Brexit and free software

[MJ Ray]

Daniel Pocock wrote:
> - Brexit "leave" campaigners argue that the EU erodes democracy and
> compromises national independence.

They do argue that, but both of those points are rather misleading and
shouldn't be repeated without clarification: the UK government is less
democratic than the EU because while the European Commission is indeed
appointed by recent national governments, UK governments often contain
people who are descendents of someone appointed by a government
centuries ago, such as Earl Howe, currently Minister of State for
Defence; and national independence will remain compromised by membership
of things like NATO and the UN - for good reason.

That democracy argument is like someone saying a pork chop has too much
fat on its edge, so we should eat a pork pie instead!

> Could it be argued that switching to
> free software for public institutions would do more for democracy and
> sovereignty than leaving the EU?

Yes!  I suggest that it would make it easier for us to monitor the
internal workings of government and reduce the hold of private
corporations over our government's data.  Has someone prepared a good
explanation of this already?

Thanks,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef), member of www.software.coop, a for-more-than-profit co-op
http://koha-community.org supporter, web and library systems developer.
In My Opinion Only: see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Available for hire (including development) at http://www.software.coop/