Corporate Responsibility 2020
Our CSR actions in 2020
Free and open source software at the heart of ERDIL’s activity
The open source world is full of tools that everyone can use and experiment with at home, but also provides robust and effective solutions for professional use.
At ERDIL we prefer to use free software and services, which also comply with privacy and confidentiality. Therefore, it also makes sense for us to support the organisations and foundations which have created the tools we use on a daily basis. They do exceptional (and selfless!) work so supporting them ensures more complete, secure and useful services or software.
A collaborative selection process
With so many free and open source initiatives to choose from, we found a simple way to pick which projects to support.
This year, all ERDIL’s employees were involved. They contributed by nominating the organisations that might be supported (promoting reasons and arguments in favour of each one) and then voting for the shortlist. This process was, of course, carried out in a democratic way even though there was no secret ballot!
This embodies the “collaborative spirit” that exists in the free culture. Furthermore, in order to manage the votes we used a free service, FramaDate, developed by Framasoft which is one of the leading organisations advocating free culture and services in France.
In early 2020, the six shortlisted organisations (nominated by ERDIL’s employees) were:
- Wikimedia Foundation for Wikipedia and MediaWiki (our internal wiki)
- Framasoft for its directory or free software and services
- Mozilla Foundation, mostly for Firefox and Thunderbird
- Debian Project, for its Operating System
- The Document Foundation, for LibreOffice and its open services
- VideoLan for VLC
Wikimedia Foundation, Mozilla Foundation and The Document Foundation: the three chosen organisations
The three “winners”, with the most employees’ votes (multiple votes were possible), chosen for 2020 are:
- Wikimedia Foundation
- Mozilla Foundation
- The Document Foundation
ERDIL’s management decided to provide a one-off payment of €5200, divided between the three organisations.
It is our wish to renew every year our financial support to organisations advocating for the free culture, while maintainin this process based on a collective choice by ERDIL employees.
Philanthropy, an obvious choice for ERDIL… and for you?
Philanthropy is not new at ERDIL, we have supported foundations and associations since 2016, for example making a donation to the Fondation Service Lab (Fondation de France) and contributing in support of the Raid Amazones event.
From this year on, we wish to continue supporting free projects because they have a direct connection to ERDIL’s employees who use them on a daily basis.
And you? Does your employer already help (financially or otherwise) a free project or foundation? Have you, personally, ever thought about it or asked your employer about their policy ? These organisations do an incredible job and are useful in both the private and professional spheres. They need us, you, everyone, especially during this health and economic crisis.
