Lend some code to your local representative

There was a bit of news coming out the European Parliament recently that could be easily overlooked. MEP Indrek Tarand (of Estonia no less), along with some non-MEP partners, started the European Parliament Free Software User Group (EPFSUG).With goals like “assist people in using Free Software in the European Parliament” and planned sessions like “making your laptop free” it’s largely internal focused and not geared toward policy making. The acronym doesn’t quite roll off the tongue, in English at least, and the website leaves much to be desired, but there’s still something interesting here.

Let’s be honest: open source doesn’t exactly have strong public saliency, or more plainly put, it ain’t sexy politically. You can make strong arguments about innovation, security, procurement efficiencies, and so on, but that doesn’t rise to the level where politicians would stand up en masse and carry the torch. Even with beautiful presentations and well researched white papers, they’re still just intangible arguments.

[Read the rest at opensource.com]