Fri, 17 Apr 2009 07:37:04 +0000
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IRPF-Livre 2009: The struggle against “Softwares Impostos” goes on

The deadline to turn in income tax returns to Receita Federal do Brasil is approaching. RFB wants you to prepare yours using a trojan horse it created and controls. FSFLA, once again, offers a solution: IRPF-Livre 2009.
http://www.fsfla.org/~lxoliva/fsfla/irpf-livre/2009/ (in Portuguese)

RFB's failure to abide by the Brazilian Federal Constitution remains: it is incompliant with the constitutional principle of publicity, even after a demand backed by the transparency law, for denying citizens the possibility of verifying, through inspection of source code, that the programs it offers work in accordance with the tax law in force.
http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_Ato2004-2006/2005/Lei/L11111.htm (in Portuguese)

Even after legal procedures, it still imposes on taxpayers inconstitutional demands, of using a specific program to present information required by law, instead of setting a Free Open Standard for the forms, enabling multiple compatible implementations, among which RFB's own, which should in turn be Free Software.
http://www.fsfla.org/stdlib/
http://www.fsfla.org/anuncio/2007-03-irpf2007

Once again, to protect citizens' rights to freedom, to safety and to privacy, it was necessary to resort to reverse engineering, to find out undocumented changes to file formats in the specification published by RFB, so as to update the program IRPF-Livre, that we first published in 2007.
http://www.fsfla.org/texto/denuncia-irpf (in Portuguese)

Take advantage of the upcoming holiday to set yourself free, not only from the obligation of turning in your tax return, but also in a broader sense! Prepare your declaration using exclusively Free Software: IRPF-Livre 2009, Free Java virtual machines such as GNU Interpreter for Java and IcedTea, the GNU operating system, and a Free kernel, such as Linux-libre. And then, after you're done with IRPF-Livre, keep on using the others: Be Free!
http://www.fsfla.org/~lxoliva/fsfla/irpf-livre/2009/ (in Portuguese)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_Interpreter_for_Java
http://icedtea.classpath.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.gnu.org/distros/
http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/

About IRPF-Livre

It's a software development project to prepare Natural Person's Income Tax returns in the standards defined by the Brazilian Receita Federal, but without the technical and legal insecurity imposed by it.

IRPF-Livre is Free Software, that is, software that respects users' freedom to run it for any purpose, to study its source code and adapt it to their needs, and to distribute copies, modified or not.

The program can be obtained, both in source and Java object code forms at the following location:
http://www.fsfla.org/~lxoliva/fsfla/irpf-livre/2009/ (in Portuguese)

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/anuncio/2008-04-softimp-irpf-livre-2008
http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/anuncio/2008-02-softimp-irpf2008
http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/circular/2007-09#1
http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/circular/2007-04#3
http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/anuncio/2007-03-irpf2007 (in Portuguese)
http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/circular/2007-03#1
http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/circular/2006-11#Editorial
http://www.fsfla.org/svnwiki/anuncio/2006-10-softimp

About FSFLA's “Be Free!” Initiative

It's a project to renew the original goals of the Free Software Movement: not just promote Free Software itself, but rather Software Freedom, achieved by a user only when all the software s/he uses is Free Software.
http://www.fsfla.org/befree/

To make this goal achievable, besides awareness campaigns and speeches and the activities against “Softwares Impostos”, FSFLA has maintained Linux-Libre, a project to set and keep Free the non-Free kernel Linux, most used along with the Free operating system GNU.
http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/
http://www.gnu.org/distros/

About Free Software Foundation Latin America

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@fsfla.org.

Press contacts

Alexandre Oliva
Board member, FSFLA
lxoliva@fsfla.org
+55 19 9714-3658 / 3243-5233
+55 61 4063-9714

Copyright 2009 FSFLA

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