Hi,
you may have seen the discussion about the new version of the European Interoperability Framework. A summary of the issue is here
http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/?p=285
together with a letter that FSFE has sent to eGovernment officials across Europe last week.
The old version of the document uses a pretty good definition of Open Standards which has been referenced a lot, and recommends Free Software for the public sector.
The new version has no definition of open standards, and mentions Free Software ("open source", actually) only in one footnote.
Instead, it has the idiotic idea of an "openness continuum" which includes proprietary software. It also says that interoperability can be achieved if everyone uses the same proprietary system. Both ideas are both stupid and toxic. Glyn Moody has a good article here:
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2620&bl...
It appears that the European Commission will vote on this document on Thursday this week. Finland is one of the countries that might possibly be convinced to vote "no".
It would be great if as FSFE's Finnish team, you could do the following:
- translate the letter under my blog post into Finnish. If this takes too long, just send it in English if you think that's acceptable.
- send it (or a text along those lines) to the person(s) who are responsible for eGovernment in the Finnish Government. This can also be the government's CIO. Ideally, call that person afterwards and repeat the main points of the letter.
Be extremely polite and reasonable. Point out that Finland must vote no in order to keep the situation on interoperability in the European public sector from getting worse than it already is.
Other countries likely to vote "no" include Belgium and the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain, and one more (don't know which).
If you have any questions, contact me. It would be great if you could help us to stop this effort to hollow out European interoperability.
Best regards, Karsten
The letter is quite long, so I don't have time to translate it. However I decided to write a short summary in Finnish with the original letter in English and I'll be posting it to some politicans who might influence the matter.
What do you Timo and Henri think about the intro?
The issue is rather complex, I hope I didn't understand anything wrong after reading about it only briefly. Also it was a little unclear to me, what a politican in Finland should do to stop this. Who should the call? What should they sign?
** Arvoisa avoimesta tietoyhteiskunnasta kiinnostunut X,
Alankomaalainen toimittaja Brenno de Winter vuosi julkisuuteen aiemmin tällä viikolla luonnoksen Euroopan Komissiossa valmistelussa olevasta Euroopan tietojärjestelmien yhteensopivuuskehyssuosituksen versiosta 2 (European Interoperability Framework version 2, EIFv2).
Alkuperäisestä, vuonna 2004 julkaistusta asiakirjasta sekä version 2 lausuntokierroksella olleesta versiosta poiketen tästä uudesta versiosta on poistettu kokonaan avoimen lähdekoodin määritelmä (open source) ja siinä jopa suositellaan, että julkishallinnon tietojärjestelmien yhteensopivuus on sallittua toteuttaa käyttämällä yksinomaan yhden toimittajayrityksen tuotetta.
Tämä on vastoin Komission aiemmpia linjauksia ja yleistä eurooppalaista käytäntöä. Esimerkiksi kilpailukomissaari Neelie Kroos on todennut, että "Euroopan Komissio ei saa olla riippuvainen yksittäisestä ohjelmistoyrityksestä eikä se saa hyväksyä suljettuja standardeja."
On ilmeistä, että asiakirjan valmisteluun on viime hetkellä vaikutettu demokraattisen prosessin ulkopuolelta.
Tänään on viimeinen päivä kun jäsenvaltiot voivat rekisteröidä kantansa kyseisen asiakirjan suhteen. Pyytäisin teitä käyttämään asemaanne siihen, että Suomi ei hyväksyisi em. puutteet sisältävän uuden EIFv2-asiakirjan.
Alla olevastat Euroopan vapaiden ohjelmistojen säätiön puheenjohtajan avoimesta kirjeestä ilmenee tarkemmat tiedot aiheesta.
Ystävällisin terveisin,
Otto Kekäläinen FSFE Suomen koordinaattori +358 44 5662204 / otto@fsfe.org
**
ti, 2009-11-10 kello 12:59 +0100, Karsten Gerloff kirjoitti:
Hi,
you may have seen the discussion about the new version of the European Interoperability Framework. A summary of the issue is here
http://blogs.fsfe.org/gerloff/?p=285
together with a letter that FSFE has sent to eGovernment officials across Europe last week.
The old version of the document uses a pretty good definition of Open Standards which has been referenced a lot, and recommends Free Software for the public sector.
The new version has no definition of open standards, and mentions Free Software ("open source", actually) only in one footnote.
Instead, it has the idiotic idea of an "openness continuum" which includes proprietary software. It also says that interoperability can be achieved if everyone uses the same proprietary system. Both ideas are both stupid and toxic. Glyn Moody has a good article here:
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?entryid=2620&bl...
It appears that the European Commission will vote on this document on Thursday this week. Finland is one of the countries that might possibly be convinced to vote "no".
It would be great if as FSFE's Finnish team, you could do the following:
translate the letter under my blog post into Finnish. If this takes too long, just send it in English if you think that's acceptable.
send it (or a text along those lines) to the person(s) who are responsible for eGovernment in the Finnish Government. This can also be the government's CIO. Ideally, call that person afterwards and repeat the main points of the letter.
Be extremely polite and reasonable. Point out that Finland must vote no in order to keep the situation on interoperability in the European public sector from getting worse than it already is.
Other countries likely to vote "no" include Belgium and the Netherlands, Sweden and Spain, and one more (don't know which).
If you have any questions, contact me. It would be great if you could help us to stop this effort to hollow out European interoperability.
Best regards, Karsten
Finland mailing list Finland@fsfeurope.org https://mail.fsfeurope.org/mailman/listinfo/finland
On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 04:23:28PM +0200, Otto Kekäläinen wrote:
The letter is quite long, so I don't have time to translate it. However I decided to write a short summary in Finnish with the original letter in English and I'll be posting it to some politicans who might influence the matter.
What do you Timo and Henri think about the intro?
The issue is rather complex, I hope I didn't understand anything wrong after reading about it only briefly. Also it was a little unclear to me, what a politican in Finland should do to stop this. Who should the call? What should they sign?
The person responsible for eGovernment in each government is usually the one who has the most influence in this case.
It looks like Garcia Moran, Director General of Informatics at the EC, will hold a vote among member state representatives on this text on Thursday.
So what you've already done was exactly the right thing: Identify the person working on the matter, and contact him.
The aim is to get Finland to vote no, so if this person either participates in the vote himself or instructs someone who does, then it's mission accomplished.
Best regards, Karsten
Hello,
ti, 2009-11-10 kello 16:36 +0100, Karsten Gerloff kirjoitti:
It looks like Garcia Moran, Director General of Informatics at the EC, will hold a vote among member state representatives on this text on Thursday.
Mr. Petteri Nisula, the assistant of the Finnish MP Jyrki Kasvi, called me today and thanked for the mail I sent yesterday. He told to me that it was unclear where and when the EC is going to process this document and how it is going to be published. I'll forward the info above to him. If you have any updates/soruces, please let me know.
Mr. Nisula also notified me that another Green Party MP in Finland, Ville Niinistö, blogged about this a few days ago: http://www.vihreat.fi/node/4600
Additionally, Mr. Nisula told me that the Finnish Green group in EU Parliament is going to keep one eye on this issue and that he wished to receive updates on this matter if we find any important details on when, where and how politicans should act to fix this issue (e-mail: petteri.nisula@eduskunta.fi).
I just sent a few mails and made some calls. The person in Finland who in reality writes the Finnish statement in this matter is Olli-Pekka Rissanen from the ministry of finance.
He said that he has sent a letter that is against the approval of the draft and that to his knowledge also Sweden and the Netherlands is against it also. Germany is likely to be against also.
In general Mr. Rissanen seemed positive towards free software while speaking with me on the phone.
Hi Otto,
On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 04:51:36PM +0200, Otto Kekäläinen wrote:
I just sent a few mails and made some calls. The person in Finland who in reality writes the Finnish statement in this matter is Olli-Pekka Rissanen from the ministry of finance.
He said that he has sent a letter that is against the approval of the draft and that to his knowledge also Sweden and the Netherlands is against it also. Germany is likely to be against also.
wow, that's a very good result! I'm impressed. Congratulations.
Thanks for the very quick action on this. I'm sorry about the haste, but apparently the EC is trying to ram this text through on very tight deadlines, after leaving it to rot for more than a year.
In general Mr. Rissanen seemed positive towards free software while speaking with me on the phone.
Very good! So now you have a contact in government whom you can talk to on other issues when necessary.
Best regards, Karsten