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<title>FSF Europe - Free Software in Europe - European perspectives and work of the FSF Europe</title>
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<h1>Free Software in Europe</h1>
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<h2>European perspectives and work of the FSF Europe</h2>
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[<a href="eur5greve.pdf">PDF (English, a4); 81k</a>]
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Hamburg, February 11th, 2003<br />
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<a href="/about/greve/">Georg C. F. Greve</a> <greve@fsfe.org><br /><br />
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"Public Service Review - European Union," 5th edition<br />
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<a href="http://www.publicservice.co.uk/europe/spring2003/eu_spring2003_contents.asp">http://www.publicservice.co.uk/europe/spring2003/eu_spring2003_contents.asp</a>
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<h3>Introduction</h3>
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<p>Free Software — especially the GNU/Linux operating system — and the
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FSF Europe have recently become more visible on the political
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agenda. This article will seek to explain some of the larger economic,
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social and political benefits that Free Software offers the European
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countries and Europe as a whole. It will also give an insight into the
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work of the FSF Europe.</p>
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<p>As a concept and paradigm, Free Software addresses some of the most
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fundamental needs of any society in its development towards the
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post-industrial information era. The most visible organisation in this
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field, the Free Software Foundation (FSF), was founded in 1985, a time
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when people had barely begun grasping the most basic principles of
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information technology.</p>
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<p>With the first formal definition of Free Software and the creation of
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the GNU General Public License (GPL) and GNU Lesser General Public
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License (LGPL), the FSF not only created (and still maintains) the two
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most popular licenses for Free Software in use today, but also
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invented the notion of "Copyleft," referring to Free Software protected
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against being stripped of its freedom.</p>
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<p>Free Software itself is defined by four basic freedoms. The first
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freedom — sometimes referred to as freedom 0 — is the unlimited use
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of a program for any purpose. This means that a Free Software license
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must allow use for all commercial or non-commercial applications in
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order to fulfill this criterion.</p>
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<p>The second freedom — freedom 1 in the Free Software definition [<a href="#1" name="ref1">1</a>] —
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is the freedom to study a program to learn how it works and to adapt
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it to your own needs. The remaining two freedoms are the freedoms to
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redistribute unmodified copies and the freedom to release modified
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copies that improve the state of the art.</p>
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<p>As these are freedoms, people are free to choose to exercise one or
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several of them, but they may also choose to exercise none.</p>
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<p>Licenses providing these freedoms are referred to as Free Software
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licenses. [<a href="#2" name="ref2">2</a>] A special case of Free Software license, the so-called
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"Copyleft" license, has already been mentioned above. These licenses
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give any user the freedoms described above, but they explicitly forbid
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a distributor to remove that freedom, which would make recipients of
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such freedom-deprived software dependent on that specific distributor.</p>
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<p>Since access to the source code is a necessity to exercise these
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freedoms for programming languages with distinct source code, some
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people suggested using "Open Source" as a marketing term for Free
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Software in 1998; nowadays Free Software is sometimes referred to
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under this marketing term.</p>
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<p>The good intention of making Free Software more widely known has
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unfortunately had the unexpected side effect of weakening the
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distinction between Free and proprietary/non-free software. [<a href="#3" name="ref3">3</a>]
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Therefore the Free Software Foundation strongly recommends speaking
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about Free Software or the adequate term in the local language; as
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will be done in the remainder of this article.</p>
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<h3>Economic perspectives of Free Software</h3>
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<p>Despite the attempts of proprietary software vendors — especially
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those located in the United States holding a monopoly in their
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respective areas — to make it seem so, Free Software is not an attack
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directed at specific companies.</p>
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<p>Free Software should be understood as a new paradigm, a new model of
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dealing with software based upon mature concepts. It is a model based
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upon keeping the markets open and freely accessible; as such it cannot
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be an attack on specific companies, since any company can participate
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in this new market.</p>
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<p>In a Free Software economy, there will be market leaders, but the
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possibility of uncontrollable monopolies is much lower.</p>
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<p>To current monopolies this may seem threatening. But as one of the
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most important — maybe even the most important — problems of the
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European IT industry is its dependence on foreign IT monopolies,
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weakening these monopolies has become necessary for Europe to prosper.</p>
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<p>That current monopolistic situation is a logical consequence of the
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proprietary software model, which has a strong system-inherent
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tendency towards proprietary software. The reason being that proprietary
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software tends to only work properly with itself.</p>
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<p>With such proprietary software, communication between two users
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requires that both use the same software. Given that all people in
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western countries supposedly know each other over no more than five
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others, this leads to a kind of "viral" effect, where one user forces
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the next to use the same software, creating a monopoly.</p>
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<p>In theory, open standards would provide a way out of this vendor
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lock-in, but history has shown that no open standard was ever truly
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successful unless it was implemented in Free Software.</p>
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<p>The possibility to enlarge and lock-in a user base by modification of
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an open standard — a process euphemistically described as "improving"
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a standard — that in consequence allows only migrating to a certain
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piece of software, but not away from it, has proven to be too much of
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a temptation for the major players in the field.</p>
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<p>As the past has proven, it is ineffective to impose open standards on
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vendors of proprietary software because of the fast-paced development
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in this sector in combination with the intransparency of proprietary
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software and the comparably slow workings of the political decision
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process.</p>
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<p>That is if the vendors accept such measures and do not excert their
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monopoly-based clout to stop such actions altogether, as recent
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anti-trust cases in the United States have shown.</p>
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<p><b>Structure of a Free Software economy</b></p>
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<p>The differences are much smaller than many people would make you
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believe. The financially most important sector today is software for
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business activities and most of the revenue is generated through
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service. This is unlikely to change.</p>
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<p>It is true that license revenue will most likely go down, probably
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significantly. However this only affects a very small part of the
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software generated revenue; a part which generates a negative trade
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balance between Europe and the United States today.</p>
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<p>The by orders of magnitude largest source of revenue today is service.
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This sector will be able to grow significantly in a Free Software
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economy.</p>
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<p>In the current system, dominated by proprietary software, only those
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companies supported by the monopolies can offer services; usually only
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a small part of what would be possible. The remainder is either done
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by the monopolies themselves — generating another stream of revenue
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flowing out of Europe — or not at all.</p>
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<p>Free Software offers greater independence of European businesses,
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allowing them to offer the full array of services if they wish or
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cooperate with others if this seems economically more useful. </p>
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<p>Also they will be able to provide solutions for those services that
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are already in demand, or that they can create a demand for, which are
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currently impossible because businesses lack adequate access and
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control over the software these services depend on.</p>
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<p>In a Free Software economy, the current revenue in the service sector
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will be redistributed more in favor of the European vendors and the
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sector as a whole can be expected to grow.</p>
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<p><b>Reducing dependencies</b></p>
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<p>It also must be considered that currently the holders of monopolies
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have control over the European IT industry as they could drive most
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companies out of business by denying them access to their monopoly or
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by making access so difficult that the economics of the situation will
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possibly drive the company out of business.</p>
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<p>To further worsen the situation, software monopolies can effectively
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be coupled with hardware monopolies. So a piece of monopolistic
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software will run only on a special kind of hardware and in return the
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vendor(s) of that hardware will only deliver their machines with this
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particular software.</p>
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<p>The Free Software paradigm does not allow building this kind of
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coupled monopoly. In fact Free Software encourages platform
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independence and the Free Software systems (e.g. GNU/Linux and the BSD
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systems) run on more hardware platforms than any proprietary operating
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system.</p>
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<p>Because the freedom to modify allows adding support for other hardware
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platforms, Free Software provides a stable fundament for innovative
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hardware initiatives that might even start on a local or regional
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level.</p>
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<p>That way Free Software not only brings back competition into the
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software, but also furthers it in the hardware field.</p>
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<p><b>National Economy</b></p>
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<p>Because the largest part of software development is putting together
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old and well-known principles, these get reimplemented at least once
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by every company, sometimes even once for every project.</p>
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<p>In terms of national economy, proprietary software is waste of highly
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skilled labor. The proprietary software paradigm keeps software
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developers busy reinventing the wheel, slowing down innovation.</p>
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<p>Free Software allows building upon these old and well-known building
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blocks, consequently reducing the market-entry barrier for new and
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innovative companies.</p>
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<p>Also, the software industry is only one part of economy as a whole. As
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software is the glue that ties together a digitally networked economy,
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all sectors pay the price for the inefficiency of the proprietary
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software model.</p>
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<p>Today, most non-IT companies use proprietary solutions. This makes
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them relying entirely on their vendors for crucial aspects of their
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own economic activity such as keeping stocks, writing and paying bills
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or communication with their customers, suppliers and/or competitors.</p>
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<p>Forced updates are one result, the need to sometimes replace a whole
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IT solution, downtimes and new training of employees included, is
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another. Solutions based upon Free Software remove this dependency
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almost entirely.</p>
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<p>As the company gains the freedoms described above, updates can be made
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according to the economic situation of the company. In case of
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problems with the vendor, the solution will still remain usable and
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another vendor can be found.</p>
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<p>In the latter case, an investment for the new vendor to work itself
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into the solution is required, but that cost is significantly lower
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than the cost of an entirely new solution. Also the indirect costs in
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terms of customer dissatisfaction, training of employees and downtimes
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usually do not arise.</p>
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<p>It can be expected that these effects will help revitalising economy
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as a whole. In essence, Europe can only win economically by furthering
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massive deployment of Free Software.</p>
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<h3>Social issues</h3>
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<p>Access to software becomes increasingly important to participate in
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the cultural, social and economic exchange of mankind. For the
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individual this means that access to software determines ones ability
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to communicate, to study and to work. Studies from the United States
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indicate that the average person interacts about 150 times each day
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with software.</p>
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<p>In consequence, software has to be understood as a form of cultural
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property, a cultural technique. As long as mankind exists, new
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cultural techniques have risen the question of who is given access to
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them. Free Software ensures all people retain equal access to the
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cultural property that software has become.</p>
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<p>In terms of data security and protection, another issue arises. As
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computers are always opaque — it is not possible to tell by
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mechanical observation what a computer does — it becomes even more
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important that the software is entirely transparent. Otherwise people
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lose the ability to determine what their computers do and consequently
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have no control over their personal or other data.</p>
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<p>Free Software is by nature entirely transparent, preserving the
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maximum of informational self-determination.</p>
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<h3>2001: The Free Software Foundation Europe</h3>
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<p>Networks tend to be more stable than single nodes and Europe is one of
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the leading — if not the leading — regions for Free Software. So in
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2001, the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSF Europe) was founded as
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a sister organisation of the Free Software Foundation in North
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America. Legally, financially and personally independent of each
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other, they are working together on all aspects of Free Software in a
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spirit of equal cooperation.</p>
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<p>The FSF Europe itself encompasses the vision of a strong Europe united
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in cooperation and mutual understanding with currently four countries
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(France, Germany, Italy, Sweden) fully represented, three others
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associated (UK, Portugal, Austria) and several others involved through
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regular cooperation.</p>
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<p>A main function of the FSF Europe is providing a European competence
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center for Free Software, offering advice to governments, commissions,
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companies, journalists and others.</p>
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<p>In the scope of these activities, the FSF Europe was invited to
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provide an expert for the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights
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in London [<a href="#4" name="ref4">4</a>] and presented Free Software at an OECD workshop in Tokyo
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on invitation of the German Ministry of Economics and Technology.</p>
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<p>Other activities involve regular project work, for instance in AGNULA
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[<a href="#5" name="ref5">5</a>], a project funded in the scope of the 5th framework programme of
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the European Commission (IST-2001-34879).</p>
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<p>For the 6th framework programme, the FSF Europe issued a
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recommendation supported by over 50 parties, in which the advantages
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of Free Software for Europe are addressed in how they refer to
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accepted European goals; concrete recommendations on how Europe can
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capitalise on them are given. [<a href="#6" name="ref6">6</a>]</p>
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<p>Also the FSF Europe is doing work to support the legal fundament of
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Free Software, for instance it helped a local institute for legal
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issues of Free Software, the ifross, with the amendment of a German
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copyright law revision and recently issued the Fiduciary Licence
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Agreement (FLA) [<a href="#7" name="ref7">7</a>], which will help upholding the legal
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maintainability of Free Software.</p>
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<h3> Capitalising on Free Software</h3>
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<p>Free Software offers unique opportunities for Europe as a region and
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the European states. In fact Europe is currently the region with the
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best position to gain the full advantages of Free Software and go into
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the information age with a head-start.</p>
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<p>Possible advantages include greater independence, increased
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sustainability, freedom from foreign mono- and oligopolies,
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alternative hard- and software possibilities, a strengthened domestic
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market and better protection of civil rights.</p>
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<p>For these to become reality, it becomes increasingly important to make
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clear statements and policies in favor of Free Software, such as the
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evaluation bonus for Free Software projects defined in the IST work
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programme or the policy statement by Liikanen in the European
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Parliament [<a href="#8" name="ref8">8</a>] regarding Free Software in public administration.</p>
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<p>In fact public administration happens to provide an excellent starting
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point for the transition towards Free Software for three reasons.</p>
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<p>Firstly, a government using proprietary software creates a tendency to
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force its citizens to use the same software because of the
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aforementioned "viral" effect of proprietary software. As governments
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have the ethical obligation to be available to all its citizens, they
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can make a just case for Free Software based upon the consideration of
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not wanting to force their citizens into a harmful monopoly.</p>
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<p>Secondly, public administration is always short of resources, but the
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majority of resources spent on IT get squandered by creating a
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separate solution for each ministry or region, while the problems
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addressed tend to be similar and massive cooperation would be
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possible.</p>
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<p>And finally, use of Free Software in public administration will
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provide a role model, encouraging citizens and businesses to get out
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of unhealthy dependencies, getting accustomed to the new model and
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becoming economically and socially active in it.</p>
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<p>Several European regions already have initiatives to make use of
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Free Software mandatory for public administration. The commission
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entrusted with this question for the French speaking part of the
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region of Brussels came out in favor of such a regulation on February
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11th, 2003, for instance.</p>
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<p>Public administrations in Europe should at least make sure to prefer
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Free Software over proprietary and require open standards for which a
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Free Software reference implementation exists.</p>
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<p>Also wherever public money is spent, spending it on Free Software is
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making sure that it will benefit the public and economy. In the past,
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such money was usually spent on proprietary sofware, often benefitting
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only that proprietary vendor company directly at the cost of society
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and economy as a whole, or getting lost entirely.</p>
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<p>For that migration period towards a more sustainable approach,
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especially the so-called "Copyleft" licenses — the GNU General Public
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License (GPL) being the most widely known — provide a sound basis for
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such projects. </p>
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<p>These licenses will make sure that the results of resources spent will
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be available for all of economy and society equally, fostering a
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general increase of economic activity. They will resist having the
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results procured by any single company or person trying to restore old
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monopolistic situations.</p>
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<p><b>Information Age aware governance</b></p>
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<p>Like information technology permeates all of economy and society,
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governance decisions in one area can influence chances in the
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information age significantly. Given the European goal of becoming an
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information economy, it becomes necessary to be aware of these issues
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in all areas of governance.</p>
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<p>There are several policies pending or in implementation that are about
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to inflict serious harm on the European competitiveness. These should
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be prevented or abolished if seeking to increase the European edge.</p>
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<p>One policy endangering proprietary and Free Software alike are
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software patents. Patents are an entirely unsuitable concept for
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software as it has very different properties. Experience indicates the
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United States are already paying dearly for their software patent
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system with reduced innovation.</p>
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<p>To quote Bill Gates from an internal memo: "If people had understood
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how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented
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and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete
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standstill today. ... The solution is patenting as much as we can. A
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future startup with no patents of its own will be forced to pay
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whatever price the giants choose to impose. That price might be
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high. Established companies have an interest in excluding future
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competitors." [<a href="#9" name="ref9">9</a>]</p>
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<p>Another extraordinarily harmful law is the European Copyright
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Directive (EUCD). Its US counterpart, the Digital Millennium Copyright
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Act (DMCA) is already being used successfully by groups such as
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Scientology to censor unwelcome web sites. [<a href="#10" name="ref10">10</a>] Similar cases can be
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expected in Europe.</p>
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<p>Economically, the EUCD is highly anti-competitive. As it makes it
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illegal to circumvent whatever is considered a protection measure, the
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company that created this technical measure is given ultimate control
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over who may or may not participate in the market based upon it or how
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these companies should behave.</p>
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<p>Example is given by the recent case against the teenager Jon Johansen,
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in which the question whether buying a DVD in a store will entitle the
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customer to view that DVD on their computer has become the central
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issue. The EUCD also provides a serious impediment of the freedoms of
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speech, communication and choice of profession, giving it a somewhat
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anti-democratic air.</p>
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<p>These two policies are either in the process of adoption or adopted
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already and should be abolished before they can do further harm to
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Europes competitive edge.</p>
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<p>The current new initiative to reduce competition in the market further
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are Palladium and its hardware counterpart proposed by the TCPA. This
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initiative, which wishes to be known as increasing the trustworthyness
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of computers, is best described as "Treacherous Computing." [<a href="#11" name="ref11">11</a>]</p>
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<p>Under the pretense of trying to improve computer security, the TCPA
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apparently seeks to eliminate concepts and paradigms competing with
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the monopoly holders of the proprietary software model. Again, Europe
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would be on the losing side.</p>
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<h3>Resumé</h3>
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<p>Free Software as a new paradigm offers a stable, lasting and
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sustainable approach with higher dynamics and increased
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efficiency. The first region to understand and adopt it on a larger
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scale is likely to become a leading force in the information age.</p>
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<p>Currently it seems unlikely that Free Software will ever replace
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proprietary software completely, but by making Free Software the
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predominant model, Europe could relieve dependences on foreign
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monopolies, which currently create a highly unstable and unfavorable
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situation for the European information technologies industry.</p>
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<p>Europe is right now in the unique situation of having a large supply
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of Free Software competence and growing network of smaller companies
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that are based upon or centered in Free Software. Also more of the old
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and traditional European IT companies have begun shifting at least
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partially towards Free Software.</p>
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<p>If this is furthered now, Europe has the potential to become global
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leader in the information age.</p>
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<p>In case of further questions, the FSF Europe [<a href="#12" name="ref12">12</a>] will gladly be of
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assistance.</p>
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<pre>
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[<a href="#ref1" name="1">1</a>] <a href="http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html">http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html</a>
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[<a href="#ref2" name="2">2</a>] <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html">http://www.gnu.org/licenses/license-list.html</a>
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[<a href="#ref3" name="3">3</a>] <a href="/documents/whyfs.html">http://fsfeurope.org/documents/whyfs.html</a>
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[<a href="#ref4" name="4">4</a>] <a href="http://www.iprcommission.org">http://www.iprcommission.org</a>
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[<a href="#ref5" name="5">5</a>] <a href="/campaigns/agnula/">http://fsfeurope.org/campaigns/agnula/</a>
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[<a href="#ref6" name="6">6</a>] <a href="/documents/fp6/recommendation.html">http://fsfeurope.org/documents/fp6/recommendation.html</a>
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[<a href="#ref7" name="7">7</a>] <a href="/activities/ftf/">http://fsfeurope.org/activities/ftf/</a>
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[<a href="#ref8" name="8">8</a>] <a href="http://www3.europarl.eu.int/omk/omnsapir.so/cre?FILE=20021023r&LANGUE=EN&LEVEL=DOC&NUMINT=3-188&LEG=L5">http://www3.europarl.eu.int/omk/omnsapir.so/cre?FILE=20021023r&LANGUE=EN&LEVEL=DOC&NUMINT=3-188&LEG=L5</a>
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[<a href="#ref9" name="9">9</a>] <a href="http://swpat.ffii.org/archive/quotes/index.en.html">http://swpat.ffii.org/archive/quotes/index.en.html</a>
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[<a href="#ref10" name="10">10</a>] <a href="http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24533.html">http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/6/24533.html</a>
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[<a href="#ref11" name="11">11</a>] <a href="http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0208.html#1">http://www.counterpane.com/crypto-gram-0208.html#1</a>
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[<a href="#ref12" name="12">12</a>] <a href="/">http://fsfeurope.org</a>
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</pre>
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</body>
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<timestamp>$Date: 2010-10-09 12:15:47 +0200 (sam. 09 oct. 2010) $ $Author: mk $</timestamp>
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