Open Letter on transparency to President of the European Parliament
Free Software Foundation Europe and Open Rights Group have sent an open letter [pdf] to the President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz. Mr Schulz has recently been asked [pdf] to produce a study on transparency within the Parliament.
In their letter, the civil society groups are offering Mr Schulz their help in this effort. They are also suggesting a number of questions that should be considered in the report on transparency, such as
- As the Parliament is held to a standard of "utmost transparency", would it be obliged to make public the source code of the software it uses?
- How can the Parliament use Free Software and Open Standards to make sure that citizens have full and unfettered access to all documents produced by the Parliament?
- What can the Parliament do to make videos of its proceedings available to citizens without requiring them to install non-free software?
- Does the requirement for "utmost transparency" also cover the Parliament's procurement of software?
"We appreciate the Parliament's commitment to transparency," says Karsten Gerloff, FSFE's President. "It is essential for democracy in Europe that citizens have the fullest possible access to parliamentary proceedings, and to the tools which the Parliament uses to make the laws that govern us all."
Open Rights Group and FSFE look forward to assisting the European Parliament in the preparation of the transparency study.