This is a lightly edited version of the automatic transcript of the short contribution from me, with added footnotes:
There are campaigns against big tech, there is quite a lot out there.
The thing I think we’re failing with in in the cooperative movement is principle four, autonomy. [1]
When it comes to tech, I very strongly suspect we could count on one hand the number of co-ops in this room that aren’t dependent on big tech for some of their internal key infrastructure, be it email, office documents, etc., etc. [2]
If we aren’t running and owning our own tech, we we lose autonomy.
And we’re handing this autonomy over to the biggest tech corporations in the world, whose tools they’re willingly allowing to be used too target people for extermination in Gaza. [3]
We need to do better than this.
Violetta mentioned Co-op Cycle. [4]
They’re very interesting because they they use a software code base that is actually to the left of open source.
It’s software that can only be used by co-ops.
I’m all in favour of us using open-source software.
But we need to use open source software that enforces sharing.
Big tech corporations have built their empires on open-source software.
The open source software they love is permissively licensed software.
This is software that has a license that allows you to privatise that software to take it out of common ownership to turn it into a proprietary product.
If we use copy left software, the most famous license of which is the GPL, which is used by the Linux kernel.
That’s software where the license enforces sharing.
That software has to be shared.
You can’t use it and not share changes and improvements you make to it.
We, as a movement, we need to be embracing and using co-operative software rather than proprietary software. [5]
We need to be moving away from our dependence on big tech.
As mentioned earlier, my co-op (Webarchitects Co-operative) and Agile Collective are both part of a UK network of tech co-ops called CoTech, our website’s at cotech.uk.
We’ve recently rebranded it.
We’re running a session after this in the Bright Hall which is upstairs and over there to discuss how cooperatives can can do better with tech and how we can reduce our dependence on big tech and and what we can do to to make things better.
[1] #4 Autonomy and Independence : “Co-operatives are autonomous, self-help organisations controlled by their members. If they enter into agreements with other organisations, including governments, or raise capital from external sources, they do so on terms that ensure democratic control by their members and maintain their co-operative autonomy.”
[2] Webarchitects Co-operative and Autonomic are the only two co-ops in CoTech that I’m aware of who don’t depend on Google or Microsoft for their email and office tools.
[3] See for example The deep ties between Google and the Israeli military
[4] CoopCycle code uses the CoopCycle License
[5] See this thread for some more thoughts on co-operative software