What would you think about a sign on the highway saying “You need a Volkswagen to drive on this road. Contact your Volkswagen dealer for a gratis test drive – Your Government”? When it comes to software that opens PDF files, many public sector organizations do this every day. With the pdfreaders.org campaign we have turned the spotlight on government organizations who behave in this way, exposing how frequent such advertisements for non-free software are. With the help of activists across Europe, we will contact these organisations and explain to them how to improve their websites so that they respect our freedom.
Every day, public institutions advertise non-free software on their websites. Some examples are below. With the help of our Fellows and of hundreds other Free Software activists, we have collected over one month 2286 bug reports coming from every countries in Europe, and also nine countries outside of Europe.
Our Petition For The Removal Of Proprietary Software Advertising On Public Institution Websites was signed by 38 organizations, 46 businesses and 1482 individuals. If you haven't signed it yet, do it now!
Finding public bodies that advertise proprietary PDF readers was only the first step of the campaign. Now we need to build awareness for the following issues:
A question of neutrality: Public institutions should not engage in advertising
By recommending a single non-free program, public institutions are promoting the proprietary software model. There are loads of alternatives to the reader they promote, so there is no reason for public institutions to further strengthen the dominance of a single company over a part of the software market. Advertisements on public sector websites may be fine if they're marked as such and paid for, and if they don't endanger competition and choice in the software market. When public bodies act as a marketing channel for a single company's product, something has gone wrong.
A question of freedom: Public institutions should not ask citizens to use non-free software.
Free Software is software that anyone can use, study, share and improve. These four freedoms give users the full control over the software they use. Free Software makes sure you don't have to buy a company's product if you just want to read documents that other people send you, including public bodies. Any program can be checked for security holes, so that problems often get fixed quickly. Free Software helps protect your privacy, because you can be sure that the program you're using only does the things you want, and nothing more. A government that exists to protect and preserve our freedom should not be asking us to use non-free software.
A question of Open Standards:
The versions of the PDF format which are Open Standards can be implemented by all PDF readers. If public bodies don't stick to Open Standards when generating their documents, they make it harder for Free Software offerings and different vendors to compete in the market.
For all of these reasons, FSFE is asking public administrations to either remove their advertising for proprietary software or at least run equal advertising for Free Software, so that users of their websites realise that they have a choice.
See which institutions have been reported in your country.
"Petition For The Removal Of Proprietary Software Advertising On Public Websites".
The letter that we will send to public institutions.
Do you want to contribute by contacting public institutions?
The pdfreaders.org website list all Free Software PDF readers with recommandations of download based on technical compatibility