Promoting Openness by “Patching” European Directives: Internet-Based Campaigning during the EU Telecoms Package Reform
Yana Breindl · Journal of Information Technology & Politics · 2011
This article analyzes how activists, rooted in the Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) movement, interfere in European Union decision-making in order to advocate principles of freedom, openness, transparency, access to information, participation, creativity, and sharing. The analysis is based on a case study of a French activist group's campaign against the strengthening of copyright enforcement measures and for Net neutrality in the reform of the Telecoms Package—a set of five directives regulating the European Union's telecommunications sector. I discuss how free and open source principles sustain their action repertoire and claims during the campaign in the light of recent literature regarding Internet activism and the FLOSS movement.