In Slovakia, a law introduced to reduce red tape has led to injustice. The state has mandated electronic means as a only way of fulfilling certain statutory obligations. However the dedicated web solution excludes some citizens from use as it is not interoperable and runs only on the software from one vendor. In absence of any non-electronic option, this means that state, in fact, prescribed the use of a certain product from a certain vendor. Who did not own the copy, had to buy one. Slovak textile importer deemed that state should not force him to use a certain software for his business and fulfilled its legal obligation by paper. Now the company faces EUR 5600 in fines.

April 21st and 22nd's Web Sprint in Manchester has been both an opportunity to provide improvements for FSFE's web site, and a good occasion to meet (new) people, get together and have a chat.

The UK government is holding a consultation about what sort of patent licenses an "open" standard should require. Anyone that develops Free Software (as in freedom, not price) and would like it to be used in the UK has reason to be concerned with this, along with anyone that uses or distributes Free Software in the UK.

The Free Software Foundation Europe held a summit meeting on Monday of Free Software and Open Standards experts.

At a meeting yesterday, hosted by the British Computer Society's Open Source Specialists Group, We the Undersigned called upon the Government to do the following: