Our Work
Open Standards
Open Standards allow people to share all kinds of data freely and with
perfect fidelity. They prevent lock-in and other artificial barriers to
interoperability, and promote choice between vendors and technology
solutions. FSFE's work on Open Standards has the goal of making sure
that people find it easy to migrate to Free Software or between Free
Software solutions.
Introduction
The relevance of Open Standards is closely linked to networking
effects, and has consequently been rising dramatically. The reward
for gaming the system for proprietary vendors is increasing, so is
the cost for users of software.
Governments, public interest NGOs, including groups that are
concerned about freedom of competition or consumer rights are
generally strong proponents of Open Standards. Typical critics are
the proprietary software vendors and those that represent their
interests. One of the items that critics seek to highlight is the
inherent conflict between innovation and standardisation.
Standardisation deliberately limits changes to a technological
basis, including innovation. These limits are introduced in order
to allow subsequent innovation by everyone that has access to the
standard and not just the party that controls the technological
basis. So standards limit the ability to innovate by a single
party in order to allow innovation on the basis of that standard
by multiple parties.
Open Standards allow such innovation by all
parties with no leverage for the initial developer of the platform
to limit such innovation or the competition it represents.
FSFE's goals include freedoms from lock-in, of innovation and
competition for everyone. That is why FSFE is a strong supporter
of Open Standards.
Publications
Publications at the IGF
Publications on MS-OOXML
09 May:
Slovak textile importer EURA Slovakia, s.r.o. is facing EUR 5600 in fines because it did not buy and use the Microsoft Windows operating system for submitting electronic tax reports. Slovak tax administration gave EURA only two options: either to buy and use Microsoft Windows or face the fines. This is also how we could briefly summarize the decision of Slovak tax administration from a few weeks ago. The administration imposed several fines on a company, EURA Slovakia, which submitted its tax reports on paper, because the use of electronic form was impossible as the state's web application worked only on the Microsoft Windows operating system. The company now plans to appeal to the court and to demand that the state stops forcing businesses to use a certain product, instead of requiring that the public administration uses a multi-platform technical solution based on Open Standards that is available for everybody.
09 May:
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.
26 April:
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.
25 April:
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:
25 April:
The Free Software Foundation Europe held a summit meeting on Monday of Free Software and Open Standards experts.
External links of interest
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