Artigenda
Document Freedom Day
When: Annually, last Wednesday of March.
The last Wednesday of March is Document Freedom Day. Central to this day are open standards in document management and processing.
Digital Freedom Foundation
The day is not an initiative of the Digital Freedom Foundation, but has been running it since 2016. Therefore, it is good to take a quick look at what exactly this DFF does. Through its website, the organisation presents itself as the representative of free software. Only is that entirely correct? It is when you look at the organisation’s origins.
The organisation was founded in 2004 under the name Software Freedom International. In 2007, the name was changed. That name already suggests that the Software Freedom Day, known in Dutch as the Dag van de Softwarevrijheid, and The Day of Hardware Freedom (Hardware Freedom Day). More information on DFF’s activities can be found at this page.
Origins and purpose
The day itself has been around longer than 2016. The first time document freedom was highlighted was in 2008. Central to the day are open standards. What should you imagine by that? They are the standards that make it possible to view or use different programmes and apps without restrictions. That is not always possible when you have to rely on others or, rather, the services of others. Then it is not even about whether a service is charged for. It may also be that certain file formats are changed, making it impossible to view or use old or other file formats.
The best-known examples are the programmes you use to compose text files. In popular parlance, we now quickly refer to these as Word files. Only how easy is it to eventually open this file? Another example is a spreadsheet. Colloquially, we have since come to call this an Excel file. A name or a file extension doesn’t provide guarantees. If the software provider decides to change the way these files are used or can be used, this has consequences. So, no guarantees. Are you willing to take that risk?
More information
There are always options for alternatives. Perhaps these options aren’t the ones you aren’t familiar with and a day such as this one is a day to dive into the alternative options. A good point to start is the website about Document Freedom Day.
