In June 2024 Welsh Government launched a ‘call for information‘ on what is needed to make technology more friendly to Cymraeg.

I produced a response to highlight the power of open source in enabling low-cost, high quality and ‘translation-friendly’ services. I post the response in full below.

Hashtags: #Cymraeg #LlywodraethCymru #WelshGovernment #OpenSource #FOSS

Recommendations

• The value of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) to health and well-being in Wales is so profound that it should be supported through a fund or equivalent of approximately 0.001% of the NHS budget
• Public bodies in Wales should be required to use a FOSS equivalent (where one exists) of any existing proprietary social media platform, and to contribute to Welsh translations of the platforms

Philosophy

Technology is never agnostic. The deployment of technological tools depends strongly on the philosophy of those who created it. My response to this call for information is therefore predicated on the standpoint that open source solutions are generally preferable to commercial and proprietary alternatives. 

Open source (also known as FOSS – Free and Open Source Software) has four freedoms:

• Freedom 0: The freedom to run the software as you wish, for any purpose.
• Freedom 1: The freedom to study how the software works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish
• Freedom 2: The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help others
• Freedom 3: The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others. By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes.  

The beauty of FOSS to Wales is:

• Using FOSS eliminates the leakage of money from Wales for licencing costs for using proprietary software
• FOSS usually makes it very easy to translate, greatly reducing barriers to adoption for people who would like to use the Welsh language. 
• Using FOSS can help upskill people within Wales (see freedoms 1 and 2).
• Using and supporting FOSS directly helps achieve Wales’ future generations goal of ‘Globally Responsible’, because any improvements that are supported or produced from participants, volunteers or donors in Wales, are freely available for use or adoption by anybody globally, reducing the barriers to participation by the poorest in society (in Wales this supports the socio-economic duty)

In the European context, Wales is a poor country within a poor unitary state, particularly if London is excluded. Issues of ownership and licensing are very important in this context. The use of proprietary software effectively means that the people of Wales are paying people elsewhere so that we can de-skill ourselves.

In February 2022 I produced a White Paper entitled: “Why Wales should embrace free and open source software”. In it I made the case for open source against several Welsh Government objectives in the Digital Strategy for Wales. FOSS directly supports the following components:

• Digital inclusion – creating digital public goods
• Digital skills – widening participation in learning, and participation in communities of technology and interest
• Digital economy – for some sectors, savings of more than 80% have been achieved through the use of FOSS

For further details see the White Paper.

The benefits of Cymraeg

The use of the Welsh language produces numerous benefits for the individual, and still more for the community at large. Some of the individual benefits include:

• Improved health outcomes
• Improved career prospects
• Increased performance in learning additional languages

The health, educational and economic benefits are so profound that I believe the case should be made to divert a tiny proportion (say 0.001%) of the budget for the NHS to establish or fund an independent organisation aimed at improving understanding and adoption of FOSS in Wales.

Cymraeg and communication technologies

Welsh public institutions have been ‘captured’ by the early proprietary communication platforms to the extent that most use X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or other platforms without a thought as to the rationale, or the case for using alternatives that better support the Welsh language.

The use of proprietary platforms indirectly enriches far-right voices, and certainly leads to a leakage of money and skill to (usually) America-based organisations through advertising and data harvesting.

The proprietary platforms are not generally responsive to requests for making their interfaces multi-lingual, in direct contrast to their FOSS equivalents. 

In order to properly implement the requirements of the Well-being of Future Generations Act, as well as the Welsh Language Act, public bodies in Wales should therefore be required to use FOSS social media platforms (where they exist) in addition to, or as a replacement for, their existing use of proprietary social media platforms. 

This would give the opportunity for them to also contribute to the Welsh language translations of these platforms, making them more suitable for Welsh-language users.