Eel/lak, a Greek open source advocacy group wants the Greek administration to change one its enquiry forms, to accommodate users of free and open source software solutions. The form is used by the Greek government's Financial and Economic Crime Unit when requesting companies and organisations to provide an inventory of their software licences along with the corresponding invoices.
Eel/lak wants the form to allow marking when software is open source.
Eel/lak, founded by 25 universities and research centres, contacted the Financial and Economic Crime Unit a few weeks ago, after being told about the form's incomparability with free and open source. "Free and open source software can be downloaded freely, and does not come with an invoice", explains Despoina Mitropoulou, Eel/lak spokesperson. "So we asked the department to modify their letter."
The group wants the unit to make it clear that it is legal to use free and open source software. It also hopes to get the department to actually encourage organisations and companies to use this type of software. "Free and open source provides significant advantages, including economic benefits." The unit replied on 13 December. It explained that Greek law makes the use of free and open source legal, and that the unit treats it the same way as proprietary software.
Unsatisfied with the answer, Eel/lak is now asking the department to make concrete changes to the form. "We're asking for allowing to print the name of the software and from where it was downloaded. We also want the form to allow printing the licence instead of printing the purchase number and supplier."
More information:
http://www.minfin.gr/portal/en/resource/section/financial-and-economic-…