Dear all,
here are the Finnish team's answers to the questions for country teams.
Best regards, Karsten
----- Forwarded message from Otto Kekäläinen otto@fsfe.org -----
From: Otto Kekäläinen otto@fsfe.org To: Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org Cc: Henri Bergius henri.bergius@iki.fi, timo.jyrinki@iki.fi, Karsten Gerloff gerloff@fsfeurope.org Subject: Re: Meeting at FSCONS Date: Sat, 31 Oct 2009 17:49:08 +0200 X-Mailer: Evolution 2.22.3.1
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to, 2009-10-29 kello 14:57 +0100, Matthias Kirschner kirjoitti:
Hi all,
as Karsten is ill at the moment, he asked me to coordinate our meeting at FSCONS. You can see the Fellowship events at FSCONS at the Wiki page: http://wiki.fsfe.org/FSCONS-FSFE.
My proposal is: Meet at Saturday 09.00 - 10.30 during the OpenPGP smart card howto. And if we have some more things to discuss or we would like somebody else to include in the second meeting we could have another one at 17.15 - 18.15 after the PDFreaders workshop.
Is the timing working for you?
As a preperation to the meeting, can you sent Karsten and me the answers for those questions (it is not a problem if you do not have an answer to some of them, it is just for us to get a better picture of Free Software in Finnland).
- What are the main Free Software organisations in Finnland right now? Please also list the biggest Linux User Groups or Associations (if they exist).
flug.fi: Finnish Linux User Group
- about 400 members, decreasing activity
- has many local user groups in different cities
l-a.fi: Linux-Aktivaattori ry
- about 30 members, seems to be dying
- has many three user groups in different cities
fuug.fi: Finnish Linux User Group
- 30-50 members? minor activity
coss.fi: Center for open source software in Finland
- has 100+ corporate members
- only corporations has influence in this organisation, most board
members represents the biggest corporations
- very active, but mainly business oriented
- not for private persons, not strictly about free as in freedom
Additionally we also have some related organisations (Wikimedia Finland, Electronic Frontier Finland etc) and some loose groups that are not organised as any legal bodies (linux.fi, ubuntu-fi.org, vapaasuomi.fi etc.)
I'm a member in all of these above and my company is a member in COSS. The situation is not bad, but some optimizing could be done to secure the promotion and usage of free software in Finland.
- What are the current issues in Free Software in your country? Are there any public debates ongoing about (for example) government procurement or similar things?
The situation is improving much thanks to the work of COSS. Some govermental recommendations have been published almost yearly since 2001, but yet no law requires to tax funded software to be released with a free license. The debate is increasing, but so fare it hasn't been noticed by general media.
Linux and Linus Torvalds is well known ;)
- Are there regulations in your country regarding the procurement of software for government/ administration? Do they include Free Software options?
Yes, several. See for example http://www.jhs-suositukset.fi/suomi/jhs169 (after opening the page, select "EN" to see it in English)
I think the main hinders for not using open source are:
a) It is not yet well enough known to be trusted. Buying open source solutions is outside the "comfort zone" for most high ranked officials in goverment. The situation is likely to improve automatically with time.
b) Microsoft has a very effective sales organisation that is capable of using FUD that scares people not to buy open source solutions. Also Microsoft has a lot of money to put on fancy presentations and long lunches.. Additionally, the PR-chief of Microsoft in Finland is always recruited from the same political party that has the majority in cabinet. In this way the PR-chief of Microsoft can easily walk in to the office of the prime minister, minister of education, minister of communication etc and talk nice about Microsoft. Some of the former PR-chiefs in Finland have also gone back to politics after their career at Microsoft and then used their political influence to help Microsoft. This phenomenon (called "revloving doors" in the US) is currently a completely legal form of corruption.
- Is it possible to buy latops and desktops with Free Software preinstalled? Or without non-free software. Or is it usual practice in your country to sell Windows bundled with new computers? If so, what does usually happen when you ask the vendor to sell you the computer without a bundled license?
There is two webshops: linuxkauppa.fi and linuxcomp.net. However their selection is small and prices not very competitive.. There are also several places where you can buy preinstalled used computers and computers without a bundled OEM-license.
However, none of the major computer dealers provide preinstalled Linux nor laptops without an OEM-windows. Normal workstations can sometimes be bought without an preinstalled OS.
Last summer we had the Asus EeePC with preinstalled Linux for sale at one large dealer, but for some reason unknown to me nowadays no Linux-version of EeePC is even imported. Maybe Microsoft chatted with the importers..?
- Does your country have a government sponsored consumer advocacy group?
Yes, http://www.kuluttajavirasto.fi/en-GB/ They also publish a magazine. There are also muncipal and private consumer rights advocates. I've been in touch with some of them with the result that both Ubuntu and VALO-CD (my free softare disc for Windows project) has been mentioned.
- What are the main conferences/ trade fairs/ events that IT people in your country attend? What is their focus and when are they usually held?
Numerous. I won't list them all here but we could later make a list of events where FSFE could be present in the future. I'm sure we'll get some people to man a booth.
- What is the name of the biggest Free Software oriented service companies in your country (i.e. companies that make money installing, customising, training people in the use of Free Software)?
See www.coss.fi -> corporate members
However, all of the main stream support services are based on Windows and they don't care about Linux at all. We need to make more noise so they know there is a demand.
- Is there a movement to get educational institutions to start teaching with Free Software?
Yes, there are several projects on the move. I participated in 2006 in writing some FOSS-guides for schools that where published by the Finnish national board of education (http://www.oph.fi/english). The project is about to be relaunched and updated soon.
There is also a market leader in LTSP solutions for schools that has got some publicity: www.opinsys.fi
COSS has a section that is aimed for the education sector. I also rembember one school getting a price from the prime minister thanks to cost effective and creative use of IT (they where one of the first schools to adopt LTSP).
- Is there "Software Education" taught in schools in your country? If so, at which age do children start to learn to use software?
Not to my knowledge.
- Are there government sponsored GNU/Linux distributions available? If so, what is their focus (education, security, privacy, ...)?
Not to my knowledge. The ministry of justice uses OpenOffice and they have sponsored a OpenOffice-USB-stick.
- Does you government support electronic transmission of tax information and -filings? If so, does it provide software for the taxpayer to use? Is this software Free Software? Is it available for non-Microsoft Operating Systems?
Not to my knowledge. Electronic tax payment is browser baised or you can use special bank transfer codes - both of which are platform agnostic.
- Does your legal system accept software patents? Is there a discussion around this topic?
Software patents are issued, but not legal.
- What are your personal goals for the new chapter in your country? Please list them as 1, 3, 5 year goals.
To double the member amount each year ;) We'll discuss this more when all of the Finnish team is present.
- Does the current ruling party in your country address the question of Free Software in their program / strategy?
The cabinet made a statement about accelerating the development of the information society that includes a short line about increasing the use of open architectures and open source.
Also the minister of communication said publicly this autum, that we should use more open souce. Also the newly elected head of the government IT center said in an interview that "it is time to make all the open source promise true".
So you can see, the situation is improving.
- Whats are the biggest IT magazines in your country? How much of this magazines is dedicated to Free Software?
Tietokone, Tietoviikko, Mikrobitti, MikroPC. There is no free software only -magazine, but Linux and open source stuff is often reviewed in these magazines.
-- Otto Kekäläinen [] otto@fsfe.org Finnish Team Coordinator [][][] GPG/PGP 0xB7F7E4E1 Free Software Foundation Europe || +358 44 566 2204 http://www.fsfe.org/ finland@fsfe.org
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