Tag Archives: Politics

Netzpolitik-Interview: Sechs Jahre Free Software Foundation Europe

For all Fellows capable of reading German, Netzpolitik.org,a favorit source of news about the social and political issues in the knowledge society, has an interview with me on the occasion of six years Free Software Foundation Europe. Vor sechs Jahren … Continue reading

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When governments mandate proprietary software

Software is increasingly essential to communicate with our governments, and the choice of that software is a very sensitive issue in a democracy. There is always a danger of undermining the right of the citizens to freely communicate with the … Continue reading

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Call for letters to ISO re: OpenXML

Following up on the articles "Novells ‘Danaergeschenk’", "Is OpenXML now a standard?", "OpenXML wrap-up after D12K" and "Why criticise OpenXML now?" I would like to make sure that everyone has had a look at the Groklaw article "Deadline Looms to … Continue reading

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Why criticise OpenXML now?

Some people raised the question why I have chosen to become verbal about OpenXML and Novell’s activities to include support for it in OpenOffice.org, and whether this has to do with the MS/Novell deal and the related public outcry. The … Continue reading

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Groklaw: The Way Forward (on Open Standards)

As a pleasant surprise this morning, I received news from PJ of Groklaw who unexpectedly picked up on my OpenXML wrap-up after D12K, which is based on feedback to “Novell’s Danaergeschenk” and also “Is OpenXML now a standard?“. Thanks to … Continue reading

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OpenXML wrap-up after D12K

Publication of my article "Novells Danaergeschenk" on Groklaw.net has spurred quite some interesting reactions, like this interview with the Futurezone of the ORF, Austria’s national public-service broadcaster, titled "Streit ums Dateiformat der Zukunft" ("Controversy about the file format of the … Continue reading

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Is OpenXML now a standard?

Today we learned that ECMA International has accepted Microsofts OpenXML as an ECMA standard, and that it did so against the vote of IBM. This is bad news for Open Standards, Free Software, competition and consumers. As explained in my … Continue reading

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Novells “Danaergeschenk”

The following article has just gone up on Groklaw, one of my favorite news sources, and is mirrored here for convenience. Permanent URLs for this article are: http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20061208135621706 http://www.fsfe.org/fellows/greve/freedom_bits/novells_danaergeschenk   German is an interesting language, and many of its words … Continue reading

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Internet Governance Forum: Open Standards, A2K and Conclusions

The first Internet Governance Forum (IGF) is now over after two more rather busy days. Time for some recap, some announcements, and some conclusions. Wednesday, 1 November: day 3 The big news in the morning of the third day was … Continue reading

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Internet Governance Forum, day two

The second day of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was partially strange, partially funny, and indeed quite productive. The day began with a main hall session about “Openness”, the whole protocol of which is already online here. As one might … Continue reading

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