After 10 years Freifunk is quite successful, well known, and widespread. However we don't see that the original ideas and goals of Freifunk are still taken into consideration by all communities or all community members. It is not our intention to exclude communities which don't identify with this self-understanding. But we are interested in a basic discourse about what we are doing here jointly under the label Freifunk. This draft was written by a group associated with the Förderverein Freie Netzwerke e.V. It is meant to be a basic understanding and intends to encourage all communities to reflect on the stated topics. Why do we engage in Freifunk? Which ideas are behind it? Which goals do we pursue? According to which principles do we make decisions and take action? It is the goal of this text to develop an understanding which connects all individuals and groups who act under the label Freifunk.
Free (wireless) networks are built and provided by many local initiatives. The users are simultaneously operators of the computer networks. They create "do it yourself" networks by self-reliantly connecting apartments, houses, streets of houses, districts, villages, or whole cities. A Freifunk network is built in a decentralized way and is operated by many individuals. This decentralized structure of organization deliberately promotes local activities instead of wanting to be governed by a higher entity. "Frei" (free) stands for making these networks open and anonymously accessible, they are to be operated in a non-commercial way, are not analyzed and the information passing through them is not to be inspected, modified, or censored. Although Freifunk refers primarily to WLAN networks, the term "freie Netzwerke" (free networks) should be seen in a broader context. Among other things, it follows the spirit of the freenetworks.org definition.
Despite all decentralization we think it is reasonable and important to come to a common understanding on the basic principles of the undertaking Freifunk, in order to act jointly and support each other in our activities.
The use of technical networks has become a everyday occurrence long ago, nevertheless the underlying power and action mechanism are often not being reflected sufficiently. Freifunk has declared its goals to be (among other things) the creation of an awareness of these contexts in the broader society, the promotion of free and open access to public networks, and encouraging self-determined actions. In this process we would like to include the needs of various societal groups. We consider diversity and a broad spectrum of ideas to be an important foundation to reach these goals. We would like to encourage all participants to take matters into their own hands, and would like to support them in getting familiarized with the subject matter. We are aware that this is an elaborate learning process. However, we would like to avoid hierarchies (of knowledge) caused by the desire of participants to merely "consume" the service. According to our view this leads to the erosion of the basic idea of a "do it yourself" network.
Being Freifunkers we participate in the political process in order to achieve the legal preconditions for free networks. The Freifunk movement is non-partisan in this respect and works across party lines.
It is our wish to have the social community building and the technical implementation of free networks in the communities according to common principles: decentralized, with as few and as shallow hierarchies as possible, yet with a common agreement.
Many of our principles have already been formulated elsewhere. As Freifunkers we commit to the following existing documents:
- Pico Peering Agreement
- "Our Vision
- Free Culture definition
- Community Wireless definition
- Free Networks definition
- secrecy of telecommunications (GG Art. 10,1
- principle of Datensparsamkeit (minimizing data collection) and Datenvermeidung (data avoidance) (BDSG § 3a)
- "Wir speichern nicht!" (We do not keep logs)
- the hacker ethics of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) which is transferable to free networks
- the CCC's declaration of non-acceptance of discrimination and fascism, "Farbe erklären gegen Rechts", in particular the section "Die Erklärung"
The Pico Peering Agreement is the basis of our networks. For us the following pillars constitute a free network:
- Our nodes form a mesh network by connecting to each other. The term Freifunk network refers to this mesh network. It ends where the internet begins (i.e., where a router routes the data traffic into the internet) and it ends where the private home network begins.
- We design our networks to be open and public: everybody can operate a node and thereby extend the network.
- Our network is anonymously accessible, neither users nor node operators should register to participate.
- Our network is non-commercial.
- Our network is uncensored.
- We abide by the secrecy of telecommunications law.
- Privacy protection and minimization of data collection: We log neither connection nor inventory data. We do not save personally identifiable data. The disclosure of contact information as well as coordinates on the map are optional.
- Users are responsible for end-to-end encryption and anonymizing their traffic.
When designing our networks we pay attention to decentrality. Therefore a small admin group or individual persons having control over a whole (sub)network does not reflect our thinking. Node operators have the choice to allow remote maintenance. Interventions on the nodes, for example firmware upgrades or other remote administration work, must be done with explicit agreement of the respective operators. Node operators can furthermore decide whether they would like to provide internet access, be it for the participants of the mesh network or for the public. When doing so, it is important that Freifunk should not be perceived as a "provider of free-of-charge internet access". Decisions about releases in the local communities are made jointly. The firmware for our nodes is based on free software. We publish further developments likewise as FLOSS. We aim to provide very good documentation that enables the operator to extend the firmware or suggest improvements. Openness creates confidence in the software.
A pleasant social climate is important for our communities. Freifunk should be a place that allows individuals to freely participate and feel comfortable regardless of their gender, sexual orientation, origin, beliefs, looks, age, and further (factual or attributed) traits. Social interaction should be respectful; newcomers are always welcome. We do not tolerate any form of discrimination. This means for us: There is no space for nazis, nor racism, sexism or other forms of dehumanizing behavior.
According to our understanding, "participation" can include at least the following: using free networks and operating nodes, socializing in local communities, being active in the local or cross-regional Freifunk community by applying their own abilities. Participation is not limited to technical skills. Every form of contribution is explicitly welcome and is seen as an enrichment of the community.
We are aware that questions of power arise in our communities: power, attribution of power, and exercise of power are promoted by centralized structures of both social and technological nature. This is one of the reasons why we operate according to the principle of decentrality. Also, questions of power can be related to unequally distributed technical expertise. It is important for us to deal responsibly with this matter and to address and - where it is possible - reduce imbalance of power. We would like to achieve this through maximum knowledge transfer and decentralized structures.
We want to learn to build and operate networks instead of having them set up and maintained by "experts". We call that "do it yourself network". We would like to empower and encourage people to actively engage in the creation of infrastructure and to research and design the impact of technology on society. We promote the understanding of networks and network technology ("Network/Code Literacy"), therefore we pass on knowledge at any time and make the code publicly available. We research and experiment with infrastructure, therefore we do not have aspirations for permanent availability.
Creation of "do it yourself" networks is a process. We are aware that we may not fully attain every goal in this process. Therefore we regularly reflect critically, without hostility. We give priority to learning and improvement of social and technological structures.
A Freifunk community is, simply put, a loose affiliation of several individuals. Local associations may support the group when such a registered legal entity is beneficial, e.g., for collecting donations or signing contracts; however, founding your own association is no precondition for Freifunk. Changes are jointly decided by all active participants, not only by members of an association or supporting organisation.
For the few community-overlapping decisions we establish a "Freifunk Advisory Council", a representation of community members of the different (German) federal states. This council can be called in when there are conflicts between communities.