26 March 2008: Today is Document Freedom Day!
Today is Document Freedom Day: Roughly 200 teams from more than 60
countries worldwide are organising local activities to raise awareness
for Document Freedom and Open Standards. To support the initiatives
surrounding the first day to celebrate document liberation, DFD
starter packs containing a DFD flag, t-shirts and leaflets have been
sent to the first 100 registered teams over the past weeks.
In a world where records are increasingly kept in electronic form,
Open Standards are crucial for valuable information to outlive the
application in which it was initially generated. The question of
Document Freedom has severe repercussions for freedom of choice,
competition, markets and the sovereignty of countries and their
governments.
"We are very happy about the response and activities that teams around
the world have scheduled," says Ivan Jelic, DFD Coordinator.
"Activities we have heard about range from local speeches and
information events through to prizes being given to governmental
bodies that adopted good policies in the field of Document Freedom and
Open Standards. It will be a challenge to document everything that is
taking place today."
"Who controls your valuable information? This question has become
central for the distribution of power and wealth in the networked
society," explains Georg Greve, president of FSFE. "Document Freedom
is about giving you control of your information, it is about giving
governments control of their public records, and it is about freedom
of choice. You can give yourself that freedom today by switching to
one of the many Free Software applications that support the Open
Document Format and that run on many different platforms!"
A list of Free Software applications that support ODF is available at
http://documentfreedom.org/Applications
Greve concludes: "Along with many others around the world, FSFE's
teams in several countries will be spending the day distributing
information about Open Standards and Document Freedom. My greetings
and gratitude go to everyone participating in this global effort,
particulary FSFE's young Serbian team who did the main work on DFD
regardless of a very difficult local situation!"
How you can get active
The Document Freedom Day is a collaborative effort.
You can make a difference by linking to http://documentfreedom.org,
generate your own artworks or use the ones available at
http://documentfreedom.org/Artwork or generate your own.
You could also print out some of the DFD leaflets at
http://www.documentfreedom.org/2008/DFD_Starter_Pack#Leaflet
and give them to your co-workers, family or friends. And if you feel
creative, consider taking pictures or small video testimonials that
show the world what Document Freedom means to you!
About the Document Freedom Day
The Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a global day for Document Liberation
with roughly 200 active teams worldwide. It is a day of grassroots
effort around the world to promote and build awareness for the
relevance of Free Document Formats in particular and Open Standards in
general.
Document Freedom Day is supported by a large group of organisations
and individuals, including, but not limited to Ars Aperta, COSS,
Esoma, Free Software Foundations Europe and Latin America, IBM, NLnet,
ODF Alliance, OpenForum Europe, OSL, iMatix, Red Hat, Sun
Microsystems, Inc., The Open Learning Centre, Opentia, Estandares
Abiertos.
The list of DFD supporting groups can be found
http://documentfreedom.org/Who
The list of DFD Teams is available at
http://documentfreedom.org/Category:Teams
About the Free Software Foundation Europe
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in
the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues,
securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people
Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues
of the FSFE.
http://fsfeurope.org
It has been an exceptional month. The European Commission has fined
Microsoft an additional 899 million Euro for continuing to restrict
access to interoperability information prior to October 2007 and the
ISO Ballot Resolution Meeting in Geneva failed to address most of the
serious issues and ultimately ended up waving through the bulk of ECMA
responses without review. Public awareness of issues relating to
software freedom have been raised dramatically.
Perhaps the key word for this month is precedent. The EC anti-trust
fine is the first of its kind in Europe and draws a line regarding
fair access and good corporate behaviour in Europe. The MS-OOXML
process has clearly demonstrated how international standardisation is
struggling to meet current needs. Fairness, access and lack of
restrictions have become central to debates around the evolution of
the digital sphere. New precedents are being set which enshrine these
values, and where such precedents do not exist it is becoming clear
that they need to be created. This is good news for Free Software and
it's good news for society at large.
Shane, FSFE Zurich Office
1. Microsoft's so-called 'interoperability' pledge excludes primary competitors
2. FSFE calls on Microsoft to release interoperability information without restrictions
3. FSFE at FOSDEM in Brussels, Belgium
4. SELF conference in Sofia, Bulgaria
5. FSFE participates in a global day for document liberation
6. FSFE announces the first European Licensing and Legal Workshop
7. Jonas Öberg in Sofia, Bulgaria
8. FSFE Context Briefing on DIS-29500: Deprecated before use?
9. "Fairware" for the Protestant Church in Gemany
10. Late breakfast for Rhineland Fellows
11. RMS in Berlin
FORTHCOMING EVENTS:
12. Free Software in the public sector' training course in Zurich, Switzerland
13. Speech on Free Software licensing and the GPLv3 at OSiM USA
14. FSFE booth at OpenCamp in Rome, Italy
15. Introduction to Free Software licensing' training course in Zurich, Switzerland
16. Strategic implementation of Free Software
1. Microsoft's so-called 'interoperability' pledge excludes primary competitors
The Microsoft pledge to release interoperability information for
flagship products contained little actual news. The announcement
confirmed that Microsoft was planning to use its software patent
portfolio against interoperating products by requiring a patent
license for all commercial activity. This is consistent with its
previous attempts at allowing competition only where it provides no
actual challenge to its monopolies.
http://fsfeurope.org/news/2008/news-20080222-01
2. FSFE calls on Microsoft to release interoperability information without restrictions
The European Commission has fined Microsoft 899 million Euro for
anti-competitive behaviour by continuing to restrict access to
interoperability information. "Microsoft is the last company that
actively promotes the use of software patents to restrict
interoperability. This kind of behaviour has no place in an Internet
society where all components should connect seamlessly regardless of
their origin," says Georg Greve, president of the Free Software
Foundation Europe.
http://fsfeurope.org/news/2008/news-20080228-01
3. FSFE at FOSDEM in Brussels, Belgium
Like the years before, Free Software Foundation Europe had a booth at FOSDEM,
one of the biggest Free Software conferences in Europe. This year FSFE shared
its booth with the Free Knowledge Foundation, a Spanish associate organisation
[1]. About fifteen team members and volunteers from FSFE helped out at the
booth by answering questions and talked to interested people. One of the big
topics was Document Freedom Day, and everyone at the booth helped explain its
importance [2].
[1] http://www.libre.org/
[2] http://www.fsfe.org/en/fellows/michael_kallas/images/fosdem_2008/document_f…
4. SELF conference in Sofia, Bulgaria
Jonas Öberg, vice president of the FSFE, participated in a SELF
conference in Sofia, Bulgaria the 10th of February, where he gave a
talk about e-learning and Free Software. The talk was part of an event
that took place during a SELF board meeting in Sofia, and gathered
teachers and activists from the area.
5. FSFE participates in a global day for document liberation
The Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a global day for Document Liberation
with grassroots action for promotion of Free Document Formats and Open
Standards in general. The DFD was initiated and is supported by a
group of organisations and companies, including, but not limited to,
the Free Software Foundation Europe, ODF Alliance, OpenForum Europe,
IBM, Red Hat and Sun Microsystems, Inc. On 26 March 2008, the Document
Freedom Day will provide a global rallying point for Document
Liberation and Open Standards.
http://fsfeurope.org/news/2008/news-20080220-01http://documentfreedom.org/
6. FSFE announces the first European Licensing and Legal Workshop
FSFE's Freedom Task Force announced the first European Licensing and
Legal Workshop for Free Software will be held on Friday the 11th of
April in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. The event is targeted towards
large projects and medium to large enterprises wishing to discuss
their existing licence compliance processes. Parties attending are
expected to contribute to issues ranging from process development
through to optimising purchasing contract language for the benefit of
the European Free Software community.
http://fsfeurope.org/news/2008/news-20080214-01
7. Jonas Öberg in Sofia, Bulgaria
Jonas Öberg, vice president of the FSFE, gave a talk on the 7th of
February in an event about ICT use in public administrations. His talk
was about how to do procurement of Free Software, using knowledge
gained from Sweden, and took place in Sofia, Bulgaria.
8. FSFE Context Briefing on DIS-29500: Deprecated before use?
When ECMA submitted MS-OOXML as ECMA-376 to ISO for fast-track
approval, several countries criticised overlap with the existing ISO
standard ISO/IEC 26300:2006, the Open Document Format (ODF). [...]
Considering that alleged preservation of idiosyncrasies is the stated
reason for the entire DIS-29500 ISO process, FSFE considers it
worthwhile to investigate this claim in greater depth. The result of
this investigation is a compact context briefing.
http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-idiosyncrasies
9. "Fairware" for the Protestant Church in Gemany
For many years now the churches have supported fair trade. Because of this the
ethical principles of Free Software are a real match with the IT needs of
churches.
A practical start to introducing Free Software was undertaken on the 23th of
February. In an event of the Protestant Church in Verden (near Bremen, Germany),
the use of "Fairware", as they called Free Software, was discussed. Bernhard
Reiter gave a lecture on Free Software and answered several questions of the
interested audience. The event was very successful. Thanks to Andreas Bergmann
and Detlev Rakebrand who have organized the event and are promoting Free
Software within their communities.
10. Late breakfast for Rhineland Fellows
At 2008-03-02 the second "late breakfast" of the Fellows at Rhineland took
place in the Duesseldorf Office of FSFE. There were twice as many people as
at the first "late breakfast". Upgrade problems, free geo data and IT
security in enterprises were the topics discussed while enjoying coffee
and breakfast . There are now plans to make this a regular event.
11. RMS in Berlin
On his visit to Europe, Richard Stallman gave a speech on the history
and philosophy of Free Software in Berlin. The local Fellowship group
together with the newthinking-store put up a booth to inform the
visitors about ways to participate in the Free Software movement.
Around 200 people listened to Richard Stallman's speech, which was
concluded with a round of questions and the recitation of "The Free
Software Song"[1]. The Fellowship group really enjoyed the speech and
the fruitful discussions with the participants afterwards.
http://www.gnu.org/music/free-software-song.html
FORTHCOMING EVENTS:
12. Free Software in the public sector' training course in Zurich, Switzerland
Shane Coughlan, FTF coordinator, will deliver a training course
examining how Free Software can be used in the public sector on Friday
the 7th of March. The course will be delivered between 13:00-16:00 at
the FSFE Zurich office. There is no cost to attend this course, but
due to limited space all those wishing to come should register their
interest beforehand through the FTF contact form.
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/form.html
13. Speech on Free Software licensing and the GPLv3 at OSiM USA
Shane Coughlan, FTF coordinator, will deliver a speech entitled
'Analysing Whether GPLv3 Has Improved Free Software Licensing' at OSiM
USA on Tuesday the 11th of March in San Francisco. The speech will
cover topics ranging from the creation of GPLv3 and its place in
licensing through to examining the place of GPLv3 in tomorrow's
market.
14. FSFE booth at OpenCamp in Rome, Italy
The FSFE will be present with a booth at the OpenCamp event
organized by the Sapienza Linux User Group in Rome on 15th March
(http://barcamp.org/OpenCamp). The booth will offer FSFE
merchandising, information about current activities and a meeting
point for all interested people and Fellows.
15. Introduction to Free Software licensing' training course in Zurich, Switzerland
Shane Coughlan, FTF coordinator, will deliver a training course to
introduce people to Free Software licensing concepts on Friday the
21st of March. The course will be delivered between 13:00-16:00 at the
FSFE Zurich office. There is no cost to attend this course, but due to
limited space all those wishing to come should register their interest
beforehand through the FTF contact form.
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/form.html
16. Strategic implementation of Free Software
On the 2nd of April FSFE and its Freedom Task Force (FTF) will give a
course on the Strategic implementation of Free Software in Business in
collaboration with the Internet Academy. The course will take place in
Stockholm, Sweden. Those wishing to come should register their
interest beforehand through the FTF contact form.
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ftf/form.html
You can find a list of all FSFE newsletters on
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/newsletter.en.html
Copyright (C) FSFE. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire
article is permitted in any medium, provided this notice is preserved.
New petition calls for Open Standards in the European Parliament
Brussels – 6 March 2008.
At a time when the EU Commission investigates the anti-competitive
behaviour of a market-dominant player, the European Parliament (EP)
still imposes that same specific software choice on both the European
Union's citizens and its own MEPs. OpenForum Europe, The European
Software Market Association, and the Free Software Foundation Europe
today launched a petition to call on the EP to use Open Standards so
that all citizens can participate in the democratic process.
Graham Taylor, Chief Executive of OpenForum Europe says: "The benefits
of the Internet were achieved from Open Standards, freedom of access,
participation for all, innovation where it really mattered. Not
proprietary lock-in and monopoly. Government and Parliament need to
show leadership in ensuring full participation for all its citizens.
Pieter Hintjens, General Secretary of Esoma explains, "Small businesses
are moving to modern Open Standards like Open Document Format, yet to
write to their MEPs they have to switch back to old proprietary formats?
The EP should lead the way in open government, starting with Open
Standards for documents and recordings."
Ciaran O’Riordan, FSFE adds, "If our elected representatives don't like
a software package or its terms of use, they should be able to choose
another software package. This issue and the promotion of Open
Standards must be tackled together to get past a chicken and egg
problem: Not being able to choose your software often means you're stuck
with one vendor's proprietary format, and using that proprietary format
means you, and everyone you communicate with, is shoe-horned into using
the same vendor's software. For FSFE, it is important that MEPs be able
to choose Free Software."
The signatories are encouraging citizens and other stakeholder groups to
publicly support the objectives of the petition by signing up on
www.openparliament.eu
Background
It is the right of all citizens to be able to freely communicate with
their elected representatives, and have full and free access to the
proceedings of Parliament. In today’s electronic world of the internet,
email and video streaming, citizens rightly have high expectations on
the European Parliament to ensure full participation without technical
restriction. Yet it is a fact that the domination of current suppliers,
unless challenged, does impose unnecessary restriction, forcing citizens
to purchase specific software, maintaining lock-in to that supplier and
limiting competition and choice.
Openness is all about the freedom to innovate, integrate and
participate. For example there are already internationally approved
standards for document exchange, supported by a multitude of competitive
main stream products - yet these standards are unsupported by the
European Parliament, which instead only supports products based on
proprietary protocols. Not only does this potentially increase cost,
restrict access and impact social inclusion, but it restricts the
opportunity to take advantage of new innovation offered by tomorrow's
technology.
The co-signatories of this Petition call on the European Parliament to
open up their IT systems, maximising the use of Open Standards and
ensure full democracy for its citizens.
About OFE
OpenForum Europe is not-for-profit, independent of any organisation
and was launched in March 2002 to accelerate, broaden and strengthen
the use of Open Source Software in business and government. OFE
pursues the vision of an open, competitive European IT market by 2010
in line with the European Commission i2010 Strategy, with the mission
of facilitating open competitive choice for IT users. OFE is supported
by major IT suppliers and works closely with the market, both direct
and via national associates and partners. www.openforumeurope.org
About Esoma
The European Software Market Association (Esoma) is the voice of the
independent IT firms, professionals, and consumers. Founded in January
2007 by the FFII, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the removal
of barriers to competition in IT and largely responsible for the
rejection of the EU software patent directive in July 2005, Esoma
promotes healthy practices on the software market. Esoma fills the gap
for a European trade association speaking specifically for SME IT
firms.As a not-for-profit organisation, it is mostly funded from
membership fees and donations. www.esoma.org
About FSFE
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in
the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues,
securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving people
Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central issues
of the FSFE.
For further information please contact:
Graham Taylor, Chief Executive of OFE, +44(0)1372 815168
Pieter Hintjens, General Secretary of ESOMA, +32 (0)475 235 984
Ciaran O’Riordan, FSFE, +32(0)477 364 419
FSFE context briefing: Interoperability woes with MS-OOXML
FSFE has released a context briefing that highlights three examples of
how the proposed MS-OOXML specification and its practical implementation
in MS Office 2007 hinders interoperability, fosters vendor dependence
and results in market distortion. The proposed MS-OOXML/DIS29500
specification continues to raise serious technical and legal concerns.
At the recent ISO Ballot Resolution Meeting for the proposed
specification more than 1,000 technical concerns and proposed
dispositions required discussion. Participants were only able to
discuss between 20 to 30 dispositions and to accept approximately 200
minor editorial corrections in the allocated time. Around 900
dispositions were not addressed.
"The standardisation process is being tested quite extensively by this,"
says Shane Coughlan, FSFE's legal coordinator. "It is important that
standards are open and do not exclude anyone. Interoperability and
access are not optional components of a fair digital society."
FSFE's perspective is that there is only one reasonable response by
national bodies: move DIS29500 out of the FastTrack process by voting
“DISAPPROVE, with comments” and suggest methods of handling the proposed
specification through the normal ISO process, ideally by convergence
into ISO/IEC 26300, the Open Document Format (ODF).
For more information see:
http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-interoperability
Download a PDF copy of the context briefing (1.3M):
http://fsfeurope.org/documents/msooxml-interoperability.pdf
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in the
information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free Software
Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the furthering of
Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study, modify and copy.
Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these issues, securing Free
Software politically and legally, and giving people Freedom by
supporting development of Free Software are central issues of the FSFE.
Contact:
You can reach the FSFE switchboard from:
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73
Sweden: +46 31 7802160
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7
Media contact: Shane Coughlan, FTF Coordinator, FSFE extension: 408
mobile: +41792633406
Further information: http://fsfeurope.org
Google helps FSFE's Freedom Task Force to deliver training, attend
conferences and translate documents.
Google has made a donation to assist FSFE's Freedom Task Force with
delivering training courses, attending conferences and localising
documents.
"The Freedom Task Force is working to foster effective legal
infrastructure for Free Software in Europe. A great deal of our work is
based on engaging directly with people and Google's contribution will
allow us to do this more effectively," says Shane Coughlan, FTF
Coordinator. "Training, physical presence in countries and providing
materials in local languages are essential aspects of building a
coherent pan-European community."
"Free Software Foundation Europe has been working to promote and protect
Free Software in Europe for many years and the Freedom Task Force is a
good example of their long-term approach to supporting the community,"
says Jeremy Allison, Member of the Technical Staff - Software Engineer,
Google. "I believe that they are doing useful work and I'm proud to see
Google supporting their activities."
FSFE's Freedom Task Force helps individuals, projects and businesses
understand Free Software licensing and the opportunities that it
presents. The activities of the FTF includes providing training
courses, consultancy and operating a European Legal and Technical
Network. It fosters best practice throughout the European Free Software
community.
The FTF is operated on a non-profit basis under the auspices of Free
Software Foundation Europe.
For more information about the FTF or the first European Licensing and
Legal Workshop please contact Shane Coughlan:
The Freedom Task Force can be found at http://www.fsfeurope.org/ftf/
The Freedom Task Force can be emailed at ftf at fsfeurope.org
About the Free Software Foundation Europe:
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) is a non-profit
non-governmental organisation active in many European countries and
involved in many global activities. Access to software determines
participation in a digital society. To secure equal participation in
the information age, as well as freedom of competition, the Free
Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) pursues and is dedicated to the
furthering of Free Software, defined by the freedoms to use, study,
modify and copy. Founded in 2001, creating awareness for these
issues, securing Free Software politically and legally, and giving
people Freedom by supporting development of Free Software are central
issues of the FSFE.
Contact:
You can reach the FSFE switchboard from:
Belgium: +32 2 747 03 57 ext 408
Germany: +49 700 373 38 76 73 ext 408
Sweden: +46 31 7802160 ext 408
Switzerland: +41 43 500 03 66 ext 408
UK: +44 29 200 08 17 7 ext 408
Shane Coughlan, FTF Coordinator, FSFE extension: 408
Further information: http://fsfeurope.org