This year, I have been working for 4 months with Free Software Foundation Europe in Berlin, so I shared with them part of my thoughts: we have to move the focus of this campaign from decision-makers to users, extend the vision of what really a document is and make the Open Standards definition understandable.

Below there is a condensed text of my thoughts I wrote to describe better the link of Internet with documents and why we should care about their (open) formats:

How the Internet would look like without open standards? This is the question we, everyday Net users should ask! The Internet we have today has its roots on Open Standards, which are a fruit of the Free Software movement.

The Internet finally got a meaning by itself from an original wired network. First, the development of the TCP protocol, followed by the creation of World Wide Web and then, the effort of thousands of contributors around the world in creating tools and applications for browsing the web and exchanging information and data.

Internet has become an important part of our daily lives. From a place where hackers around the world have been sharing and working to build today’s technologies to a place where new online business models are born and individuals are sharing knowledge and information, participating and learning. Internet has turned from a technological advance into a model of building societies.

Nowadays people are taking part in the creation of the Internet, everyone who generates content for the web are actively contributing to defining and building the Internet of the future.

The Internet is presently far away from being free as in freedom, despite its primal nature. People have changed it, by creating services which puts at stake people’s control of their own data. Taking back the Internet and making it free as in freedom, as it was designed from the beginning, is a work who may take a long time and efforts from hackers, lobbyists, regulators, teachers and thinkers. But there is something that day-to-day users, those without much technical knowledge, can do. Yes, you can change the future of the Internet and with that, the future of our digital and civil society.

The content and data we create and share every day in the Net is one of its most crucial parts: video and audio files, text and, in fact, our overall personal data. Internet allows us to exchange, share things and develop a relationship with
other users based on respect and trust. For that, using open standards and open formats is capital.

What could we do?

Educate people about open document formats. Tell them about their importance. This is simple, you don’t have to even enter in the deep philosophy behind. Just say to them which software they should use, which are the most known open document formats types and how they can actually create them. Come together with other people (developers, journalists, artists,
activists) and communities from your region and take action. Document Freedom Day Campaign is meant not only to spread the word about open standards and open document formats, but also, to be a global day on sharing our solidarity for the freedom of our data, our Information, our Internet. The possible activities can range from advocating for the use of Open Standards in our local public administration/schools/universities, organizing an event or giving a presentation to small actions for promoting open document formats. With all this, you can help us spread the awareness about open document formats and their importance for a healthy development of our Digital/Internet/Civic Society.
And remember, Document Freedom Day should be every day of the year .

I started to realize how poweful the internet is, how important the information I access online is and that Internet is the central piece of those “chaotic” free software communities and groups. As a young Free Software enthusiast, I was using the Internet mostly to search for information I needed and to be connected to the local community.
I continued to use Firefox, seeing in it another free software project in its incipient stage. I never thought that it will gather in only 5 years over 24% marketshare or that I’ll become an active contributor.

Sometimes people asked me why I’m contributing to Mozilla and free software/open source in general. I thought some time ago I should write why, what convinced me to dedicate part of my time volunteering to a movement such as Mozilla, and my experience with Firefox.

Internet became indispensable for me, and the Web turned to be a connection with a new, amazing world.
After my first approaches to Internet, I started to develop my first own website, and then to write my first article in the High School Magazine about GNU/Linux and Firefox. By mid 2005, when I started the University I just realized that the web was actually one of my main interests, that big unknown which I was trying to understand (how it worked and how I could contribute). Then I started to help people from my Faculty to organize events like November Web. There I had my first public presentation ever about why contributing to Free Software is different (from a developer point of view), which are the benefits of using free software… And I used as example: Firefox the young browser which started to gather more and more attention from the wide Free Software community, because I thought that is the best example of defining technological freedom and its importance for both normal users and developers.

After some more months, in a Linux workshop I organized I met one of the first Romanian Mozilla contributors and, at the same time, a veteran from a Romanian Linux Users Group. He was one of the first people who translated Firefox into Romanian.

My first true experiences on the web
During some web technologies courses, I started to play more and more with my browser, I used a large number of add-ons, played with other Mozilla projects such as Calendar. Then I saw that Firefox was becoming an increasingly important tool at our courses, and part of the projects consisted in developing extensions for Firefox.
This was the moment I realized that Mozilla Firefox had not only given to me (and to others) the freedom to access the web and feel more secure online, but also the possibility to learn and discover the beautiful part of open technologies.
This made me interested in learning more about what’s behind of Firefox and how a simple open source project gathered the attention of such a wide number of developers and Internet users.

Shaping the Mozilla principles
Some confusing times were coming. My main focus was in maintaining and building the regional community around the GNU/Linux operating system and speaking to people about Free Software philosophy. Every time when I talked about the benefits of Open and Free Software, one of my examples was Firefox. But, at the same time, I was angry that I couldn’t clearly explain to people the principles behind Mozilla ( which I was trying to shape into my mind). I read and searched for examples from the history of the web in order to begin to understand the Firefox effect (which for the Free Software community was considerable).

There were two facts that attracted my attention towards Firefox and Mozilla: the fact that Mozilla had been one of the first “bazaar projects”, and Firefox as its main project, which has happened to be liberating the web after 10 years of its birth.

By the mid of 2007 I heard about Mozilla history by first time. Thanks to Zak I was able to shape on my mind what those lizards were doing. Afterwards, one of the things I did was going and reading the Mozilla Manifesto, which was released just 2 months before.
Then, everything was was easier to understand and, since then, I started to tell about Mozilla to others.

I want to be a *Lizard (now Mozillian)! Discovering the power of a worldwide community.
One of my aims in those times were to spread the awareness about Free Software and open source development model among people. I realized that the Internet became part of daily life for more and more people (how much time are you using your browser as Desktop background?) and the browser one of most used piece of software.

My life changed a lot because of leaving Romania, LUG and other projects. I started to think how volunteering Mozilla could be (even I had actually done that in the past by spreading the word at events, presentations, meet-ups), how to begin… For a moment, it seemed to be impossible, because I was living in a new country, losing somehow the connection with Romanian community members.

And yes, this was the moment when I finally discovered how easy is to get involved or, no matter where you are, no matter if you are an experienced developer or just a free software enthusiast, designer or translator.
Indeed, I can’t disregard the importance of understanding Mozilla principles and focusing on some ideological aspects had in becoming a contributor in the end. This make my passion stronger.

Letting stories a part, the 5th birthday of Firefox, MozCamp EU 2009 and some discussions I had with other Mozillians made me think about how the future of the Web would look like. And now, in my mind, there are these questions: the Internet is giving us the freedom we need? How free (libre) is the web?

Looking back at the Mozilla principles, and the aim of Firefox, I can sort out the following points:

1. Internet has become part of our lives and has to be a public resource. Everyone should be free to USE the Internet.
2. Internet should allow every user to have their own experience on the web, LEARN about and STUDY the web / web tools we use. Opportunity is important in order to maintain a continued healthy development of the web
3. Building open technologies. Every user should be free to SHARE their experience with others.
4. Every individual should be allowed to IMPROVE the web they use. Participation is the key to innovation on the web. Security and interoperability are other mandatory aspects of a healthy web

.

All those 4 web liberties may lead us to a new age of Internet freedom.

It is not hard to realize that the Web is now living a critical moment in its development.
Mozilla started an Internet revolution 11 years ago. With the devotion and trust of a large number of hackers and supporters 5 years ago, Firefox was released and in this way Mozilla started to (re)build the freedom of the web. A freedom which is now living some moments of incertitude.

Two other interesting articles for reading: by Ars technica and Chris Blizzard.