[wordup] Germany Considers Linux for Parliamentary Usage

[Adam Shand]

I think these developements are really interesting.  From memory China
and South Korea have already passed similar laws and this article says
Great Brittan has as well (which surprised me given the current sad
trend in English politics).

Adam.

Via: http://www.debian.org/News/weekly/2002/6/
From: http://www.bundestux.de/english.html

The possibility is there!

A statement of various public persons concering the introduction of free
software into the German parliament (Bundestag).

Since the end of last year, a heated public debate has been led on which
operating system should be used in the German parliament for the coming
years. The debate has been especially important for it's relevance in
the general discussion about different concepts of software. Central to
the debate are the open source operating system Linux and the currently
market dominating system Windows, which - being proprietary - hides its
source code from the public.

The signatories of this declaration have, due to the following
arguments, come to the opinion, that to ensure economic competition,
promote creative potential, secure the open market and generally
re-emphasize the democratic aspects of German society, the German
parliament would do well to support the introduction of free software as
a prominent move towards the shaping of a new open society in the coming
century. Other arguments for open source systems such as improved
security, cost efficency and flexibility have not been taken into our
considerations, since they have already been stressed enough during the
debate of the last year.
Economic competition and the open market

Our declaration does not wish to concentrate on the abstract question of
whether open source or proprietary software is better, but wants to ask,
quite concretely, whether German parliament should continue to use the
onesided combination of the Microsoft operating system, its internet
browser, email client and the Microsoft office suite, or whether
alternatives are to be given a chance. Microsoft currently does not only
control the usage of computers in the German parliament, but also has a
market share of more than 90% - an absolutely dominating position in
Germany. We believe that, in a free market economy, it is the state's
duty to prevent the development of monopolies and to grant the
possiblity of real competition. The public signal of introducing
alternative software in such a prominent institution as parliament would
be an easy and practicable step in the direction of a more open market.
While although free software is not in itself a warrant for free
competition, in today' situation there seems to be no other alternative
to insure practicable and save information technology equipment for the
legislative.
Democracy

The democratic political bodies of the Federal Republic of Germany need
to be reminded to continue to stick to their democratic principles
within the secondary field of politics. Civic supervision and
improvement of software by the general public is only possible using
free software, due to its openly accessible source code. Short term
disclosure of source codes - as offered by Microsoft - can only remain
patchwork. The extensive and decentralised work of many programmers
using free software has been the secret for it's market competability
today.

The democratic aspect cannot be reduced to its mere increased security
and flexibility, but is much more the expression of an extended
understanding of democracy, encompassing economic and scientific
progress. It therefore seems to us the duty of a democratic state to
support the use of open source systems.

The unhindered access of all citizens to public knowledge and the public
domain can - rationally and cost efficiently - only be realized with
free software. All interested parties, regardles of their financial
capabilities, should be able to truly participate in all online
procedures.
Local advantages of Free software

The usage of free software in the public domain has come to play an ever
larger role worldwide. Just some examples from the press:

* South Korea just ordered 120.000 open source office solutions and is
  looking to save up to 80% of previous costs.
* Great Britain plans the mandatory introduction of open source software
  in the public sector.
* The development of secure software with openly accessible source codes
  plays a central role within the EU commision's IT initiative
  "e-europe".

Germany should not miss out on this development. We feel, that the
further introduction and distribution of open source operating systems
will play an important part in the economic development of Germany in
the future.

With an eye on the situation, open source systems are the most
attractive investment Germany can make.