FSM: Enough talk, show us the Code!

Arangel Angov writes “The information technology is further penetrating all segments of the society – this enables more advanced communications, more efficient work, faster development – but we need to be more carefull that this infrastructure stays free and let anybody build on it. It is the only way to guarantee innovations and further evolution of the human society.

The IT infrastructure must be based on open standards and protocols. Microsoft doesn’t guarantee that – on the contrary, it shows the opposite. As an example, the Commission for Information Technology (CIT), a government body, publishes its documents in Microsoft Word format. Microsoft has patents on these formats, which means that any citizen, in order to communicate with the government, will have to pay directly or indirectly for this patent.

Free Software Macedonia (FSM) came to an idea to benefit from the marketing campaign of Microsoft (bringing together on one place a number of people from the IT industry), and during the Microsoft conference “Vizija” (Vision) in Skopje, demonstrate to those professionals that the software can be legal and also be free of charge, and most important – free/open.

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Free Software Macedonia is a non-profit organization that deals with promotion, distribution and development of free software on the territory of Republic of Macedonia.”