About a month ago I was at an EU meeting where I met David Callahan who is Deputy Head of Unit for the European Commission in the Information Society and Media Directorate General. (i.e. a very important person, not a minor functionary) He is interested in building the case that 'open source is good for Europe'. It seems that while he _knows_ of the existence of European companies who make a living supporting Open source products or developing using Open Source, he doesn't actually know many personally. So he needs real data with real companies, instead of just 'anecdotal evidence'.
If you have the time, can you send me a paragraph saying: The name of your company What Open Source products are contributing to your financial success How many employees you have and if you would be interested in disclosing financial information to him that could indicate how OS is helping European economies. He is particularly interested in small consulting firms. He thinks that the EU hasn't been counting them when it has been trying to measure its own IT industry, which results in people concluding that we don't have much of one. You can say more, of course, but since he will probably contact you directly, there is no need to tell all in the first mail. I've promised to send him lists of companies every week, so that his mailbox doesn't overflow with mail from all you folk. Thanks very much for your time, Laura Creighton _______________________________________________ EuroPython mailing list EuroPython@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/europython
