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"Software Choice" Campaigns Against Open Source
Verizon Guy writes: "News.com is reporting that a group called The Initiative for Software Choice, led by the CompTIA, but backed primarily by Microsoft and Intel, is lobbying against Open Source-only laws in for example, the State of California government and the government of Peru. While their goals don't specifically mention open source, they do mention that publicly-funded research should steer clear of licenses such as the GPL. Interesting read."
Interesting that a group calling itself Software Choice is trying to tell people not to choose certain software.
This has been a test. Had this been a real emergency, we would have fled in terror and you would not have been informed.
This isn't a campaign against *open source* but rather a campaign against *open source only laws*. I can fully agree with that. Freedom of choice.
Stop loading the headlines.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
While I personaly like and use open source I don't have the illusion that this goes for everybody.
What I would like the goverments to do is to define open fileformats/protocols and only accept/buy software which supports these formats 100%.
Ofcourse this also means that ALL govermental communication should use these formats and nothing else. This may not be the end of closed source, but at least it levels the playing field and should brings competition back where it belongs: comparing price and quality.
Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!
Maybe microsoft is just trying to keep it hidden that (in the us) when the goverment buys software... it becomes public domain... atleast... thats how it was years ago...
So I'm not sure that these companies don't have a point. I would think this indicates that the government cannot extend GPL code, as the GPL is based on copyright (er, copyleft). Granted, I have but a limited understanding of Copyright Law and the legal basis behind the GPL. I would like to see this issue explained, however.
I would think that any changes the US Government (or its agencies) made to GPL code would have to fall into the Public Domain. By the same token, if the NSA were to make an UltraSecure Windows OS, then their modifications would not be assignable (as US Government works do not enjoy copyright protection) to Microsoft and would also fall into the Public Domain (just their diffs, not the whole work).
Obviously, US Code Section 17 Chapter 1 Section 105 does not preclude the government from merely using Open Source (or any form of software, for that matter) without extending it.
Cheers,
Slak
> they do mention that publicly-funded research should steer clear of licenses such as the GPL.
Actually, the GPL is how publicly funded research should be licensed. These people are doing nothing more than lobbying for an entitlement.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Basically, the taxpayers' money should be used to finance "commercialized products" that make money for somebody else...
And we all know that anti-capitalism is..communism. I knew those Chinese were onto something with their Linux.
However, this is not actually true. If a government uses taxes to fund research/development of software, the benefit ti the said government is software--why should it care how it is licensed, as long as it is functional?
notice that they also asked that research not be put under GPL-like licenses, under the assumption that government-funded research should be resold afterwards ... personally, i don't appreciate giving money to the government, in the form of taxes, and then having to buy back from them what they discovered thanks to my money ...
... but consider their reasons aren't just financial: in the case of Peru, they were very much interested in having the ability to fix code themselves, look through it for spyware, and write their own, based on what they had access to, if necessary. open standards may not be the norm, but when you have full access to the source code ... even non-open standards can become so. (reverse engineering of open-sourced software, mostly because somebody forgot to comment their code?)
... the argument about taxes is weak in this case: the french government will be getting linux (free) and support (not so free) from mandrake, and they'll collect taxes back from that same company ... promote the creation of tech jobs in france, etc.
...
i'll agree that laws like this can be bad -- wouldn't want to restrict stuff too much
note that they are also trying to promote the idea that open-source = no funds, which is not true. red hat and mandrake (and many others) have shown that open source is not without rewards. note also that the french government is getting their linux from mandrakesoft, which, lest i be mistaken, is a french company
so it's not completely loaded -- it is against open source, partially, under the veil of being pro-choice
I do think that it is a big plus for many (or most) products if it is an open source one. Even if it was true in all cases, some closed source products can still be superior. There are cases and specialist areas in which development under closed source can be done with bigger and better resources, which eventually results in a better product.
It is kinda funny that CompTIA would have any problem with Open Source software since they have a Linux+ certification.
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
I think the idea is fully documented file formats that we can edit with alternate applications.
I don't think we should legislate free software, because quite honestly if MS has the best solution for that task, we SHOULD use it.
What we should have is that all file formats should be clearly documented and have a non discriminatory royalty free, patent free licence to use in competing products. Then there wouldn't be an arguement.
(I can't take credit for this, since I read it, but can't remember where, so I can't attribute, either.)
The problem comes when government at any level distributes information in any electronic form. At that point, the issue isn't really Open Source as much as it is Open Formats and Interchange. For a large part, and IMHO Microsoft is one of the greatest offenders, proprietary software tends to entrench itself with proprietary formats.
As I view government information available in electronic form, I want the freedom to choose what software to us. If the government publishes in proprietary formats, they have abridged my freedom of choice. In fact, in doing this they meddle in the market, granting certain companies competitive advantages over others, based on their software choice.
Sticking with Open Formats and Interchange is the only way that the government can avoid forcing choices on citizens. It's the only way they can avoid reducing competition in the marketplace.
If Microsoft (and other similar software makers) could avoid their desire for proprietary formats, this wouldn't be an issue.
An Open Source law for government misses the issue, completely. Even so, it may well accomplish the correct end. Still, it would be better to be on target.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I love these guys... they're so honest. But their "principles" need some help...:
"Procure software on its merits, not through categorical preferences"
Maybe they could say "Please don't judge our product on the license agreement! Our license is designed to maximize our stranglehold on you... and if you disallow our software due to it's license, well, we won't be able to take advantage of you".
"Promote broad availability of government funded research"
Perhaps instead they could say "We'd like to package up taxpayer-funded research and sell it back to the tax payers! All for profit! Please don't take that away from us - because we'd hate to have to pay for more research."
"Promote interoperability through platform-neutral standards"
Perhaps they could say "Don't place standards on us, because we want to try to monopolize the industry. If the standards are open source, how can we lock in our customers?"
"Maintain a choice of strong intellectual property protections"
Maybe it'd be better to say "Don't weaken our intellectual property, because we spent so much money on research! We need to recover our research burden. Of course, much of the research came through tax-payer funded research grants, but we still want it all. After all, we're in it to make as much money as we possibly can, and a legal monopoly is our best approach."
Hmmm...maybe I am a bit biased, but to my ears that is an overwhelming nod of support to Open Source products. To paraphrase: "We stronly encourage the use of FreeBSD"
As I posted over at NewsForge, I think a better approach would be to ban purchasing from companies that have been found to have violated anti-trust laws, as long as they have a certain percentage of market share. Once there is more competition and the market share is less lopsided, they can resume purchasing from the (former) monopoly.
You have to wonder if Microsoft would also protest if someone attempted to get a law passed that forbids using open source, calling it anti-capitalistic or an intellectual property destroyer or such. I think Microsoft would only lobby against something when they see a threat to their revenue. They're only interested in preventing damage to the computer ecosystem when they're the ones who would bear the brunt. I don't think they give a rat's ass about what's in the best interest of customers, only theirs.
"You are known by the calibre of your enemies"
Disruptive innovations have usually won the game by the time incumbents start to take them seriously.
Even though they are avoiding the words Open Source everyone knows that is what is being targetted. I think the only result of this campaign will be to raise the profile of Open Source still higher.
Of these, probably four hundred thousand paid more taxes than Microsoft did in 1999.
Not all together- EACH slashdotter paid more than Microsoft did- because it paid no taxes in 1999 due to stock options trickery.
Don't jump to reassuring but unwarranted conclusions. The truth is worse than you think...
The reason is that open software promotes hardware choices as well as software choices.
What platform does Linux run on?
What platform does Windows run on?
Also, if you want to control the hardware platform (aka Palladium), then its important to give people the feeling that they have no choice in software.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
About two year ago, in a FreeSoftware presentation by Richard Stalmann (did I spelled it correct?) I have asked him if he have ever considered the possibility of liberty restricting laws, such as DMCA, affect GPLed softwares, Free Softwares or even any kind of Open Source.
He told me that this possibily does not exist and that DMCA exists to protect copyrighted material that, in his opinion should, be protected. He told that Free Software is Copylefted and would not have any risk of being affected by such laws.
Unfortunately he was wrong. In the last year I saw two initiatives trying to ban FreeSoftware from US. I know that he don't have the obligation to preview such things, but it should be better if we have more "gurus" that are able to preview these kind of problems.
About all these attempts to ban FreeSoftware from US, all I have to say is that I'm really sorry that there's people in the government that can't understand that FreeSoftware is about Freedom and this is one of the base concepts of democracy. Don't US government consider itself democratic?
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
Are you serious? Do you know what you are asking for?
POSIX perhaps?
This is a sure way for everyone to loose (money, time, etc.). It levels the playing field TO THE LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR. Forget innovation. Forget change.
I'd rather have the evils of MS, Oracle, etc. than the true evil that government oversight would bring with it.
I hate to say this seeing as I just got the automatic +1 score, but hey... what's a little karma among friends.
I'm kinda glad to see something like this. While I don't think some of these Open Source regulations are as bad as maybe a commercial only regulation, I still think that these are bad policies. I never want my local government to have their hands tied in choosing the most appropriate platform. Many of these laws, even if the legislators don't want to admit it are simply anti M$ laws, but they could hurt other companies as well. Anyway back to the point. I can think of several examples were using commercial solutions would save money over the long run. Basically I think anytime you regulate away choice you are hurting your self. I policy, encouraging Free Software is much more appropriate.
Business News and Resources: www.usasource.net
OK -
call me a cynic. But, this whole freedom of choice thing can't be underscored. GPL is great, if you want to put your software under it, feel free to do so. Just don't demand that I do the same. Information doesn't want to be free. Information doesn't _want_ anything. Information just is. People want information for a variety of purposes.
Unfortunately the US government is somewhat restricted from being a copyright holder, and patent holder for good reason. As if the government doesn't have enough power already, what with laws and everything... Try to imagine if they could be patent holders and copyright holders. What better way to cripple free speech and innovation?
And all this jazz about China using Linux. They're using you alright. China is not adopting Linux out of any altruistic sense of empowering the people. They are adopting it because it is not controlled by a corporation which is based in a potentially hostile foreign nation. China using Linux isn't about software - it's about politics. "Oh, look - we can get free software & brownie points, while divesting ourselves of foreign interest."
Sure, Linux may be the next best thing since sliced bread. GPL might be the next best thing too. But keep in mind that some of us still like to buy our loaves of bread whole, and slice them ourselves. Choice is good. Forcing your brand of "freedom" down anyone and everyone's throat == bad.
I can understand you all wanting the governemt to use OSS systems in building government systems. In fact, I'd lobby for that too. On a business, and social level it makes a lot of sense. But, guess what...? Sometimes OSS isn't always the right choice for the job. Shoehorning the wrong tool into doing the job is a big mistake. Options need to be considered rationally - not religiously. Of course, if you're used to kludges solving your problems - that might be OK.
Bah!
Open source only laws as they apply to government information will insure access to government documents and information regardless of who sells the software. If Microsoft (and that is who we are speaking of) sells a propreitary solution to, as an example, a county government for accessing property records on line, you know for a definitive fact they are going to require their products be on the desktop of anyone who wishes to access this information. (I can see some arguments coming that governments can require MS to allow any browser to access records, but that would entail MS not being able to sell their latest and best technology, and they could conceivably tell a governmental body that it is their way or perhaps a software audit is in order? As it is now in some courts, you MUST have MS Office to access some court records, you do NOT have a CHOICE!) Open source on the other hand, which hold to open standards will only require a browser of ANY kind, or in the case of documents, some accepted standard; there are no backroom deals, no threat that MS nazis will appear at your door demanding to see CDs and licenses, no security headaches, no threats that 'upgrades will force other upgrades, and no being locked into a hostile company's proprietary and ultimately damaging formats. It is simply a means of enforcing a concept of general and free access to government through the internet using open standards, which Open Source adheres to stringently. I guess some folks love of Microsoft products keeps them from understanding the nature of open source software, and makes them see things backwards, and not for what they are. Pity...
Dawn of the Dead
Ensuring that your government standardizes on open protocols, file formats, and software ensures that there will always be a choice, since anyone can produce competitive implementations of such software. The same is not true if your government requires that you use something like MS Word. Yes, you can argue that you could use something like AbiWord, but it really isn't a practical way to create or read MS Word documents.
The only way to ensure freedom of choice is to use open protocols and software.
Simply making it mandatory for govt agencies to use OSS IS anti-choice, but a highly visible and political one destined to make headline news and bring on the wrath of the Ayndroids, as compared to all the subtle subterfuge and skulldugery, tie-ins and bundling that goes into maintaining and extending a PC platform monopoly (You can use any software you want, as long as it's Msft).
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I didn't say they have to develop it, just that it has to be open and free. For all I care they choose the latest MS-Word DOC version, as long as I can download a file with the complete description of the format and am free to implement it without royalties or restrictions. (Not that I think DOC files are the way to go, but that's an other point of discussion.)
Nobody expects the spanish inquisition!
If government software are open-sourced or not.
What I do mind however is if their document format are open or not.
If they are, it is "easy" to change from one application to another.
But if you have to reverse-engineer every document-type, it gets harder.
What really bothers me is the content, not the media.
I'd rather be sailing...
I agree that government sponsored software shouldn't be lisensed under the GPL, it should be opened to the public domain so that it can be used freely in open and closed source applications. If software is created using my tax dollars I want access to it unfettered even by the GPL.
-Chuck
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What I would like the goverments to do is to define open fileformats/protocols and only accept/buy software which supports these formats 100%.
There's a lot that can go wrong this way. I've followed one project like this. The result so far in 4 years has been money down the drain and some crappy standards that don't work.
Problem is that the government doesn't always have the expertise to build those fileformats and protocols. And it they don't, a third party is going to make it. And that company often doesn't have the expertise either. At this point it becomes a political problem and everybody just let the project die a slow and painful death. Those who complain are only labelled problematic people.
For all you "Open Source Only Laws Are Bad" folks:
If you buy closed source products, you have NO idea if it has a fatal bug or security exploit, and you are at the company's mercy if you want something fixed. PERIOD.
I mean, Jesus people, THINK! What if you install the MicroBuss 5000 database software to store Social Security numbers and Drivers Licences, and then suddenly it gets hacked and all the data is compromised? Here's the quote from MicroBuss:
"Well, we knew about the exploit, but we didn't want to tell anyone until we found a fix for it. It's ready now, just purchase the upgrade to the 6000 series."
Don't laugh too much, this can really happen. Haven't any of you watched The Net? Granted, much of that was Hollywood, but backdoors are a reality. Is it really worth the risk for a minor economic boost? The answer is NO.
Of all the places, I didn't think I'd have to post something like this at Slashdot, but after reading the first dozen or so comments, I guess I was wrong.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
Equally laws to coerce states into using one type of software are ridiculous and ideological. Ideology is almost always going to be wrong regardless of what it is. The cost of software is not a significant cost when hiring employees. If I chose to work for a government agency I want to be allowed to use high quality professional software not pieces of utter amateur crap that are 'almost as good, yes really'. Clearly they are not, several of the Sun people I know ended up buying Microsoft Office themselves because they refuse to use the Sun substitute. There is nothing in the open source world that touches Visio, Adobe Premiere or Visual Studio .NET.
The cost of outfitting an entire department with Microsoft everything is trivial compared to the cost of consultants. The big five charge in the region of $2,000 per consultant per day.
notice that they also asked that research not be put under GPL-like licenses, under the assumption that government-funded research should be resold afterwards ...
Like the title you are mistating the issue here. I think that there is a lot of consensus that code developed with public funds should be Free. But GPL does not mean free, it means heavily encumbered by a bushel-load of RMS's ideology
If code is being developed with public funds the default license should be BSD style, free as in beer. RMS did have a point about Symbolics, huge amounts of DARPA cash went to develop the Lisp machine and Genera and was then diverted to a private company for private profit. The attempts by many universities to control the rights to code are simply grasping.
The problem with GPL is that if you take it seriously and actually read it the GPL license stops code even being used for reference purposes since a programmer who reads GPL code is just as tainted as someone who disassembled proprietary code.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
First, fund research into networking and interoperability between computers.
Second, since it's done with public funds, refuse to let anyone copyright or patent the research.
Third, allow anyone in the world to use the work.
Fourth, pass laws to prevent it's use unless you pay for it.
Typical corporatist thinking.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
Why should governments (and people) across the world choose Open Source?
Freedom - Linux and the General Public Licence (GPL) frees you from the chains of software licensing
Control - You are no longer forced into a never-ending cycle of "upgrades"
Growth - Linux makes available the tools and applications that enable you to expand
Security - Witness the hundreds of Windows Security Alerts at CERT
Stability- Up months at a time without a crash or need for rebooting
Customization - immense flexibility
Lower Costs - You can control costs by eliminating license fees, and reducing the cost of your software upgrade cycles.
Linux isn't free. Linux is Freedom.
I may be bad with names, but I'll never forget your IP address
Most interestingly is Sincere Choice, created by Bruce Perens and Michael Robertson.
From their main page:
We stand for these principles:
Intercommunication and file formats should follow standards that are sincerely open for all to implement, without royalty fees or discrimination.
No user should be required to use a particular product simply because other users do. Competing products should interoperate with each other through open standards.
Software vendors should compete fairly on the merit of their products, rather than by attempting to lock each other's products out of the market.
Research Availability
The people pay for government-funded research, its fruits should be available to all of them equally. We promote Open Source / Free Software licensing as a means of distributing research results fairly.
We support a broad range of copyright policies, from Public Domain through Open Source and Free Software to Proprietary. We support use of the GPL and LGPL licenses when appropriate. We assert that Open Source and Proprietary models can be used together effectively. A number of our companies deploy software under the GPL license and proprietary software in the same product.
Individual users, businesses, and government should all be free to set their own policies regarding what sorts of software they will acquire and use. They should not force their policies upon others.
"Shoehorning the wrong tool" - this happens OFTEN dealing with MS. Anecdotal case in point:
The transcription department at the hospital my mother works at transferred everyone over to MS Word a couple years ago, from DOS-based Word Perfect. The reason given was to 'increase productivity'. Well, it only helps the IT productivity, because it's less for them to 'learn' (never mind that they rarely actually help solve a problem anyway, that's another story).
The point is hundreds of people were trained and very productive in WordPerfect. They didn't WANT to switch to Office/Word, but were forced to. Productivity DROPPED like a rock. All the DOS-based tools (keymap-expanders - "alt-shift-gg" expands to "gyrointestinal gerontology", for example) don't exist for Word, and still haven't appeared on the market.
By pure line-count per hour based productivity, MANY people in the department fell at least 50%, some by as much as 80%, in terms of productivity.
This was and still is most definitely the 'wrong tool' for the job, but it's 'company policy' and everyone lives with it. Forcing people in a federal office building to learn OpenOffice after learning Word would be costly, yes, but it would fit the overarching IT vision, if it was articulated to demand open source stuff.
When the 'wrong tool' for the job is MS, people still seem to go along with it, but when the 'wrong tool' may be open source stuff, suddenly it can't happen?
creation science book
A law requiring "you" (singular) or "me" or any other individual or private corporation to only purchase software under free licenses would be bad.
However, any individual, company or organization should be allowed to formulate a policy for which license restrictions they will accept. If an organization believe it is in their best long term interest to only purchase software under licenses that avoid being dependent on a single (or fix set) of suppliers, they should be free to formulate and enforce such a policy.
Anyone who believe that "free vendor choise" will be a benefit in the long term, should try to make organizations they have a stake in adopt such a policy through whatever mechanisms are appropriate for that organization.
If the organization is a government, such a policy take the form of a law, even when the only affects issues internal to the government.
In the news lately has been the story that in Palm Beach County, Florida, they are replacing the voting equipment that caused so much trouble two years ago with new equipment. But the new equipment contains proprietary software whose inner working can't be examined. The result is that there will be no way to have an independent audit of the election results.
What we need is government accountability. This can only be done if the computers that control the data can be examined in detail. Any software that has closed components can and will be used to prevent auditing and accountability.
The only way to get honesty and accountability in government data systems is to require that all software be open to examination and auditing. This can only be done with a strict legal ban on binary-only software in government computers.
As with the Palm Beach voting equipment, proprietary software is an open invitation to Fraud and Abuse by whoever runs the equipment (or whoever bribes them).
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
"Its like the vision of the world after they've had their way with us."
Is that black as in "metaphorically speaking", or black as in "some idiot linked the power plants' IIS-running servers to the internet, and they've all been 0wn3d"?
Maran
The government can copyright. I am holding an example of this (a video tape) in my hand right now.
The organization should properly be named as the above.
Laws that require government offices to use free software does not limit the choice of software, it limits the choice of licenses. Specificaly, it limits the ability to chose a license that bind the purchaser to a single vendor for support and updates.
Obviously, most vendor would like to be the single choice for support and updates, since being the single source allows you to set the price as you see fit (the alternate would be for the pruchaser to switch to another platform, which requires retraining and is extremely expensive).
While a single vendor license may offer some immidiate benfits, for example the vendor may offer a price below development cost in anticipation of later income on support and updates, a license that allow a free choice of vendor may be cheaper on the long run, as competition between vendors will make sure that the need of the purchaser is not ignored and the price is close to cost. Appart from the price, there is alwaus the very real risk that a single vendor will "change its focus" to something that is not you.
The initiative this does not think government offices should be allowed to make license requirements that is in their own long time best interest, but instead alone should choose based on short term tecnical merrit, ignoring the long time benefits of free vendor choice.
Anyone who wants to put restictions on their own code, hey, I'm all for that. One of the principles behind all of this once was the right to choose your own license and distribution methods (unless of course you're the RIAA, then we have the right to choose your licenses and distribution methods for you), but I draw the line at allowing someone else to set the restrictions on code and concepts that my tax dollars also paid for.
No Zen is good zen
You don't think the relative difficulty and obscurity of Microsoft "solutions" should count as a cost? I think it's disingenuous to argue that installation and training are costs but hours lost to dead-end surfing or on hold to tech support are not. Let's not even mention per-incident phone support!
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
You must use Microsoft Windows.
You must use GPLed software.
This is in response to that silly California law--which geeks seem to support, for unknown reasons--mandating the use of open source software. Certainly that's a dumb and extremist proposition, and even Stallman and Torvalds would be against it.
An AC wrote:
n ium/mgoals.html
.Net, Palladium, SQL Server as the file system in Longhorn, all pave the way for Microsoft's Millenium.
(That another AC wrote:)
>> You can't really know what a program is *doing*
>> if you can't see its source.
> What a bunch of bullshit propoganda. You are no
> better than Microsoft. 99.9% of computer users
> wouldn't know what the program was doing if they
> did see the source. They are relying on losers
> like you to convince that a program is free of
> trojans and spyware. Why would anybody trust you
> when you are an obvious zealot.
Governments have security departments (like the FBI, CIA, etc.). These departments have their own computer specialists who would be the ones looking at the code (and if you want to call an employee of the CIA a "loser", you better hope the CIA is not monitoring Slashdot). I don't think the code would absolutely have to be open source, but governmental auditors should have access to the source so they can verify that the program does not present a risk to national security. Of course there should be measures (NDAs?) to prevent the government auditor from quitting their job and using the information they gleaned from a product they audited to start their own company and profit from it.
Windows XP is a product that should *not* (IMHO) be used by governments (or any sensitive uses such as some research, hospital critical care, etc.) because of recent changes to its EULA. The changes pretty much stipulate that Microsoft can change anything on the computer running Windows XP, and if it breaks something, tough. No government with any sense will let a private company in another country, a country they might be at war with sometime in the future, to dictate the contents of their computers or make any changes they want. There are plenty of non-governmental uses of computers where the software and contents of the hard drive have to be under the strict control of the owners and users of the computer.
And no one wants to wake up to a Millenium prompt (http://research.microsoft.com/research/sn/Millen
see "What would such a system be like?") to find that their computer has been sucked into a private distributed network, especially a government. After all, Millenium may have reallocated all of the US government's top secret documents to a hard drive in mainland China. Or perhaps Iraq...
Sound like science fiction? Only a research project? Perhaps. But the distributed net that came with Kazaa is fact. The XP EULA changes,
"At this moment, it has control of systems all over the world.
And...we can't do a damn thing to stop it."
Miyasaka, Godzilla 2000 Millennium (Japanese version)
Right. Without the innovation to break the last proprietary document format with an incompatible, upgrade-forcing new one, how can government possibly continue to operate? XML is "the lowest common denominator" compared to .doc? How, that the unwashed (ie. any citizen) can read it with paying the MS tax?
You're missing the point of most of these initiatives. What these people want is for software contractors to meet certain requirements.
1. Files created by your software need to be in an open, documented format. This is to prevent "lock-in" of documents. Since so many people have to exchange files with the government, it is important that the government doesn't dictate which program they should use.
2. Governments need to be able to examine the source code of a program, so that they can (theoretically) protect themselves from malicious code. It also allows them the ability to further develop the software should the original contractor no longer be able to.
3. Research done for the government is assumed to be for the general public. Legal licensing restrictions need to protect the interests of the general public.
Mind you, these are the intents. Whether the actual bills do this or not I can't tell, because my eyes tend to glaze over when I read legal documents.
That means Windows is out the window because it is not POSIX compliant and certified
Microsoft has a simple POSIX layer built into Windows NT operating systems (including 2000 and XP). It's not very good (e.g. it can't run networking or graphics; thus, no X), but Microsoft does supply an upgraded POSIX layer called Interix. If you don't really need "certified", then Red Hat Cygwin might work; it implements (most of) POSIX on top of Win32.
so is Linux, *BSD, and Mac OS X.
Linux not POSIX certified? Then what's this "POSIX conformance testing by Unifix" message I see every time I start Red Hat?
Will I retire or break 10K?
A huge dinosaur, covered with ants, each taking a tiny little bite out of its flesh. It rages and storms and roars. It stomps its feet and slams its body against trees. It kills lots of ants. But there are lots and lots of them, and they continue to patiently nibble away at it. It's very big, and it fights hard, and it's gonna take a long time to die. But you know who's gonna win in the end.
"Procure software on its merits, not through categorical preferences "
Change 'procure software' to 'hire an employee' and see how far that gets you with the US Gubmint.
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
This topic was actually discussed four days ago under the title MS "Software Choice" Campaign: A Clever Fraud. But, of course, it is always good to discuss it again.
Thus, the source code for any software it uses should be available.
.doc files). Proprietary standards force people into using particular programs (like MS Word). Open Source / Free standards should be used, as they don't lock the people into any particular program. A standard like OpenPGP can be incorporated by anyone into their program, be it the FSF, the OSI, or MS.
The people have the right to know what code the government is using to protect confidential information, criminal records, driving records, manage taxes, etc etc. Closed-source software destroys the possibility of transparency in the government, and denies people that right.
Furthermore, its OUR tax dollars which are paying for this stuff. Thus, more cost-effective solutions -- hence open source software / free software / public domain software -- should be used by the government.
Furthermore, the government should not use any standards which lock/force people into using any particular kind of software. That means no proprietary standards (like MS
Now, regarding government development of software. In all cases, government-funded projects should produce something which is freely available to the public. That means public domain, GPL, or Open Source Licenses. These licenses (or lack thereof) make the results of government-funded projects available to the public. In regards to the GPL, it requires that you GPL any modifications. But this is a good thing. It is good that the government promote recipricol relationship communities, as the GPL does. This is in the public interest. It is in the public's interest that any software produced or funded or supported by the US Government become public domain, GPL, or covered under any of the OSI certified licenses. It is not in the public's interest that such fall under a proprietary license: that means that citizens pay TWICE for a product. Once to support its development, then again to buy it.
The simple fact that in 99.99% of cases using Open Source/GPL software saves money should be enough to justify its use. In the few cases where it doesn't, that's b/c its not as good as the proprietary equivalent, but that can easily be fixed by government-funded development.
Even in the very few (0.01%) of cases where you save money by using proprietary software, that still doesn't justify using it in those cases. Because the public has the right to know what the code is the govenrment is using (as this affects their lives), any code the government uses should be transparent.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Nope, no sig
So, as long as the government sticks to open formats, I don't care what software they use. The problem with Microsoft software is that Microsoft does not support open formats well. If Microsoft changes their behavior, they can become competitive again for government applications.
SMITHERS: Uh, sir, that's the plaque.
BURNS: Ah yes, the special demotivational plaque to break what's left of your spirit. Because, you see, you're here forever. [Smithers screws a "Don't forget: you're here forever" plaque into the wall]
BURNS: Don't forget: you're here forever!
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
"Basically, the taxpayers' money should be used to finance "commercialized products" that make money for somebody else... "
No, they're making money for me because the industry hires software developers to improve upon these innovations and commercialize them. I really like having a job, don't you?
"And we all know that anti-capitalism is..communism."
Pretty much, especially if you are trying to use government to kill capitalism.
"If a government uses taxes to fund research/development of software, the benefit ti the said government is software--why should it care how it is licensed, as long as it is functional? "
Because Government tax dollars only exist if you have commercial interests building products, hiring people and generating salaries.
If you wish to be anti-capitalist, it is perfectly acceptable for you to do so on your own time and on your own dollar. Buy a piece of land out in Idaho and create a coop where you and your many Linux loving pals can raise tomatoes and write software without being subjected to evil capitalist ideologies.
But when you try to get the government to forcibly seize assets from citizens(what we like to call taxes) so as to fund your software experiments, then I'm afraid we're going to have a public policy debate and you may not like what you hear.
So postgress might not be as good as Oracle in many respects but it is usefull and easy to setup for some things.
If the government use say Postgress for a solution then the work they do on Postgress should be fed back into the project.
The next time the Government wants a database Postgress is that little bit better than it was before, and Oracle may still be the same.
The benifits gained from reinvesting in OSS are that the next time you or anyone else want's a database, UI, printserver whatever the OSS variants are a little bit better than they were before.
Corel are a good example, they decided the cheepest way to port Wordperfect &co to linux was to use Wine. In return they spent some time improving Wine for the port and handed back to the community (not required by the wine licence).
Corel probably saved some money in the porting process by using Wine and Wine gained all the enhancements Corel put in.
The same is happening with code-weavers and Wine X.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Items #0 and #9 from the GPL state:
I would like to see the equivalent choice in the Microsoft license (which changes with every product anyway).
I feel a bit more coerced when I put money down for a Microsoft product and then I'm not allowed to use it at all unless I agree to the terms. That's not just coercive, it's bullshit.
As the VP of product development and IT director of a small security firm, I'd like to know how the Initiative for Software Choice will help me.
I choose not to us Microsoft Products as they create data files - which may or may not wholly belong to me if they are created with Microsoft software. Will your group be lobbying Microsoft to open their file formats for Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access so that I may choose to use software other than Microsoft to read and edit the files created by those applications with accuracy?
Thank you for helping people by helping us make software choice mean something real.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
.
Here is the text of the bill pending in Peru drawn up by EDGAR VILLNUEVA NUÑEZ and JACQUES RODRICH ACKERMAN.
http://www.pimientolinux.com/peru2ms/free_software _bill.html
-- thinkyhead software and media
I've posted this before but I'll mention it again. Licenses are not all equivalent. The GPL and Open Source licenses are not "development models" as Microsoft calls them. They affect the end-use of the software, and they affect the end-users ability to inspect the software for defects, they affect the re-use of the software, they affect all aspects of the software's life. In all these respects, there is a clear advantage to GPL-type licensing to the public-at-large ("public domain" is in that set of licenses too).
Microsoft (and friends) would love for you to just "focus on the best technology" and not pay any attention to the license elephant in the room, but that's just so they can slip their arbitrary limitations into the license, and get the government on their treadmill. They want to perpetuate the idea that licenses can limit "use". They want to discredit the competition by calling them "anti-capitalistic". But don't just focus on the technology. The choice of license is an integral part of the software product.
It's completely appropriate for the government to specify licensing. When requesting bids, the government can specify what language a product is in (i.e., English), they can specify the behavior of the product, they can specify how many copies they need, they can specify what standards it uses. If the government passes a law saying that the licensing requirement is fixed and must always be a certain type of license, and in fact their requirement is beneficial to the public whose tax dollars funded the software, that's fine.
The government doesn't exist to fund software companies. It exists to serve the public. The government is in a unique position: it doesn't need copyright to enrich the public domain of knowledge, it can just use tax dollars to fund research (including software development) and immediately turn around and put that in the public domain.
As an aside, the ability to specify all these aspects of software is available to any entity buying software. But the government has a special role, it not only wants to minimize costs and maximize benefits, it also has to serve the public that funds it.
If public funds are used for software, then it should be available to the public for inspection and use. Think about it. Let's say the government needs some software to process taxes. YOUR taxes. Why shouldn't you be able to download a copy and inspect it?
And what if you need special software on your PC to interoperate with the government computers for some reason. Let me guess.. Windows/Mac only? No source code available? Can't put a copy on your web site? Government software should be no less a secret that government forms, documents, and standards.
I see nothing wrong with a law specifying the license terms of government-procured software. This has nothing to do with "free markets", folks. The government is a single software-buying entity in a vast market of buyers, who also happens to have a very special set of "shareholders": the citizens of the United States.
Microsoft and the rest of them that view the GPL as something almost viral are not *THINKING*. Patented algorithms notwithstanding (which GPL'd stuff tends to avoid anyways, so it wouldn't be a problem), anyone and everyone can use GPL'd software in whatever way they want, even in closed-source commercial applications. It just requires something called "intelligence".
Literally, what you do is _RE_-engineer the software from scratch. This process cannot be automated by any currently available technology. It is performed at a very high level, and only requires that the people who do it actually be able to break the program into its component algorithms, describe them in natural language, and then reimplement them. Under *NO* circumstances should the natural language version have any reference to identifiers unless they had been manually chosen for their suitability to the high-level view of the process being performed.
So unless a person writing GPL software patents the algorithms they use in it (which never happens anyways)... sorry RMS, but the GPL is irrelevant.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
In short, the names of legislation are always chosen in order to push emotional buttons; they rarely have more than a tangential reference to the actual issues dealt with by the bill, so let's just ignore the names and look at the actual issues. (There too we're going to have to deal with semantics, since there are pleasant-sounding and nasty-sounding ways to describe each point of view, but there's at least one less level of obfuscation to go through.) Now, of the roughly two sides, which is restricting choice less?
The closed-source crowd are saying it's wrong to start the process of choosing government software by limiting the pool according to license structure. Their official position is that they want closed-source software to be considered on an equal footing with open-source software.
The open-source/free-software crowd want all software used by the government to be open source. Some of them want a BSD-style license, some a GPL license to be the standard, but they all want to prevent closed source in government. Let's start there.
Is that a restriction of choice? Of course it is! Out of all the possible software out there, it is restricting your choice to that group of software which allows you to see the source code. You'd have to be blind, deaf, dumb and stupid not to see that that restricts your initial options.
However, after the purchase/lease of the software there are other choices you can make. For instance, should you desire changes in the software you can choose to hire any competent software engineering firm, or create your own corps of coders, provided you didn't choose a closed-source base. You can decide when and how you need to upgrade, provided that you aren't locked into 'the only game in town.' You can acquire additional hardware without renegotiating your software, only your support.
If you buy closed-source, proprietary sofware then you reduce your choices; you force yourself to deal with that software's vendor, because only they have the tools needed to maintain and repair your tools. If you are a private party, then that is your prerogative; you have an absolute right to make a profligate fool of yourself. A government is, or at least should be, held to a higher standard. Unless there is literally no practical open-source alternative, a government body should not restrict its choices by choosing closed-source software. Where closed-source software is the only practical solution, government should assiduously work toward increasing its options.
The remaining question is whether society is better served by a BSD or similar license, allowing for incorporation into closed-source commercial software, or a GPL type license which restricts the software to only open source thereafter. My initial reaction was to support the GPL style license, since it is less susceptible to abuse by commercial enterprises; however, the more I think about it, the more I lean toward BSD type licensing for government works. The BSD has proven itself capable of adding richly to the public domain, and as long as all government software and data formats, including document formats are fully available to the public I do not see the potential for abuse being prohibitively high.
The main threat to open formats is the notorious "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" tactics which Microsoft has honed to a fine edge; however, these tactics can only work in a near-monopoly situation. If the government and its immediate subcontractors requires strict adherence to the vanilla open standards in the data it receives, then there is automatically a substantial and enduring market for tools which by default do not use non-standard extensions. No company which has substantial dealings with the government (and "everyone deals with the government") is going to prefer tools which make that essential transaction difficult. When document and data formats are fully open and free, and thereby not susceptible to EEE abuse by monopoly muscle, "losing" source code inside proprietary products will not be as harmful as it is now; Microsoft, or Sun, or Apple can take that code but they will have to do genuinely innovative and extraordinary things with it in order to compete with the already available free software.
And wouldn't it be nice to see them compete?
That's quite some degrees off from my central point, but it's absolutely correct. The act of deciding eliminates all the things you decided against. The moving finger, having written, ne'er can be lured back to unwrite. A suicide's second thoughts on the way down are irrelevant to anyone.
But my main point was that some choices open up a wider range of options, while others restrict your freedom of movement further on. I made a point of explaining why I thought open source software led to more options and therefore a greater freedom of choice for a purchasing government. So what's your point?
So I guess everybody had better stop making choices. We have to preserve freedom of choice, you know!
A refusal to decide is itself a decision. That which may never be used need never be preserved.
For crying out loud, jcast, if you want to play sophomoric word games at least read some sophomore-level textbooks on philosophy, or semantics, or symbolic logic, or at least some decent poetry.
Publically funded research should be in the public domain. Period.
Since this is not possible because of legal liability issues, the next best thing is a BSD/CMU/MIT license, which is effectively public domain with a hold harmless clause.
The legislation we *should* be calling for here is indemnification *in law* for authors who put their works into the public domain.
The problem with any license other than public domain is that it limits the people who can use it to a subset of the public.
Unfortunately, the GPL contains a "poison pill" in the "no additional restrictions clause"; this has been addressed by "the two clause BSD license", voluntarily, giving in to RMS' immutable world view.
But the GPL contains *another* "poison pill" against any license other than the GPL, by requiring derivative works to be licensed under the GPL. This is the license author's choice, but it ignores the possibility of combined derivation from both GPL and other sources. This time, it's up to RMS to give a little.
Rather than pushing for publically funded research to be GPL'ed, the GPL itself needs to change to permit the possibility of mixed derivation code; do that, and the entirety of the code that has gone into BSD and other large public code bases immediately becomes available to Linux -- and vice versa.
Limit miscibility to Open Source licenses, if you want (I even have a catch name: "the GNU Open Source Public License" -- GOSPL, pronounced "gospel").
The Internet is built on code that is as close to public domain as it is legally possible for the authors to make it. The model works. The model *wins* vs. closed source commercial attempts, like NetBEUI, IPX/SPX, XNS, DECNet, etc., all of which predated the public Internet, and had an opportunity to compete fairly... and lost to (effectively) public domain code. This code did not win because it was superior -- who designs a protocol that requires two responses to a single request by a client doing a connection shutdown to free up server resources, assuming that all clients will "play nice", or is succeptible to SYN-floodin *on purposed*?
It won *because* it was capable of being included in commercially produced routers and operating systems at a tiny marginal cost, in addition to other protocols, without enrighing one of the players on the field to the disadvantage of the others.
It's time to acknowledge the fact that there *is* an "intellectual commons" -- AND IT WORKS.
Yeah, I would be just as happy to have Open Source required for all government purchases -- particularly after the recent Oracle vs. California debacle on continuing licensing fees -- if only so that once tax money is spent on something, it doesn't have to be respent each year to *keep* that something. It doesn't so much matter to me that the winner be Linux or something else, so long as no one gets a lamprey-like grip on the public teat.
But that's a *totally* seperate issue from publically funded research, and just because the two are mixed together in the same position paper by an organization that it's otherwise easy to dislike, doesn't mean that all their positions are defacto unreasonable, or can be tarred with the same brush as the worst of their positions.
Publically funded research's results should be *public*, or as public as possible, until we can get the liability laws changed to the point that the results can be *truly public*.
And that's my 2 cents.
-- Terry
I like the GPL very much -- if I were to write something major, I'd license it under the GPL myself. But in this case, I believe the BSD license would be more appropriate. If the government is developing something (using taxpayer money), whatever it develops should be freely usable by anyone, including both open source developers and developers of proprietary software. Enforcing an "open-source only" sort of thing by using a license like the GPL doesn't really seem appropriate when we're talking about publically-funded projects.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I know RMS, RMS happend to have the office above me at MIT. He told me the license is viral long before Microsoft ever mentioned the word.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
When companies like MS make arguments such as the one claiming the government shouldn't use licenses like the GPL that might hinder them exploiting government-funded software, there's a good way to respond. Make the politicians answer this question publically: "Should we, as a matter of public policy, allow private enterprises to appropriate intellectual property (that they consider so valuable when it's theirs) developed with public funds and use that property for their own profit without compensation to the public?".
The government doesn't have to control the format. The format just has to be made available in its entirety to the public so that anyone can create a program that can read/write to that format without having to pay anyone a fee or royalty.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
No organization should select an inappropriate EULA.
This is irrelevant to the open standards point, other then it would avoid vendor lock in.
I'll simplify this for you.
Software distributed under something like the BSD license can be used by any taxpayer for any purpose. It can be used in free products, or commercial products. It is unencumbered, completely unrestricted.
Software distributed under the GPL is not. It is encumbered with it's anti-commercial clauses and may only be used in non-commercial applications such as research. (BTW when I say used, I mean the source code, not the compiled binary and please don't confuse the issue any further than you have already done so)
When a company uses software licensed under the BSD in a commercial product, they are not taking anything away from you. What they are selling to you is the value that they added to the software. You are still free to use the original software all you want, you are still free to modify the original software all you want. Nothing has been taken away from you. If you do not see value in the changes that this company is selling, then you do not need to buy from them.
Please stop trying to distort the issues.
It's a commen practace to sell government develuped technology and information to companys that donate to a senitor who finds himself in a possition of desiding what to do with government assets.
The technology is always sold at a massive discount vs how much the public tax doller paid to create it.
CU See Me and Mosaic were scooped up when people thought there'd be big money in Internet software.
Both were created with your tax dollars.
THAT is why government develuped software SHOULD be develuped under GPL liccenses or never released in any way shape or form.
(Some software should fall under state secrets.. But we have no provission for this so ANY software may become private sector property)
The fact is a number of companys do buy fully develuped technology this way. By requiring government projects eather be GPLed or never released this prevents companys from using the united states government for software R&D on a discount.
I don't actually exist.