65 line
2.5 KiB
HTML
65 line
2.5 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
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<html newsdate="2011-05-11">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>German Government: Lack of knowledge or deliberately offending Free Software?</title>
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</head>
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<body>
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<h1>German Government: Lack of knowledge or deliberately offending Free
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Software?</h1>
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<p>In the case of the Foreign Office turning away from Free
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Software, the German Government is entangling itself in contradictions. The
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reaction of the Government to an inquiry by "Bündnis 90/Grüne" has led to
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more pending questions than answers.</p>
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<p>"Many replies show that the government either doesn't understand important
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aspects of Free Software or is deliberately offending Free Software in
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general as well as Free Software companies in particular" says Matthias
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Kirschner, Germany coordinator of Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE).
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</p>
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<p>The government argues that the developments in the Foreign Office
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constitute a "turning away from the policy of exclusively using open source
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software." At the same time, the government has confirmed that they will
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migrate to Microsoft Windows 7 and Office 2010. </p>
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<p>"The statements that Free Software would be worse to use, would cause
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additional expenses on hardware, and that a lack of warranty would exist are
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imaginative perceptions rather than fitting into a serious reply from the
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government" said Elmar Geese, president of the "Linux-Verband". </p>
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<p>Furthermore the response of the German Government has raised new
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questions. The government mentioned that 4.3 million Euro have been spent on
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a Free Software federal GNU/Linux distribution which apparently has never
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been finished. "We wonder what has happened to that project and what the
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money has actually been spent on" said Matthias Kirschner.</p>
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<p> The FSFE and the "Linux-Verband" will work on an analysis of the reply
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together with those who are interested. </p>
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<ul>
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<li><a href="http://www.von-notz.de/downloads/antwort-ka_bmi_quelloffene-software-aa_03-05-2.pdf">The reply of the German Federal Government (German)</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://blogs.fsfe.org/mk/?p=781">Some comments in a blog entry (German)</a></li>
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<li><a href="https://etherpad.fsfe.org/1TyQlboVdF">Public plattform to comment the questions (German)</a></li>
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</ul>
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</body>
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<tags>
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<tag key="front-page"/>
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<tag key="de"/>
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<tag key="openstandards"/>
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</tags>
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</html>
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