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SF Gate on Open Source Government
Bruce Perens writes: "At the San Francisco Chronicle's SF Gate, Hal Plotkin points to Sincere Choice as the right compromise for an IT renaissance in Government including both Open Source and proprietary software. The article is extremely flattering to yours truly, but a good push in the right direction from a well-respected commentator."
The way this works is, you mandate formats, not applications.
So you say, "all forms must be in PDF, all email via normal RFC822 mail (MIME allowed), documents in some-or-other format".
Who decides just what constitutes the "openness" of a format?
It just sounds like the right feature list will "win", and you'll have to explain to the PHB (the gov't PHB, worst kind) that Microsoft's XML isn't open, and Exchange isn't the same as sendmail + Cyrus IMAPD.
Unless I'm reading it wrong.
ZOMG I WOULD LOVE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS ON MACINTOSH VERSUS WINDOWS, VI VERSUS EMACS, AND HOW YOU'RE NOT A DORK
I agree that legislating interoperability would go a long way to fixing the problem. How does anyone propose to get legislation to this effect?
The Internet/Computing industry gave $16,138,743 in the 2002 election cycle. If there is one thing that these people understand, it's Return On Investment.
I'm much funnier now that I'm a subscriber.
And you credit me with more political sophistication than I have, so far.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
Here is the problem I see with mandating file formats "open"...
.rtf? They can then say (even with "some" legitimacy perhaps) that Word supports open standards.
What stops MS from making the default (in Gov. Editions anyway) Save feature in Word to be
I'm sure they'd figure out how to support open standards with most of thier suites, knowing full well not many would actually use them.
I agree with Perens' demand for open document formats. So long as the format is open, I have choice in what application I use. I can choose to read a PDF file, for example, with gv or Acrobat Reader. The competition comes from who can make the product more convenient to use.
When formats are closed, then one product must dominate. This is what we've already seen happen with MS Office, and we're seeing again with Internet Explorer, since MS is leveraging its market dominance to saturate the market with non-standard HTML (ie the Microsoft Document Object Model), thereby locking everyone into using IE.
#define sig "Every social system runs on the people's belief in it."
Um... I'm not a customer of the government, I'm one of its bosses. That's what a republic is about. I pay taxes. I vote. "Government of the people, by the people, and for the people" and all that stuff, you know? Thus, as one of the bosses and owners of the government, I get a say in how it's run.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
I am all for this in spirit. A few comments:
Formats/protocols are most important where exchange of data or interconnections take place. I'm not sure that, say, Oracle would need to make its internal file formats public as long as the interface to the outside world was standard and any client programs developed/purchased adhered to that standard (SQL92 as an example). As long as you have the freedom to dump your data from one system to another you have the freedom to change at (relatively) low cost.
Similarly, the biggest problem with Word/Excel/etc. formats comes when the government expects you to purchase single-source vendor-specific products that support those proprietary formats as the cost of doing business with the state.
The public would be up in arms if the state decided to only allow General Motors cars into government office parking spaces. The effect of using proprietary formats and protocols is little different.
We know that vendors, especially Microsoft, will interpret things so the result is the complete opposite of whatever the government/courts intend so in addition to your comments on "completely specified" I would add a time frame - ie. "1 year following publication" or "following wide industry adoption" or possibly just limit formats those with an accepted RFC.
Also, the specs must be completely released for permanent, no-strings, royalty-free use. You don't want a format to become widely used and then have the "owner" retract permission to use it royalty free (see GIF, MP3, JPG, etc).
~~~~~~~
"You are not remembered for doing what is expected of you." - Atul Chitnis
The problem here really is the definition of open. The MS-Office file formats could be called "open" because: [i] there is a published spec and [ii] there are multiple software packages that claim to both read and write them (WordPerfect Suite, OpenOffice, etc.)
Now slashdotters will claim, correctly, that the spec is incomplete and constantly changing and that the other software packages aren't 100% compatible. But MS has mucho lobbying muscle and the "State Commission on Open File Formats" will approve MS-Office formats, trust me.
"Sincere Choice" will become the "Sincere Status-Quo" pretty quickly.
I don't buy cars based on what brand I like, or how their business practices are.
- Would you buy a car with the hood welded shut?
To follow on the oft-repeated analogy: would you buy a car with the hood welded shut and an EULA that required you to only have it serviced at the manufacturer's shop, threatened you with jail for fixing problems yourself, and comitted you to paying a premium if you replaced the car with a competetor's model?- Vehicles are, essentially open-source.
- the hood's not welded shut
- We can move from make to another at will.
- We can change whatever parts of them we want -- or go to the manufacturer for 'proper' repairs.
- If we can figure out how to put a GM engine into a Ford chassis, we won't have to worry about either company suing us.
- we don't have to drive in different lanes depending on what model car we have
- A city car won't maliciously 'seize up' if we take it 'off road' on a flat piece of desert.
We often quietly put up with these sorts of things from software vendors. They call it 'standard industry practice'. We (customers) are the ones who pay through the nose. If the automobile (or most other) industries did the same things, we'd have lynch mobs out.Free Software: Like love, it grows best when given away.
This is not to say that I approve of software patents. The optimum solution would be to make them go away entirely. Getting them out of standards is something we can achieve on a shorter term.
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
What about custom software?
Does an open data format suffice?
Not all the information lies in data.
Isn't it sensible that the goverment should own all rights to modification on custom software?
Imagine, a new tax is introduced, so the tax software has to be changed.
Either that, or it can contract another company to write the whole software from scratch.
Which one will be more likely? What will this do to competition?
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Oh now I see. Since some people don't have modern computers (OSS-based or otherwise) the Gov can't use computers at all in conducting the business of the public. I mean, at some point that's the lowest you can limbo in the service of egalitarianism.
Look, there is always paper and the USPS. Libraries have computers for free use, and generally keep them within a few years of "current". Same with public schools. In a few years hence anyone with a cell phone will probably have access to a microbrowser.
Universal access to technology is an interesting topic, but not a realistic goal when defined narrowly as dekstop PCs. Freedom of information is not only interesting but frankly vital.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
they also need to be available with no license restrictions, and no requirement for an NDA. This is, in fact, much more important than "free of charge".
Microsoft have already used the "free of charge" loophole to publish some of their API's "free of charge", but with a NDA that forbids you to use them in GPL'ed code (not mentioning Samba with a word).
So it is important to stress that the API's and ABI's should be both public and usable by everyone with no restrictions.