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U.S. Asked to Put Purchasing Power to Good Use
James Love writes "Today Ralph Nader and I wrote U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch
Daniels to ask the federal government to use its power as a big consumer to
address competition issues in the market for PC client software. These are
some of the practices we want OMB to examine: OMB is asked to provide information on federal expenditures for Microsoft products, determine if a software "monoculture"
makes the federal government more vulnerable to computer viruses or unauthorized access to federal computers, and to consider a number of strategies to use the US government's purchasing power to promote competition and make Microsoft behave; OMB is asked to consider if Microsoft should be required (as a matter of procurement policy) to fully disclose the file formats of its office productivity and multimedia programs, so that the data created in such programs could be reliably read by non-Microsoft software; OMB is asked to consider if it should place a cap of the market share for any one vendor of PC client software, and have the size of the cap depend upon Microsoft's willingness to open up its interface information, or port its MS Office products to additional platforms; OMB is also asked to consider if it would be more efficient to buy code for office productivity products (and release into the public domain), rather than spend billions to lease software."
BBC News reports that IBM has signed a major contract to provide GNU/Linux OS computers to Germany's Interior Ministry, which oversees law enforcement ( IBM signs Linux deal with Germany ). A Microsoft spokeswoman was disconcerted by the news, nonsensically stating that, "Any policy that favours one thing over another isn't helpful." Slashdot ( Germany, IBM Sign Major Linux Deal ).
Kuro5hin has a good story on a new report from Taiwan's official news agency that the goverment is pushing a Software Libre program ( Taiwan to start national plan to push free software ). Not only will the program include software development, but also extensive training and education. Most interesting is that the "national education system will switch to Open Source in order to provide a diverse IT education environment and ensure the people's rights to freedom of information." See also, Slashdot ( Taiwan to Start National Push For Free Software ).
Might Taiwan's initiative be related to a ZDNet News report on some of the difficulties Microsoft's licensing practices are creating in Taiwan ( Taiwan: MS may have violated trade laws )? This issue was discussed in depth on Kuro5hin ( Backlash against Microsoft intensifies in Taiwan; MS investigated for price gouging ).
Governments outside the U.S. are increasingly coming to the realization that it makes little sense to send their taxpayer dollars to Redmond, WA, USA as part of a "Microsoft Tax." Use of open source software not only saves the government money, but also helps to develop an indigenous IT industry.
Will the U.S. government realize the benefits of openness as well? Jamie Love, of the Consumer Project on Technology hopes so. He and Ralph Nader have sent a letter to the Office of Management and Budget encouraging the consideration of various policies that, through software procurement, will address quesions of Microsoft's monopoly as well as other issues ( Procurement policy and competition and security in software markets ). While the letter doesn't specifically recommend the adoption of open source software, it clearly a major aspect to consider.
Below are some of the practices Nader and Love want OMB to examine:
Ralph Nader said "The federal government spends billions of dollars on software purchases from one company that is continually raising prices, making its products incompatible with previous versions in order to force upgrades, deliberately creating interoperability problems with would-be competitors, and is well known for engaging in many other anticompetitive practices. Would a business that was spending this much money be such a passive consumer? "
James Love said "The US Government could easily solve all of its concerns over the Microsoft's anticompetitive conduct by being a smarter consumer. Taxpayers are spending millions to restrain Microsoft's monopoly, and billions to support the Microsoft monopoly. There needs to be a more coherent strategy."
Copyright (c) 2002 by the Information Society Project. This material may be distributed only subject to the terms and conditions set forth in the Open Publication License, v1.0 or later (the latest version is presently available at http://www.opencontent.org/openpub/). Minor typographical corrections made.
Sorry buddy, but M$ and sun are the only two companies that have proven themselves able to support the task. If anything the US gov't would rather have a custom OS written for themselves by Sun or M$ than go to linux.
Nader used to be someone to look up to, but recently he's become yet another bandwagon activist. There's more to competition than being anti-M$.
Linux is dead.
LU
This is a great idea to get MS to behave. The question is, however, will it really work? the government isn't always known for doing what's best for the bulk of the people.
Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, though I'm not yet sure about the universe. - A Einstein
Ralph Nader eh? Everyone's telling me that I'm an idiot for supporting the fellow but everything he does impresses me... ...that's what true freedom is. That's how we're supposed to vote. Not one set of rules as opposed to another. The Independant party should be the only party.
this kind of thing is what MS fears most: one of the world's largest "customers" jumping into the GPL'd software ring. that would not only give alternatives an enormous confidence boost in the eyes of other businesses, but it would start a massive trickle down effect, as all the companies that the government does business with now need to be "compliant" with something not of Redmond.
this is why MS seems to be fighting gpl anything in the US Government tooth and nail. with bsd-style lincenses microsoft could just take the code for little or no effort, and continue to ride on their reputation (nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft), but GPL locks them out nice and tight.
We've been seeing more stories about Governments either being petitioned to change their software buying policies, or mandate certain buying policies for their various departments.
The problem is that the mandates seem somewhat disconnected by technical reality and what software works best in a situation. My suggestion is that perhaps what should be mandated is a minimum standard of interoperability between systems, and a minimum level of openness about the mechanics through which the software achieves the interoperability.
So for example, the US gov't could specify that any productivity suite purchased by it's departments must support completely an open standard file format of their choosing or design. If MS Office chooses to support that file format properly, that there is no cap on how many units of MS Office could be purchased. If they choose not to, then it cannot be considered.
If that policy were applied to many different software application areas then it would quickly matter less where the software came from, and would start to matter more how good the software was.
What is the point here? I got koffice installed by default, and then I have star office somewhere, and then there is open office, and abiword, etc. There are plenty of office products, for free, that the government could use and not pay a dime for. I don't think I want to use my tax dollars for microsoft office, and I don't think anyone else does either.
If we have to though, because they don't want to spend millions of dollars on retraining a work force on how to use one version of office over another, I do believe that the government has the right to ask for the source code. HOw else would they know their vulnerabilities with e-mails like "I love you" and "Wanna see this horse go at it with a squirrel" causing billions of dollars in computer damage, not to hardware in general, but in software and peace of mind.
Which would you decide?
Hey, it's cool to see Nader bashing Miro$oft.
Double bonus: maybe the gov't will listen to him and switch to Linux?!?
/me crosses fingers
Karma: Good (despite my invention of the Karma: sig)
but id rather see the government just move over to linux exclusively
admit defeat, live in decline, be the victim of our own design
Here is a man who rails against "big business" and "strong arm tactics", "big interests" and the like, and here he goes asking "big brother" to flex it's muscles. When are people going to wake up and realize that Nader is a hack, reaching out for publicity.
The Corvair is rolling in its grave.
I knew there was I reason I voted for him.
I wonder what would have happened if he had one.
The city is being overrun by a herd of Lucy Liu's.
Microsoft has the US government in its pocket. Nader doesn't.
We'll probably first need a study to find out the requested OMB study would be worth it . . .
U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels opens the letter, replies with a very wordy letter whose 'jist' is "We'll look into it", and puts the file in the "review" basket (aka the trash can).
Welcome to America, where your letter is viewed, but dismissed unless you have a large audience of constituents backing you. This is how democracy works, for something to happen, a large group must support it.
When Reno took office, she mandated that Justice Department employees use only MS Office, and nothing else. She evicted WordPerfect, the lawyers choice. At that point, everyone who held MS stock got mucho rich, if they bailed in 2000 (like me). WP started its death spiral at that point.
The ironic thing is, Doc Searles of Linux Journal has always advocated govt going in and picking the best product, but he's always whining that they never pick Linux. Duh.
OMB should also consider if dominant office productivity tools, including word processing, spreadsheets and presentation graphics, should be required to provide high quality ports to other operating systems, including platforms such as Linux or the BeOS.
First of all I do not miss MS Office. I think it is a better solution (legally and financially) to make MS not port its code (If the govt can tell them to do that, then they may as well just control them all together) but instead to open up it's office formats. Open Office is fine. I use it all the time and in some ways its better than MS Office (especially it's handling of corupted files). Anyway, the linux port idea I can understand because we all know linux is the big buzzword now but Beos? Haha... thats hilarious. First of all the develeopment of the OS doesn't exist anymore (yes the OS technically exist but its not going to get any better). Maybe they can force Microsoft to write some drivers so that Beos is usable and then port MS Office to it.
can't sleep slashdot will eat me
I would love to know the numbers behind this. I hope if this goes anywhere, we can see some real figures.
How much DOES the Government spend on productivity tools like Office and on desktop software like Windows?
Ian
Ralph,
Nice job on the letter.
The government has used its purchasing power to force COBOL and ADA on us.
Now its time to use its powers for good and force the file-formats to be open.
Whoo hoo!
OMB is asked to examine whether Microsoft source code should be provided to the general public; OMB also requests that the days be made longer, that marijuana should be legalized, that there should be world peace, and that the Supreme Court should have made him president instead.
Please file this additional document under "D" for Delusional.
It really is about time that MS faced some governmental presure from outside the DOJ. Even if it is from a marginalized power.
As more and more governments are embracing the spirit of freedom in their computing platforms (ala' Germany, Mexico, Taiwan, China, etc) I think you will see a point where the US has to rethink their infrastructure strategy to remain compatible with the rest of the world. Then again, there is the whole damn metric system fiasco so maybe not.
Some good points are raised here. Documentation on file formats should be a required aspect of any product, simply because one of the challenges faced with computers is evolving your old data to new systems over time.
I don't agree that the government should be in the role of creating software. Government is not a good entity to choose technologies the free market should adopt. As far as software purchasing costs, you could make a strong argument for companies to provide reduced rates to government entities. But one should also appreciate that the tax dollars outlayed on software is more than made up by the tax revenues coming in as a result of the employment opportunties the software companies generate.
Also, you may call it monoculture but I call it interoperable standards compliance. Get with the program.
I think the true "key to the kingdom" is in the file formats. People are scared to break away from MS file formats more than anything, they are a powerful force in keeping MS in a dominate position.
If the formats where standardized (in lets say XML) it would greatly reduce EVERYONES dependacy on MS.
The government has an even greater reason to fear MS file formats. That reason is REALLY OLD DATA. The government needs to be able to work with extremely old file formats, and if that file format is not standard and has simply been "retired" by a company (MS) they are shit out of luck, and will end up making another company you rich for converting those "Word 2000" docs to "BobbySoft QuickEdit 2035".
As I have mentioned before, I work for the Department of the Navy, and I have seen some deals in progress around here that perhaps is worthy of some scrutiny.
Recently the DoN signed a contract with a company called EDS to essentially transfer all ownership of the Navy and Marine Corps intranet over to this private-sector company. When this transition occurs, all but a few servers, and all DoN workstations and networking hardware will become EDS property. EDS will be replacing it with their own, and sell the old equipment, surely at a profit.
Aside from the several million dollars EDS stands to get from the government contract, they stand to make a pretty penny on some absurd service contracts, let alone what they are getting for selling off our old equipment.
I suspect this is another instance of back-scratching (you know, "You scratch my back, and I'll scratch yours) that makes no business sense at all. Perhaps this warrants some closer attention as well.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
I'm glad to see that this kind of scrutiny is becoming more popular. It has been kind an annoying irony that the Justice Dept has been suing M$ while the US Govt. continues to buy their products.
There's always talk among our elected officials that government spending needs to be controlled and that competitive bidding and cost analysis should be used to arrive at the most fiscally responsible solution. Of course, anybody who has seen the money spent through the defense budget knows that there is a lot of room for improvement.
I'm not real optimistic that this will lead to reforms, but at least it may bring the huge amount of money wasted each year into the spotlight. Remember that our elected officials don't make decisions without substantial money and lobbying involved, and in Microsoft's case that expense will be passed right back to the taxpayers.
Still, with the high-profile government endorsements of Open source in Peru, Germany, and other places, the pressure is increasingly on Microsoft to justify their huge cost and diminishing returns. If nothing else, maybe we'll get a better deal from them.
OMB is asked to consider if it should place a cap of the market share for any one vendor of PC client software store clerk: "Sorry sir, you can't buy that until someone buys a competing product, that company has reached it's market share cap."
Me: "But all the other competing products suck..."
store clerk: "Next."
I'm constantly amazed at the new levels of stupidity reached almost daily in politics.
A modern day witchhunt.
It would seem to me that having a corporate or government OS monoculture is not necessarily an evil thing. M$ aside, I wonder how realistic it is for businesses to advocate using different software and OS for each department. Doesn't that promote institutional incompatability to some extent.
I guess there is some precendent (most graphics departments use Mac even if the rest of the company uses Windows). I just don't follow it as a strong argument in Mr. Nader's letter.
-FC
Everyone likes to point the finger at MS, but unless I'm mistaken, there are innumerable other vendors that sell closed-source software. I don't see them being harassed to open up their source or disclose their file formats, or otherwise give up their IP.
If you have a goal, go for it, but don't use some altruistic view as a sugar coating for some quest to overthrow MS (from what I don't know, well more accurately, don't see -- probably because I don't introduce politics into my software usage).
If there was a "-1 Not Funny", that'd be my most used mod.
I'd like to see this as a win for OSS. As a government contractor constantly looking for ways to bring linux into my workplace, I can tell you that there is still a long way to go before the government rolls out OSS or any non-Microsoft product on a broad level.
Things like Networthiness Policies, Security, and red tape make it difficult. Especially when you have mutiple agencies under different chains-of-command, so don't think that when "The Federal Government approves use of OSS" comes around that the individual fiefdoms will be mass migrating over to Linux/Apache/whatever.
Somewhere in the US Government, people are running Apache as their production webserver. My agency only uses IIS, Apache is not on the 'networthiness' list for this location, so no Apache for me. It's great that the NSA has made their own hardened version of Linux, but here, the security guys says only WindowsNT (not even 2000 yet) is the only approved OS secure enough for our network. Now, multiply this across ALL the federal/state/local agencies.
Even if it was mandated for the government to use OSS, it would take YEARS of retraining people to use this stuff, keeping in mind that alot of the government systems are still running Novell 3.x.
The way to win government (which is my approach), is to influence your specific area, and push it from the bottom to the top. It's one thing to sit there and say "Noone should use default IIS/2000 installs for a production environment". It's a totally different thing to review the existing policies and change them, document them, sending them through committe, and then deploying. (Believe me, it sucks.)
On the other hand, things like this help, another government law that has really helped OSS is Section 508 (The accessability laws). At first, I hated them, tons of pages and web apps still need to be rewritten - how does this benefit open source? 508 happens to read almost word for word with the W3C guidelines, which means that alot of government pages and applications now work in Konq/Mozilla. Good Stuff.
"Today Ralph Nader and I wrote U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels to ask the federal government to use its power as a big consumer to address competition issues in the market for PC client software.
Um... okay, but is it really the perogative of the OMB to "use its power" that way? According to the OMB's own site, it "evaluates the effectiveness of agency programs, policies, and procedures, assesses competing funding demands among agencies, and sets funding priorities." In other words, it's an executive agency designed to ensure that the US taxpayers get the most bang for their buck, efficiency-wise, not to make political statements about reforming corporate behavior. That said,
These are some of the practices we want OMB to examine: OMB is asked to provide information on federal expenditures for Microsoft products, determine if a software "monoculture" makes the federal government more vulnerable to computer viruses or unauthorized access to federal computers,
... this is still a good idea. Seems like the OMB would be entirely interested in making sure that computers and software bought with fed dollars aren't going to be easily hacked.
and to consider a number of strategies to use the US government's purchasing power to promote competition and make Microsoft behave;
But this, no no no. This is still a judicial matter, and any penalty against MS is going to be determined in court. An executive agency would be way overstepping its bounds here.
OMB is asked to consider if Microsoft should be required (as a matter of procurement policy) to fully disclose the file formats of its office productivity and multimedia programs, so that the data created in such programs could be reliably read by non-Microsoft software
Yargh! But THIS is another good idea. Again, it's in the financial interest of the country to make sure we're not "locked in" to certain contractors who could then baloon their prices. Not that that ever happens...
So basically, I think there are some good ideas here with regard to protecting the federal government's investment in software and making sure they're not going down any paths simply because MS wants them to, but trying to wreck the monopoly just isn't in the charter of the OMB. Sorry.
And I consider the purchase of a buggy, insecure, bloated Operating System like Windows a waste of my money. When some Government clerk is just typing up documents on a PC, why do they need a copy of Windows (and presumably Office) when Linux and KOffice or OpenOffice, etc, will do the exact same thing at a fraction of the cost?
I'd much prefer if the government used free, open source operating systems as much as possible, saving taxpayer money and eventually getting me another tax cut (because 4 months is too long to work just to pay your taxes).
Cause it's our damn money, after all.
This is also an excellent time for the US-based portion of our community to follow up with our congressional representatives on this issue. Remember, both the House and the Senate place very little stock in email. If you want to get their attention, use either snail-mail or fax, as detailed above. Snail-mail only costs about $1, fax is even cheaper.
- Go here and get your ZIP+4 code.
- Go here and identify your Congressperson.
- When you click on the "Contact My Representative" button, you will be taken to a form. Ignore it. Instead, click on the link for your Representative and go to their homepage. Hopefully, they will have contact information someplace where you can find it. Copy it into your favorite word-processor.
- Go here and identify your Senators. Again, we hope that they make it easy to find their contact information.
- If you are thinking ahead, save three "empty" letters, addressed to each of the above. This will save time the next time you need to write.
- Use your word processor to write an essay explaining your position. Be verbose. Copy this into each of the three letters you prepared above.
- If you found any fax numbers (and your computer can print-to-fax!) send copies of your letter that way. Otherwise, print it out and send it by regular mail.
Here's a suggested outline for the text of your letter (and, no, I'm not going to write it for you, staffers can spot a form letter a mile away):Nothing for 6-digit uids?
What is this whole idea to buy the code outright from MicroSoft? It is their product, and the idea you force someone to sell their product and the irghts jsut to be gpled is absurd. You may not like the way MS always does its business, but its still their property. You cannot just say im going to buy your code right here and now....
The big goal isn't the government using good software, it's hurting MS.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
I'm sure people like RMS send the government letters like this daily.
Writing a letter to the government (regardless of what 'big name politician' you got to sign it with you) isn't a newsworthy article. What comes of it is.
I just wrote a letter to George W saying he should use linux on his personal computer. Do I deserve recognition? No, unless George switches because of my letter.
I'd rather see results than efforts.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
is this one: OMB is also asked to consider if it would be more efficient to buy code for office productivity products (and release into the public domain), rather than spend billions to lease software.
It would be fascinating to see what would happen if the USG pumped 100 million into the open source driver and gui industry per year. Good, stable device drivers (for newer hardware) and a solid, easy to use GUI are part of what is lacking in the freenix arena, partly because these projects are not as sexy as some more visible projects.
Freenix GUIs suffer from 'featuritis', where features are implimented while usability suffers. And the driver issue just suffers from lack of incentive by the hardware manufacturers.
What do you think would happen if the Government started pouring money into freenix efforts?
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.
...so, in a nutshell, Nader is saying that the government should make an effort to influence the marketplace in a certain direction, rather than letting natural market forces dictate what heppens (questionable/illegal business practices being part of the market).
I'd love to see the rise of Open Source, the fall of Microsoft, etc, as much as the next guy. But I don't want the government using my tax dollars to achieve that (except in antitrust and other legal manners).
The government should research carefully and buy what makes sense. However, no matter how much we all like Microsoft alternatives, in things like office suites, it's disengenuous to argue that there's a viable non-microsoft solution for what amounts to a company of over a million employees. What kinds of deployment and management tools do open source software suites have? How many IT workers are trained to install/troubleshoot them?
Governments in general, and the US government in particular, can just *barely* do their job as is. Asking them to take a leadership role in IT purchasing is like asking Microsoft to take a leadership role in corporate ethics. It ain't going to happen, and the attempt would be an expensive, error-infested waste of time and money for everyone involved.
My opinion is that open source will prevail in the long run -- but I'd rather wait 10 years longer if it meant not setting the precedent of government setting this kind of precedent.
Cheers
-b
"Sorry, but we asked Microsoft and they said no."
--------
It's OK to be social, just don't tell anyone about it.
You're talking about the same gub'mint that repeatedly catches Microsoft breaking laws and as a result has Microsoft promise that they will not do it again, only to keep doing it again? And the same one that even won a big expensive case in court against them only to have the new administration come in and decide it was best to let Microsoft write their own "punishment", which is none at all? And you really thing they would do something against Bill's wishes?
They want to force Microsoft, at the point of a gun, to disclose information about a product they created?
Nobody is making you, or anybody, use MS products. Don't try to use the government's power to abuse companies you dislike.
This is a bizarre idea.
Nader and Love seem to miss the point that the "monoculture" is actually standardization that lets all the different departments and agencies reliably communicate with each other.
And the concept that a company has to reveal their intellectual property in order to do business with the government is a thinly veiled attempt to side-step the legal system's jurisdiction to determine and make restitutions based on monopoly arguments. Does Boeing give Lockheed-Martin detailed specs on the hardware they produce?
I don't want to be here.
How would you actually enforce that? I can see a few potential problems:
1. Unless the specification for these standard file formats is very precise, there will always be interoperability problems.
2. Even if the office software "supports" a standard format, it obviously isn't going to default to that format, so you'll have to deal with the training issues (always use "save as...").
3. Microsoft (or any other commercial vendor) would claim that they need to be able to modify or extend the "standard" format in order to be able to innovate new features. This is actually a valid complaint, and difficult to work around. If you allow proprietary extensions to a standard format, it's no longer truly standard.
I still think this is a good idea, I just suspect that it'd be a whole lot of work to define these standard formats such that they meet the needs of the government and also those of the software vendors.
-Mark
Riiiiing....
"Hello?", says terrorist of the week, Usr BinLinux.
"Dude! You're gettin' a Dell!", says the officer in charge of MS Cruise Missile Deployment.
because the data is only accessible by the $4 billion IRS system, which was DOA. Check back later when the system is back up.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
Open source invites terrorism - study
By Thomas C Greene in Washington
Posted: 06/04/2002 at 08:33 EST
A Washington think tank calling itself the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution is preparing to release a 'study' warning that the widespread use of open source software will allow international terrorists to have their way with us.
"Terrorists trying to hack or disrupt U.S. computer networks might find it easier if the federal government attempts to switch to 'open source' as some groups propose," the group warned in a press release.
We imagine the argument will have to go something like this: Microsoft software is safer because the company carefully conceals its security flaws; thus evil terrorists will never find them on their own. But with open source products, the Evil Doers will be able to audit the source code and find novel weaknesses they can exploit to bring Christendom to its knees.
We say that because we know they can't possibly try to argue that MS offers inherently more secure products. Although they might; as our friend Richard M. Smith points out, the Institution takes money from Redmond.
This could explain why a group purportedly devoted to the 'perfection of democracy' would, with a straight face, recommend the MCSE as a qualification for adult participation in a democratic economy superior to a university degree.
"Effective participation in the American political economy has always been substantially dependent upon an education that goes beyond basic verbal and mathematical skills," the author of this 'study' intones.
And quite right he is; only we rather suspect, like most adults, that a liberal education is the answer to that problem, not an advanced course in rectifying BSODs.
Nevertheless the author cheerfully reports that "87 per cent of Human Resource managers surveyed believed that MCSE's are equally or more successful than college graduates."
We look forward to learning how MS software and its associated usurious licensing schemes will protect us from terrorism. The 'study' is to be released next week. ® The Register
security through obscurity = modding down anti-linux posts so maybe noone will see them
You hit the nail on the head.
And yet, Slashdot's mods already knocked this down to a flamebait. God help if anyone exposes the truth about leftist icons like Nader, but ad hominem attack against Bush will easily garner a troll a +5 Funny. No wonder people flee to K5 in droves.
You have think tanks such as Alexis de Tocqueville Institution warning government in the Post Sept11 world that Open source is inherently less secure than Closed Source.
And to quote : "Computer systems are the backbone to U.S. national security," said ADTI Chairman Gregory Fossedal. "Before the Pentagon and other federal agencies make uninformed decisions to alter the very foundation of computer security, they should study the potential consequences carefully."
This, coming from a guy whose other papers include a report on The Herald Business Journal which opposes the Govt stance on M$. You can see the rest of the studies done by ADTI here
As long as we have people and institutions which are funded and backed by giants like M$, we are stuck in this moment.
Rapid Nirvana
You can get the documentation for the PDF version 1.3 and 1.4 for free there.
I'm going to take that "carrot" and "stick" from your letter and shove them so far up your socialist ass, that you'll wish you had never been born. Socialist bastard, I hope you bleed to death. Slowly.
Boo-hoo! Instead of beating Microsoft in the marketplace, it appears now that Ralph and his band of merry socialists want to use the heavy hand of Government to manipulate the OS market. Why does every problem require a government solution for Mr. Nader? If you don't like Microsoft, don't use their products, tell your friends not to use their products, tell your employer not to use Microsoft and go set up a stupid Geocities free web page telling the world not to use Microsoft. Eventually, if you are not some unbathed OS zealot, people might start to listen. If they don't, don't go crying to Uncle Sam.
I have no problem with the Government diversifying their OS platform for protection against worms, trojans, viruses and other security issues but this is nothing more than Nader bashing Microsoft and trying to use the US Government as the club. Trying to get HIS way, not America's way. The market has already shown America's desires.
I don't remember electing Nader to anything, anyways (but I am glad he runs). Yet, he is constantly trying to bypass our elected officials and influence the bureaucracywith threats of legal action and media assaults. Sometimes, I wish he would have been a an avid Corvair driver.
Disclaimer: I don't even like Microsoft operating systems! I just don't know what's worse, dealing with Windows or listening to Nader's griping!
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Even if this fails to get either some quality control standards into the industry or further the cause of open source, one important fact remains: As long as our congressmen and presidents are old men who remember when UNIVAC was a big deal, we will probably be dealing with technology rule by a mostly technologically unenlightened crowd. In a graph of knowledgeability vs. age right now, you'd notice that the younger crowd knows more, and in a graph of age frequency in government, you'd see an older bunch. I guarantee that in ten or twenty years when a group of politicians with more exposure to the electronic world is ruling, we'll see a lot fewer government blunders as far as their computer infrastructure goes and a more knowledgeable regulation of the industry (CBDTPA, for example, would be less accepted by those who understand its implications.) I know that this is why advisors exist, but let's face it, nothing beats firsthand experience.
~Ben
People, and societies, are slow to defend themselves from abusiveness. Now it finally looks like there will be some effective defense.
I'm very happy with the letter to the OMB. It seems that it will help everyone begin thinking reasonably.
People are saying good things about Open Office. Version 1.0 was just released. Remember that the history of the source code is that it has already been through 4 or 5 major releases.
The lack of a good Office Suite has been a barrier to moving away from Micro$oft Turd ^H^H^H^H^H^H Word.
Governments have a duty not to use proprietary file formats. Governments have a duty not to allow themselves to be locked into an abusive company's money-making schemes.
This might be a good idea, for several reasons, mostly that it might encourage real competition in the market. And there are legitamate reasons, like security and interoperability, to persue this path, but it might have many less desirable effects.
First, imagine a government that uses software and formats that are incompatable with what 99% of the rest of people use, becuase that might well be the situation. Certainly, alternative applications make every effort to read files or data from the latest greatest MS software, but since MS is famous for keeping you guessing with the formats, effectively, the government might often not be able to read documents from the private sector (or the IE only web pages). That would add to buerocratic nightmares.
Also, though I certainly don't agree with the idea that free software is anti-business, I think we do have to ask, might not there be a lot of places where the federal government could save by making a product for themselves? But do we really want the government competing with the private sector? That hardly seems like fair competition. On the other hand, in cases like the postal service this is the status quo. So certainly there's no problem in getting other software, but we probably don't want the government in the business of writing software (for purposes where software already exists), as some people seem to be suggesting.
The biggest reason this may be a bad idea: Bill for President. I mean, hey, if the government turns on MS, then the best solution for MS would be to become one with the government. I mean, Gates has the money and the PR department.
...yeah the last part of was a joke...mostly.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
...unless you are under the naive belief that a government that is an entranched monopoly is still constrained by the forces of individual freedom.
Look, it's really simple. If you don't like Microsoft products, don't buy them (most people pirate them anyway). There are now (finally) enough open source alternatives. If you don't like coke, don't buy coke. If you don't like Ford, buy chevy. But don't be a dumbass and expect the federal government (the root of all evil) to make your moral judgements for you, while you empower these companies with your consumer dollars.
pdf and postscript were released as open standards as a result we have many tools which can read and write these formats. the only problem i can see with pdf and ps is that they are not really ment for editing. while you can edit a pdf, i wouldnt really recommend it. i think xml would be better for long term storage.
-- john
We're going to save money buy reducing (even purposely limiting) standardization and making the systems more complicated?
The basic idea of the Federal Gov't wringing tax dollar saving behavior out of proprietary software vendors is good. Free, open source software seems like a great solution for gov't. But these particular changes would only dramatically increase costs; you've got to standardize on something, whether it's Linux, Windows or whatever.
Fuck you. You're probably nothing but a socialist european pussy. I think the letter is stupid, but I think you're worse. Slashdot is hardly a cross section of the American political situation. Slashdot is dominated by leftist bed wetters like taco and michael. Try keeping your sources in context you socialist fuck.
I'm an on-site gov't contractor at a NOAA line office. Here's some thoughts from my AIM logs (oversimplification, but more or less on the money):
=========
Other: do you think that gov't using free software would change business practices? perhaps more importantly, which affects the other's software choices more: gov't or business?
Me: Business affects gov't.
Me: We can't use oss, practically speaking.
Me: The private sector produces software [mainly] for Windows. We [royal we] have to kick out tons of dough to special interests through our organization to keep the private sector happy. Their software runs on Windows therefore we're going to use Windows therefore we can't really go the open source route. QED.
=========
If I have to hear how wonderful our organization is because we got 33% of our budget out into the private sector one more time... Believe me, gov't agencies are seen and treated on the whole as cash cows, not true opportunities for "innovation".
And the point is that our "partners" in the private sector are, as a rule, every bit as sold out to Microsoft as you can imagine.
Believe me, you don't want the government creating the standard. If you think those guys on the side of the road who *aren't* filling the pothole and end up working 9am-3pm are bad, you should try the gov't's IT sector. What a great job! You don't even have to don a hardhat.
My take is that if any gov't agency takes the Microsoft monopoly issue "seriously", we at the line offices will just have to have paperwork coming out of our ears with a spin on the content saying why it's okay to use Microsoft products "in our particular situation" -- which, when taken across the board, means no change at all.
If you want to stop the monopoly, don't look to government practices to set the precendent. We're not Taiwan (see Linux story on front page), you know.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
The NSA Linux distribution is a piece of shit distribution which wasted $1 million of productive members of society's tax money.
What did the tax payer get for his $1 million? A piece of shit he could have gotten for free (and a far superior product) with OpenBSD and jail.
Bill Gates:
"Ha ha ha! Foolish Americans. Surrender your country at once or I will activate the backdoor in all Windows operating systems and crash every computer on Earth!"
Doesn't seem too far-fetched.
~Ben
As we've seen, Microsoft or other vendors will weasel their way out of legislation or judgements that try to force them to behave a certain way. Economics, however are another matter.
If you want a company to change, don't try to force it on them through laws, hit 'em where it hurts - on the bottom line. Make it in their financial best interest to change, and you may be surprised at how eager they are to alter their behavior.
Slashdot is at its best as an interactive forum, not a PR platform for politicians.
Perhaps if Mr. Love and Mr. Nader posted their ideas on Slashdot *before* they wrote to OMB, they and we would have benefitted from the discussion. Now it looks like fishing for compliments, or more likely, a good old fashioned Press Release (well targeted).
Hilarious! I'm at work & had to do one of those fake cough thingys.
I'm confused so I'll assume he means to limit market share of the market inside the sphere of government procurement, yes? I don't think that Mr. Nader proposes to limit market share in the external commercial world outside the world of Federal procurement contracts and other jiggering and setasides? No?
I hope not because all MS would have to do is buy up everyone else and not rebrand anything. That Linux box you buy would have a MS owned version of Linux on it. Kind of doesn't solve anything does it?
LOL - I guess you didn't read the
"the thing is, you know it too.
thats what makes it hurt so much. "
PART, ROFL.
I have to agree with you (to an extent). Nader has a long history of pushing legislation through government to protect the public from itself.
A perfect example of this is the mandatory airbags in all cars sold in the US. On average, an airbag adds ~$800 the cost of a new car. The consumer doesn't get to choose if he/she wants this safety device -- and especially in this case, it isn't proven to save lives. Not only an example of a failed piece of legislature that won't ever go away, but another choice taken away from the consumer -- another opporitunity to market safety those with an extra $800 wasted. Now we all have to pay for the pyrotechnic devices to sit in front of our faces. Gee, thanks for pushing that legislature through, dick.
Now, to bring this back out to the greater political arena. Typically, Nader is anti-corporation and anti-capitalism. I find it hard to believe that a (generally) Libertarian community like Slashdot would sell-out free-thinking ideals for a little bit of Microsoft bashing from a guy like Nader who is not only anti-corporation, but anti-consumer-freedom (even though he claims to be a consumer advocate) -- and he is also pro-big-government taboot (which, by and large, Slashdot does not seem to be). This Microsoft-limiting is a similar tactic -- rather than let the courts handle Microsoft's antitrust problems -- he wants to administratively force the issue, bypassing our way of doing things...again contrary to Capitalist (and/or Libertarian) ideals.
Practically speaking, there are many ups and downs to having the US government's IT systems be completely heterogenous...and I'm not going into them, because my point is that no matter how much you like Nader and the Green Party that he represented -- there is no escaping his politics. He is for more government regulation than you can shake a stick at, the regulation spanning into everything we do -- no thanks Ralph.
Why can't people like Nader just look out for themselves, and leave me to take care of myself?
-Turkey
-Turkey
--- I'll have a Bloody Mary, a Steak Sandwich and a uh Steak Sandwich.
Is Nader trying to redeem himself, having served as a Florida spoiler in Nov. 2000? If he got the Feds to kick the M$ habit, he might just do that.
Of course, this might force many people to avoid GPL'd software, just because Nader's name is associated with the request to OMB.
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
The GPL in no way locks Microsoft out. They could gather up the source code and ship MSLinux tomorrow if they were so inclined. They could even mix in some of their own software to preserve their Monopoly, similar to what Apple's OSX has done with Darwin and BSD.
Of course, don't expect to see it done any time soon. They have a lot of money invested in their current windows architecture. They also have a long history of forking or restarting projects and standards such that they don't have to be accountable or compatable with other people.
Thank you!
I'm glad that someone is making sense here. Why can't I just look after myself, and avoid having the government make judgements for me??
-Turkey
-Turkey
A feature is an objective attribute such as "provides variable-sized fonts". It is not something like "must be identical to MS Office". Just as a bid for cars will specify horsepower, gas mileage, etc. and cannot say "must be identical to a Ford."
Something like StarOffice or even OpenOffice would satisfy the needs 99% of all government workers. We're talking about basic office documents and memos, nothing exotic.
Surely there must be actual RFPs somewhere, if only as a formality to satisfy the law, that end up being won by MS. Who bids on these, and why does MS always win? Even if you sold them OpenOffice for $1 a copy, perhaps enhancing it (under GPL) to add some arcane feature or two that currently only MS has in order to satisfy the RFP, you could become quite wealthy. If it meets the requirements of the RFP and has a lower price, the government must accept the bid, in order to minimize the cost to the taxpayers.
Zoophillia WR0X0R!
If you're taking requests, I'd like to see Sarcasta in a bikini with a randy dolphin!
I would say that Nader has a large enough constituency, and has proven himself capable of making enough noise, that his letters are not summarily round-filed.
Just a guess, but I don't think any government official is eager to be portrayed as being wasteful of taxpayers money. Particularly not Republicans, since that is the main way in which they differentiate themselves from the Democrats.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
You are defending the monoculture of one company providing a single, one-size-fits-all product for everyone. A product that they change whenever they want to, by the way. A monoculture of supplier.
What's wrong with a monoculture of well-defined standards instead? You can use any word processor you want, as long as it saves documents in "THIS" well-defined file format. Ditto for spreadsheets, presentations, address books, web browsers, web servers, etc. It's still reliable, compatible, and interoperable -- perhaps more so than that which is proposed by the single supplier who occasionally decides to redefine what they provide. Call it a monoculture of data, if you will.
Governements departments and large businesses BUY software and own the source code, except for PC OSs.
They should be forced by law to BUY and not lease all the software they run on their machines. Stop all acquisitions of any licences. They can only renew licences on software that's already installed.
I've written a lot of code for large businesses and for municipal, state/provincial and federal govermnents in two countries. The only time they DON'T get the source code is on code from Microsoft or on some packaged code running on Windows.
All mainframe, mini/departmental, proprietary code has to be compiled onto the target host as part of the migration process from purchasing/development, testing, integration and production/deployment.
If you're a purchaser shelling out a couple of million for a custom software package, you damn well better get the source or you'd better not have a board or an electorate to answer to.
Requiring the purchase of the code, not just licences, will cause a major change in the way Microsoft works but not in the way the rest of the world works.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Exactly when did the gov't switch to Word; I thought they used Wordperfect for everything...
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
It is not all obvious to me that forcing the US Government to buy from multiple software vendors in order to "level" the economy in any way is a "good use" of its purchasing power. The (bad) premise in the headline is that a communist/egalitarian society/economic system is better than the current mixed-bag of capitalism and socialism.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
If Nader declares "Americans should never dress up like Carmen Miranda in public", you'd start seeing fruit salads over every Republican's head.
http://graduate.gradsch.uga.edu/etd2/ghost.htm
The NMCI (contract mentioned above) is already being put in place in a couple bases already. The base I am at already has 1000 'NMCI seats'. The rental cost for the Windows 2000 (only thing NMCI will deal with) ranges from 200 to 350 a month for 3 years. You pay additional for a developer's seat (which allows you to change the configuration) since they may have to come back and reinstall windows so you play an extra support fee. Not only are the computers rented, it seems that if your software is not on the 'approved' list, you have to have a different computer running that software on a different network and is causing many people to have two computers on the desk. One 95/98 machine to run the program that was written originally for either DOS or 3.11 which does not work on an NT based computer to do their job and another computer to check email (the NMCI computer). The software that are considered a legacy application will 'either disabled or placed on a central workstation for people to share' which may cause problems with older billing and other 'private' (not security clasification) systems that should not shared.
Link:
https://nmci.navair.navy.mil
look, for better or worse, ms put a lot of time and money into developing their file formats. and they are theirs to do with as they wish. being convicted of improperly using monopolistic powers in regards to the browser wars is totally separated (by the courts) from the office productivity markets. honestly, taking aware intellectual property by forcing them to turn over file formats is crazy. if the [star|open]office people want file formats, then either reverse engineer them (legally), or make your own.
It's an interesting thought they propose, that if the US Government is keeping documents in certain formats, and those formats aren't available, is it really readily accessable data?
Not that I really want everything to be ascii. But if they come out with a power point presentation, and I want to read it, up until Open Office, MS Power Point was my only option. (I am sure there may have been others, forgive my ignorance)
I would think that if they are required by law to disclose all of this information, they should be required by law to disclose it in a fashion that is accessable to all people. Maybe the best fashion is indeed MS-Word Doc format, in that case, before they use it, they should make sure that they have the ability to disclose the format of the file.
In other words, on the surface, looks like a good letter!
--Brett
Like it matters.
Using procurement in this fashion is an interesting tactic. How does OMB account for GPL "purchases"?
Are you kidding me? You do understand that Ralph Nader is the man who brought Detroit to their knees at the height of their influence and power don't you?
I would venture to say that his influence is enough to cause serious change.
Stop being so damned cynical and participate in the process. If you feel disenfranchised in America, it is most likely because you spend more time on /. bitching than acutally doing the hard things it takes to make real change.
HTMLDOC is what i use. it's available on both UNIX and Windows platforms, is released under the GPL and does a good job for what i need (converting web reports to PDF for printing -- i wrote a wrapper for the binary). there may be some limitations for advanced stuff but this formats tables well, displays images, and supports color... sounds good to me.
fear is the mind killer
Does anyone on this board ever look before you spew.
From netcraft
The site www.usps.com is running Netscape-Enterprise/4.1 on Solaris. FAQ
The site www.house.gov is running Netscape-Enterprise/4.1 on Solaris. FAQ
The site www.senate.gov is running Netscape-Enterprise/4.0 on unknown. FAQ
The site www.whitehouse.gov is running unknown on Linux. FAQ
The site www.navy.mil is running Apache/1.3.14 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.6 on Solaris. FAQ
The site www.army.mil is running WebSTAR/4.2 ID/70636 on MacOS. FAQ
The site www.airforce.com is running Apache/1.3.22 (Unix) PHP/4.1.2 on Linux. FAQ
The site www.usmc.mil is running Lotus-Domino/5.0.7 on unknown. FAQ
WOW! Solaris, Linux, MacOS.... WTF... Where did all the IIS servers go. Soem say the US Army is the dumbest brach of the US Armed Forces and they run MacOS. Maybe Linux is too complex for the grunts.
If they were to do that, there would be no way that they could make the kind of profit on MSLinux or any gpled software that they do now.
As you said, their embrace and extend tactic would not work with GPLed software. Which is a great thing about GPL software.
The United Troll Movement has a very large base of ACs and therefore i just have to agree with the parent post. Done finely!
Could you offer documentation, please?
How do projects like gv, Multivalent and xpdf (among others) manage?
DNA just wants to be free...
We, the United Troll Movement ask you, what is the CDPB ?
I agree that MS should not be forced to do anything particular about their file formats; they (should be / are) free to make them as obfuscated or open, efficient or ludicrously wasteful as they'd like.
That said, in the interest of responsible stewardship, anyone spending tax dollars (extracted by intimidation, spent much more freely) should be obligated to spend it well and frugally. Open file formats should simply be one of the requirements to describe intelligent tax-paid purchase of any software.
So, force should not enter into it; instead, those people charged with advancing the general welfare and flush with their extortion money should at least have the courtesy to actually avoid reducing the choices of citizens, or spending money on extravagant purchases. Choosing a single-vendor file format is risky on both counts.
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Between ASCII, simple HTML and PDF (though its non-editability is a pain), a huge chunk of documents can be reliably stored and presented with a good chance that a user will be able to examine them using a variety of tools / operating systems etc. for the short- and middle-term future.
:)
...
Open Office is great though, as you say
And since the file format is open, I think that would satisfy me, even if it's not plain ascii
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Are you kidding...
Interoperability is the single most important element to keeping the multi-headed hydra that is the FedGov working. Telling them they have to consider other, inferior and non-supported products and buy them (most likely in a percentage as is usual with FedGov) means the following:
1) No support means you loose efficiency or are forced to hire more governement employees at high salaries to support this software.
2) You save up front, but long term costs from additional salaries for new employees skyrockets, meaning you have higher end costs.
3) You have to dip into your warehouses for 486 and Pentium boxes that will actually work with open source software... drivers that work are scarce and hardly reliable unless you get the very rare hardware manufacturer version.
4) You have now opened up your entire secret FedGov network and servers/workstation to unlimited hacking and theft thanks to everyone knowing how this junk works.
Good job Nader, you political hack...
Also, having worked in the military for years, this cracks me up...
OMB is asked to consider if it should place a cap of the market share for any one vendor of PC client software We did this with trucking companies for shipping military goods and wares around the country (Between bases and depots). All this does is ensure that everyone gets a piece of the government pie and that they really do not have to worry about their prices or being competitive since they know they get a share. Costs the tax payers tons. No thanks Nader, you dweeb with a need for the camera.
For some information about this, see here, here and here.
Also, it's not just "several million dollars" . . . it's nearly $7 billion.
Governments *do* and *should* try to use their purchasing power for the public good, whenever it's practical. In many cases, there are several competing products in the same price range that would all do the job as well. So why not spend the money where it has the greatest number of positive side effects?
An example of this is the purchase of fleet vehicles- postal Jeeps, police cars, etc. Usually, by law, these must be American cars. This helps the American auto industry, provides jobs, generates wealth, more tax revenue, etc.
In other cases, such as with the defense industry, the money spent there subsidizes civilian aviation, providing jobs, etc., but also enabling commerce with more affordable passenger and cargo jets.
Similarly, spending money on OSS not only gives the government/taxpayers better value, it also enables commerce by spurring development of more OSS- which everyone can use, for free! This is an investment in our future, just like building highways. Furthermore, it provides more building blocks for even more OSS.
Keep this in mind: the reason Microsoft has been able to make so much money is that its products make other businesses more efficient, enabling so much more commerce. But imagine how much more wealth would be created if the money earmarked for Microsoft, however relatively little, could be spent generating more business instead. Look at a typical company's IT budget vs. its marketing budget, and you'll see what I mean.
I don't see any responses that address this clearly, but in our bureau (of a gov't department), the main issue is support. We are not allowed to consider free software, since there is no vendor to stand behind it and call up for support. So we'll use Solaris, but they won't use openssh, we had to purchase ssh from ssh.com (that should answer that question "Why would anyone pay for an ssh implementation (or client for that matter)?" for you :)
Lacoste
Vidi Vici Veni
Thanks for the sig
I once ran across some slightly inebriated normal citizens who had gotten hold of a computer magazine.
They were doing "dramatic readings of this alphabet soup", as they explained it to me, accompanied by gales of laughter. Listening to them, I had to admit it was funny, but I don't think we were enjoying the same joke.
OMB probably thinks linux is an excel macro.
This has to be the dumbest idea I ahve heard on /. in almost 72 hours, and there were many to pick from.
People want to be productive/efficient, even govt employees. Using open source software from a variety of vendors gets you as far away from that goal as you can get. Forcing the gov't to, on opurpose, make people inefficient is a huge waste of tax dollars.
People choose to MS Office because it is superior to any, and I mean any, other comparable software on the market.
Ralph Nader is unsafe at any speed.
I'm still working on a clever footer.
Ralph Nader already has his moment at the top of the world. His clout has long been exhausted and now he only sits on the top of the sun, melting away like Frosty the Snowman.
Moreover, Bush owes Nader a huge favor. Gore would be in the White House right now if it weren't for Nader. He did more to help Bush into office than all of W's energy company cronies put together.
A proprietary Windows GUI/API running over Linux. MS Office for Linux. Plenty of money there.
Yes, Linux itself underneath would have to be distributed free. So what. Small and dwindling part of the cake.
Ross Perot succeded in being the spoiler who (the election from G. Bush Senior, giving us Clinton. I don't listen to him but enough people do or did to have a substantial effect in that election (and a lesser effect since).
Nader sure as hell gave this election to GWB (yes I know the greens don't agree .. flames > /dev/null). OMB will listen. They may not act. It doesn't matter that his 3% won't win funding, just that he profoundly influenced who's in power.
Fortunately times have changed since the mid-90's when bascially no competitors or PC manufacturers could be found who would testify against MS due to their oft demonstrated willingness to adjust licensing terms to the detriment of people who.
Yes it looks like GWB did his best to call off DOJ's will to actually enforce the law by meting out an actual penalty. Hopefully the narrowness of Bush's victory(sic) is one element of why the dogs haven't been *totally* called off.
Fortunately this in effect means that the non-settling states and the various coalitions who believe are in fact not listening to GWB (Mr "I believe in innovation").
So like nader, I do not. Be glad that Nader is going to push this on OMB, I am.
Ohh and if you havent' noticed there are a certain fraction of 'publicans who do engage in wearing fruity clothing (classic preppy-wear).
Linux is Linux, if One need clarify their dist: <Dist>/GNU Linux
bsds are of course just BSD
we get this crap
m l
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/25569.ht
Ralph Nader is a fucking commie.
A very good point is made here: it would be a hell of a lot cheaper for the government to simply write their own office suite than to pay Microsoft's purchase and upgrade fees forever. Or, even better, simply use OpenOffice and spend a couple $Billion on making it work just like MS-Office and import/export MS-Office documents.
I mean, really, there is NO reason whatsoever for the government to continue to use expensive proprietary software when, with a fraction of what it costs them to line Microsoft's pockets, they could write and/or adapt Open Source software to do the same thing. The old "we ahve to use it to be compatible with everyone else" argumnt is just bullshit in this case. Everyone else needs to worry about being compatible with the government, not the other way around.
For the US government to consciously spend extra billions on expensive proprietary software when perfectly excellent free alternatives exist is irresponsible, wasteful, and may even violate some laws regarding competitiveness in government purchasing. In any case, here's a good way to save a ton of money when we really need it.
For text-based files, require them to be XML, and that the Schemas be published.
For binary files, specs already have to be precise (whether the spec is published or not) for reliable operation. And as far as extension goes, mandate that any extensions to the file format be made using specific extension semantics imposed by the format itself (i.e., reserved bits w/ a standards body allocating those bits to registered extensions, mandated publication of the semantics of the extensions, etc).
I disagree on this. I think government would benefit and costs would cut if they moved towards a more diversified environment. But I think the damage done from mandatory switching and quota-based changes would vastly exceed the benefits.
Instead, it should be done on a case by case basis, as Open Source (or Mac, or Solaris, or *BSD) alternatives are evaluated and adopted or rejected based upon their ability to fulfill the needs.
You can't profess to having savings, efficiency, and competition as your standard and then turn around and mandate certain behaviors with no regards to what your IT infrastructure would best benefit with.
If/When Linux can fulfill every requirement on the desktop that Microsoft provides, economics will make people switch. How difficult is that to understand?
WinXP is bloated.
Certain parts of this document ask a burecratic agency to implicitly expand their own power and political influence. Government bureaucracy is bad enough as it is, we want don't contribute to the problem. Furthermore, if OMB decides to "review" these things, how can we be sure that they will decide something that is in favor of open OS, or, worse yet, if MS will not achieve some complex legal maneuver that will more firmly entrench them in the government habit and policy?
/. posts. If we don't achieve our objectives with integrity and poise how are we different from whoremongers like MS?
This smacks of the "I don't like the methods, but I do like the outcome" compromise that I am seeing alot of lately on
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
You're talking about the section 508 web content guidelines. See http://www.section508l.gov.
The software guidelines are much different. Assistive technology isn't really working yet with Linux/UNIX/Gnome/X/KDE. Apps on those systems are not generally 508 compatatible. Makes it impossible for blind and other users.
Luckily, Sun is working on accessibility for Gnome (ATK). They're going to add support for ATK in Mozilla and StarOffice as well.
Today Ralph Nader and Jon Barrett wrote U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels to ask the federal government to use its power as a big consumer to address competition issues in the market for PC client software.
You all should get out of your left wing biases for a second to realize that Nader isn't well respected in many circles. He is reviled as a Socialist nutcase by the Right and Libertarians at a minimum as a general rule consider him to be a clueless luddite (hmm isn't that being redundant?)
As much as you all don't want to hear it, Jerry Falwell would be taken more seriously by the current elected government if he proposed this. You need to send a messenger that will be respected by the recipient when dealing with politics. The best person actually to make the case for Linux is Robert Bork. He has come out against Microsoft (in support of the anti-trust case no less) and if he were to tell Bush that Star Office is better, Bush would probably listen.
Remember people, Bush and his people decide WHERE the money will be spent, Congress merely allocates it. If Bush wants to, he can tell the entire federal bureacracy to sign no new contracts and to not renew any contracts with companies like Microsoft and use only OpenOffice.
Some software now contacts the publisher to make sure the license key is valid. We can expect this practice to grow as time goes on. As more and more software enforces licensing by phoning home, we have a new risk.
Suppose some big software publisher, Microsoft or otherwise, were to drop off the net. What happens when their software cannot contact the license servers? Answer: at some point, legitimate users cannot use the software.
So, any entity that depends heavily on a single publisher has a huge risk to contend with. If someone were to sabotage Microsoft by attacking their license servers, then the US Government would encounter a serious disruption. This risk applies just as well to NGO's and private companies. How many of us could do our job if our computers suddenly ceased to function?
--mkb
...referred to in San Diego as the NMCI project. They've all been laid-off because the project is taking longer than expected. It will probably be a long while before EDS makes millions off of absurd support contracts. It's going to take them the next few years to get all of the widely-varying platforms consolidated. Then, if they don't get sued out of the contract, they can try to milk the support contracts. The old equipment? Probably will end up costing them money to dispose of it properly. To them, I say good luck...
By the way, it's no longer Ross Perot's company.
It's all Hood
binary file format = closed proprietary format!!!!! (unless the binary file is a pirated MP3, of course)
He should be here, trumpeting how this will DESTROY the entire computing industry!
Was it in Carl Sagan's CONTACT that there is a Hadden Cybernetics product that is able to identify political speech that is confiscated by the government? Likewise, the government could confiscate from Microsoft the source code to Orifice...
If I met with my representatives in Congress, I'd have just one question for them (about this issue :)
What, exactly, do we get for our money by spending $X billion on Micorsoft licenses that we couldn't get from Free-as-in-Beer Open Source software? File format compatibility? Feh! The government of the greatest and most technologically advanced nation on Earth is stymied by a few file formats into wasting billions? Puh-LEASE!
I disagree that the Republicans still use fiscal conservatism as a point of difference with Democrats. Republicans are just as free with the money as Democrats. The difference is where the money goes. Democrats lean more toward social welfare and environmental spending, whereas Republicans lean toward corporate welfare and military spending. Fiscally speaking, Democrats and Republicans are just two sides of the same coin.
The real point of difference between Democrats and Republicans these days is social policy. Republicans are far more conservative in general, being led on the right by christian organizations. Democrats are more liberal, being led on the left by civil libertarians and environmentalists.
While I would agree that the whole licensing scheme is lame as hell, MOST companies don't just give away their source code when you buy an application from them if the software is available at the retail level. I'd personally LOVE the source code for photoshop, but I don't think Adobe is going to send it to me if I shell out the big cash to buy the application (or the 149 bucks for the upgrade). If you don't live in the world of open source, giving away the source of an application you're trying to sell seems like an alien concept.
Argh! This gets me every time how the English language is misused in American English. The following phrase in the submitted story:
Today Ralph Nader and I wrote U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels to...
should read:
Today Ralph Nader and I wrote to U.S. Office of Management and Budget Director Mitch Daniels to...
since 'write' in this context needs a direction, such as 'to', 'from', 'back to', 'on'. If the text is left as is it a bit like saying 'I wrote Star Wars', which is an indication that I wrote the titled text.
Ralph Nader already has his moment at the top of the world. His clout has long been exhausted and now he only sits on the top of the sun, melting away like Frosty the Snowman.
This is why 7000 people showed up in Tampa to hear him speak at Demoracy Rising? I didn't realise...
t'nera semordnilap
Who wants the government regulating what software all its employees must use?! Oh, wait, its saying not to use MS software? That's ok then.
If the same article talked about someone proposing that GPL'ed software be regulated by the Office of Management and Budget people would be up in arms about government interference.
free market economy = bad when it turns out against me
Thats why George Bush is president and Nader is not.
I don't want to sound patronizing, but I suspect that many of the technically highly knowledgeable people here have never worked in an office environment producing complex documents. (Now before a bunch of people reply that yes, they have, and yes, they did it all on Linux, etc. please understand that by reading Slashdot you are _already_ the exception.)
The point is that, yes, there are "office" alternatives. But you're not going to use KWord to do a 200 page complex document with page facings, two dozen sections, automatically updating table values from external sources and cross-references, and integration of charts and other graphics. You're just not. Nor are you going to use Abiword. In fact, even if you try to use WordPerfect you're going to have a difficult time because Word _just makes it easier_. People without LaTex knowledge and desktop publishing experience can work on the document with a much lower learning curve, and that is exactly what large document-producing organizations require.
You will also, if you've used them and looked for alternatives, that the same applies to Excel and Powerpoint.
The question really isn't one whether it's _possible_ to fudge your way through the same job using non-MS alternatives that aren't up to the task. Someday, maybe, but today is not that day.
The use of the designation "Microsoft Certified Software Engineer" is illegal in all jurisdictions in Canada and in many states in the US.
The term "engineer" refers to a specific trade, which has a governing body in each province or state, and only people who are members of that body may use the term 'engineer'.
Microsoft has signed consent agreements with many of these governing bodies to cease and desist from using the term "engineer", because it is, quite simply, illegal. This hasn't been publicized because of the sums involved (with exemplary damages, specific performance, etc., their exposure is, literally, in the billions).
In Quebec, for example, the fine is $600.00 to $6000.00 per infraction. Each day constitutes a separate infraction, as does each person or instance.
Pass the word on, and let me know about anyone who's interested in a class action suit against Microsoft to recover $$ paid for being misled into buying false credentials.
While I didn't get suckered in, I feel sorry for those who did.
MAybe YOU should stop being so damned naive. There is a HUGE difference federal and local government when it comes to affecting change. Unlike local government, the feds have no obligation to listen to you, no matter how many signatures you get on a petition. When you elect a federal official, you authorize them to speak on your behalf, sort of like power of attorney.
Your point is well taken, but let's not limit ourselves to PDF. It's great for distributing printed documents, but lousy for reading them online. If the intended product is a printed document, you can't beat PDF, but if it's meant to be read online, it ought to be HTML or whatever. Frankly, I like DocBook and XML (also open standards) as master formats, which allow easy processing into whatever final format is desired.
Not only do we need to wean government off proprietary file formats, we need to quit wasting so much paper!
I'm glad you could get that off your chest. Now you'll be able to breath, and get some oxygen to those starving brain cells.
The government should use it's power evalute & give rule for software.
i.e. only use browser that full w3c complaint.
so, if MS didn't follow w3c, then government shouldn't use MS IE.
And if Microsoft media player or MS word didn't follow several guidelines, then the government should use Star office or KOFfice, or any other product
The GPL says nothing whatsoever about how much they charge, it says they have to include the source code when they sell their product. They can charge a billion dollars a copy if they want, as long as they include the source, with that source still licensed under the GPL, they're compliant.
The letter asks for an evaluation of this claim... since you believe its true, you should have no objections.
The government should use it's 'buying power' to evalute & give rule for software.
i.e. only use browser that full w3c complaint.
so, if MS didn't follow w3c, then government shouldn't use MS IE.
and for other product such as MS word.... let's say government (give rule) must force to make it's document file can be opened in more than 8 OS. So, it's up to MS to open the word specs or make MS word for 8 OS. (the government pick which OS).
Those 7000 people probably thought they were showing up for some other event but due to faulty invitations got confused.
Doug Alcorn
The Nader letter is refreshing... but it ain't gonna happen here. Germany and European governments are far more likely to adopt a Linux standard: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_2 023000/2023127.stm
What we are more likely to see is that MS will remain firmly ensconced in the US, while French and German governments move toward an antiMS and antiUS position by buying Linux and supporting it.
MS employs a lot of people, MS gives away a lot of money... the US government will buy its products...they are entrenched.... they are big business... they are the reason the Bush administration exists, and the Bushies know which side their bread is buttered on.
Europe is probably the only hope for sanity.
(Context for mods: The U.S. government specifies what software it buys based on a list of required features and then lets companies bid. But sometimes, it simply reads the requirements from a particular package's manual to get around the bidding laws. WordPerfect's "show codes" feature is an example of such a requirement.)
I miss "show codes"
In this case, Microsoft could claim that a form of Show Codes exists in Office as well. Just save as HTML ;-)
Will I retire or break 10K?
So when [companies] compete on this feature [opening thousands of existing Microsoft Word documents], which company do you think is able to produce the most compatible output?
wvware.
Will I retire or break 10K?
We don't need your business that badly, Uncle Sam.
The Judge said, "You may have more money than me, but you don't have more power than me" and Bill said, "Yes" without seeming conceitful and then he started grovelling.
Because he handled himself properly, he won, it's not some DoJ or Bush conspiracy, everybody want stheir kudos and respect, same as you'd trust someone that talks nice in a $1000 suit over a shifty guy walking up to you at night in a dark alley in the projects.
They didn't let him off free, they broke him as a man. Bill Gates has a very short temper and you could see on his face that he was trying his best not to shout at the Judge, because he knew if he did he'd be found guilty. Bill Gates vs. DoJ and Bill Gates wins, but both parties are corrupt and nobody cares who's actually right, that's the tragedy.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
Are you actually saying that the government should look the other way when "questionable/illegal business" practices are "dictat[ing] what happens"?? And that these practices are part of the "natural market forces" that those of us who believe in the market economy revere?? Because that's what it sounds like.
Gotta go. The mafia just asked for more "protection money". Oh, well. Natural market forces.
Move on. There's nothing to see here.
I suspect it is illegal for the OMB to adopt a policy that requires different rules for one company than for all the others. I know how much slashdotters like to argue "it's different, because MS has been found to be an illegal monopoly" but the OMB has no authority to enforce antitrust law.
On the other hand if the OMB required all their vendors to open all of their file formats, then that would be different.
Can it really be that hard to understand?
Here's what I'm saying
Enforcement of antitrust law belongs in the Justice Department, not the OMB or any other step of the procurement process. The OMB and anyone else in the government buying software should just buy software, and not second guess the judicial system. So, yes, unless and until we have a decisive outcome in the MS trial quagmire, the OMB should consider the way the market *is*, not the way it *should be*, which they are even less qualified to talk about than Ralph Nader.
The antitrust laws are outdated, and (possibly intentionally) poorly enforced. Fix that. Don't go settting up laws that basically move judicial control into the legislature. You will not like the long term results if this becomes common practice, no matter how much you might like the short term benefits of sticking it to Microsoft by tying procurement to arbitrary demands on corporate behavior.
Please... is it really that difficult to understand? I've got to assume that either I'm not being clear, or that somehow /. readers are unanimous in their willingness to abandon the fundamental balance of power in the country in their haste to bring Microsoft down.
Cheers
-b
With text, this is easy. CSV files easy.
PPT? No way. Not allowed. No exceptions.
DOC? No way. Not allowed. No exceptions.
XLS? No way. Not allowed. No exceptions.
MDB? Same as Oracle DBF, but you knew there were going to be old rows still hanging around.
MBX? No way. mbox could be scrubbed, but not Outlook files.
"Why?" you ask. Because history has shown deleted sections still remain around even after being deleted. This includes previous, unseen, last known images from an old, deleted OLE link to that spreadsheet chart. You just cannot trust it.
Opening up the file format would finally allow the government to build programs which truly scour a PPT file (for example) and allow EVERYTHING to be two-person checked.
Back in the mumblety-early 80s, when Unix was a trademark of Bell Labs and/or AT&T and/or Western Union and a commercial product, the Fedz put out an RFP for a big software project, which included the then-not-uncommon requirement (for custom software deals) that they get unlimited rights to all the software delivered - that meant not just access to the source, but the ability to do anything they want to with it, resell it, modify it, whatever. They didn't insist that they _had_ to buy that as part of the final deal, but it had to be offered and priced. The rumor is that we gave them a price, which reflected what we thought the future commercial value of Unix was - a cool $1B. They said thank you, checked the box on their form, and didn't buy it :-) (Too bad - I forget what the price that the rights to Unix finally sold for, but it was a lot less.... though by then we had *BSD and Linux available under various free-ish licenses.)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
You are an absolutely incredible fucking piece of shit. Anyone who would associate with the likes of Nader, without the intent of causing that bastard bodily harm deserves to die a horrible wretched death. And this fate I do wish and pray might befall upon you: immense suffering in restitution for your iniquities.
I hope that you and your fellow Anti-American scum bags will one day see fit to leave this country, that once was free, one that could breathe so much better without the likes of you pieces of shit. Go find a fucking socialist shithole that correlates with your values to live in you fucking scumbag.
Oh gee dad, I really do hope I get that toy for Christmas!
/me crosses fingers
Haha. whatever. I tested WindowsXP and linux on a 486 and on a pentium 166 with 16 meg of ram. Guess which one was faster?
Anyone who says that must be a Right-wing nut. Not really, but you should avoid making statements like that. Read up on all the sensible things that Nadar has done that don't seem so socialist. Or do you think that having seatbelts in cars is an evil regulatory misguidance?
But hey, if somebody else wants to help out with Linux, I see no problem with that.
Then choose who you want to loose the next election and get thousands of Open Source advocates to send him/her letters asking for support.
If he so much as says three consecutive sentences supporting OSS, Micro$oft's billions may suddenly give advertising fronts the most prosperous election year on record.
And I gaurantee you that Microsoft has the monetary clout to put either major party into a majority of elected seats, or, come 2004, put a minor party's candidate for President in power.
Scary, isn't it? The possibility of a minor party becomming more powerful than any other, and supporting the RIAA/MPAA and Microsoft?
The way to make a difference is to get minor party candidates to support your side. Microsoft won't consider them a threat, and major campaign issues have historically had a tendancy to arise from minor party concerns.
Another good way to influence politics to support OSS is to convince as many interest groups as possible that widespread OSS usage is in their favor. I was actually planning on starting a project to do this. (Keep track of my website...I'll put up a page tomorrow.)
What's this Submit thingy do?
Word 6 on Windows 3.1 was also completely unusable. It was huge, slow, and was the first Word to support Word Macro Viruses; that's about it.
In the meantime, Wordperfect for Windows looked like just another word processor on Windows to me, but I didn't get to use it much due to it's non-rampant success...
----
And I quote:
Slashdot requires you to wait 2 minutes between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 1 minute since you last successfully posted a comment.
Jesus, how much time of yours does Slashdot have to waste to let you reply to a thread; that's pathetic. And when did they raise it from one minute, anyhow. Give 'em an inch, and they take a parsec.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
Actually, I think it should be in the charter of the OMB ... that is to say, either it is, or it ought to be. My father worked in the Australian Public Service, in Purchasing Policy, for several years, and he explained many times to friends and family that one of the high priorities in purchasing decisions was avoiding monopoly situations - since monopolies were very bad in the long run, in terms of both price and quality. Software supply is little different from anything else in this respect.
Rachel
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Nader has his flaws, but so do I. Let's take a look at what he is doing right:
/., which we all love to do, won't change anything.
1. He is focusing on the issue of "tax dollars" going to waste / work. As we are all citizens and pay taxes, this is the first step of any citizen to get something done, ie: create notice of tax dollars being wasted.
2. He is pointing out fundamental flaws in government IT procurement, which are locking in the government to proprietary, closed source, and EXPENSIVE technologies, with no opt-out path in sight. Remember when all the reports came out about the military buying 1000 $US dollar hammers years ago? It lead to massive legislation on military and government procurement. Of course there is still general overall waste in the current process, but it has improved because of people speaking out against such practices.
Now, as a technically knowledgable community, each and every Slashdotter who resides or is citizen of the US should be sending a letter to her/his representatives in the House and Senate EVERY SINGLE MONTH on these issues. OK, send an email, but just ranting on
Supporting Ralph Nader is another option, I'm sure he has some petitions we could all sign.
Real men don't need signitures!!!
Yes, very clever indeed. I sure fell for it, and it took me a minute to figure it out.
But what I'd like to know is why the sig doesn't appear under IE. In fact, comparing the source produced by both browsers, its not the same. Its like IE ignores the <ul> tag and everything within it.
--
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." - Homer Simpson [1F10]
I listen to Nader. So does a chunk of America. Nader's biggest problem is getting his ideas out there, still, he gets more ears than you, me, or anyone else commenting on this article ever will...-> that was my +2 insightful comment, now comes my -3 troll:
Of course, I am a proud blue speck in a red state on the election map. From observing my red peers, it seems that republicans are either poor ignorant mullet/jesus freak types, or rich educated mistress-on-the-side-church-goers.
The ignorant ones actually think that republicans will help them by cutting their taxes, while their children can't afford to even go to public school sometimes due to the high cost of purchasing books in this stupid state. Of course, the idea that conservatives are somehow closer to god and therefore heaven helps too.
The richer educated church-goer crowd understand that religion keeps their factory workers happy (suffer in this life, rejoice in the next), but don't generally seem to be very, shall we say, christian, at least in the good sense of the word christian (not the pro-slavery, pro-subjigation of women, anti-pork stuff...)
Of course, with the repeal of the estate tax, the field is finally primed for this crowd to establish dynasties and a new aristocracy...and the mullet/idiot farmers think it was for them, even though they are a minority any way you slice anything...for shame...it's kind of a shame that a 3rd generation beneficiary of this aristocracy-creation act will not only be able to pay their way into the best schools and get the best justice, they may also be able to augment themselves using the latest technology if it becomes avialable, such as increased vision, say, or increased mental capacity. If it ever gets to this state, game over man, game over!
Help, Nader, help...vote for the Green part at levels...
We do not want a monoculture with software.