GNOME strongly supports open standards including OpenDocument Format

[Anne Østergaard <anne oestergaard nu>]

Hi

During the election campagn many of the candidates expressed the
importance of having free and open standards.

This is important for both proprietary software and FLOSS and for
society.

Federico answered a question put to him about standards in this mail
from Philip:

http://mail.gnome.org/archives/foundation-list/2005-November/msg00177.html

I think that is was a very clever answer and would like the GNOME
Foundation to draft a short statement of principle on GNOME's stand in
this question.

The Gnome Board of Directors have if I remember right a meeting to night
where I would like the board to give us its opinion.

If the board and the foundation members agree - and I hope we all do -
then we could draft a short statement to show on our website at the same
place where we have expressed that GNOME Foundation is against software
patents.

We might even consider a press release explaining our point of view.

At the moment I am following closely what happens in Massachusetts
OpenDocument adoption case.

You can find a lot more about this on GROKLAW:
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20051210103842722

I feel happy that the state of Massachusetts started this most important
IT related debate in our time. Many companies, governments,
international organizations and individuals are expressing their support
of this very important work that is the result of long time
collaboration on the part of our international standradisation
organisations.

This will eventually lead to a soft(ware) revolution all over the world
because it will help brake monopolies and facilitate free and even
competition in the field of software development and ensure ownership to
ones own code and sustainability among other good effects for
the information society.


Best regards

Anne

Anne Østergaard - aoe at gnome.org