[pp.int.general] Pirate Party of Germany replaces proprietary software with FLOSS(?)

[Sebastian Nerz]

 Hello,

 to (perhaps) cut a long discussion short:

 1) Yes, I have been a member of the CDU. I have explained my reasons 
 lots and lots of times and I never made a secret out of this. I have 
 several questions regarding my oh-so-evil history in my public 
 Formspring-account, there are recordings in every candidate questioning, 
 ...
 You are free to believe that human are unable to change - but I am 
 wondering what you are doing in politics then ...


 2) No, the pirate party of Germany is not on the vogue of breaking in 
 parts. Quite the contrary: We are working on repairing the problems and 
 cracks acummulating in the last years. The Pirate Party Germany has 
 grown to round-about twelve times its size in a year. Adopting internal 
 structures and work-processes is not easy, but right now its looking 
 better then ever.

 @Nils: Hamburg is free to apply for the next voting-BPT. It has been 
 free to apply for the last one (or the next programmatical BPT). It did 
 not do so. And I don't remember southern pirates critizing the BPT in 
 Hamburg (2009). To my surprise I realized that the way Heidenheim to 
 Hamburg is actually the same as the way Hamburg to Heidenheim... Of 
 corse this is such a surpring turn of events that I invite anybody to 
 re-check my results (oh and actually it would be 
 Hamburg-Heidenheim-Hamburg vs. Heidenheim-Hamburg-Heidenheim).

 Germany is quite a large country. To accomplish a fair system it was 
 decided that the BPT should be rotated over the whole nation. If there 
 ever is a better system for handling this, we will glady adopt it. Until 
 that joysome day we should continue rotating. At least then everybody is 
 able to flame someday.



 3) The federal board of the Pirate Party Germany would have loved to 
 use FLOSS. There is not a single FLOSS alternative available which would 
 be able to fill our needs. Rene (our treasurer) searched for two years, 
 others have searched, there is no floss-solution available filling our 
 needs. Sorry. There are several tools available for basic book-keeping - 
 but none of this is sufficient for our needs. And yes, they have been 
 tested.

 We would glady support the development of a FLOSS-alternative and we 
 always said so. We have said so in every meeting of the federal board 
 talking about the software, we have said so in an announcement and on 
 the federal discussion list.

 So far not a single team and/or developer has contacted us wanting to 
 develop a solution. The Pirate Party Germany exists for 5 years - so far 
 we haven't produced a solution. But we need one and we need it *now*. So 
 right at this moment we don't have any alternative to using 
 closed-source software.

 YES we would love to use FLOSS. YES, we would like to support a 
 FLOSS-development.

 I'm looking forward to seeing a FLOSS that can handle membership, 
 finance controlling, donation-controlling (and certified donation 
 receipt-building accepted by the tax authorities) usable by non-nerds. 
 But you will excuse if I dont believe in it.


 4) In order to keep this list in workable conditions I invite critics 
 to discuss internal affairs of the Pirate Party Germany on our own 
 lists. I was under the assumption that this list should be available for 
 international affairs. And as far as I know there is quite a long list 
 of international threats to freedom at the moment ... Its annoying that 
 we spend more time discussing tools then we spend discussing e.g. the 
 european plans to monitor bank accounts and flight-plans...

 regards,

 Sebastian