KDE and the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) are proud to announce their associate status, working together for the promotion and protection of Free Software on users' desktops in Europe and worldwide.
"The Free Software community started to build freedom into the most basic building blocks of an operating system, finishing the operating system GNU/Linux in the early 90s, taking over more than 60 percent of the web servers with Apache [1] and has become a seminal building block of the networked society and economy," says Georg Greve, president of FSFE. "As a community, we then tackled the desktop as the
next big step. Today we have two fully functional desktops that bear comparison to any other desktop in use around the world: GNOME and KDE."
"The desktop is one of the most important battlefields for the long term success of Free Software. In the antitrust case it has become apparent how Microsoft could take its quasi-monopoly on the desktop and use it as leverage in other areas. FSFE is helping to put an end to this in the EU antitrust case, but this is not enough: We need to put an end to proprietary desktop monopolies that made such abuse
possible," Georg Greve explains the background for FSFE's decision to take action in this area. "Together with the KDE e.V. we seek to break the stranglehold on the desktop, give people freedom, and explain to them why this is important, and why they should not give it up again."
One of the first projects discussed between the organisations will involve the provision of more information to interested parties about Free Software and inform them about alternatives. "But this can be only the first step", adds Eva Brucherseifer and points out:
"Ultimately our goal must be to help build a strong environment of Free Software service companies. We have been cooperating unofficially in the past, and are now very happy to also work with the Free Software Foundation Europe officially towards this goal."
