[ Thanks to Fred Mobach
for this link. ]
“Since the end of last year, a heated public debate has been led
on which operating system should be used in the German parliament
for the coming years. The debate has been especially important for
it’s relevance in the general discussion about different concepts
of software. Central to the debate are the open source operating
system Linux and the currently market dominating system Windows,
which – being proprietary – hides its source code from the
public.“The signatories of this declaration have, due to the following
arguments, come to the opinion, that to ensure economic
competition, promote creative potential, secure the open market and
generally re-emphasize the democratic aspects of German society,
the German parliament would do well to support the introduction of
free software as a prominent move towards the shaping of a new open
society in the coming century. Other arguments for open source
systems such as improved security, cost efficency and flexibility
have not been taken into our considerations, since they have
already been stressed enough during the debate of the last
year…”
Gesamte Geschichte
(auf Deutsch)