Thanks to all of you for your participation at the Fellowship workshop before FSCONS. We worked together on DFD, the DRM booklet, and the PDFreaders campaign. There are three TODOs in the report.
Thanks you so much! We really achieved a lot at this day!! Matthias
= Document Freedom Day =
European Parliament: Erik presented his ideas for an event in the EP about ebooks. Erik will keep us posted here.
Sweden: There was the idea to check government websites for non-free formats like doc, docx, xls, etc. report those them. On Document Freedom Day announce the result and name some who have done well.
TODO: Who will follow up on DFD in Sweden?
= DRM booklet =
Several people worked on the DRM booklet. With your help Karsten was able to send it out this week.
TODO: Karsten will let you know about the final result.
= PDFReaders =
We had a followup for some countries, following the guide here: https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/follow-up.en.html
- translated model Letter in Swedish https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/letter.sv.html - translated petition into Swedish https://fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/petition.sv.html - improved PDFreaders.org front page http://pdfreaders.org/index.sv.html
Our PDFreaders questions were now filed from an MEP. We are trying to get them asked in Belgium and Sweden as well. It was suggested to get in contact with the following MPs in Sweden to ask if they can ask the questions there:
- Karl Sigrid - Gustav Fridolin - Mikael von Knorring - Maria Färm
TODO: Who can take care of asking those MPs?
Here are the questions:
Subject: Software advertising on public websites
Numerous EU public websites refer to proprietary software, like Acrobat Reader, as the only possibility to read PDF files and provide a download link. This is a case of direct advertising by public institutions, which creates a competitive advantage for one company to sell its products.
1. Currently, on how many of the Commission's own web pages do such advertisements appear?
2. Could the Commission provide links to these pages, as well as names of EU institutions that have such advertising on their websites?
3. What are the Commission's reasons (e.g. financial gain, lack of other functional software, etc) for advertising this particular software as the only possibility to read PDF files?
4. Have the institutions, that have such advertising on their website, explained whether they tried other PDF readers before? Which software did they mention?
5. What steps is the Commission taking to resolve this problem regarding a) the Commission's own website, and b) the websites of public institutions in Member States?