New York City Examines Law Mandating Open Source

An anonymous submitter writes "The New York Council held a hearing on the 'SOFTWARE WARS.' The Select Committee on Technology in Government, chaired by Council Member Gale A. Brewer (D-Manhattan), held a public hearing Tuesday on software procurement practices by state and local governments. Representatives from the City's Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications, Microsoft, as well as numerous local software companies testified. Newsforge is carrying the testimony at the hearing of Tony Stanco, Director of The Center of Open Source & Government." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.

Comments

The Proper Focus Is Open Formats

[Steve B]

Governments should not mandate the use of a specific tool, but should mandate that the documents and files created are stored in an open (fully documented and non-proprietary) form so that legacy data cannot be held hostage and can be accessed by citizens regardless of their software preferences.

Re:Mandatory?

[mccalli]

it's all about decision - and the ability to use the best tool for the job....I feel that each OS is best suited to that particular role, and I use them accordingly.

But you are a private individual (or company), and have little or no need for public accountability in those choices. The money you spent on the tools you choose is entirely your own.

This is entirely different to a public body's decision-making process. There, it is other people's money that is being spent. The choice should not be merely what's best for that body, but what's best for the people who are funding that body. It could be argued that the public should have a right to use software that they have funded.

I actually agree with your post, but I feel the debate is framed in a different manner to that which you suggest.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:Sigh...

[IamTheRealMike]

But mandating open source is just a *bad* thing.

No no, read the testimony. This isn't about forcing people to use open source, it's about forcing people to consider it. Everybody knows there are some things open source can't do, some things that proprietary software does better, somet things free software does better BUT there's too much lockin to make it worthwhile etc etc etc.

This is just about trying to counter balance the lobbyists (why do such people even exist?).

Did anyone else actually READ the article?

[mainguym]

The article (or one that it was linked to) was about requiring agencies to consider open source products if they are available. The fact that anybody cares about this sort of legislation is very telling.

To me, software is a tool and currently the state of affairs is much like going to work and not being able to use a free tool because the boss only wants Craftsman or Snap-on. In the real world, this legislation would be similar to saying "before paying money to someone for something, first see if it is available for free".

When put that way it seems like the legislation would be needless, but the problem is that software companies have 2 marketing/sales folks for every one developer. Most open source projects have zero marketing guys, and the only projects who have any would be corporate folks in a mixed model like redhat or mysql.

In summary (while typing on my windows98 machine) I think this sort of direction is important from the government. The most important thing about this is that the data be stored in a non-proprietary, open format that is well documented. I don't want to have to pay for (via taxes) a copy of microsoft exchange so that I can communicate with my legislative body via email when there are 20+ FREE products that can do the same thing for much less money.

Now we should get about 20 Microsoft ROI monkeys who will try and explain how microsoft product X is cheaper than product Y. Give it up, we all know that ROI stands for Really Optimistic Ignorance! L8R