hi fellows,

some years ago, 1&1 (gmx) received the dfd award for providing open standards infrastructure to the masses[1].

now, it seems they plan to switch it off[1].

not that i'd have recommended gmx to anybody for quite some time, but i'm actively communicating with many people over xmpp who already had gmx addresses and for whom this was an easy start.

now given i'm neither a customer of theirs (much less a paying one) nor active in any social media where they could feel like reacting to anything, i see myself a little low on options to act against that. (if it involved only me, i'd take it as a reason to just move to another server, but convincing communication partners is another issue).

do you see any way the fellowship could exert some influence? i'm certainly not suggesting actions along the lines of withdrawing the award ("and hand back the cake" -- that'd be childish), but the award has been at least acknowledged in media and press releases ([3], [4], [5]), maybe that could be taken up?

best regards chrysn

[1] http://fsfe.org/news/2012/news-20120328-01.en.html [2] http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/MultiMessenger-United-Internet-schalt... [3] http://www.heise.de/open/meldung/Document-Freedom-Award-fuer-1-1-Internet-AG... [4] http://blog.1und1.de/2012/03/28/11-internet-ag-erhaelt-document-freedom-awar... [5] http://newsroom.gmx.net/2012/03/30/auszeichnung-fuer-gmx-der-beliebte-multim...