59 lines
2.8 KiB
HTML
59 lines
2.8 KiB
HTML
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
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<html newsdate="2015-03-06">
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<version>1</version>
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<head>
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<title>Swiss Federal Council considers legal assurance for release of Free Software</title>
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</head>
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<body class="press release">
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<h1>Swiss Federal Council considers legal assurance for release of Free Software</h1>
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<p newsteaser="yes">Currently, there is uncertainty in Switzerland regarding
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the development and release of Free Software by public contractors. The
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trigger for this was the development and release of the software <em>OpenJustitia</em>
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by the Swiss Federal Supreme Court. The federal council now wants to examine
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whether the publication of Free Software by the federal administration can be
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explicitly allowed. The Free Software Foundation Europe demands a clarification
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so that publicly-financed software can unambiguously be legally released as
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Free Software</p>
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<p>In December of 2014, the parliamentarian group <em>Parldigi - Digital
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Sustainability</em> <a href="http://www.parlament.ch/d/suche/seiten/geschaefte.aspx?gesch_id=20144275">
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submitted a proposal (German)</a> with the title "How can the release of
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open source software [/Free Software] by the federal administration be explicitly
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allowed?" In it, the federal council is instructed to examine whether the
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budgetary planning law must be duly amended so that it explicitly allows the
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release of source code by the federal government and, if necessary, suggest
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suitable adaptations to facilitate the Free Software strategy of the federal
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administration.</p>
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<p>On February 25, 2015, the Swiss Federal Council acknowledged that the proposal
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will be examined.</p>
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<blockquote><p>"It is important that the Swiss Federal Council takes up this
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topic," said Marcus Möller from the Swiss team of the FSFE. "We hope that
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legal certainty for the development of Free Software by public contractors
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will be established as soon as possible."</p> </blockquote>
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<p>The FSFE Switzerland <a
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href="http://www.digitale-nachhaltigkeit.ch/2014/11/fsfe-zuerich-zu-openjustitia/">
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calls for (German)</a> the lacking legal framework to be created as soon as possible
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so that software -- developed with public money -- can be released as Free Software.
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Even then, public institutions themselves should not become contractors for Free
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Software development, which would lead to a market distortion. On the contrary,
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from the perspective of the FSFE, the actual release of software development under
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Free licenses strengthens and stimulates the market.</p>
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</body>
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<sidebar promo="about-fsfe">
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</sidebar>
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<tags>
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<tag key="front-page"/>
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<tag key="ch">Switzerland</tag>
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<tag key="federal-supreme-court-of-switzerland">Federal Supreme Court of Switzerland</tag>
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<tag key="openjustitia">OpenJustitia</tag>
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<tag key="policy"/>
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</tags>
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</html>
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