Dear Alan,
Thank you for agreeing to become a member of the Certified Open Governance Council. I am pleased to advise that we just announced the formal launch of the 3 month trial period for Certified Open. [1]
Certified Open is designed to help measure and encourage competition through the provision of a framework for evaluating technical and commercial lock-in, covering both proprietary and Free Software/Open Source solutions.
The issue of 'openness' and avoidance of lock-in has never been more in the public eye. The decision by the Court of First Instance in respect to the appeal by Microsoft is yet one more announcement that is ensuring the topic is never far from the headlines.
Included in this email you fill find the links for the Terms of Reference for the Governance Council, and we would welcome any comments you might have as to their improvement. But as you will see the Governance Council becomes the overriding guardian of strategy and equality for Certified Open.
We are in the process of inviting further individuals to join the Council and we hope to have a representative quorum by the end of the calendar year. Our intention is to ensure full representation from all quarters - user and supplier, proprietary and community, government and private sector. We are looking to hold our first meeting of the Council in early January, but will check availability of dates and location with you well in advance of that.
The 3 month (beta) trial period is an important step towards the full global launch of Certified Open planned for early Spring 2008. Part of that trial is to encourage suppliers and community developers to sign up, and validate their products within a period of confidentiality. It also allows user organisations to validate the use of Certified Open against their current solutions. But it also allows us to monitor the content, questions and processes in real life.
We would very much welcome your personal involvement in the trial. This might be by encouraging colleagues and partners to directly participate, or for yourself to review the content and processes.
Certified Open has been established as not-for-profit, but also for the programme to cover its outgoings primarily by certification fees. We recognise that such a plan is inevitably back end loaded. To date both OpenForum Europe and Free Software Foundation Europe have covered all costs, but we are looking to identify potential 'supporters' who may be able to assist in the first year of operation. Such discussions have already started but we would welcome any further suggestions you might have.
We are delighted you are participating in the Governance Council and would welcome any suggestions you might have.
With best regards, Georg Greve
[1] http://mail.fsfeurope.org/pipermail/press-release/2007q4/000189.html [2] http://www.certifiedopen.com/downloads-1/framework-1-13.pdf [3] http://www.certifiedopen.com/downloads-1/principles-of-operation-2-16.pdf