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Perens Pushes "Sincere Choice" for Software
jalefkowit writes "Looks like Bruce Perens has found something to keep him occupied, now that he's parted ways with HP: the Register is covering his launch of a new political platform, "Sincere Choice", which he wrote to clarify the distinctions between the values of the open-source community and the Microsoft-funded Institute for Software Choice. Sincere Choice addresses several issues in critical to open software, including interoperability, competition by merit, open standards, and copyright."
One thing I really like is the whole file format issue. Already OpenOffice is great with m$ office files. If the govt and other institutions were able to settle on open file formats then that basically knocks one leg out from m$. m$ will probably try their hardest not to have this happen , obviously.
I'm not so big on forcing the govt (even tho i am helping to foot the bill) use this or that. As long as there is no file format lock in, then Linux and other non-m$ os's have a better than good chance getting business. Spread the wealth again. If adopted somehow or thise gains wide attention, then there will be more of the pie for others. Good approach.
Hmmm ... reminds me of Tobacco Research Institute founded by guess whom? For years they've been claiming that the smoke is good for you. Expect the same level of integrity from Institute for Software Choice.
I can understand giving open source software equal consideration when searching for the best solutionn, but, as we have seen with the recent rash of stories about forcing governments to use open source software, that is rarely the case with such people advocating software choice.
I have often heard people here talk about using the best tool for the job (usually, this is a belief stated in the context of a language flamewar or something else where there are several different ways to accomplish something). However, how are we to know that this "Sincere Choice" initiative isn't simply a front for those who would want to force software of inferior quality upon an organization or government just because it is open source, while downplaying the advantages of more mature and/or feature-rich closed source products? I have seen this happen many times before, where a few zealots get out of hand and start demanding their way or the highway, productivity and efficiency be damned. Is this really the kind of single-minded world view that we want to see in the Free Software community, where choice is king? Furthermore, is it entirely honest of Mr. Perens to imply objectivity when he is clearly a biased player?
Please report back when someone has come up with a real proposal for disseminating the objective facts about closed and open source choices.
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Validate www.softwarechoice.org
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Validate sincerechoice.com
Well, I think it's clear who stands for open standards and interoperability.If you'd like to know more about how to use validators to make your websites interoperable, read my article Use Validators and Load Generators to Test Your Web Applications.
Thank you for your attention.
-- Could you use my software consulting serv
But buried deep in this particular notion of interoperability is the following thought: a single format should be sufficient for all applications written for a specific domain. This thought suffers in two important ways:
- To differentiate their product, corporations must add new features; new features very often impose new requirements on persistence format and hence break interoperability.
- Standards bodies move far slower than the companies implementing said standards, often making true interoperability difficult.
I'm not really sure how to avoid these problems. For example, it is not sufficient to add (as has been suggested) a "generic app-specific XML container" to a given standard format. To properly reproduce a document, knowledge of the content in said container might be required.And as for problems with standards bodies: is it any wonder that Microsoft embraces and extends? Look, for example, at the current disaster of XML Schema, a standard wrought at the hands of academics. Anyone who has used XML Schema in a sophisticated manner can report that the standard lacks a coherent notion of cardinality. Should a company wait until this is repaired by committee, or should it simply embrace what has been done and extend it to meet current needs?
Pretty fast turnaround on response, but I would have appreciated, oh, a "yes" or "no" or "we'll think about it"!
MORTAR COMBAT!
If only he were using an open-source format for his letters....
Its funny how lock-in technology is touted as a "feature". And then a lack of lock-in technology is then used as "proof" that Open Source is not allowing true competition.
An AC wrote:
:-(
> Don't forget Apple...
Actually, Apple would be a good idea for a member, or even the group/movement's poster child. They love their proprietary and open source software both. And they are totally gung ho these days about open standards.
Apple's response to Microsoft's (beta?) release (announcement? announcement of intention to announce? I don't know, there was too much anti-Jaguar vapor floating around then) of Media 9 was pretty funny. They were laughing about this feature or that that iTunes or QuickTime had had for months, and said they were really flattered Microsoft was imitating them.
One thing Microsoft wasn't imitating, that Apple wished they did, was Apple's reliance on open standards. Instead of joining the MPEG4 party, they were off by their lonesome with some silly codec they had cooked up themselves. Poor widdle Microsoft, with nobody to play with.
"The Great Mystery is about to hatch!"
Tagline on "Godzilla vs. Mothra" (1964) DVD to be released in the US tomorrow! (Along with "Rodan" and a few others.)
If you take a country where copyright laws are enforced, but the income is low (think e.g. Eastern Europe), the whole picture is very different.
One of the things that creating their own platform (eg DX vs OpenGL) is that this allows Microsoft to "certify" drivers. While this could also be viewed as a bad (read monopolisic) thing, the cert process forces vendors to properly implement an api. There is no corresponding cert body for OpenGL, and, in theory, companies could ship incomplete or buggy implementations. Also, having tight control of a standard allows them to add new features at will. I could be mistaken, but I think that new features are added to the DX api faster than to the OpenGL api.
In my experience, RTF is no more compatible than cross platform DOC filters. It works most of the time, but it's still unreliable. An RTF created by one program may not work with another, even on the same platform. Your chances are a lot better if you stick to mainstream fonts, etc., but few people know which ones those are. If you can get everyone to agree which programs, versions, and fonts to use, RTF is workable, but it's still a big pain.