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Executive summary of the EURA case

FSF News - Wed, 09/05/2012 - 01:00
Executive summary of the EURA case

Slovak textile importer EURA Slovakia, s.r.o. is facing EUR 5600 in fines because it did not buy and use the Microsoft Windows operating system for submitting electronic tax reports. Slovak tax administration gave EURA only two options: either to buy and use Microsoft Windows or face the fines. This is also how we could briefly summarize the decision of Slovak tax administration from a few weeks ago. The administration imposed several fines on a company, EURA Slovakia, which submitted its tax reports on paper, because the use of electronic form was impossible as the state's web application worked only on the Microsoft Windows operating system. The company now plans to appeal to the court and to demand that the state stops forcing businesses to use a certain product, instead of requiring that the public administration uses a multi-platform technical solution based on Open Standards that is available for everybody.

Background of the case

Since January 2010 Slovakia has a law requiring every monthly tax report concerning value added tax (VAT) to be submitted by electronic means and signed by a certified electronic signature. As many Slovak companies still don't have certified electronic signatures, the law enables an exception under which the company can enter into an agreement with the tax office and then use a special web-based application called “eDane”.

However, the eDane application works only under the Windows operating system together with the Internet Explorer web browser. None of the other operating systems can run this application. As EURA Slovakia uses a competing operating system in the entire company and despite help from its IT staff, it was impossible for it to send anything electronically. When the company notified the tax administration about this problem, nothing happened. The company thus decided to fulfill its statutory obligations at least by submitting the tax reports in classical paper form. The tax office however, consider this to be contrary to the law.

Imposing the fines

When the company pointed to the fact that it could not electronically fulfill its obligation, it received 12 fines from the Slovak tax administration. "We were really trying to respect the law, but in Slovakia there is no state-certified application that would support the electronic signature on the other operating system than Windows. We therefore had to enter into the agreement with the tax office and try to use the web-based application. Unfortunately, neither us, nor our technicians with years of experience, were able to run it," says the director of EURA Slovakia, Mr. František Slivka.

For submitting the tax report in the paper form, the company was fined several times, and so far wasn't successful with a single appeal before various administrative bodies. It has therefore decided to appeal to the court. "Thousands of Slovak companies resigned on this behavior of the Slovak tax administration and simply bought a license to the Windows operating system only to be able to submit this monthly electronic reports. We believe that it is unfair. The administration thus directly forces Slovak companies to buy Windows, even though they do not need it for other purposes," says Slivka.

European problem

"If the state requires the electronic form as a only way of fulfilling the statutory obligation, it has to offer the multi-platform solution, which is available to everybody. Otherwise, the state in advance precludes its citizens to behave in accordance with the law," comments Martin Husovec, member of the FSFE Legal, who assists the Slovak company in filling the case before the court. This problem is not unique for Slovakia.

Many companies in the other member states of the European Union have to deal with the very same problem. However, the Slovak case at hand is one of the most blatant and striking examples of the injustice in society caused by ignorance of the Open Standards in the digital world. It shows that the negligence of state in the field of open standards not only leads to the social injustice, but also hurts the competition, increases costs for the small companies and bureaucracy.

In its effect it also conflicts with European rules and recommendations, like the European Interoperability Framework, which clearly states that "Member States setting up ICT-supported national public services need to be more aware of the risk of creating new electronic barriers if they opt for solutions that are not interoperable. Such so-called ebarriers fragment the internal market and hinder it from functioning properly. Member States and the Commission should step up their efforts to avoid this."

These new electronic barriers "digitally" handcuff the citizens and thus prevent them from behaving in accordance with the law. FSFE calls for a change in this practice.

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State neglected web standards, company now faces EUR 5600 in fines

FSF News - Wed, 09/05/2012 - 01:00
State neglected web standards, company now faces EUR 5600 in fines

In Slovakia, a law introduced to reduce red tape has led to injustice. The state has mandated electronic means as a only way of fulfilling certain statutory obligations. However the dedicated web solution excludes some citizens from use as it is not interoperable and runs only on the software from one vendor. In absence of any non-electronic option, this means that state, in fact, prescribed the use of a certain product from a certain vendor. Who did not own the copy, had to buy one. Slovak textile importer deemed that state should not force him to use a certain software for his business and fulfilled its legal obligation by paper. Now the company faces EUR 5600 in fines.

The Slovak tax administration has already imposed 12 fines on EURA Slovakia, s.r.o., which submitted its monthly tax returns on paper, because the use of electronic forms was impossible as the state's web application worked only on Microsoft's Windows operating system together with Microsoft Internet Explorer. All other competing operating systems such as Apple, GNU/Linux, BSDs failed to run the state's application.

The Slovak tax administration has, therefore, precluded citizens who use competing products from fulfilling its obligations towards the state. "This situation is absurd. If another public body decides to use an Apple-only solution for its public services, should then everybody buy Apple's products just to fulfill this legal obligation? How many different products should citizens and companies have to buy just to comply with all the different laws?" asks Martin Husovec, member of the FSFE Legal, who now assists the Slovak company in appealing the fines before the court.

Ironically, instead of reducing the red tape, this negligence only added further complications for the companies. Moreover, the "EURA case" raises a question of why the state should promote any one vendor's operating system. It only hurts the competition, increases costs for the small companies and leads to social injustice such as in this case. If the state requires the electronic form as a only way of respecting the law, it has to offer the multi-platform solution, which is available to everybody. It is the task of the state to be here for everybody and not only for selected citizens.

You can find more information on our executive summary of the EURA case.

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Nordrhein-Westfalen: Softwarepatente - Nein! Offene Standards - Ja!

FSF News - Tue, 08/05/2012 - 01:00
Nordrhein-Westfalen: Softwarepatente - Nein! Offene Standards - Ja!

Die Free Software Foundation Europe veröffentlichte heute ihre Freie-Software-Wahlprüfsteine für die Wahl zum Landtag Nordrhein-Westfalens am 13. Mai 2012. Alle hier aufgeführten Parteien konnten Stellung nehmen zu Fragen über die Umsetzung Offener Standards, den Einsatz Freier Software in der Bildung, Werbung für unfreie Software auf Webseiten der öffentlichen Verwaltung, Probleme der Herstellerabhängigkeit, Kontrolle über mobile Endgeräte, Softwarepatente und die generelle Förderung Freier Software.

FDP, Grünen, Piraten und SPD erklärten ihre Positionen. Im Gegensatz zu anderen Landesverbänden kamen trotz Nachfrage leider keine Antworten von CDU und Die Linke. Besonders erfreulich sind die konkreten und fundierten Aussagen der Piratenpartei, die sich damit deutlich vor den anderen Piraten-Landesverbänden positionieren. Konsens bei allen teilnehmenden Parteien ist die Abschaffung von Softwarepatenten und die klare Positionierung für Offene Standards in der Verwaltung. Doch unterscheiden sich die Vorstellungen der Parteien, ob und wie genau Freie Software gefördert und eingesetzt werden soll. Die FSFE wird kontinuierlich beobachten, welche der Versprechen die Parteien nach den Wahlen wirklich umsetzen.

Einige Ergebnisse der Befragung

Die FDP in Nordrhein-Westfalen sieht Softwarepatente weiterhin als Gefahr für kleine und mittlere Unternehmen. Sie schreiben, dass "freie auch gleichzeitig sichere Software ist" und wollen die kommenden Ergebnisse zu Freier Software und Interoperabilität aus der Enquete-Kommission „Internet und digitale Gesellschaft“ des Bundestags in ihre zukünftige Arbeit einbeziehen. Kritisch sieht die FSFE die Antwort der FDP bei der Bildungspolitik: So lobt die FDP in NRW "gute Beispiele bürgerschaftlichen und wirtschaftlichen Engagements, z.B. die Beteiligung von Firmen, die Schulen Hardware zur Verfügung stellen" und sieht "unter Einbindung von Stiftungen, Software-Produzenten, aber auch Software-Anbietern für Schulen Chancen, Software kostenlos zu erhalten". Die FSFE sieht die Gefahr, dass Schulen -- durch von Unternehmen bereitgestellte Soft- und Hardware -- ihre Schüler nur an spezifischen Produkten ausbildet und sie dadurch in ihrem späteren Leben stärker von einzelnen Herstellern abhängig sein werden.

Die NRW-Grünen wollen hingegen, dass Kinder und Jugendliche schon "frühzeitig in Kontakt mit offenen Formaten, offenen Standards und freien Lizenzen" kommen, damit sie "erkennen, welchen Mehrwert diese bringen können". Sie möchten den Einsatz Offener Standards in der Landesverwaltung, insbesondere bei der Beschaffung, stärken und schrittweise auf Freie Software umstellen, "um Folge-Abhängigkeiten (Dienstleistungsmonopole) zu überwinden". Daneben sehen sie Freie Software als Querschnittsaufgabe, welche sie in den verschiedenen Bereichen der Landespolitik vorantreiben wollen. Den Herausforderungen durch einen Kontrollverlust bei mobilen Computern wollen sich die Grünen, zusammen mit anderen Akteuren, bundesweit stellen. Softwarepatente lehnen die Grünen ab, wie alle Parteien in NRW, die geantwortet haben.

Die Piraten in Nordrhein-Westfalen wollen "den Einsatz von Freier Software in öffentlichen Einrichtungen vorschreiben und in anderen Bereichen fördern". Dabei schreiben sie, der Umstieg auf Freie Software erfordert zwar einen längeren Prozess, doch mit wirtschaftlichen und gesellschaftlichen Vorteilen. Die Piraten fordern zudem: "[d]er Dokumentenaustausch zwischen und mit staatlichen Stellen muss auf Grundlage offener Standards geschehen", damit niemand zur Nutzung bestimmter Software gezwungen wird. Außerdem fordern die Piraten den Einsatz "offener Hardware", in der Verwaltung, um den Einsatz Freier Software nicht hardwareseitig zu verhindern. In der Bildungspolitik wollen sie "verhindern, dass die Abgabe von Arbeitsergebnissen in proprietären Formaten verlangt wird" und fordern, dass in Schulen "Betriebssystem und Software immer unter einer Freien Lizenz stehen" müssen. Bei mobilen Geräten will die Piratenpartei, dass "Informationen nicht ohne die ausdrückliche Genehmigung des Besitzers erhoben oder weitergegeben werden" und dem Anwender die volle Kontrolle über sein Gerät geben, "auch was das Aufspielen alternativer Firmware angeht". Des Weiteren soll die "Verwaltung [...] keine Geschäftsmodelle von Unternehmen bewerben" und Softwarepatente möchten sie in Zusammenarbeit mit anderen Piratenparteien aus Deutschland und Europa weltweit abschaffen.

Die SPD in Nordrhein-Westfalen sieht in Freier Software eine Möglichkeit, allen die "digitale Teilhabe in der Gesellschaft zu ermöglichen". Sie führen an, dass in der Landesverwaltung bereits viel Freie Software verwendet wird und lehnen Softwarepatente ab. Allerdings bestehen bei der SPD einige Missverständnisse zu Freier Software: So sprechen sie einmal von "kostenfreier Software" und an anderer Stelle von unterschiedlichen Geschäftsmodellen bei unfeier und bei Freier Software. Die FSFE empfiehlt, klar zwischen Software- und Geschäftmodellen zu unterschieden, wie bei Georg Greve: "Was macht ein Freies Software Unternehmen aus?" nachgelesen werden kann.

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FSFE Newsletter - May 2012

FSF News - Fri, 04/05/2012 - 01:00
FSFE Newsletter - May 201254 DFD events and FSFE handcuffed EU Commissioner

As you can read and see in this years report, Document Freedom Day 2012 was celebrated with 54 events in 23 countries and in 19 world languages. It was the biggest DFD in history with over 26 talks, over 6 awards for Open Standards, lots of other events and the press coverage counted almost one hundred articles. FSFE coordinated between all the different events, awarded several organisation, and in Germany mailed over 370 and called over 170 politicians about Open Standards. Several of these politicians, from a range of political parties, did activities for DFD. FSFE also send out 100 information packages including handcuffs to suggested people including several politicians, CEOs, and the Pope. EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes used our handcuffs in a public speech, which resulted in a lot of additional press coverage including the front page of the Guardian Online. FSFE is eager to hear more reports of what recipients of the package did with the handcuffs.

May 4th: Day against DRM. Is it their "good right" to restrict us?

Last week your editor gave an interview about Digital Restriction Management (DRM) (German). It was about the questions of what DRM is, why companies introduce DRM, why you have to treat your customer as an enemy to make DRM work, and which other possibilities exist. When discussing Free Software, DRM, Antifeatures and other topics you might often hear from intelligent critical people that it is "the good right" of producers to control their products. Why do so many people think so? Would they also accept those restrictions in "the analogue world"? Is it the good right of a publisher to prohibit that you can read a book out loud, lend it friends, or sell it? Several times your editor abused books: last week he used three of them to fix his broken sofa. Would it be acceptable that the publisher or the author can forbid such use cases? Do more people accept such restrictions with software and data, and if so, why? Has the industry with the term "Digital Rights Management" successfully implied that they have this right, and a lot of people accept this?

The 4th of May is the Day against DRM. While DRM has largely been defeated in music, it is a growing problem in the area of ebooks. So it is good news that due to pressure from their readers, Tor/Forge will drop DRM from ebooks. Discuss the topic with your friends or colleagues, e.g. send them Richard Stallman's short story "The Right to Read", and tell us your experience on our public discussion lists or send it directly to your editor.

Free Software topic in the French Presidential elections

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that 15 percent of the State's IT budget is spent on Free Software programming, support, and maintenance. In future this budget will increase by 30 percent per year. He said this policy is "strategic for the development of the French IT sector". His challenger François Hollande even said this policy has to be intensified.

Besides that, the French Free Software advocacy group April asked all of the candidates in the French presidential elections about their positions on Free Software, software patents, DRM and more.

It is important to raise awareness for Free Software with your politicians, and sending them questions is a good start. FSFE is gathering all such effort in our "Ask Your Candidate" campaign. FSFE would like to thank April for their good work in France, and encourages other Free Software supporters in Europe to get in contact with their politicians. If you have questions how to start such activities in your country, region, or municipality, please get in contact with us. By next month you will also have the political parties' replies to the questions from FSFE for two federal state elections in Germany.

Vendor lock-in costing Helsinki 3.4 million Euros per year?

A report on the City of Helsinki's pilot project for the use of OpenOffice in the public administrations leaves the public with more questions than answers. The city trialled the Free Software productivity suite on the laptops of council members for ten months in 2011. The suite enjoyed high approval rates among its users. When the pilot was finished, the City produced a report stating that the costs of migrating the entire administration to OpenOffice would be very high. Read more about it in the press release and if you are interested in details of the City of Helsinki's OpenOffice pilot project, and in lessons that may be drawn from this project, we have published an analysis of the report.

Something completely differentGet Active: FRAND is FRAUD - Participate in UK consultation

Busy times in the UK. Besides the consultation on education (see above) the UK government is holding another one until the 4th of June about what sort of patent licenses an Open Standard should require. FSFE and our sister organisation the FSF published a joint statement on the UK Open Standard consultation, explaining why FRAND conditions for Open Standards discriminate against Free Software (regular readers might realise this is an ongoing debate), and recommending the UK government to abolish software patents to prevent damage to the UK's economy. We also informed UK Free Software businesses, organisations, and Fellows about the consultation, prepared draft answers to some of the questions in the survey, held a Summit Meeting of Open Standard experts, and also published a joint statement together with other Open Standard groups.

There is a website explaining how to participate in the consultation. Please do so to support the requirement for royalty-free licenses for Open Standards.

Thanks to all the Fellows and donors who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE

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Schleswig-Holstein - Positive Signale für die Entwicklung und Förderung Freier Software

FSF News - Wed, 02/05/2012 - 01:00
Schleswig-Holstein - Positive Signale für die Entwicklung und Förderung Freier Software

Die Free Software Foundation Europe veröffentlicht heute ihre Freie-Software-Wahlprüfsteine für die Wahl zum Landtag Schleswig-Holsteins am 6. Mai 2012. Alle hier aufgeführten Parteien konnten Stellung nehmen zu Fragen über die generelle Förderung von Freier Software, dem Problem der Herstellerabhängigkeit bei unfreier Software, Offene Standards, dem Einsatz von Freier Software in der Bildung, Werbung für unfreie Software auf Webseiten der öffentlichen Verwaltung sowie zu Softwarepatenten.

Nach den teilweise überraschenden Antworten aus dem Saarland, senden die Parteien aus Schleswig-Holstein wieder deutlich positivere Signale für die Entwicklung und Förderung Freier Software. Insbesondere die Linke Schleswig-Holstein antwortet fachlich fundiert und mit konkreten Vorschlägen pro Freie Software. Die Positionen des nur in Schleswig-Holstein wählbaren Südschleswigschen Wählerverbands hingegen sind die enttäuschendsten Antworten aller bisherigen FSFE-Wahlprüfsteine.

Einige Ergebnisse der Befragung

Die CDU Schleswig-Holsteins geht von allen bisher befragten Landesverbänden der CDU am stärksten auf die Fragen ein. Laut CDU werden in der parteiinternen Arbeit bereits heute die Distributionen OpenSUSE und Ubuntu, OpenOffice sowie Offene Formate eingesetzt. Sie wollen die "Koordinierung und Steuerung der Entwicklung von Freier Software" durch die 16 bildungsnahen Technologiezentren in Schleswig-Holstein unterstützen. Beim Thema Softwarepatenten schweift die CDU zu Urheberrecht, Internetsperren und Netzneutralität ab, ist sonst aber ein gutes Vorbild für andere Landesverbände.

Die FDP zeichnet sich wie bei den anderen Landtagswahlen durch eine fundierte und konsequente Ablehnung von Softwarepatenten aus. Produktwerbung auf offiziellen Behördenseiten hält die FDP für unangebracht und spricht sich für eine selbstverantwortliche Entfernung von unfreier-Software-Werbung durch die Behörden aus.

Der Landesverband Schleswig-Holstein Die Grünen antwortet im Vergleich zu den Landesverbänden vergangener Wahlen knapp und oberflächlich. Sie sprechen sich dafür aus, dass die Ausschreibungs-Bedingungen in der öffentlichen Verwaltung für Freie Software verbessert werden. Ansonsten ist die Position dieses Grünen Landesverbandes freundlicher gegenüber Freier Software als die offen abweisende Position der Grünen in Baden-Württemberg, jedoch oberflächlicher als die Antworten der anderen Landesverbände.

Mit detaillierten und sachlich fundierten Antworten pro Freie Software hebt sich Die Linke hervor. Nur bei ihrer Ablehnung von Softwarepatenten, könnte Die Linke ihre Argumentation fundierter aufbauen. Dafür sprechen sie sich für den konsequenten Einsatz Offener Standards in der öffentlichen Verwaltung aus, sind für die Aufnahme Freier Software in die Lehrpläne und ins Angebot der Volkshochschulen. Geht es nach der Linken sollen Schulen ausschließlich Freie Software verwenden. Sie fordern den Einsatz Freier Software in Politik und Verwaltung und schreiben dazu:

Die Ausrede „dafür gibt es aber keine Programme für unser Fachgebiet“, lassen wir allenfalls kurzfristig gelten. Solche Programme werden entwickelt werden, wenn die öffentliche Hand als Nachfrager zur Verfügung steht.

Diesen Punkt hatte die FSFE bereits in der Vergangenheit hervorgehoben (siehe unter "Angebot und Nachfrage¨). Die FSFE würde sich freuen, wenn sich diese Haltung parteiübergreifend durchsetzt.

Nach der enttäuschenden Antwort der Piraten im Saarland, positioniert sich der Landesverband Schleswig-Holstein klar für Freie Software. Die Punkte zu Freier Software aus dem Grundsatzprogramm wurden hier im eigenen Wahlprogramm verfestigt. Darin werden zahlreiche Vorteile Freier Software - darunter der Kostenaspekt, die Unabhängigkeit, Investitionssicherheit und Standortförderung - hervorgehoben. Softwarepatente lehnen sie klar ab und versprechen sich davon ein Vorteil für die deutsche Wirtschaft. Des Weiteren fordern sie eine vollständige Umstellung der Verwaltung auf Offene Standards und wollen konkrete Anträge einbringen, um Werbung für proprietäre PDF-Betrachter auf Webseiten der öffentlichen Verwaltung zu entfernen.

Schwer einzuordnen sind die Antworten der SPD Schleswig-Holsteins. Zusammenfassend lässt sich aus den Antworten der SPD weder eine negative noch eine unterstützende Position gegenüber der Förderung Freier Software ablesen. Teilweise spricht die SPD Schleswig-Holstein nur über den Einsatz in der eigenen Fraktion anstatt über politische Ziele für das Bundesland.

Im Gegensatz zu allen anderen Parteien, beantwortete der Südschleswigsche Wählerverband fast alle unserer Fragen in nur einem Satz: "Die [...] müssen selbst entscheiden, welche Software sie nutzen möchten." Diese Partei fungiert als offizielle Vertretung der dänischen Minderheit und ist damit von der 5%-Klausel ausgenommen, zieht also garantiert in den Landtag ein. Insbesondere bei ihrer Antwort zu Softwarepatenten zeigt sich wieder, wie der Begriff "geistiges Eigentum" eine sachliche Auseinandersetzung mit aktuellen Problemen im digitalen Zeitalter verhindert. (Siehe auch "Hoeren: “Geistiges Eigentum ist ein dummer Begriff”.)

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Web Sprint report: where social and technical come together

FSF News - Tue, 01/05/2012 - 01:00
Web Sprint report: where social and technical come together

April 21st and 22nd's Web Sprint in Manchester has been both an opportunity to provide improvements for FSFE's web site, and a good occasion to meet (new) people, get together and have a chat.

As a kick-off, the social event on Friday evening at MadLab allowed for various Free Softare communities to meet and have a nice chat around a beer.

Saturday was dedicated to hacking, and many tickets were handled and closed in a very short time. Participants went their ways on tasks ranging from visual aspect to usability, not forgetting improvements on the build process of the web site.

After a quality meal with sprinters on Saturday night, a beer in the rainy Manchester and a good night of sleep, Sunday has also been full of brainstorming and web site fiddling, bringing again improvements. These two days noticeably brought us a nicer way of displaying author information (see this example) as for CC-license content, an automatic ID generation for titles in a page, so that you can point someone to a specific section of it, as well as many other improvements of course. A more comprehensive list of achievements can be seen here.

Thanks Sam for organising most of the sprint, and thanks to all participants, among others Andreas, Ben, Anna, Hugo, Nicolas and James!

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"FRAND is a FRAUD"

FSF News - Thu, 26/04/2012 - 01:00
"FRAND is a FRAUD"Joint statement by FSFE and FSF US on UK Open Standards consultation

The UK government is holding a consultation about what sort of patent licenses an "open" standard should require. Anyone that develops Free Software (as in freedom, not price) and would like it to be used in the UK has reason to be concerned with this, along with anyone that uses or distributes Free Software in the UK.

One option under consideration is to demand the patent holder give everyone a royalty-free patent license for implementing the standard. That at least permits free software to support the standard.

The other option is a criterion called "FRAND", which for claims to mean "Fair, Reasonable And Non-Discriminatory". What it really means is that the patent holder must allow anyone to buy a license on somewhat arbitrary terms. The terms are often such as to exclude free software entirely from implementing the standard.

For instance, these terms can (and in many cases do) require anyone distributing the software to pay a license fee per copy of the program distributed. If you receive a program with a requirement to pay someone if you redistribute it, you do not have freedom #2, so the program is not free software. In effect, these terms discriminate against free software, which is neither fair nor reasonable. The term "FRAND" is a FRAUD. Software standards must not carry restrictions that prevent us from implementing them in Free Software.

The existence of a software patent on a certain idea is not an automatic sentence of exclusion for free software. A few patent holders have granted liberal patent licenses for all use of a certain program, sometimes even covering all free programs distributed under the GNU General Public License (GNU GPL). Rather more have given royalty-free licenses to implement specific standards, because that was part of the requirement for approval of the standard. But these are a rare exception, and the difference between them and typical "FRAND" licenses demonstrates how far the latter are from allowing free software.

Please answer the consultation to support the requirement for royalty-free licenses for Open Standards. The closing date is June 4. (How to respond.)

FSFE has prepared draft answers to some of the questions in the survey.

Feel free to take inspiration from these answers, but please note that it is always best to write your answer in your own words.

The need for this consultation arises from a harmful policy decision: allowing patents to restrict the development, distribution and use of software. A correct decision on the question at hand will partly reduce the damage that software patents do, but they will still do damage. Software patents put software developers, distributors and sometimes even users in danger. The UK ought to reconsider allowing them at all.

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Summit Meeting of experts calls upon UK Government to deliver on Open Standards

FSF News - Wed, 25/04/2012 - 01:00
Summit Meeting of experts calls upon UK Government to deliver on Open Standards

The Free Software Foundation Europe held a summit meeting on Monday of Free Software and Open Standards experts.

Hosted by the BCS Open Source Specialist Group, the meeting was called in reaction to the ongoing public consultation by the Cabinet Office on the use of Open Standards in Government. It was triggered by concerns over the currently proposed policy, which would discriminate against the use of Free Software in the public sector, thanks to a definition which would allow Government to adopt standards which impose charges, prohibiting its use.

"The policy being proposed in the consultation would constitute a u-turn from the Government's commitment to a level playing field for software and for businesses promised last year" said Sam Tuke, UK Coordinator of FSFE. "Lobbying and deliberation have resulted in another year of Britain falling behind neighbouring countries in realising the savings and interoperability benefits of Free Software".

Gerry Gavigan, chair of the Open Source Consortium said: “The government has been talking about the need for open standards since 2002. In the meantime the oligopoly gripping public sector IT, first officially identified in 2004, continues as does the use of restrictive and choice limiting proprietary standards for software".

Simon Phipps, a Director of the Open Source Initiative said: "OSI has long asserted that unrestricted open standards are essential for open source; the Open Standards Requirement of 2006 explains why. We join other groups serving the UK in calling on the government to embrace a truly open standards requirement."

Graham Taylor, Chief Executive, Open Forum Europe said: “Government needs to move beyond policy setting and deliver on its past promises. It is right to see public procurement as the focus for its activities, but to change past behaviour it needs to invest more in education, and be willing to be more prescriptive in its dealing with procurement decisions”.

Jim Killock, Executive Director of ORG said: "Open Standards are best when they are free to use, and can't be hijacked and stifled. Unfortunately, some major software companies want to have vetoes and decide where payments are made. While governments need flexibility, they should be clear that royalty free standards will ensure greater competition and innovation."

Howard Thomson, Treasurer, and Martin Houston, Council Member, of FLOSS UK said: "Adopting open standards and freedom from having to pay license fees for intellectual property just to implement those standards is vital for the future efficient use of IT in this country, giving good value for money to the taxpayer and the opportunity for a vibrant local IT culture to benefit everyone".

A group of attendees also agreed jointly to urge the Government to stay committed to its stated goals of openness and competition, and published a joint statement pledging to assist in the process of practically implementing an open standards policy.

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UK Open Standards experts publish joint statement on Government consultation

FSF News - Wed, 25/04/2012 - 01:00
UK Open Standards experts publish joint statement on Government consultation

At a meeting yesterday, hosted by the British Computer Society's Open Source Specialists Group, We the Undersigned called upon the Government to do the following:

  • Not do anything which will result in the imposition in a stealth tax upon citizens, for example by requiring them to purchase specific products for interacting with online public services
  • Ensure that anybody and everybody be able to participate in public sector procurement, regardless of their businesses model
  • Leverage truly open innovative technologies to achieve long term savings

Commitment to these points is critical if The Government is to achieve its stated aims of a more competitive and diverse market for public contracts, reduction of barriers to participation in public sector IT affecting small and medium size enterprises, and realisation of the potential benefits of its existing Open Data strategy.

We believe that it is important that The Government moves quickly from setting Open Standards policy to practically implementing it, and we look forward to participating in the next steps of this process.

Sincerely,

Howard Thomson, Martin Houston, Free and Libre Open Source Software UK,
Sam Tuke, Free Software Foundation Europe,
Graham Taylor, Open Forum Europe,
Gerry Gavigan, Open Source Consortium

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Fellowship Interview with Bernd Wurst

FSF News - Tue, 24/04/2012 - 01:00
Bern Wurst is a Free Software professional, volunteering for the Freedroidz project. He describes us his engagement with Free Software, and its importance for education.

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Blog: FSFE participates in UK ICT curriculum consultation

FSF News - Sat, 14/04/2012 - 01:00
FSFE’s education team has submitted their official position on the UK Department of Education proposal to disapply the National Curriculum Programme for Information and Communication Technology.

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Why FRAND is bad for Free Software

FSF News - Thu, 12/04/2012 - 01:00
Why FRAND is bad for Free Software

Should patents that cover standards be licensed royalty-free (as W3C recommends), or should should they instead be licensed under so-called "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms" (FRAND)?

FRAND is a misnomer as the terms are often unfair, unreasonable, and highly discriminatory, particularly for Free Software. In reality FRAND is only fair and reasonable to a small circle of the most powerful software companies.

Paying royalties of 0.000001 Cent per copy to implement a standard might look fair at the first sight, but such a fee would make it impossible to distribute a program as Free Software. Free Software safeguards the right to share with others. Therefore, when Free Software companies sell their software they cannot know how many people will eventually end up using it. It becomes impossible to estimate the total amount of royalties owed to patent owners; Free Software businesses will be unable to compete with their proprietary competitors and Free Software as a whole would be undermined.

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Is vendor lock-in costing Helsinki 3.4 million Euros per year?

FSF News - Thu, 12/04/2012 - 01:00
Is vendor lock-in costing Helsinki 3.4 million Euros per year?

A report on the City of Helsinki's pilot project for the use of OpenOffice in the public administrations leaves the public with more questions than answers. The city trialled the Free Software productivity suite on the laptops of council members for ten months in 2011. The suite enjoyed high approval rates among its users. When the pilot was finished, the City produced a report stating that the costs of migrating the entire administration to OpenOffice would be very high.

"The City's report claims that it would cost EUR 3.4 million per year to run OpenOffice. This figure appears surprisingly high, and the report does not say how it was calculated," says Otto Kekäläinen", Finland coordinator of the Free Software Foundation Europe. "Without details, this figure seems baseless." Apparently, Helsinki's administration did not even contact major OpenOffice service providers to ask for their prices when preparing the report.

The City of Helsinki should answer the following questions:

  • How were the figures calculated? The City needs to provide details to make them credible.
  • How much of the migration cost is due to lock-in?
  • Which service providers were contacted to ask for prices?

Much of the purported high costs appear to stem from the fact that the City is locked into the products of a single software vendor. The City uses a large number of Microsoft products, and each of them makes it harder to replace any component of the city's IT infrastructure with programs from other vendors.

"The city should make it clear how much of the costs quoted in the reports stem actually from rolling out OpenOffice, and how much is merely the cost of breaking free from Microsoft's proprietary file formats and interfaces," says Kekäläinen.

It also appears that the pilot program suffered from a number of conceptual errors. For example, users involved in the pilot program did not receive training. Though support for Microsoft's latest proprietary file formats is normally included in OpenOffice, the version installed on the council members' computers did not support those formats. This meant that participants in the pilot program experienced problems exchanging data with the rest of the administration which users of the normal, full-featured OpenOffice version would not have experienced. Even so, most participants in the pilot projects declared themselves happy with the Free Software office suite.

"Many other cities have done before what Helsinki claims to be trying to do here", says Kekäläinen. "There are many good examples and helpful contacts out there, whether in Sweden, Munich or Spain. The experienced people there can help Helsinki achieve its Free Software goals a lot more quickly and at a lower cost."

FSFE has published an analysis of the report at http://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20120412-02.en.html

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Executive summary and analysis of the Helsinki City and OpenOffice case in 2010-2011

FSF News - Thu, 12/04/2012 - 01:00
Executive summary and analysis of the Helsinki City and OpenOffice case in 2010-2011

This document was prepared by the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) for readers who are interested in the City of Helsinki's OpenOffice pilot project, and in lessons that may be drawn from this project.

Background: History of the OpenOffice pilot project

The initial reason for the project to emerge was a political initiative made by city council member Johanna Sumuvuori. Quoting her initiative "In the city of Lappeenranta the increasing usage of open source software¹ lead to savings of some 70 percent on the schools' IT budget." The initiative was signed by 60 other council members and presented in the city council meeting 2010-11-24.

During the summer 2011 the Helsinki city recruited a new CIO. Once he had settled he prepared a plan on how to respond to the city council initiative. In a meeting in January 2011, organized by council member Sumuvuori, to which FSFE was also invited, the new Helsinki City CIO Raitio presented his plan. First he would appoint a project manager. Then the IT department would install OpenOffice on the laptops of all city board members - a group of about 600 elected representatives who participate in the city governance via dozens of smaller boards. If succesful, the pilot would be followed by installing OpenOffice on all 21000 city workstations.

Later that winter, FSFE had some e-mail correspondence with Raitio, and in March 2011 FSFE had the pleasure to meet the project manager responsible for the OpenOffice pilot. She told FSFE representatives about her plans and about some issues they have had in trying to package OpenOffice as a MSI package suitable for automatic installation on all city workstations. FSFE also learned that most of IT in Helsinki is outsourced to the company Tieto, and that this project depended to some degree on how Tieto could support OpenOffice installations. As at FSFE we wanted to make sure the project would not fail for simple technical reasons, we offered to help with technical issues, and we also introduced the project manager personally to the officials responsible for the OpenOffice migration at the Finnish Ministry of Justice. One of these was Martti Karjalainen, the project manager at MoJ who later wrote a doctoral thesis on the subject. We also told Tieto that we could provide more contacts if needed - for example at Novell and IBM, as these companies provide commercial support and products based on OpenOffice.

Later that spring, FSFE representatives received an e-mail from the project manager Raitio, notifying us that the automated installation of OpenOffice on all the city workstations was going smoothly. After news about the pilot were published on osor.eu, Raitio told FSFE that the IT department would not issue any news about the developments to anybody and that we would have to wait for the final report to be published. When the final report eventually was released to politicians on 2011-12-28, the city's IT department did not notify FSFE.

Despite the lack of official information, in early December 2011 some news leaked out about how the pilot was going. It turned out that:

  • Not only was OpenOffice installed on the city boards members laptops, but also MS Office was removed, thus forcing the boards members to interact with the surrounding city administration still using Microsoft's prorietary file formats (doc, xls), with those proprietary formats causing a number of interoperability issues.
  • The users did not receive any training, they were supposed to adapt to the new program on their own.
  • Users had problems opening the newer MS Office formats like .docx and .xlsx. The board members started to teach each other to change the file endings to .doc and .xls which solved the problems. From this, it appears that support for docx and xlsx files was left out of the installation on purpose, as these files are normally supported by default.
  • The IT department had conducted an e-mail survey to board members asking if they wanted MS Office back, to which only 25% responded that they need it. The majority wanted to stay with OpenOffice despite the fact that there was little support available from the IT department.
Analysis of the IT department's report

A few days after Christmas 2011, the IT department distributed a report on the OpenOffice pilot to the city council. This 20-page report concluded that switching to OpenOffice would cost 74% more than continuing to use MS Office calculated on a 7-year period. According to the report the investment in a two year migration project would be 4,5 million euros, followed by an annual cost of 3,4 million euros. The part of the report presenting the calculation is only 3 pages, and it lacks any actual calculations, so we don't know which issues are projected to cause which costs. The city is not releasing the methods that were used for its calculations.

However, the report mentions that the calculations are based on a model presented in the document "Gartner Toolkit: The Cost to Upgrade Microsoft Office or Move to OpenOffice.org". As that report is not academic research, but a Gartner paper that costs 7500$ to obtain, it is also questionable whether the Gartner model has been a subject to proper review and evaluation since it is practically secret. All that is known about the Gartner report is that the document is written by one person alone, and the author Michael Silver gave statements favouring Microsoft's OOXML in 2008, when the rest of the industry (e.g. IBM, Novell, Google) backed the Open Document Format that later became an ISO standard and is widely supported in about every office suite and document software available today.

The secrecy alone renders the results suspect as a basis for any decision making, whether inside or outside the Helsinki IT department. While this secrecy makes it nearly impossible to have a serious debate about the calculations, a few of the assumptions presented should be questioned. For example, the calculations expect that despite migrating to OpenOffice the organisation would still continue using proprietary MS Office file formats. However, one of the biggest benefits of migrating to OpenOffice or other similar office suites is that they use the ISO standardized Open Document Format natively. Thus, the organisation can be sure that their office documents are electronically archiveable and can still be opened in 10 or even 100 years. In addition, relying on this kind of open standard brings also other benefits in interoperability, as files can be read and written anywhere, anytime, without a lock-in to one vendor. Another assumption in the calculations is that after the migration 5500 users (12% of the total computer using personnel of 30000) would still need to use MS Office, due to some "advanced features" that supposedly perpetually exist in MS Office and never come to OpenOffice or LibreOffice.

The secrecy issue is made worse by the fact, that the report issued by the Helsinki City IT Department does not mention any authors. In normal cases officials are required to have their name visible when exercising their powers. Did the authors resort to anonymity because they did not want to be held responsible for the results? Was the report even written by city officials, or by some consultant from the City's current systems vendor?

Very interesting is also that all cost analysis was done by consulting only Microsoft and their resellers. To our knowledge, no request for information (RFI) was issued to companies providing services related to OpenOffice or other office suite vendors. Neither was at least IBM nor Novell consulted directly. So the whole cost calculation lacks any price information from the vendors that would potentially provide commercial support for OpenOffice or similar office suites. Neither were any figures provided about the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement price or other costs from Microsoft. Only the cost difference was presented.

It was also interesting to note the whole notion of public procurement was absent from the report. The document's anonymous authors appear to ignore any issues related to free competition and public tendering. For example, the calculation assumed that during the whole seven year period for which projections were made, software like Microsoft Sharepoint and Exchange would remain in use. On page 7 there is a figure showing that the IT department has already made a decision to renew the Microsoft Enterprise Agreement every three years until at least 2019, which may be illegal according to Finnish procurement law.

From a taxpayers point of view, the CIO of Helsinki made a grave tactical mistake by releasing a report revealing that the city has no alternative plans at least until 2019 and that it is planning to renew its contracts with Microsoft as long as the price rises less than 3,4 million euros - all this when the next round of negotiations with Microsoft is scheduled for the 2012, the year following the release of the figure The bare minimum a CIO should do in these kind of situations, is to keep the option to migrate away on the table during the price negotiation to migitate price increases, even when the CIO would not personally like the option to actually implement alternative solutions.

FSFE will continue to follow up in this issue and support any activities that promote alternatives and competition. At FSFE, we feel that a key issue would be to properly procure software as all other tax payer funded acquisitions are. To ensure fair competition and efficient use of public funds, no IT department should take Microsoft products for granted, nor OpenOffice either. Each system should be procured and the best offering chosen.

If you feel we are working for a good cause, please help us by:

See also:

This analysis was prepared by the Finnish team of FSFE lead by Otto Kekäläinen, Finland coordinator, FSFE.

¹ = Find out why at FSFE, we speak about Free Software rather than "open source"

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Blue Drop Awards Celebrate Achievements in Open Source Web Development

The Linux Journal - Wed, 11/04/2012 - 21:22

The first ever Blue Drop Awards for excellence in Drupal development were announced yesterday. Organized and led by Ben Finklea of Volacci, the awards were both a community effort to celebrate the great work of Drupal Developers, and also a vehicle for Drupal and open source evangelism. more>>


Report of Document Freedom Day 2012

FSF News - Thu, 05/04/2012 - 01:00
Report of Document Freedom Day 2012

Document Freedom Day 2012 was a great success! America, Asia, Africa and Europe celebrated together Open Standards at 54 events. It is no doubt that DFD is growing and we believe that it will be even more successful next year. So what about having look at what happened around the world on 28th of March? And what has the Pope to do with Open Standards? Read our detailed report to find out.

DFD around the world

This year was the most powerful DFD day in the history! And we are proud to say that. Our DFD team and amazing volunteers managed to get on board more than 50 local organisers all around the world. One of the most active countries that deserves our respect is Venezuela with 10 events in a single country. The Document Freedom Day 2012 was celebrated in 22 countries and in 19 world languages. Our fifth year of organising this event got considerable press coverage with almost one hundred articles. All this was possible thanks to the support of our two main sponsors, Google and Oracle, and help of hundreds of volunteers and 38 partners spread in all the corners of the world.

So what did all of these people actually do to raise the awareness about the Document Freedom?

Read our detailed report on the DFD website to find out.

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FSFE Newsletter - April 2012

FSF News - Wed, 04/04/2012 - 01:00
FSFE Newsletter - April 2012Let us end all Free Software "projects" quickly!

A "project" is always temporary, in the narrow sense of the term. Some Free Software people use "project" to refer to long lasting initiatives instead. Your editor also did this, until Bernhard Reiter convinced him to use different terms for people, the result they create, and temporary concerted actions. After several people in FSFE encouraged Bernhard to write down his thoughts, he now published an article arguing: By adopting the more widespread use of the term project, Free Software initiatives will be more successful. "Free Software is here to stay, prepare your mind for this situation.", writes Bernhard.

Corporate perk or monopolist bribery?

Staff in the European Parliament are facing a challenge to their ethics. A company is offering all of them a gift which could compromise their independence. The company in question is Microsoft, and the gift is a bunch of proprietary programs. Through the Parliament's administration, Microsoft is offering staff (though probably not MEPs) gratis licenses to Microsoft Office, Project, and Visio. This happens under the so-called "Home Use Program".

The staff is working on regulations that also effect Microsoft, who is now making a gift to them. Staff is usually the one who does all the legwork. They are the one who control access to our MEPs. FSFE asks the MEPs to tell their staff, and the staff in their groups, not to accept Microsoft's gift. On the contrary, they should push the administration into making Free Software tools available that staffers can use to do their work, and urge the Parliament itself to migrate to Free Software. Karsten Gerloff wrote about this in his blog and will closeley monitor how the MEPs and their staff in the European Parliament will react. We will keep you posted.

Help for FSFE from Greece

The election period for this year's Fellowship GA seat has ended on February 29th. To summarise the detailed election results: Our new Fellowship representative is Nikos Roussos from Greece. He will meet with other members of FSFE's general assembly in Lisboa at the end of April, to work on strategic questions for the coming years. Thanks to Albert Dengg and Gert Seidl who also stood for the Fellowship GA seat, and who want to continue their great work for FSFE in their area.

Something completely differentGet Active: Leaflets to free others mobile!

Our Free Your Android campaign, got a lot of attention. Beside preparing his exams, Torsten Grote gave interviews for the German newspaper "Die Tageszeitung", radio interviews, and held a first installation party for FoeBud e.V.. Also at our booth at Cebit, Chemnitzer Linux-Tage, as well as Augsburger Linuxinfotage a lot of people showed interest in this campaign. We would like to get more people involved in this campaign. We ask you to promote the campaign with leaflets and posters in your local Free Software user group, your hackerspace, company, university, school, or your favourite bar. Please write an e-mail with a postal address to fellowship@fsfeurope.org, and we send you some leaflets and posters to promote it.

Thanks to all the Fellows and donors who enable our work,
Matthias Kirschner - FSFE

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Hacking for freedom: Web Team comes to Manchester

FSF News - Mon, 02/04/2012 - 01:00
Hacking for freedom: Web Team comes to Manchester

Manchester will be hacking for freedom this month when FSFE's Web Team sprint comes to the UK. Web team coordinators, together with a variety of international volunteers, will gather in a concerted effort to improve website features and infrastructure.

FSFE's Web Team Coordinator Nicolas Jean said "After the success of October 2010's Web Sprint which saw the advent of fsfe.org's complete redesign, we hope to fix lots of bugs, offer new functionalities and more importantly, have a great deal of fun!".

How you can help and join:

  • Meet us there: "the more the merrier!" said Deputy Web Team Coordinator Andreas Tolf Tolfsen. We welcome all participants who want to try improving FSFE's website(s)!
  • Join us online: even if you can't be in Manchester, fixing bugs remotely is of course possible and wanted!
  • Give us feedback and ideas: not that much of a web designer or programmer? Browse fsfe.org, and while reading about things that matter, tell us what you think. We welcome all comments and ideas, there's always room for improvement. You are, we are the users!

The sprint will take place in OpenSpace co-working space, which is Co-Directed by UK Coordinator Sam Tuke. During their stay the team will have an opportunity to visit Manchester's MadLab Hackerspace, and meet others who are hacking for freedom.

Help with travel and accommodation for international visitors can be found on the 2012 Web Sprint Wiki page. Please contact the web team for more information.

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Document Freedom Award for Slovak Commission for Standardization

FSF News - Fri, 30/03/2012 - 01:00
Document Freedom Award for Slovak Commission for Standardization

The Free Software Foundation Europe awarded the Slovak Commission for Standardization of the Public Administration Information Systems and its working groups with the Document Freedom Award this week. The Commission was awarded for its long standing commitment and achieved results in the field of the Open Standards. The prize was presented on the occasion of Document Freedom Day, the international day of Open Standards.

From left: Martin Husovec (FSFE), Miloš Molnár (chair of the Commission) a Peter Bíro (deputy chair of the Commission).

The award aims to internationaly recognize the work of the Slovak Commission for Standardization, its working groups and independent experts, who participate at its activities. “When I was explaining the activities of the Commission to my colleagues in the FSFE, they were very enthusiastic. It was suprising for them that Slovakia has in principle only one forum for the standardization processecs of a public administration systems, that results of this forum are of such a quality and finally, that Ministry of Finance is equipted with a sanction mechanism in order to assure the real functioning of this entire framework” said Martin Husovec, Slovak representative of the FSFE during the ceremony in Bratislava.

The chair of the Commission for Standardization, Miloš Molnár and his deputy chair, Peter Bíro, felt pleased to receive the plaque and the cake on the occasion of Document Freedom Day. At the ceremony, several members of the Commission and its working groups were present. The chair, Miloš Molnár, stressed the contribution of the deputy chair, Peter Bíro, who is in his words, responsible for a significant contribution to the results of the Commission since 2005.

The plaque and the Document Freedom cake with the DFD logo on top.

The representatives of the Commission were delighted to hear that the results and activities of the Commission are of the interest even outside of Slovak borders. At the same time, they indicated the basic tasks and issues, which the Commission has to deal with in the present days. In particular, it was mentioned that the Commission wishes to see more active and learned members from the civil society to assist the Commission. Martin Husovec from the FSFE presented the Commission a concrete suggestion to “engage for the future also other institutions, such as public libraries, improve the current engagement of associations of visually impaired persons and to enable better represantation of citizens, so the discussion could better reflect also their view-point and needs”. The representatives of the Commission stated, that they are considering to invite further experts to the Commission and that they are also in touch with several different organizations. The representative of FSFE also suggested that the Commission could create a transparent online system for record-keeping of incompliance of the public administration with Open Standards. This system could, in his words, disburden the Commission and enable the citizens to directly affect the Open Standards compliance for the future.

Representatives of the FSFE and the Commission agreed that it is highly desirable to support the sucessful standardization activities in the public administration by allocating more human resources from the side of the government as the current status is underdesigned. The chair of the Commission, Miloš Molnár, said that this need is extraordinary important in the present in regard to the planned digitalization of the cultural heritage. Because in this project, the failure to secure the standards compliance could lead to catastrophic implications for the society and the digitalization project itself. He also added that current financial sanctioning system is not being widely used and the Ministry of Finance rather tries to positively motivate, but often have to face misunderstanding from the other public bodies. The participation of the public in this process could greatly help, he said.

About Document Freedom Day (DFD)

Document Freedom Day (DFD) campaigns to celebrate information accessibility and introduce non-technical audiences to Open Standards. Open Standards are a basic condition for the freedom of choice in software, to ensure the freedom to access data, and the freedom to build Free Software by reading and writing information. Since 2008, DFD is celebrated around the world on the last Wednesday of March. The awarding of the Slovak Commission was one event out of more then 50 in over 20 different countries.

About the Commission for Standardization

The Slovak Commission for Standardization of the Public Administration Information Systems is an advisory and consultative body of the Ministry of Finance of the Slovak Republic. It adopts proposals of standards, which are, after possible changes, issued by the Ministry of Finance as the obligatory legal rules. The public administration is then governed by these standards in the field of information technology issues. In the case of incompliance, Ministry of Finance may impose sanctions from 2 000 EUR up to 35 000 EUR. The Commission was already formed in 2005 under the Ministry of Transportation, Post and Telecommunication. Since 2007 it operates under the Ministry of Finance. The Commission has 18 members, 15 of whom are the employees of various state organizations. The non-governmental representation in the Commission is assured by the presence of other organizations: professional associations of legal persons – IT Slovak Association, civil association Slovak Informatics Society and civil association The Society for Open Information Technologies. The Commission also has 9 working groups, which consider the technical details of individual standards.

About the standards issued by the Commission:

The standards defined in the Regulations on Standards specify the duties for public administration during its communication with the public, online publication and mutual communication between the bodies of public administration. The regulation also stipulates some rules for the internal operation of information systems, for example in the area of security. The regulation significantly improves the interoperability of various information systems of different public administration organizations in Slovakia. The Open Standards guarantee the public, including handicaped people, that they have a proper access to all provided and published information.

Further information:

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Document Freedom Day 2012: Activists around the world celebrate Open Standards

FSF News - Wed, 28/03/2012 - 01:00
Document Freedom Day 2012: Activists around the world celebrate Open Standards

Free Software advocates worldwide are today celebrating information accessibility and Open Standards. 48 events in 17 countries are using demonstrations, talks and workshops to explain why Open Standards and Free Software are crucial to a free and competitive information society.

A network of 34 international partner organisations are carrying this message to new audiences, from Cairo to Argentina, Poland to Taiwan, and the European Parliament to Aberystwyth University.

"The growth of support for Document Freedom Day shows growing demand for accessible formats and unprejudiced standards" says Campaign Coordinator Matthias Kirschner. "Citizens, businesses, and politicians alike are calling for adoption of fairer and more compatible international standards". Prizes are being awarded this year by Document Freedom Day teams in Germany, Italy, Slovakia and Poland, to businesses and government offices which have recently adopted Open Standards within their organisations.

Open Standards are a common language, publicly documented, that computer programs can speak. They are central to interoperability and freedom of choice in technology. Open Standards allow Free Software developers to create programs that can interoperate with other solutions, so users can migrate away from proprietary solutions.

"Fresh support from celebrities like Stephen Fry, and major community groups such as Open Rights Group have introduced Open Standards to new groups this year" said Deputy Campaign Coordinator, Sam Tuke. "We are delighted by the response we have received, and the additional political impact Document Freedom Day has achieved".

Document Freedom Day 2012 is facilitated by the Free Software Foundation Europe, and supported by campaign patrons Google and Oracle.

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