FSFE
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fsfe-website


			
				
					
						
						
							
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    <title>PDFreaders - Model letter</title>
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    <p id="category"><a href="pdfreaders.html">Free Software PDF Readers</a></p>
    <h1>Model letter to contact the institutions</h1>

	<!-- Commented out references to the FSFE
    <p class="image half">
      <img src="/graphics/logo.png" alt="FSFE logo" />
    </p>

    <p class="half last">
      Free Software Foundation Europe e.V.<br/>
      Linienstr. 141<br/>
      10115 Berlin<br/>
      Germany
    </p>
    -->

	<p class="half last">
      Your name<br/>
      Your address<br/>
      Your city<br/>
      Your country
    </p>

    <p>
      Name of the institution<br/>
      Postal address<br/>
      Country
    </p>

    <p>Dear Mr or Ms,</p>

    <p>
      Subject: Advertising for proprietary software on your website
    </p>

    <p>
      We have  <!-- Commented out because buglist will soon be closed
      received a <a
        href="/activities/pdfreaders/buglist.html">report that your
        institution</a> -->
      noticed that your institution is advertising a proprietary
      software program. In the present case, you are advising users
      of your website to download the proprietary PDF reader
      <var>PDFREADER</var> from <var>COMPANY</var>, for example
      on <var>URL</var> <!-- for the rare cases they promote Foxit or
      another reader we can add that here -->. Even though this program
      is gratis it is advertisement for a certain company, like
      advertisement for a gratis test drive with a car is advertisement
      for the manufacturer. So with this advertisement you favour one
      company and its software over everyone else in the market,
      distorting the competition in the software market.
    </p>

    <p>
      One solution to this is to remove the advertisement from your
      website.  On https://fsfe.org/activities/pdfreaders/petition.html
      you can find a list of organisations, companies, and individuals
      who support this request by signing the "Petition For The Removal
      Of Proprietary Software Advertising On Public Websites". By
      adhering to the <a href="/freesoftware/standards/def.html">Open Standard</a>
      PDF, you make sure your documents can be opened by all programs
      that implement the PDF standard, no matter from which vendor. If
      you want to provide the visitors guidance, we recommend that you
      list several PDF readers, by saying something like "to open this
      PDF file, you need a PDF reader.  You can download one of the
      following programs (list is not exhaustive)". Both alternatives
      are much fairer than recommending just one reader made by one
      company.
    </p>

    <p>
      On http://www.pdfreaders.org/ you can find some examples of PDF
      readers which you could point to on your website. All readers
      listed there are Free Software, which means that everybody is free
      to use them for any purpose, study how they work, share them
      either gratis or for a fee, and improve the program. These readers
      are vendor-neutral, and every company can sell the program, adapt
      it for their own solutions, or make the software a part of the
      services they offer.
    </p>

    <p>
      If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about Free
      Software and Open Standards in general, we remain available to
      offer you our full support.
    </p>

    <p>
      Kind regards,<br />
      <!-- Commented out references to the FSFE
      Karsten Gerloff<br />
      President, Free Software Foundation Europe
      -->
      Your signature
    </p>
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