Wednesday 16 January 2013

Enquete-Kommission Internet und Digitale Gesellschaft veröffentlicht Zwischenbericht

The special committee on "the internet and the digital society" of the German parliament accepted their intermediate report earlier this week. The announcement and summary are published on the respective Website of the Bundestag. I had been invited as an expert and spoke in the sub-committee on interoperability, open standards and free software last year.

The summary is very promising. There are a number of excellent points in there - most notably:
  • the benefit of open standards for innovation and for societal independence; 
  • the important role of open source software for the internet and for innovation;
  • to promote open standards by respective action in public procurement and by public authorities;
  • the recommendation that public authorities should buy platform independent software. 
Congratulations to the Enquete Kommission for their work and these intermediate results. I would expect a number of folks will knock at their doors now and try to persuade them to refrain from such clear recommendations. The remarks about different opinions regarding business models etc. already indicates some such influence. But I am positive that the majority in the Enquete Kommission will stay firm - they have a number of good arguments for their excellent positions.

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