EU: Over thirty MEPs from seven member states support free software
Of the 232 candidates for the European Parliament that pledged their support for free and open source software, 34 have been elected, from Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
MEPs that signed the 'Free Software Pact' can be found in all six political groups of the European Parliament.
The French free software advocacy group April published the results of its European campaign last month. The organisation said it will brief the group of MEPs on topics such as Digital Rights Management, patents and the Telecom Package.
April and its Italian counterpart the Associazione per il software libero began their campaign at the end of March. They want citizens to approach candidates, bring them up-to-date regarding free software and ask them to express their support for it. The names of candidates that pledge support are published on a web site, The Free Software Pact.
Their efforts were later joined by organisations and individuals in ten countries, Cazenave says. In Spain for instance the open source group Hispalinux joined, and the campaign received contributions from individuals in Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
The Free Software Pact is helping April and the other groups improve contact with the MEPs, explains April's spokesperson Alix Cazenave. The MEPs will be involved in thorny issues such as the revision of the European Copyright Directive and patents, Cazenave says. "It is vital that MEPs that take organisations representing civil society as seriously as they do multinationals."
More information:
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