[en] The Lion is Free, lightweight, and released

[info en fsfla.org]

Campinas, April 26, 2007---Free Software Foundation Latin America
(FSFLA) finished yesterday the process of liberation of Receita
Federal's program IRPF2007.  This work enabled the submission of the
first income tax declaration in Brazil to be prepared exclusively with
Free Software.

A number of months went by negotating with Receita Federal, almost
without progress.  The only concrete step was the publication of
specifications of file formats for the declaration, unfortunately
incomplete.

There wasn't any progress in the regularization of the IRPF2007
program, whose Java version for GNU/Linux infringes on copyrights of
11 Free Software packages, and whose use appeared to violate the
Software Law, that states that a computer program can only be used
with a license contract.

Receita Federal alleged that no further license was necessary, since
it was already implied.  As it turns out, inside the application
package, we found a happy surprise.  The license GNU LGPLv2, a Free
Software license!  This was the implied license!

FSFLA believes that all the software must be Free, respecting the
freedoms to run, study, adapt and distribute the software.  Therefore,
as soon as we learned about the license, we started the process of
"liberating the Lion" [T.N.: income tax is known as "the Lion" in
Brazil], using programs that, starting from the executable, generate
source code that is functionally equivalent.

It's not the corresponding source code that LGPL requires, since it's
missing comments and documentation, but it's something we can already
work with.  In fact, since Receita Federal forgot to publish the
source code of a few LGPLed libraries that it uses in its programs, it
seems reasonable to assume that it forgot to publish its own source
code.

What we did was little more than rendering explicit the freedoms that
we were given, and, because of this, it is possible to create Income
Tax declarations in electronic formats using only Free Software.

IRPF2007-Livre still carries some deficiencies, such as the lack of a
graphical user interface.  We hope that next year Receita Federal will
release a Free version of the program, that works on 100% Free
platforms.

For those who don't use proprietary software, there's still time to
comply with their fiscal obligations without compromising their
freedoms.  The instructions manual, the source code and the license
are available in the address below.


== About IRPF2007-Livre 

It's a Free version of the IRPF2007 program distributed by Receita
Federal, prepared by FSFLA as part of its Campaign against "Softwares
Impostos".

It offers a text-mode interface functionally sufficient to prepare
IRPF declarations for submission to Receita Federal.

It can be obtained, both in executable and source code forms, in the
following URL:
http://www.lsd.ic.unicamp.br/~oliva/snapshots/irpf2007-livre/


== About FSFLA's Campaign against Softwares Impostos 

We understand the Brazilian law, particularly the Federal
Constitution, grant preference to Free Software in the public
administration, both internally, for compliance with constitutional
principles, and in interactions with citizens, for respect for their
fundamental constitutional rights and for compliance with the same and
other constitutional principles.

This campaign, started in October, 2006, seeks to educate public
administration managers about these obligations that are beneficial
both to citizens and to the public administration itself, such that
they pay attention not only to compliance with the law, but also to
respect for citizens and for digital freedom.
http://www.fsfla.org/?q=en/node/153#3
http://www.fsfla.org/?q=pt/node/152 (in Portuguese)
http://www.fsfla.org/?q=en/node/148#1
http://www.fsfla.org/?q=en/node/122#Editorial
http://www.fsfla.org/?q=en/node/120


== About FSFLA

FSFLA joined in 2005 the FSF network, previously formed by Free
Software Foundations in the United States, in Europe and in India.
These sister organizations work in their corresponding geographies
towards promoting the same Free Software ideals and defending the same
freedoms for software users and developers, working locally but
cooperating globally.  For more information about FSFLA and to
contribute to our work, visit our web site at
http://www.fsfla.org or write to info en fsfla.org.

== Press contacts

Alexandre Oliva
Board member, FSFLA
lxoliva en fsfla.org
+55 19 9714-3658 / 3243-5233

Pedro A.D. Rezende
Board member, FSFLA
prezende en fsfla.org
+55 61 3368-6031 / 3307-2482


Copyright 2007 FSFLA

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Permission is also granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of
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http://www.fsfla.org/?q=en/node/157