 and more agency in the way they use technology. So that's the review we've just published. 10:17.000 --> 10:23.000 And we're officially out of time and we'll have time for questions in the fishbowl. So I'm just going to really kind of quickly go through this. 10:23.000 --> 10:28.000 We have something called the Digital Commons Task Force, which is a group of experts that provide input to our project. 10:28.000 --> 10:32.000 If you'd like to get involved, please come find Yon or me and we'll help you get connected. 10:32.000 --> 10:43.000 I also encourage you to scan this code. If you can and join our Digital Commons Community Platform over on Matrix, this is a great way to stay in touch with everything that we're doing and to debate Digital Commons. 10:43.000 --> 10:53.000 We had a great debate over the weekend around the value of Digital Commons, so we're really kind of not precious about this kind of stuff. We really want to engage with the community. 10:53.000 --> 10:58.000 Finally, we have a newsletter if you go to commons.ngi.eu, you can sign up. 10:58.000 --> 11:04.000 And yeah, these are all our social media channels. I'll just go back to the QR code, so you guys can have time to scan it. 11:04.000 --> 11:08.000 But that's all for me and Yon, and we look forward to talking to you more.