Seeking endorsement from the TDF Board for this Public appeal document

Good evening to all,

I would like to present to the TDF Board the following document which
was created and elaborated jointly by GreekLUG <http://goo.gl/RsHsi> and
FSUG Italia <http://www.fsugitalia.org/wp/?s=greeklug>.
Please take a moment to read:

The main idea is to launch this paper on the imminent Document Freedom
Day (28/3/2012).
It has been written as a Public Appeal to all the European Governments.
We invite them to immediately adopt Free Software, Open Standards and
/*in particular LibreOfiice*/, in all public administration PC workstations.

We would like to /_*request an official backing by the TDF*_,**_*with
approval for this paper*_/ (provided the document meets with everybody's
consent).

We have already received endorsement by the FTA and it is our intention
to seek official approval from the FSFE.
In such a way, it is obvious that the paper will acquire a whole new
impetus and an increased "specific gravity"......

We will be very happy if the TDF and the LibreOffice Community would be
prepared to offer their endorsement, but even this should not be
feasible, we would equally appreciate very much any input (suggestions,
or corrections) that you might propose for this text.

On behalf of both the GreekLUG Board and of FSUG Italia Board, we wish
to thank you all for your attention.

Constatine Mousafiris

/_*Open proposal/ Public appeal to all European Governments*_/:

Your Excellencies Prime Ministers and Heads of State of all European countries

We, as European citizens, are living through an unprecedented period of
economic recession and a European debt crisis, in which some European
countries, have undoubtedly been involved quite deeply.

Over the last decade, a faulty budgeting for many public sector processes and ill-advised decisions, accounted for a great part of the problem. A grave mistake, in some countries, was the *choice to commit the state administration <http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=el&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=el&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http://www.minfin.gr/portal/en/resource/contentObject/id/d16589bf-bc25-47bb-920a-b61598724b95> *to a proprietary office productivity suite, known for its higher cost and conceding to a single company exclusionary procurement deals <http://techrights.org/2008/02/01/lockin-method-vs-linux/>, i.e. the right to become the exclusive software supplier for all the Greek public administration, for a number of years.

However, we firmly believe that it is quite unacceptable for a government to make a formal commitment in favour of the exclusive use of software from one single supplier, leading to serious spending for the acquisition of thousands of licences of use, without any prior market search for alternative available solutions. But it is also morally unsound for a public administration to oblige its citizens to buy any specific proprietary word processor, so that they can see the public document files.

We, as supporters of Free Software, promote the *use of Open Standards* and the use of a free Office software suite, such as *LibreOffice*, that can be freely downloaded from the Web and that can meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of PC workstations.

We, like many others around the world, support and promote the choice of
free software and open standards. Free software is software that you can
download, modify, adapt, and redistribute freely.
These features allow free software to dramatically reduce IT costs for
schools, offices and public administration as a whole. The adoption of
free software and open standards also ensures maximum transparency,
offers great benefits in terms of security to all the backoffice
“invisible” operations, it helps to achieve the interoperability goal
and allows an absolute disengagement from individual suppliers. The
choice of open standards is the best way to achieve the reduction of the
digital divide.

Due to the availability of its source code, free software can offer a
major advantage to all services in the public sector: Cooperation with
each country's local developers becomes a feasible proposition. The
state sector escapes, therefore, from the lock-in effect with
monopolistic suppliers, but can also give a healthy boost to the
development of the local software industry. Above all, the public
services can ask their local companies to either adapt an already
existing free software so that it matches their specific needs, or to
develop new functionalities altogether. Therefore, not only is it
possible to overcome any features eventually lacking, but it is also
feasible to maximize the end result at a very modest cost, given the
large scale of the public sector.

We should focus on the fact that the average use of a software, in the
context of public service, consists in text writing, web browsing,
creating spreadsheets or creating presentations and other similar
straightforward tasks. All these activities can be easily performed,
without incurring any additional costs, by using programs like Firefox
and LibreOffice. Despite this, it is not uncommon to see a waste of
public money, devolved to buying particularly expensive software in
order to carry out these simple tasks.

Your Excellencies Prime Ministers and Heads of State of all European countries,

*We are launching this public appeal to you, for an immediate adoption of Open Standards and of the free software Office productivity suite LibreOffice, to take effect from the 1st June 2012, in ALL the public services, wherever this is possible. *

It is reasonable to expect that the process of migrating towards Free Software, in a complex institution such as a public administration of a State, can not be considered as a simple operation, nor can it be achieved overnight.

*It is sufficient though that you demonstrate the necessary political will, by issuing clear guidelines to this direction*, so that the inherent problems of this migration process can be addressed with the help and support of FSFE and all the numerous other Free software based organisations and firms, all over Europe. It is a sensible way for cutting down on wastes of public money spending.

A similar move will be a first step towards great savings, but it will also have some other important side benefits, such as:

    *

      get rid of the financial burden of the updates and renewals for additional licences of proprietary software, given that the updates for LibreOffice also come for free.

    *

      The long-term use of the native file format generated by LibreOffice, as it is compliant with Open Standards.

    *

      Guarantee of interoperability with all the other file formats (of both free and proprietary software) and, therefore, able to serve all citizens.

At times like the ones we are experiencing, any unnecessary spending
will inevitably get interpreted as a grave insult by all European
citizens, who are already making heavy sacrifices.

In some cases, individual European countries have already switched to
free software, with numerous examples of remarkable success in terms of
efficiency and savings.

Given the current international situation, we consider the introduction
of Free Software and Open Standards, a moral, ethical, practical and
economical imperative for the whole of Europe.

Free Software User Group Italia (FSUG Italia <http://www.fsugitalia.org/wp/>)
Association of Greek Users and Friends of Free Software (GreekLUG <http://www.greeklug.gr/index.php?lang=en>)

(hoping for the support of: Free Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org/> and of The Document Foundation <https://www.documentfoundation.org/>)

Dear all,

we have recently sent over to you a draft proposal for a Public appeal
in favour of Open Standards, of Free software and of LibreOffice, for
the entire structure of European public administration, and we were
requesting for an official endorsement from the TDF Board.
As we have not heard anything yet and the DFD approaches quickly, I
would like to present, once,more, the final (revisited) version of this
document and renew our request for a rapid approval.

/_*Open proposal/ Public appeal to all European Governments*_/:

Your Excellencies Prime Ministers, Heads of State of all European countries and Honourable Members of the European Parliament,

We, as European citizens, are living through an unprecedented period of
economic recession and a European debt crisis, in which some European
countries have undoubtedly been involved quite deeply. We believe that
by making this Open Proposal public, we are substantially contributing
to a more efficient management of our common European problems. As
supporters of Free Software and Open Standards, we noticed that over the
last decade, incautious mistakes were committed in this field, like
thechoice to *c
<http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=el&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=el&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http://www.minfin.gr/portal/en/resource/contentObject/id/d16589bf-bc25-47bb-920a-b61598724b95>ommit
an entire state administration
<http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=el&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=el&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http://www.minfin.gr/portal/en/resource/contentObject/id/d16589bf-bc25-47bb-920a-b61598724b95>
*to a proprietary office suite, conceding to a single company
exclusionary procurement deals, with the right to become the sole
supplier for all public services.

The best protection for our society is freedom itself
<http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/my_pubs/lu-21.pdf>, which is not a
source of weakness but rather a source of strength. Free Software is the
only way to ensure that governments actually control their own data and
processes, including critical infrastructures. Free software means that
the users (including state agencies) are free to run, change, and
redistribute when they wish. Due to the availability of its source code,
free software can offer major advantages to all services in the public
sector:

As other illustrious people
<https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Use_of_free_software_in_public_agencies>
have stated in the past, it is important to make it clear that the aim
of our proposal is not directly related to the amount of direct savings
that can, indeed, be made by using free software in state institutions.
That is, in any case, a marginal added value, which even though it will
rightly please all European citizens and Finance ministers alike, but in
no way is it the chief focus of our appeal. The basic principles
inspiring this proposal are linked to the basic guarantees which should
be at the basis of every European state of law:

To guarantee the free access of citizens to public information, it is
indispensable that the encoding of data is not tied to a single
provider. The use of standard and open formats gives a guarantee of this
free access.

To guarantee the permanence of public data, it is necessary that the
usability and maintenance of the software does not depend on the
goodwill of the suppliers, or on the monopoly conditions imposed by
them. For this reason the State needs systems the development of which
can be guaranteed thanks to the availability of the source code.

To guarantee national security or the security of the State, it is
indispensable to be able to rely on systems without elements which allow
control from a distance or the undesired transmission of information to
third parties. Systems with source code freely accessible to the public
are required to allow their inspection by the State itself, by the
citizens, and by a large number of independent experts throughout the
world. Unrestricted access to the source code will eliminate the growing
number of programmes with *backdoors* and *spy code*.

Open Standards in public administration are still the rare exception. In
the proprietary world, which is still the norm in many governments,
generally only one vendor can provide software, that will be able to
access those data and processes
<https://fsfe.org/projects/igf/sovsoft.en.html>.

*With this public appeal we are calling for adoption of Open Standards, implementation of Free Software and use of the free Office suite LibreOffice, to be carried out within a 5-year time schedule, in ALL European public services. It is crucial to demonstrate the necessary political will, introducing decisive regulations to this direction*.

At times like these, any failure on your part to take political action,
will inevitably be interpreted as a grave insult by all European
citizens, who are already making heavy sacrifices.

We consider the introduction of Free Software and Open Standards, an
ethical, practical and economical imperative for the whole of Europe.

GreekLUG <http://www.greeklug.gr/index.php?lang=en> ( NPO/NGO for the promotion of Free Software)
Free Software User Group Italia (FSUG Italia <http://www.fsugitalia.org/wp/>)

with the support of FTA <http://ftacademy.org/>

(requesting support from: FSF <https://www.fsf.org/>, F <https://fsfe.org/>ree Software Foundation Europe <https://fsfe.org/> and The Document Foundation <https://www.documentfoundation.org/>)

Στις 21/03/2012 03:22 μμ, ο/η mike schinagl έγραψε:

Dear Kostas, I think that we all agree, in principle, to the contents of
your public pledge to the EU, but unfortunately the request for an
endorsement by TDF has arrived during one of the busiest times of the
short history of the project, as we are really swamped by the foundation
startup duties, and by other projects we have been working for a long
time, such as the certification.

Today is DFD, and this means that we have missed a deadline. I will meet
with FSUG people in Arezzo on Saturday, for the Italian DFD, and we will
discuss on the best way to push the project forward together with the
Greek Association.

Can we have a chat over Skype or Ekiga next week?

Ciao, Italo

Kostas Mousafiris wrote: