In a previous and fairly recent post, the things Microsoft does in Portugal were summarised. This showed a ruthless response to the increasing adoption of Free software in that country. More recently we tried to explain why Microsoft's CEO is coming to Portugal and there was an ongoing discussion about it.
Draft Law No. 577 / X - open standards for computing the state
PCP presented in a draft-HR law for the adoption of open standards in systems of the state. For the CFP, public services - and public documents - can not use private formats (owners), coming from large corporations in computing. This project-law enshrines the protection of the freedom of citizens and technological organizations, the independence of the state before the multinationals and compatibility between systems.
CFP presents draft law for the use of free formats in the State
The Portuguese Communist Party, through Mr Bruno Dias, Bernardino Soares, Miguel Tiago, Francisco Lopes, Agostinho Lopes, has submitted a draft law to the compulsory use of formats free and open systems in the state.
The following requirements are used to classify a CFP by an open standard format:
* is adopted and maintained by a nonprofit organization and its development stems from a decision-making process open, both in decision-making and the participation of all stakeholders; * the specification is available freely, without any restriction on their use, distribution and copy; * intellectual property rights and patents of the standard must at least be in the majority, publicly available on an irrevocable and irreversible; * there must be no restrictions on the reuse of the standard.