Liberate your documents! - Document Freedom Day 2010

Today is Document Freedom Day 2010. For the third time, groups all
over the world are celebrating open document formats and Open
Standards. They are raising awareness for how a technical issue
impacts all our day-to-day lives.

[SUGGESTED LOCAL ADAPTATION]
As a part of this international campaign, GROUP is organising
EVENT. [Short description of what will happen there. Perhaps:
Person X will give a talk on Open Standards...
[END SUGGESTED LOCAL ADAPTATION] 

DFD activities are taking place in many countries. In Germany and
Austria, radio stations are receiving awards for offering streams
in the open Ogg Vorbis format [1]. In Slovenia, the country's
highest court is commended for its use of the ODF format for text
documents.

Document Freedom Day coordinator Fernanda Weiden says: "It is great to
see so many volunteers with a passion for freedom in technology. These
people care deeply about the way that software and standards affect
their lives, and they are taking the initiative to make sure that
others can enjoy the same freedoms as them."

Computer users, companies and public administrations are storing huge
amounts of information in electronic form. If this happens in a
format that can only be read by software from a single vendor, the
information will eventually be lost.

Open document formats, such as ODF for office documents or Ogg Vorbis
for music, can be read and written with many different
applications. They give users freedom of choice, since they can be
read easily with, in principle, any application on any platform or
operating system.

"Open document formats make sure that your valuable information
doesn't turn into digital toxic waste with your next upgrade to a new
software", says Karsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software
Foundation Europe. "Whether it's your personal emails or your pension
records in a government agency, it's important to think ahead. Will
the software you're using now still be around in ten years' time? If
the answer is no, make sure that your data is saved according to Open
Standards."

The DFD team will gather information and reports from this
year's activities, organize them and publish them on the DFD web
pages.



  Document Freedom Day campaign page:
  http://www.documentfreedom.org/

  List of participating groups (constantly updated):
  http://www.documentfreedom.org/Category:Teams


  German, Austrian Radio stations honored for their use of Ogg Vorbis
  http://fsfe.org/news/2010/news-20100324-01.en.html

  Document Freedom Day 2010 is coordinated by Free Software Foundation
  Europe. Participation is open to everyone, and groups are organising events
  independently.
  http://fsfe.org