So I have decided to send them a letter and just ask them all things I'd like to know.

Letter content and structure

I sent them the letter mentioned above by e-mail. The precise email text can be seen here. All questions raised were attached to e-mail in two RTF files. The first file contained questions in Czech, the other in English. The questions were the same just the language was different. You would maybe wonder why I also sent them the English version of the questions if the original audience were Czech people. There were actually two main reasons. The first reason was that I needed English answers to these questions for this article (English version) and the second reason was that I wanted to prove czech political parties' language skills. (Although you could consider last sentence as quite offensive, it is not. There are still some things in that area that need some quite big improvements, see section Results for further details).

Questions I asked the parties can be divided into two main parts generally. There are questions in part one that touch parties's general European computer science/telecommunication policy in terms of general strategy, main objectives and means through which they want to meet these objectives. There are questions regarding parties' attitude towards free software, open-source movement and software patents in part two. The total number of questions is thirteen plus one special question for Greens only.

The implementation

I found the complete list of the czech political parties which candidate into EP on the web presentation of Prague's European Parliament Information Office. Then I found the parties' websites and got from them their contact e-mails. I got the e-mails for all parties except two of them.

The first party for which I wasn't able to find a contact e-mail was party called "HOB-HELAX-Ostrava se baví". I was able to find only e-mail contact to radio HELAX which resides in the same building as the political party. As I found that some of the radio HELAX employees are also the members of mentioned oplitical party I sent the e-mail to the radio. I hope it would arrive into right hands somehow.

The second party I wasn't able to reach was party called "N - Nezávislí". There was no presentation on their website. So I sent an e-mail to info(at)vladimirzelezny.cz addres as Dr. Zelezny is the leader of that party.

Let me also highlight following thing. There were not only single political parties there were some collective parties too. By the term 'collective party' I mean parties who worked together and prepared one list of candidates (individual people) that contained people from all allied parties and since then they have been acting towards EP as the only subject. Although it is very likely that the parties' general European policy in computer science/teelcommunications will be very similar if not completely the same I decided to sent the e-mail with questions to each member of the particular collective party.

For completeness' sake I also added into summary results table (see sectin results) the link to website and link to individual candidates list of each party/collective party.

The Results

Results can be seen in summary table below.

During summary results table creation I found one surprising fact which was that even the upcoming alections are the election into EUROPEAN Parliament (I highlight the word EUROPEAN) a lot of parties didn't bother with English version of their www presentations. There were some but not so many. You could also find the German version of www presenattions sporadically. The existence of French language that is often considered as the second official EU language was noted only by one political party. This fact is shocking all the more because is not related only to small parties but also to really big one.

The summary results table has been completed continuously as results have been coming. The last update date and time is stated below the table.

Party number	Political Party (Czech name)	Political party (English name)	Czech www presentation	English www presentation	Individual candidates list link	Answers in Czech	Answers in English
1	SNK/ED - Sdružení Nezávislých a Evropští Demokraté	Union of Independents (SNK)and European Democrats (ED)	link	link	link	no	no
2	KČ/MSČMS - Koruna Česká / Monarchistická Strana Čech, Moravy a Slezska	----	link	----	link	no	no
3	HOB - HELAX - Ostrava se baví	----	link one, link two	----, ----	link	no	no
4	ČSSD - Česká Strana Sociálně Demokratická (PES)	Czech Social Democratic Party	link	link	link	no	no
5	NS/ČSNS - Národní Koalice (Národní Strana / Česká Strana Národně Sociální)	----	link	----	link	no	no
6	ODS-Občanská Demokratická Strana (EPP-ED)	----	link one, link two	----	link	no	no
7	SOS - Strana pro Otevřenou Společnost	----	link	----	link	no	no
8	SDS - Strana Demokratického Socialismu	Party of Democratic Socialism	link	link	link	no	no
9	SZ - Strana Zelených	----	link one,link two	----	link	no	no
10	HA - Humanistická aliance	----	link	----	link	no	no
11	KS - Konzervativní strana	----	link	--	link	no	no
12	SN - Sdružení nestraníků	----	link	----	link	no	no
13	SORC - Strana Občanů Republiky České	----	link	----	link	no	no
14	MDS - Masarykova Demokratická Strana	----	link	----	link	no	no
15	VOS - Všeobecná Občanská Strana	----	link	----	link	no	no
16	DS - Dělnická strana	----	link	----	link	no	no
17	SP - Strana Práce	----	link	----	link	no	no
18	BPS - Balbínova Poetická Strana	----	link	link	link	no	no
19	HSMS/MDS - Za Zájmy Moravy ve Sjednocené Evropě (Hnutí Samosprávné Moravy a Slezska / Moravská Demokratická Strana)	Moravian-Coalition	link	link	link	no	no
20	KDU-ČSL - Křesťanská Demokratická Unie- Československá Strana Lidová(EPP-ED)	Christian and Democratic Union - Czechoslovak People's Party	link	link	link	no	no
21	PB - Pravý blok	----	link	----	link	no	no
22	SZR - Strana Zdravého Rozumu	----	link	----	link	no	no
23	US-DEU/ODA/CZ/LIRA (ELDR) - Unie Liberálních Demokratů (Unie Svobody-Demokratická Unie (EPP-ED) / Občanská Demokratická Aliance / Cesta Změny / Liberální Reformní Strana)	--	link one, link two, link three, link four	----, ----, link three, link four	link	no	no
24	KSČM - Komunistická Strana Čech a Moravy (EUL/NGL)	Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia - CPBM	link	link	link	no	no
25	SV - Strana Venkova	----	link	----	link	no	no
26	SŽJ - Strana za Životní Jistoty	----	link	----	link	no	no
27	Political party no. 27 individual candidates list was refused by the Czech Ministry of Internal Affairs.
28	NEI - Nezávislá Iniciativa	----	link	----	link	no	no
29	S - Svobodní	----	link	----	link	no	no
30	OFD - Občanská Federální Demokracie	----	link	----	link	no	no
31	RMS - Republikáni Miroslava Sládka	----	link	----	link	no	no
32	N - Nezávislí	----	link	----	link	no	no

Last udate date and time: 06-06-2004, 17:51 (SELČ +0 h, GMT +2 h )

Conclusion

Although the article was writen just before the elections (there is no more than five days before elections will start) I hope that delivered answers could help the Czech people to choose the right party.