Texts of the free software pact website

Welcome Back to the Free Software Pact Initiative!

Welcome BACK
to the Free Software Pact Initiative !

The European elections will take place in May 2014. The campaign invites citizens to ask candidates to sign the Free Software Pact.

In 2009, 231 candidates in 10 countries signed the pact.

Let's do better in 2014!

The Free Software Pact is a simple document with which candidates can inform the voting public that they favor the development and use of Free Software, and will protect it from possibly threatening EU legislation. The Free Software Pact is also a tool that citizens who value Free Software can use to educate candidates about the importance of Free Software and the reasons why they should, if elected, protect the European Free Software community.

More on the Free Software Pact

What are the goals of the Free Software Pact?

The Free Software Pact is a simple document with which candidates can inform the voting public that they favor the development and use of Free Software, and will protect it from possibly threatening EU legislation. The Free Software Pact is also a tool that citizens who value Free Software can use to educate candidates about the importance of Free Software and the reasons why they should, if elected, protect the European Free Software community.

Have a few minutes to help us?

We are looking for people to help us translate/proofread the Pact into all UE languages, and for people willing to spread the word. A wiki page lists all the things you can do to help. You can also contact us by email: contact (a) freesoftwarepact.eu .

The website will be available in other languages soon. We are looking for translators; please contact us at (contact (a) freesoftwarepact.eu) if you want to help.

What is the history of the Free Software Pact?

For the past 7 years, April, a French non-profit, has worked through the Candidats.fr initiative to make candidates to political elections aware of Free-Software-related issues. The Candidats.fr initiative has been involved in all presidential, legislative and local elections since 2007, asking candidates to sign the "Pacte du Logiciel Libre" (Free Software Pact).

In 2009, April, Associazione per il software libero, Hispalinux and volunteers joined their forces for the first Free Software Pact campaign connected with a European election. In 2009, 231 candidates signed the Pact and 44 signatories were elected.

The campaign also inspired other initiatives: the Free Software Pledge by FACIL in Quebec, was based on Candidats.fr and has been running since 2008. Likewise, Caro Candidato was launched in Italy and Candidats.be in Belgium in the last few years for local and national elections.

Join Us!

Join Us !

I want to help!

• We are currently upgrading our campaign platform with tools to help contacting candidates. It will be back in March (but you can follow us or suscribe to the newsletter to know when it will be open).

• A list of tasks that need your help is available. We are currently looking to people to help us translate the pact in all EU languages, as well as many other things.

• The Free Software Pact is available in English (check out the wiki for the status of other languages). You can download it and contact your future MEPs to ask them to sign.

• Spread the word! We need people to know about the campaign, to ask the candidates to sign the Pact and to make Free Software a topic in the electoral debate.

• The website will be available in other languages soon. We are looking for translators, please contact us (contact (a) freesoftwarepact.eu) if you are interested.

I want to stay in touch

By email

• subscribe to our newsletter

Via social networks

• on Pump.io
• on Twitter

Via RSS

• Our RSS feed

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I want to sign !

The Free Software Pact

I want to sign!

You can download the pact in PDF or OpenDocument Format.

In order to register your signature, please fill out the pact, and send it back to us : contact (a) freesoftwarepact.eu

Translate the Free Software Pact into your language

We would like the "Free Software Pact" to be translated into as many languages as possible. You can check the wiki if a translation was started, or start your own!

Advocacy documents

Find two advocacy documents we published for the 2009 campaign, aimed at briefing candidates to the European elections about Free Software

Contact

You can contact us:

• by email : contact(a)freesoftwarepact.eu

• on Pump.io

• on Twitter @FreeSwPact (please keep in mind that we nevertheless discourage the use of non-free Twitter in favor of Pump.io. Read more about the issues regarding Twitter on the Free Software Foundation website

Credits

Images

• CSS and theme images of this web site are derived from the work of Nicolas Duval and are licensed under the GNU GPLv3
• The social media icons in the footer of the site are created by Nicholas Roach and are dual licensed under the MIT and GPL 3.0.
• The European flag visible on the home page is derived from the work of MPD01605 and is available under the CC by SA 2.0 licence

!!!Fonts

• The Tex Gyre Heros font is copyright B. Jackowski and J.M. Nowacki under the GUST Font License

Legal

Unless stated otherwise, this site is copyright April and licensed under LAL version 1.3 or later version, CC-BY-SA 2.0 or later version.

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Translation needed!

__This language is currently not supported by this website.__

Please help by translating the pact if it is not done already.

If you would like to contribute and translate this website into your language, please contact by email contact(at)freesoftwarepact.eu and tell us which language you would like to translate this website to.