Re: Video Neelie Kroes

[Sanne te Meerman <sanne opensourceadvies nl>]

Hi William,

Thanks for your work. I have to be a bit critical, I'm afraid. My first 
criticism is that the message seems like a collection of statements more 
than a cohesive message, or is that common practice with press releases? 
Besides this, I think there's a statement you make that's false and 
might cause problems for us. Please see below. There's also a suggestion 
to put some responsibility at government, rather than at the people and 
the community.

Hope this helps.
Best, Sanne

William from Texas schreef:
> Ok, chaps, here's a last chance to look at this press release before I 
> post it to the website! I give it about 12 hours until I post it 
> tomorrow afternoon.
>
> Feedback welcome!!
>
> ---
>
> Tuesday July 13, 2010
>
> GUADEC conference draws Open Source support from EU Commissioner
>
> European Union (EU) Commissioner for Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes has 
> released a video statement emphasising the importance of Open Source 
> Software (OSS) in Europe and the need to foster a growing open source 
> community. The video came in response to an invitation by the GNOME 
> Users and Developers European Conference (GUADEC). Unable to speak, 
> Kroes instead record her statement strongly supporting OSS and its 
> work across European sectors.
>
> Commissioner Kroes explained that OSS was in everyones best interests. 
> Proprietary software, said Kroes, "discourages [government] officials 
> from selecting software on merit." Many governments, such as in 
> France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and the UK, are already using 
> or testing OSS, and the benefits are "not only good value for money 
> ... but also more choice."
She doesn't say that proprietary software discourages, She says:

Nobody would dare to push for an open source solution in a public 
organisation.
"Who will offer us technical support, and what if we are sued for 
infringing someone's IP if we use this?"
Those were the sort of issues that discouraged officials from selecting 
software on merit.

So I suggest to rewrite this paragraph to:
Commissioner Kroes explained that OSS was in everyones best interests. 
Fear of copyright infringement and perceived lack of support, said 
Kroes, "discouraged [government] officials from selecting software on 
merit." Many governments, such as in France, Germany, Spain, the 
Netherlands and the UK, are already using or testing OSS, and the 
benefits are "not only good value for money ... but also more choice."


> Aside from the national-level, European-level commitment and 
> preparedness for OSS has sent promising signals, showing that in 
> Europe, the work of shaping our digital future should be done by us: 
> the people and the communities.
I think she's deliberately fuzzy about  who  should shape our digital 
culture. You can also interpret her sentence, that government should 
stimulate communities, or at least there's a shared responsibility:

"You have an important role in shaping Europe's digital future. 
Governments cannot simply announce and deliver the digital future. It 
must come out of an organic and shared responsibility. And I want to 
build a broad movement for digital action. At the EU we can bring people 
together, help get rid of obstacles, and occasionally give funding to 
help in research and development. But the real difference is made by 
people and communities, like the open source movement."

So I think it's better to say: Aside from the national-level, 
European-level commitment and preparedness for OSS has sent promising 
signals, showing that in Europe, the work of shaping our digital future 
is a responsibility that is shared by government, communities, and 
people alike.

it might seem trivial, but for me this is an important point.. I still 
have to secure the money from NOiV... and they're giving me a hard time 
if the desktop day doesn't attract many people. They don't seem to feel 
responsbility towards GUADEC, for example, they mostly care that there 
are government officials at the desktop day.


> Tools for public use include: the Open Software Observatory and 
> Repository (OSOR) database, a platform to develop, collaborate and 
> share software and best practices between public administrations; the 
> European Union Public License (EUPL), a "copy left" style software 
> license; and the European Interoperability Framework, a policy 
> instrument that aims at interoperability in and between public 
> administrations.
>
> GUADEC is an annual conference which focuses on development of the 
> GNOME desktop. Begun in 1998, GUADEC has been hosted in various 
> locations around Europe. The 2010 conference will be in The Hague, The 
> Netherlands, at the end of July.
>
> GNOME is used as the default graphic user environment in many major 
> Linux and Unix systems. With the tenets of promoting freedom, 
> accessability and usability, GNOME is well positioned to play a key 
> role in future OSS projects.
>
> The GNOME desktop is used by millions of people around the world. 
> GNOME is a standard part of all leading GNU/Linux and Unix 
> distributions, and is popular with both large existing corporate 
> deployments and millions of small business and home users worldwide.
>
> Composed of hundreds of volunteer developers and industry-leading 
> companies, the GNOME Foundation is an organization committed to 
> supporting the advancement of GNOME. The foundation is a member 
> directed, non-profit organisation that provides financial, 
> organisational and legal support to the GNOME project and helps 
> determine its vision and roadmap.
>
> The video is very relevant to the conference. The GNOME Open Desktop 
> Day, a pre-conference to the main event, is specifically focused on 
> the role that OSS can play with government and education. The Open 
> Desktop Day will host a panel of speakers to discuss OSS's role in the 
> public domain.
>
> Commissioner Kroes is a well-known digital advocate. As one of the 
> leads opposing proprietary technology, Kroes has used her role to 
> pursue Microsoft towards greater interoperability of the Windows 
> platform. In her role as Commissioner for Digital Agenda, she 
> continues to stand up for open digital innovation.
>
> As Kroes says, government "can bring people together, help get rid of 
> obstacles, and occasionally give funding to help in research and 
> development. But the real difference is made by people and 
> communities, like the open source movement."
she's actually saying: at the EU, we can bring people together, help get 
rid of obstacles
> The full video is on the GUADEC website:
> www.guadec.org <http://www.guadec.org>
>
> The video can also be found on Youtube
> www.youtube.com <http://www.youtube.com>
>
> More information about GUADEC, GNOME and the GNOME Foundation can be 
> found at www.guadec.org <http://www.guadec.org>, www.gnome.org 
> <http://www.gnome.org> and foundation.gnome.org 
> <http://foundation.gnome.org>.
> ---