I have received a letter from the Chief Executive of Angus Council (Scotland) in response to our request that they remove advertising for Adobe Reader.
It would be great if someone on the list would give a nice response. The email address to use is chiefexec@angus.gov.uk. If in doubt about what to say, send a draft for comments before sending the final copy to the Council. Let others know when you _begin_ drafting so that there is no duplication of effort.
Here is the full text of the email, painlessly scanned using gimagereader.
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Dear Mr Tuke
Advertising for Proprietary Software
Thank you for your recent letter concerning the placement of Adobe Acrobat Reader download links on our Council website. By adding these links, the Council is simply providing access to a single free product to facilitate proper viewing of the website without any expectation of commitment to any further product or services. However, I can see why it might appear that we are promoting Adobe’s product above others.
The Council generally uses Adobe Acrobat to create and optimise its PDFs and therefore is confident that the Adobe Reader will render these adequately. Output is actively tested using this and it would be unfeasible for the Council to test all our output documents with numerous different products. While I understand the freedom that completely free software provides, we do not feel that the vast majority of site visitors are interested in access to source code and the rights to adapt it. As such, the Adobe product provides a number of other important features, such as:-
» Plug-ins for all major browsers. » Compatibility with all major operating systems. » Easy installation through OS and browser detection. » Regular security updates. » Accessibility features.
It would be time consuming for the Council to investigate numerous other products for their suitability simply to recommend them as alternatives so we utilise what we know provides an acceptable level of functionality for site visitors.
Having said all that, the Council will act on your suggestion and add text to clarify that other PDF readers are available. However, we will not be linking to the PDFreaders.org site that you provided as we do not consider that it offers the genuine range of options that most site visitors would be interested in.
Yours sincerely
Richard Stiff *Chief Executive*
Just a short note:
* Sam Tuke samtuke@fsfe.org [2011-10-03 13:03:02 +0100]:
Having said all that, the Council will act on your suggestion and add text to clarify that other PDF readers are available.
That's good.
However, we will not be linking to the PDFreaders.org site that you provided as we do not consider that it offers the genuine range of options that most site visitors would be interested in.
If they continue to just link to Adobe, it is an unfair competition advantage. This way they will make sure this area will be a monopoly.
Regards, Matthias
Isnt one point of our argument that offering ONE choice (not just a non-free choice, but only one option) is agaisnt the law becuase its monopoly-ish. like you should have more than one web brouser etc?
Anna
On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 1:02 PM, Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org wrote:
Just a short note:
- Sam Tuke samtuke@fsfe.org [2011-10-03 13:03:02 +0100]:
Having said all that, the Council will act on your suggestion and add
text to
clarify that other PDF readers are available.
That's good.
However, we will not be linking to the PDFreaders.org site that you provided as we do not consider that it offers the genuine range of options that most site visitors would be interested in.
If they continue to just link to Adobe, it is an unfair competition advantage. This way they will make sure this area will be a monopoly.
Regards, Matthias
-- Matthias Kirschner - FSFE - Fellowship Coordinator, German Coordinator FSFE, Linienstr. 141, 10115 Berlin, t +49-30-27595290 +49-1577-1780003 Free Software is important to you? Join today! (fsfe.org/join) Weblog (blogs.fsfe.org/mk) - Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner) _______________________________________________ Manchester mailing list Manchester@lists.fsfe.org https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/manchester
* Anna Morris say.hello.to.anna@googlemail.com [2011-10-04 17:02:12 +0100]:
Isnt one point of our argument that offering ONE choice (not just a non-free choice, but only one option) is agaisnt the law becuase its monopoly-ish. like you should have more than one web brouser etc?
Yes, it is. Matthias
but HOW illigal is it? I mean, I got the idea that some european law meant it was LITERALLY illigal to only offer one browser etc. I remeber all the hype about how we would now all see mozilla on our library or whatever computer.
On Tue, Oct 4, 2011 at 5:46 PM, Matthias Kirschner mk@fsfe.org wrote:
- Anna Morris say.hello.to.anna@googlemail.com [2011-10-04 17:02:12
+0100]:
Isnt one point of our argument that offering ONE choice (not just a
non-free
choice, but only one option) is agaisnt the law becuase its monopoly-ish. like you should have more than one web brouser etc?
Yes, it is. Matthias
-- Matthias Kirschner - FSFE - Fellowship Coordinator, German Coordinator FSFE, Linienstr. 141, 10115 Berlin, t +49-30-27595290 +49-1577-1780003 Free Software is important to you? Join today! (fsfe.org/join) Weblog (blogs.fsfe.org/mk) - Contact (fsfe.org/about/kirschner)
On Tuesday 04 October 2011 17:02:12 you wrote:
Isnt one point of our argument that offering ONE choice (not just a non-free choice, but only one option) is agaisnt the law becuase its monopoly-ish. like you should have more than one web brouser etc?
Yes, because this is anti-competitive and affects the market unfairly. This is why there pdfreaders.org lists *all* Free Software PDF readers, not just ones that look nice or are developed by people that we know. There is no favouritism amongst the PDF readers that are listed except an indication of the one which is easiest to use on the visitor's operating system.
Non-free readers are not listed because they do not respect freedom, and for the good of the user, and of society, should not be used by anybody.
Thanks,
Sam.