Public Intervention - Document Freedom Day / Greece

[Kostas Boukouvalas]

31st March 2010

    * Presidency of the Greek Republic
    * Greek Parliament
    * Prime Minister's Office
    * Ministry of Transports and Communications
    * Ministry of Education, Life Long Learning and Religious Affairs
    * Members of Parliament and candidates of all parties
    * Computer Scientists Union of Greece
    * Technical Chamber of Greece
    * Free Software / Open Source Software Society

Cc:

    * General Secretaries of Districts
    * Prefects
    * Mayors
    * Universities and Technical Schools Computer Science Departments

Today, on the occasion of the international Document Freedom Day, the
Association  of Greek Users and Friends of Free Software / Open Source
Software and Free   Software Foundation Europe take the occasion to
request from the Greek Government  the immediate, comprehensive and
mandatory adoption of the OpenDocument Format (ODF) and other Open
Standards for the Greek public sector.

[0] http://documentfreedom.org

[1] http://fsfe.org/projects/os/def.en.html

Numerous successful migrations of public bodies across Europe show
that Open Standards  clearly are a superior strategic choice for
public bodies. If any technical or organizational  obstacles to the
introduction of Free Software and Open Standards exist, they  can be
overcome with political will, proper planning and skilled execution.

Open Standards allow the public sector to develop its own IT strategy
independently of  any particular vendor. Information stored in open
document formats such as ODF will  remain accessible far into the
future, when current proprietary vendors will long have  disappeared.

Crucially in today's dire economic situation, Open Standards and Free
Software can  bring huge cost savings to the Greek public sector. No
license fees need to be paid, and IT solutions can be fully tailored
to the needs of each organization. Public bodies  will no longer
depend on any particular software vendor, but will instead be able to
choose their IT solutions freely in a competitive market.

We believe that Greece would do well to follow the lead provided by
the European  Commission. The European Interoperability Framework [2]
highlights the importance  of Open Standards for the public sector.
Many European countries such as the  Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark and
Norway have made Open Standards mandatory for
their public sectors.

 [2] http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/3473/5585#finalEIF

The former European Commissioner for Competition, Neelie Kroes, remarked on June
10, 2008 [3] that

"As purchasers, we need to be smart when we buy technology. We need to
be aware of the long term costs of lock-in: you  are often locked-in
to subsequent generations of that
technology. There can also be spill-over effects where you  get locked
in to other products and services provided by that vendor. That is
just bad purchasing."

She added

"But there is more to this than ensuring our commercial decisions are
taken in full knowledge of their long term effects. There is a
democratic issue as well.

When open alternatives are available, no citizen or  company should be
forced or encouraged to use a particular  company's technology to
access government information. No  citizen or company should be forced
or encouraged to  choose a closed technology over an open one, through
a  government having made that choice first.

These democratic principles are important. And an argument  is
particularly compelling when it is supported both by democratic
principles and by sound economics.  I know a smart business decision
when I see one - choosing open standards is a very smart business
decision indeed."

[3] http://repository.openforumeurope.org/media-centre/press-releases/ofe/speech-08-317_en.pdf

In the public interest, the Association of Greek Users and Friends of
Free Software / Open Source Software and Free Software Foundation
Europe ask the Greek public sector  to make a firm commitment to ODF
and other Open Standards.

Ioakim Tellidis

President
Association of Greek Users and Friends of Free Software / Open Source
Software (GREEK.L.U.G.)

http://www.greeklug.gr 	

Karsten Gerloff

President,
Free Software Foundation Europe

http://fsfe.org

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We are on advocacy phase now, soon we wait for the first reactions and feedback.