What do your taxes buy? Free Software in the public sector — Fellowship Jabber Meeting Dec. 21

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As you can’t have helped but notice, Christmas is coming up. It’s not exactly being discrete, with “Jingle Bells” playing ad nauseam in every store and a perceptible upsurge in greeting card spam.

Here’s some relief. We’re holding December’s Fellowship Jabber meeting on Monday the 21st. From 19:30 to 21:00, we’ll discuss the role and state of Free Software in the public sector.

Hey, why are you yawning? Don’t. From a Free Software point of view, public administrations are quite exciting. Why?

  • because the public sector spends a lot of money on software and related services.
  • because it’s tax money. *Our* tax money. Yes, yours too.
  • because citizens and companies could profit if public bodies in European countries would spend more of the above money on Free Software and services around it.

At FSFE, we’ve been quite involved in a heated battle for more interoperability in the European public sector. It’s a nice showpiece for the way in which political influence and proprietary lobbyism work.

I’ll be there to discuss these topics with you, answer questions and collect ideas for things we can do. With me, I’ll have Hugo Roy, one of FSFE’s current interns working on policy questions.

And no Jingle Bells playing in the background. Promise.

Here’s the announcement:

What do your taxes buy? Free Software and interoperability in the public sector.

Among other things, we will discuss why the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) is important to get more Free Software into the public sector.

Among other things, we will discuss why the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) is important to get more Free Software into the public sector.

Karsten Gerloff (President FSFE) and Hugo Roy (intern FSFE) will be there to answer your questions.

You can read more about the EIF on:
– EIFv2: Tracking the loss of interoperability

– FSFE: EC caves in to proprietary lobbyists on interoperability
So join the jabber-meeting:

Monday 21 December 2009, from 19.30 – 21.00 CET.

= How to participate =

– login with your jabber account (see Jabber Howto)
– Join the multi user chat (MUC) room “fellowship” at the server conference.jabber.fsfe.org
– Ask your questions

We encourage you to test connecting to the MUC before Monday so you can contact us via fellowship@fsfeurope.org in case you have any difficulties.

If you have topic proposals for next meetings please let us now.