Denmark: New government, new opportunities for free software

[Carsten Agger]

I posted this on my FSFE blog yesterday and hope I will be forgiven for
reposting it here - maybe it can inspire some input, and I do think this
change of guards represents an important opportunity to put free
software on the agenda in our, albeit very small, country:

http://blogs.fsfe.org/agger/2011/10/01/denmark-new-government-new-opportunities-for-free-software/



Denmark had a general election on September 15th, and this led to the
ouster of the right-of-centre coalition which has governed our country
for ten years now. The next government will be a coalition between
social democrats, a moderate leftist party (SF) and a centrist liberal
parti (Det Radikale Venstre, which actually means “the Radical Left” –
historical reasons, for they are traditionally a very moderate bunch).
From a political perspective, this will hopefully mean the end of ten
years of catering to the extreme, xenophobic right in the guise of the
Danish People’s Party, whose leader Pia Kjærsgaard has easily (and alas!
) and by far been the most powerful political figure in Denmark for
these ten years. Denmark has passed legislation which is so unbelievably
unpleasant and racist in its intent, that you would not believe it
unless you’ve heard about it or been unfortunate enough to experience
it.

But all that’s really off-topic for this blog. If you want, you can read
all about it on Adventures and Japes, a brilliant blog written by an
English school-teacher in a small town in Jutland. So, let’s continue
where we left off: New government, new opportunities.

Denmark has not traditionally been a free software country. Rather, it
has traditionally been solid Microsoft territory. Penetration of free
software solutions is very low compared to many other countries, and
under the present government, this has been supported by lobbyism from
the larger vendors coupled with the government’s very
“business-friendly” approach. There has been some debate about the
possibility of saving money by going “open source”, and some (few) local
authorities have been rolling out OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice and
GNU/Linux. The values behind free software, which in my opinion is what
makes the real difference, have been completely absent from the public
debate.

But now, we have a new government, and in my opinion this represents a
very interesting new opportunity for free software. The politicians
behind the new government can’t be expected to act very differently in
the realm of IT politics than their predecessors. The reason for this is
that really understanding the issue requires either a level of technical
insight or at least an interest in the subject which many politicians
simply don’t have. One very important reason for this is that frankly,
they have other very important subjects to think about. Like foreign
policy, wars and a sinking economy. The only political party which has
shown a real understanding of the issues behind free software is the
leftist “Enhedslisten” (the “United List”, comparable e.g. to Izquerda
Unida in Spain), and they will not be part of the new goverment.

The opportunity is that the new government consists of parties which are
ostensibly progressive. Whereas the old government was simply set in
their ways and completely out of reach on this subject, the new
government can be expected to be genuinely interested in hearing new
things. If we start telling their politicians about free software there
is a real possibility this could lead to, not wholesale adoption (that
is way too optimistic), but a real change in their attitude.

Maybe we should do something similar to what the French organization
APRIL has done and send letters of education and pledges for politicians
to sign to indicate they understand the issue of free software and will
work for it. Like I wrote in my first post, I am currently working on a
manuscript on free software which will hopefully be published as a book
in 2012. I am thinking of sending an excerpt of this book to all
relevant politicians and offer to send them the actual book free of
charge. Another possibility might be to offer to give free talks to
politicians from the new government parties, and from Enhedslisten, who
will also be important. And to the opposition, for that matter, as they
may be more interested in real issues now that they have lost their
posts in government.

Does anyone have experience doing this kind of advocacy they would like
to share? If so, feel free to add your opinion or advice in the comments
section.
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