Motherhood, Apple Pie and FLOSS, Things That All Politicians Can Support at Robert Pogson

“A grass roots campaign has managed to get 278 candidates for the upcoming Belgian communal and provincial elections to pledge their support for free and open source software. "And, so-far, three political parties, the Socialist Party, Ecolo and Mouvement Réformateur, have promised me their general support", says Nicolas Pettiaux, one of two volunteers contacting politicians.”

see Over two hundred Belgian political candidates support free software | Joinup.

I have to smile when an issue in a political campaign becomes not whether a politician should support Free/Libre Open Source Software but why they don’t… Really, FLOSS is the right way to do IT and everyone should support it. Not supporting FLOSS becomes a political filter that many citizens can use to reject candidates who do not have the interests of the people at heart.

FLOSS has been well-tested in Belgium and most parts of Europe and people know it works and lowers costs. What’s not to like/support about FLOSS? It’s beginning to become an election-issue in Canada, but certainly not one to make the evening news. By the time of the next election the government may adopt FLOSS anyway so it may be no issue at all.

Canadian Parties:

Green Party – “The Green Party supports the goals and ideals of Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) and believes that Canada’s competitiveness in global information technology (IT) will be greatly enhanced by strongly supporting FLOSS.”
New Democratic Party – had a resolution supporting FLOSS at one convention
“WHEREAS the Free Software and Open Source movements offer the possibility of a new form of production based on sharing and community cooperation; and
WHEREAS Free and Open Source software is more secure than many commercial alternatives; and
WHEREAS Free and Open Source software is almost never affected by computer viruses and invasive software such as pop-ups and spy-ware; and
WHEREAS Open Office, and other software are compatible with file formats from other dominant commercial software such as Microsoft Office; and
WHEREAS certain government departments in Canada have already started to use Free and Open Source software without the direction of the government; and
WHEREAS the NDP and the Canadian government should be an example in using Open Source and Free software because this type of software is available to anyone with a computer independent of their income,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the New Democratic Party of Canada give preferential consideration to using Free and Open Source software for its internal information; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the Federal NDP lobby the Canadian government to assure that preferential consideration be given to using Free and Open Source software in all of its departments.” and they advertised some workshops on FLOSS and GNU/Linux.

Apparently the other parties don’t see it on the radar yet.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.