Dear Teams and Friends of the FSFE,

we would like to inform you about an upcoming activity of FSFE and its Freedom Task Force (FTF), the cooperation with Open Forum Europe (OFE) in the "Certified Open" activity. In this mail we'd like to give you some heads-up information and background on this activity that will go public within the next month.

This activity is based on Open Standards and interoperability, but it could also provide a basis to build confidence in and support for our long-awaited idea of a GNU Business Network for Free Software activities.

Background

OFE have always defined and identified themselves as a strong supporter of Free Software and have been highly vocal in their support for it alongside Open Standards and interoperability, playing their part in lobbying the European Commission and national governments.

When we first met them at early European Union meetings, OFE had initially made itself a name in the Free Software community by a rather unfortunate attempt to become involved in the software patent debate.

Suffice it to say that they since entirely revised their stance and are now among the outspoken critics of software patents, are participating in the organisation of anti-swpat events and actively seek the dialog with the community, including some of FSFE's associate organisations, e.g. FFII. So some time ago FSFE agreed with OFE to remain in contact and discuss positions on upcoming issues with each other.

OFE is an industry-based organisation with members that also often have a significant proprietary component and we know there will be disagreement on some issues. But we also know that our positions are very compatible on others, in particular on Open Standards and interoperability.

We have for instance been working together on the OpenXML vs ODF debate and the recent opposition against putting OpenXML on the fast track in the International Standards Organisation (ISO).

Based on this cooperation for common goals, OFE sought input for its idea of a "Certified Open" program. On the grounds of our input, OFE offered FSFE full participation in Certified Open and formal influence over the further evolution of the program.

About Certified Open

Certified Open will be a certification program based on Open Standards and interoperability. It will provide certification based on how easy it is to escape vendor lock-in for formats, products and services.

Governments and companies that seek to avoid lock-in in the future will be able to have an idea of the amount of lock-in for certain choices, even if they do not know much about information technology themselves, which is unfortunately too often the case.

Since Free Software by its nature does not lock its users in, but gives them freedom, its score is going to reflect that fact -- making one of our strongest arguments somewhat "quantifiable" for procurement offices. This will of course not solve all issues that might bring some form of lock-in, but it will address a very central and the most common one.

So while any company, project or product will be able to request and obtain a Certified Open ranking, which will be provided at no charge to Free Software non-profit projects, the criteria of Certified Open are structured such that they reward giving people freedom.

The lock-in into proprietary formats, applications and products is one of the largest practical obstacles that large companies and organisations face when wanting to migrate to Free Software. This makes the immediate migration of all systems quite expensive, and often more so than people are willing or able to consider.

Through Certified Open, FSFE will be working with parts of the industry to create more migration paths and remove critical lock-in situations so making the choice for Free Software will become easier.

At the same time we will be able to inform people and create awareness for issues of digital freedom through the Certified Open framework.

So all things considered it seemed obvious that Certified Open will help to spread freedom in various ways. That is why FSFE has agreed to work with OFE on Certified Open and be responsible for Free Software expertise and background, as well as supply Free Software licencing support through the Freedom Task Force.

At the same time we will keep working to convince the companies working with us in Certified Open to increase also their direct committment for Free Software.

Regards, Georg Greve