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Help Write An Open Data Format Bill
AdamBa writes "There has been a lot of discussion of open source bills, but I think open data format bills have a much greater chance of actually becoming law. Over at the Open Data Format Initiative site, I have written an article explaining "Why Open Data Format Laws Are Better Than Open Source Laws". I also have a sample Open Data Format bill; I invite comments from slashdot readers, in particular on how the sample bill could be improved."
Now, you could argue that even the study that Microsoft is pushing...
Although proponents of these laws may dream that Microsoft is going to open up their source...
If the government uses Office and the Office data format is made public...
Either Microsoft and other vendors are going to have to completely change their business model...
Microsoft will undoubtedly still lobby against open data format laws, but its arguments will be weakened significantly...
It doesn't have to get into reasons why open source laws would be bad for Microsoft personally...
Are there any companies you think these laws will effect? Oh wait....
Vonal Declosion
Text of article, complete.
---BEGIN---
Why Open Data Format Laws Are Better Than Open Source Laws
With a variety of open source bills introduced, both in the United States and elsewhere, there has been a lot of discussion about open source laws. However open source laws have problems, both structurally and politically, and I think open data format laws would work much better.
(NOTE: I use the term "open source laws," although in fact some of the laws refer to "free software" instead.)
The reasons are as follows:
Open source laws are too easy to argue against
The three points mentioned most often in favor of open source laws are cost, security, and open data formats. In the lobbying against open source laws, I have never seen any negative comments about open data formats; the focus is on the cost and security arguments.
When discussing cost, opponents of open source laws can point out (correctly) that the actual cost of the product is only one part of the total cost; Microsoft quotes a Gartner Group survey putting the number at 8%. Presumably they found the study with the lowest number, but the general fact is correct. Plus, the cost issue likely favors open source more on the server, where administration costs may be lower with open source software; on the client, where Windows is bundled with almost any computer anyway and support involves helping end users with unfamiliar software, open source won't come out looking as good.
Now, you could argue that even the study that Microsoft is pushing shows that the total TCO of open source is only 92% of what it is for proprietary software. The problem is that this then leads to a long debate about how open source affects the other costs of software (installation, support, administration, etc) and no clear winner will emerge.
Meanwhile, the security issue can easily get embroiled in a FUD battle between the two sides, each claiming that the other has more crashes and remote exploits, each waving studies that support their claims. If you want to convince a legislature to pass a law causing significant, possibly risky changes in government procurement, you can't get stuck in a battle like that. Keep in mind that properly designed secure file formats are not dependent on keeping the file format itself secret, so nobody should be able to argue that open data formats compromise security.
When the debate can be framed in terms of cost and security, the issue of open data formats can be conveniently ignored by opponents. Requring only open data formats would remove the abililty of opponents to attack the cost and security arguments, leaving them to come up with arguments explaining why open data formats are bad, whch I have not seen so far. Finally, governments have presumably always considered cost as a factor when evaluating software purchases, and these days they no doubt consider security too; having a law that focussed only on open data formats would open their eyes to something new, that they have probably missed in the discussion of open source laws.
Open source laws are either too inflexible, or require too much work
Many open source laws seem designed to force a government to replace Windows/IIS/Office with Linux/Apache/*Office, but of course they aren't written that way; they discuss open source and proprietary software in general. This can take one of two tacks; either requiring open source or free software with no alternative, or making it difficult to buy proprietary software (for example requiring each purchase be accompanied by written justification).
The first approach takes too simplistic a view of the type of software that governments use. Much of the it is customized for specific tasks such as processing drivers' licenses, and the market for providers of such software is presumably small. If software vendors release their software as open source, they may find that cash-strapped governments in other states gladly help themselves to it for free, so the vendor may g
Who did what now?
This idea seems too obvious, too clear, too intuitive, and far too easy to implement for any respectable lawmaker to consider it for even a single nanosecond.
To ensure perfect aim, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target
...might or might not now help linux ... a lot of people I've talked to just don't like openoffice (and I've noticed that big spreadsheets are intolerably slow). There's a bit more work to be done there, besides the standard ms office problems. (That said, it wouldn't hurt a bit). But it would definately help a company like apple.
Imagine flawless powerpoint support in keynote.
You say
When it hits the legislature where it will quickly be rewritten to allow MS to do whatever it wants.
Was I the only one who saw the title Help Write An Open Data Format Bill and thought "Yeah right, like Bill's ever gonna do that."
Rock on M$
Yes, I know they are embracing XML now...
Hmmm...
The author has the right idea; it would certainly make building compatible third-party implementations of data-processing software (by that I mean nearly all software) much easier than if the file formats were closed, as they are now.
The trouble is that the distinction between code and data isn't as bright a line as you might think. I don't mean code/data segmenting; if you think about what evals and ELF are, you know what I mean.
Algorithms (not to mention software in the US) are certainly patentable -- and efficient data storage mechanisms are too. Think about what a gold mine in terms of IP value a hash table would have been if it invented at a commercial organization instead of in academia.
So, the conundrum we still face is that there are still valid IP claims WRT data structures, because oftentimes, as much thought is put into them as into the processing software that reads and writes them.
works for me :)
On the second bullet you say "computer data owned by the [government] be permanently available to the [government] throughout its useful life."
Somewhere you may want to define "useful life", I could see this as a possible loophole, this term could mean different time lengths to different people.
make and distribute their own software for viewing these documents free of charge. It's not like we can't already get these documents realitively cheaply by mail or download them as a pdf.
The government has the money and resources to make a simple "MS Word style" program and make it publicly available to open any document they release.
In my opinion this would be benificial because it would not force any company to change their practices, even though I think some of them should. It would prevent any third party company from making a program that would undermine the integrity of the file (sounds absurd but it would probably happen, i.e. something pertaining to Microsoft opened by the Microsoft application is modified, just a guess)
I didn't understand the articles very well, so if this is offtopic, do as you will.
Stuff this open data format crap.
I think data formats are patentable... because some of them are inventive and require real ingenuity. eg: video streaming, etc.
If you don't award patents, you don't get the great inventions. (cf: Edison)
from,
your friendly patent attorney
Goverment? What goverment? We are talking about open data formats for Internet, not for national network of one country, right? If so then the law should be international. Otherwise - it's wasting of time and efforts.
Less is more !
With that being said, common sense should dictate to anyone in government who is in charge of purchasing that an open data format is much more inviting than a non-open format. But I can see that just because this should be common sense does not neccescarily mean that it is.
Here is my only concern: I don't like to have the government's hands tied, one way or another. Sometimes the market does not produce a product to satisfy these conditions or the market will produce an open data format product and a closed data format product where the closed data format product is superior in all ways but the obvious one. Now, I want the government to be able to evaluate their needs (considering how likely it is that they will need backups of the data - for instance if the data is only going to be temporary work product for an internal office and will eventually be converted to HTML) and make an informed decision. But I suppose in many cases it is better to lay down a rule which will work positively in 99% of all situations.
I hate liberals. If you are a liberal, do not reply.
I guess the best example would be Oracle and their proprietary database files.
To handle a case like this, the company would need to apply for an exception, which could be granted under the following conditions
a) an independant technical review confirms protecting the file format is significant to the business
b) the company provides free utilities to extarct all data into an open format from the proprietary format
c) The source code for the utility is escrowed, and publically released in the event of the company going under, discontinuing support of the product, etc
This would allow Oracle to protect it's way of storing a database, but doesn't prevent anyone from moving to a different database
I won't brattle on, but how about using a Wiki to fascilitate the creation of various public participation law draftings?
This would be an excellent application of the wiki technology and mantra of all-and-any user participation.
Just an idea...
cheers,
Levendis47
--==[ AOL YIM ICQ : Levendis47 : levendis47@yahoo.com ]==--
If you think anyone in congress is going to consider it..
BAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAQHA
Good luck, when was the last time congress did something for the people? 1776?
A further problem: someone -- maybe multiple someones -- is/are going to scream about how this causes a security problem. Sure, you and I know about peer review vs security by obscurity blah blah, but it's fairly clear that most of the business world just as soon have as much obscurity as possible, whether or not they've had an expert review their system....
Tweet, tweet.
What ever happend to independent and competing ideas that will eventually succumb to the better format?
...
Remember LZH, ARC, PAK, ARJ, JAR, ZIP, RAR, ACE, ZOO,
All competing algorithms and eventually ZIP won [or more so deflate] for the most part and BZIP2 to a certain degree...
If you stiffle independent thought before you get out the door why bother?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I would prefer a complete free and open standard with no patent encumberment, but a second-best option would be to have an open and fully documented standard that may or may not be subject to patents, along the lines of the stuff put out by the MPEG consortium (MP3, AAC, etc. are all patented, but are also completely open formats). This way at the very least you have an guarantee that your data won't be permanently inaccessible, because when the patent expires you can reimplement the open specification.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
a) Lobbyists from companies that currently have govt. contracts will be pissed
..NASA, FDA etc.)
b) cost to convert and/or interoperate with legacy systems will be IMMENSE, may run into the many billions (consider all the govt. agencies
c) Did I mention the costs involved (perceived costs, not necessarily real costs)
Nice dream though, but I rather dream of sleeping.
Open data formats would be good, but we also need open communication protocols. Also, the bill should prohibit formats that can only be implemented by paying patent royalties.
Imagine flawless powerpoint presentations in /dev/null.
Banaaaana!
Oregon's HB 2892 has sections covering both open source and open formats. It has recently been revived, and there's still a chance of passage.
I'm always critical of legislating common sense. It's common sense that you should wear a seat belt and so I don't believe there should be a law which dictates that you must wear one.
Bad example. Not wearing a seat belt affects more than you (believe it or not).
Assume you get involved in an accident[1], and you weren't wearing your seatbelt. Because of that, you get hurt quite badly when you wouldn't have been if you had worn your seatbelt[2]. Emergency services have to come out and help you now, you go to a hospital, and you tie up doctors, nurses, and space that other people need.
Even if you pay for all of those services 100%, you still can't deny that you tied up resources that may have been needed elsewhere.
And that's why you should wear your seatbelt; it's got nothing to do with your right to risk your own safety, and everything to do with the consequences to others should the risk eventuate.
What's the penalty for not wearing a seatbelt where you are? Here, it's a fine; considering that the partial reimbursement back to society.
Laws designed to curtail behaviour that has negative impacts on other people, or society as a whole, are not wasteful.
Or would you prefer a law that if you weren't wearing a seatbelt, then you don't get medical treatment in the event of an accident? I'd accept either...
[1] If you never get into an accident, then it wouldn't matter.
[2] Yes, sometimes wearing the seatbelt causes you to get hurt more than you would have if you didn't. Those cases are far less likely than the reverse.
Oh, and ObQuote: "Common sense is very uncommon" -- Horace Greeley
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
I pushed for a similar "rule" at the local government offices I work at. All documents available to the public, and all documents used for communications with contractors/agencies/whatever, must be in an open format, unless no open format exists for the given data that conveys all needed information. (Which is pretty damn rare to not have.)
.DOC files from coworkers) but a good deal of external communication is on open formats. Our e-mail gateway blocks most non-open formats, which helps a good deal as well. ;-)
It's working fairly well. Enough of the employees are still just using the default MS formats in MS Office (I still receive enough
On a sadder note, tho, the residents have never requested this. Likely, they do not care; the majority of them, anyways. Increasing demand from residents would help push more gov't agencies to use rules similar to ours. How many of you Free Software and Open Communications geeks have even sent an e-mail to your local township/city/county/etc. requesting open formats? Truly, even a small handful of voices are listened to, from my own experience in the field.
Be heard!
Except the author thinks that software companies are just going to lovingly hand over specifications on their file formats. Throughout computing history, software companies have used file formats to lock people into their product, force them to buy upgrades, and use them as leverage for strategic partnerships. Ie- it's a huge cash cow to have proprietary formats.
The author, in the very first paragraph, dismisses "open source laws", saying they "won't work". Huh? Says who? Then he says his WILL work. You can't just make enormous blanket statements like that without backing them up!
In his second point, he says "Many open source laws seem designed to force a government to replace Windows/IIS/Office with Linux/Apache/*Office". Where is he getting this crap from? He goes on to dismiss the security benefits of open-source software, the cost savings...he pretty much dismisses every single argument for considering open-source software, with nothing to back up his reasoning. He 'thinks', therefore it is.
My impression of "open source laws" was that they instruct government agencies to -CONSIDER- open source solutions- it does not FORCE them to use them- yet he makes it out like there's a cop sitting there with a gun to a government IT manager's head, saying "Go ahead punk. Make my day. Install Office. Are you feelin' lucky, punk?" Maybe I misread it, but his idea seems to be to -FORCE- companies to release file formats if their software is used by the government.
One requires you consider open-source software, leaving commercial software companies plenty of oppertunity to compete if they've got a better solution(remember, open-source is not $0, you still have labor involved, possibly a migration, maybe staff training and hiring, maybe different equipment.) Open source doesn't automatically, if ever, "win" outright simply because it's open-source, yet the author seems to think open-source always will, and hence open-source laws will be bad because there will be a huge inconvenience to the government or the software companies. Again, consider- not force! If the manager thinks commercial software will overall be better, he/she will make that call.
The other forces software companies to do something that threatens, in a BIG way, how they compete against other companies.
Now, which has more of a chance of failing?
Please help metamoderate.
Even if everyone on /. pooled their money, I don't think we could afford to pass a bill like this.
_______
2B1ASK1
Since word processing is so common I think there should be a line in the bill that says what word processor format should be used. Open Office is the best one I know about (xml subfiles in a zip).
In addition to data formats the bill should require open networking protocol formats. That covers the disk and the wire(/less).
I don't know if the file format needs to be open, but one would think that a future version of a product should always be able to open past versions of documents for that product at a minimum. That being said it seems like laws are being pushed because some don't think certain software models will win in the free market system. I do not like this use the power of the goverment to beat my biz opponents, I know it is done constantly I just like good old competition. [Disclosure I am a RHAT shareholder]
Onward to the Aether Sphere!
Umm... .txt
I thought there was an Universal file format.
...thinly veiled attempt to force OSS welfare upon the public at large. There were far too many sections that forced not only open data formats to be used but applications that are open themselves.
If you truly want data to be open, then say so, quit the bullshit attempts at forcing governments to stop using Microsoft Office. Work to force government to save data as PDF documents instead. The PDF standard is open to all and OSS as well as proprietary applications can save to this format just fine. You can download the Adobe Acrobat reader for free and if you use Linux/UNIX you have a number of options to choose from for opening PDF files.
The major flaw I see in your argument is that it is actually very unclear whether mandating the wearing of seatbelts reduces the likelihood that those scarce resources will be wasted. Wearing seatbelts, for instance, has the tendency to encourage people to drive a little less carefully -- they have less incentive to be careful than they would have if they were not wearing them [1]. Each accident may be safer for those involved, but the number of accidents will go up and it is most likely that the amount of waste of health care resources does not change significantly. Look for and read The Armchair Economist for a more detailed discussion on how people respond to incentives and how well-intensioned legislation can have surprising outcomes.
[1] If this is hard to fathom, consider how people would modify their driving habits if cars had no seatbelts and, instead, had a sharp spear sticking straight out from the steering wheel, aimed at the driver's throat! (yeah, I borrowed your footnote style!)
Admittedly i read the 'bill' a bit quickly, but there is one problem (which seems to be partially addressed later on) is that all data be in human readable format. Well this is good for string data. However I very much suspect there are going to be number formats that are much better stored in their binary format. Now as I recall from college COBOL's strategy as to have everything stored as string data with (interesting) defining headers. As I also recall this was to help portable between COBOL and other foreign (computer wise) data retrieval systems, like when data was passed around on tapes.
This is all well and good, but you trade off portability for parsing overhead. Of course CPU time is way cheap as to compared to yesteryear. However you will end up with people's nutjob parsing routines, I mean hell CPUs and calculator software still get shipped making math mistakes. Reading in data in any of the standard int and float storage formats is cheaper and you don't have to worry about joe-bob desk jockey hosing up an import routing and your tax bill being 100x too large.
Now as most of us who have been thru a proper programming class know there are routines for these kinda things.. but again beware of joe-bob who wants to do it 'better' or whatever. Perhaps along with open data one needs to define a data import stadard?
Open data formats are a good start, but don't fool yourself into believing they are sufficient. HTML is perfectly open, but how many web sites are there that test against anything but IE? How many rely on the behavior (even the bugs) of IE?
The non-openness of Microsoft Word's document formats is not the biggest obstacle. There are plenty of office suites now that can read them. The biggest obstacle is that people write their documents expecting them to look exactly as they do in Word. That's not something that open data formats by themselves will solve. Microsoft could move entirely to XML, and that problem would still remain.
It would be possible as a second-best option to at least require open but patent-encumbered standards, along the lines of the MPEG consortium's work (MP3 and AAC are both patent-encumbered, for example, but also open and documented standards). This way you don't have the problem of one day not being able to read valuable data -- once the patent expires, anyone can reimplement the open and documented format.
You could even take this another step in the direction of MPEG-like policies, and have a common non-discriminatory licensing policy, so anyone who wanted to build an interoperable implementation before the patent is expired would have to pay, but the rules for payment would be very clearly defined.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
At the session, I got the impression that most government agencies are moving towards PDF for records than need electronic retention.
The poster's argument wasn't about choice; it was about common sense. Your assumption (that the poster would choose not to wear one because it affects only himself/herself) is attacking a straw man. The poster never said why wearing a seatbelt was common sense. It is quite possible that s/he agrees with everything you said.
Having said that.
First of all, it's fallacious to say that seat-belt wearers will be hurt less than other people. More on this below.
This could just as easily happen if you are wearing a seatbelt. Wearing a seatbelt is not a "get out of the emergency room free" card.
Most of the time, some sort of emergency services will respond to the scene regardless of whether or not the victim is wearing a seatbelt. And many times a person will go to the hospital regardless of their seatbelt-wearing status.
Furthermore, you can get injured just walking down the street. Does that mean we should ban walking down the street because of "the potential drain on society's resources"?
This is true for any accident, no matter what. A good medical institution will determine on a case by case basis what resources they can commit to a patient. It's called triage.
It's a fine here as well, but it goes to the cops, not the hospitals or emergency workers who respond to the scene of accidents. If it's a reimbursement, it's a misallocated one. Also, it's used as a (probably ineffective) deterrant ("Wear your seatbelt or pay $75!"), not a "repayment".
Yes, but laws that force you to wear a seatbelt don't curtail any negative impact on society. Everything you said is true of any accident, whether the victim was wearing a seatbelt or not -- or even whether the accident involves an automobile or not!
Hell, why stop there? Let's have a law that medical institutions don't have to treat you if you jaywalk! Or better yet, let's have a law that says they don't have to treat you if you have no foreseeable way to pay them back, since by not paying them you are draining society's resources.
Hospitals cannot (legally) make determinations about who they can treat, whether a law was broken or not. Nor should they be allowed to.
So you're saying the government is allowed to (pre-)determine for me a choice that could affect my living or dying? Do you think they should be able to do this in every case? What if I am going to have surgery where I have a 10% chance that I could die or be severely maimed? Because it's "only a 10% chance" does that mean the government gets to decide for me?
This is the dumbest argument. Those people who die or are severly hurt by seat belts should not have been legally bound to wear them. Perhaps they would've worn them anyway, perhaps not, but at least it would've been their choice and not the government's.
"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand
Government archives are supposed to be preserved for the life of the republic.
Instead of making major corporations, such as Microsoft, open their formats, perhaps Word and similar programs should be required to have the ability to read and/or write major open formats, such as StarOffice/OpenOffice formats.
Yes, I could see arguments along the lines of "but we can't possibly support every format," but in the case of behemoth corporations, it should be doable for at least the major formats. This could also be said to stifle competition, but in Microsoft's case, it has already done enough of this, and this measure could actually restore competition.
I've read Grocklaw. BoycottNovell, you're no Grocklaw
Common sense dictates that we all obey the strictures and jurisprudence of actuarial accountants. That means that you shouldn't get out of bed without putting on a helmet. Common sense tells us that if you do, you are more likely to lose your brains than if you don't.
This argument really muxes up two different issues.
Most Open Source programs do not use "open" data formats -- there is no specification or independent implementations. ("Use the Source" is not a specification.) Many of them are just as implementation-dependant as MS Word. If anything this only helps big company projects like Sun StarOffice.
Can't help to think this is all just advanced whining over some DOC files and has nothing to do with public policy.
This "open data format" proposal is impractical and counter-productive.
Impractical
Most computer programs are useful because they produce human-readable output, usually by arranging pixels on a screen or on a sheet of paper in ways that correspond with natural-language representations (words and numbers). Every purchaser of software is free to decide before purchase whether a program's output is sufficient for his needs, including any potential need for data archiving or transfer.
But until the data is output, it is encoded for the convenience of the program, not for the user. Even an ASCII file is not really "text," but numeric bytes whose values correspond to alphanumeric characters only through an artificial, though widely adopted, convention.
A data file is just a data structure stored in a persistent medium. As a developer, I shudder to imagine the burden of documenting every bit of data my programs store. I'd need to convert them from binary format to human readable. Not only that, but binary formats are necessary for some functionality. Have you ever benchmarked the performance of a large conventional database against a stored-as-XML database?
I guess I couldn't compress data, or maybe I could only compress it in a "standard" format - but which one, and who decides which one? Graphics and sound? I suppose I couldn't use a proprietary format for those either. And I guess I couldn't encrypt any data, at least not in any way a competing program couldn't decrypt. Well, if my competion can decrypt the data, so can anyone else. Sorry, but this is a non-starter for many business applications.
Counter-productive
Currently, a user has his software, he has his data (stored in whatever format the software's author found efficient and secure enough for the application), and he has a legal right to make copies of them so he won't lose any data he has bargained for. So this law doesn't really gain him data security; it gains interoperability, the possibility that competing software vendors will be able to serve his needs. There's an implicit hope that small software vendors could use open data formats to compete more equally against large vendors.
Alas, that hope is a pipe dream. Because any software vendor would be able to extend a published data format, the publisher who could extend it most and fastest would always lead the market. That means the biggest company would lead the market.
It's happened before. Microsoft's president is on record, telling his developers to "embrace and extend" industry standards. That's how Microsoft maintains de facto leadership of many standards. They can embrace whatever is open to be embraced, and extend it so it becomes Microsoft's. Examples include HTML (Microsoft's progress slowed by developer inertia), web services (Microsoft looking strong), Java (thwarted, so far, by Sun's license), and even ".doc" files (we old-timers remember when they were plain ASCII).
An open source author has the protections of copyright and licensing terms against Microsoft stealing his code. But the author of a program that keeps its data open has no such protection. The data belongs to the program's user, not the program's author. Open data is ripe for the picking by a bigger company, and a small-scale author of successful open-data software will soon be following instead of leading in his market.
Let's leave software authors and users free to decide whether human-readable output is enough for them, or if they want data structures stored persistently in human-readable form. The perversion of the patent system should teach us this much: laws that are meant to help the little guy, may help the big guy even more.
there is no well defined distinction between source code and data, nor is such a definition possible (think Lisp).
.Net runtime).
if closed source is legal, but closed data formats are not, MS will just make their data documents "runnable" (think embedded VBscript macros, etc...) and say "that's not just your average data document; it's a *program* (value added for customer satisfaction!), and it's *compiled* (ie obfuscated) for performance; therefore, we don't have to make it open."
MSword and its ilk will just become an interpreter for "running" your saved documents (think C#
No, it was about choice. He was saying you should not be forced to do something that is common sense; that's a debate about choice.
I'm going to ignore most of your post on the grounds that you either have deliberately missed my point, used your own strawman arguments, or are just thick (I'll let you decide which...). However, there's a key point I want to address:
So you're saying the government is allowed to (pre-)determine for me a choice that could affect my living or dying? Do you think they should be able to do this in every case? What if I am going to have surgery where I have a 10% chance that I could die or be severely maimed? Because it's "only a 10% chance" does that mean the government gets to decide for me?
Actually, in general, yes I do believe that.
Most modern societies believe that we have a duty of care to other members of our societies. This results in such things as publicly funded hospitals.
Such facilities are almost always heavily utilised. In such situations, most societies look at ways of reducing the need for these services.
The seatbelt case is an excellent example. When seatbelts first started being available in cars, some bright spark noticed that there were relatively fewer injuries amongst seatbelt wearers. Statistical studies were done and they showed that, on the whole, wearing a seatbelt meant you were less likely to be hurt. Local governments started passing seatbelt laws. Other studies were done showing a large correlation between seatbelt laws and reduced hospital demand. So everybody picked it up.
If seatbelts weren't required, hospitals would have even greater demands on them. Hence the law. I feel that governments have the perfect right to curtail behaviour that puts higher demand on government services.
So, that's how a private choice (the decision to wear or not wear a seatbelt) becomes something worth legislating.
This is the dumbest argument. Those people who die or are severly hurt by seat belts should not have been legally bound to wear them. Perhaps they would've worn them anyway, perhaps not, but at least it would've been their choice and not the government's.
First obvious point: It's always their choice. The car doesn't have a sensor in it to not let it start if the seatbelt isn't worn. They can drive without a seatbelt. It's just now, in addition to risking greater injury in the event of an accident, they also risk getting fined.
Second obvious point: Yes, seatbelts sometimes result in greater harm than they do good. Laws are aimed at the benefit of society as a whole, not individuals. On the whole, society is helped by seatbelt laws.
To take another example, some people think vaccinations should be a personal choice. Vaccinations occasionally have undesirable side effects. Despite that, high vaccination rates for measles, polio, chickenpox, whooping cough, dyptheria, and other nasty diseases have vastly reduced breakouts and associated fatalities. However, it's also been shown that when vaccination rates drop below a threshold (like, 80%), the breakouts start occuring again. Because of this, if a government wants to make vaccinations mandatory, then I think they have every right to.
The desire to have governments not intrude on these apparently individual (and often common sense) choices is, at heart, an entirely selfish one. It ignores the fact that these laws are not designed to curtail your rights, such as they are; they are designed to help society as a whole.
And to tie it back to the topic: a government body mandating that suppliers of software to it use a publicised data format is a good thing. It may be common sense ("Of course I want the ability to access my data in any way I want"), but that doesn't mean it's not something that should be legislated.
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
Dead people don't go to the emergency room, they don't collect unemployment or disability insurance, they don't get Medicaid or Medicare, and they never get any more social security benefits.
A seatbelt might save your life, but in anything but a non trivial crash you probably will still be injured. In such a case it probably saves resources to simply have the victims safely dead.
If someone doesn't want to wear a seatbelt (facing a greater possibility of death) then that is fine with me. Dead people cost me less money.
The first approach takes too simplistic a view of the type of software that governments use. Much of the it is customized for specific tasks such as processing drivers' licenses, and the market for providers of such software is presumably small. If software vendors release their software as open source, they may find that cash-strapped governments in other states gladly help themselves to it for free, so the vendor may get only one paying contract instead of fifty. Therefore, it's quite possible that governments won't be able to find companies willing to provide them with open source software, and then what alternative do they have?
I just covered this recently in an op-ed piece in the business journal. Let me make this simple: governments do not exist to provide business opportunities to software developers. Reread that until it makes sense.
We (collectively "the people") shouldn't have to pay twice for a piece of software. The open source world needs to come up with solutions to boring problems, like drivers' license registration. If a particular company doesn't want to be a part of that, then so be it.
Michael
Do you have ESP?
The problem in your argument is that, despite what the ads say, seatbelts don't save lives.
Yes, that's right. Your chances of death in a car accident (at least, death without getting to a hospital first) are not decreased significantly by wearing a seatbelt. Seatbelts prevent the "being tossed around the car, suffering massive bruising, broken bones, spinal damage and internal bleeding" type of injuries. Most quick deaths from car accidents occur due to broken necks from whiplash (seat belts don't help, may hinder), or foreign object intrusion.
So how are your feelings of someone risking greater, and more costly, injury, but without raising their chances of cheaply dying very much?
(Nice pragmatic attitude, BTW... reflects mine a lot)
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
how retarded can you get ...
But then again, I'm just an unfrozen caveman.*
"Most computer programs are useful because they produce human-readable output, usually by arranging pixels on a screen or on a sheet of paper in ways that correspond with natural-language representations (words and numbers). Every purchaser of software is free to decide before purchase whether a program's output is sufficient for his needs, including any potential need for data archiving or transfer."
But the catch is that when the govt decides that the output is sufficient for its needs, publishes the output, and then in order to have access to it, the public needs to buy certain software. If the govt were required to publish data in an open format, that would solve this. They could do what they liked internally, but if the data was for public use, it would have to go into os format.
"I guess I couldn't compress data, or maybe I could only compress it in a "standard" format - but which one, and who decides which one? Graphics and sound? I suppose I couldn't use a proprietary format for those either. And I guess I couldn't encrypt any data, at least not in any way a competing program couldn't decrypt. Well, if my competion can decrypt the data, so can anyone else. Sorry, but this is a non-starter for many business applications."
This is just pants, it's not the the crypting algo that's secret, it's the key.
All the more reason not to have seatbelt laws. If they don't actually help save your life, why should you have to wear them?
BTW, where did you get your statistics?
And governments should mandate that everyone have an implantable tracker chip, and give up a dna sample at birth, too, so we can "fight crime". And we should have testing from right after birth to determine our IQ,and our natural talents, so we won't waste time or resources, and to have our lifetime careers appointed to us, so we can be more productive and help society more. And every place we go there should be video cameras, so we can be "safe". And we should give government all our labor and money, because they know better than us how to spend it and use it, because they are smarter. And government should pick out our diets for us,after first having us all go through a complete medical examination, with once a month reviews, because people eating the wrong foods cause a huge expense and extra work for society's medical establishment. And because people have mood swings, and sometimes get angry,or tend to disobey their bosses, we should all take government approved calming drugs, after first going through an examination then coming in once a month. In fact, we should have packs of meds strapped to our skins, and the meds can be applied from wireless commands, where the computers monitor us all the time and adjust them so we stay calm, and so that we...can contiune to grow and love big brother.
One step at a time, friend, one step at a time. We will evangelise for our cause, people are simple, and unable to understand anything complex, they always make the wrong descisons, we must guide them forever with strong laws,strict rules, we will force them to be good, they are as children always, they need direction, they need order, safety, comfort, security, all should be decided for them, they shouldn't worry, government will take care of them..after all, it's for their good and society's good, government must do it all.....
RINGGGG!
dang, time to get up, sheesh, was having a nightmare......
Picks up paper, reads headlines, gasps...eastasia has attacked... Looks up on wall, video camera staring at him. Smiles. Goes to window, looks outside, everyone has the same clothes on, and are slowly walking to their tasks..shooosh...feels the drugs go in, warm glow...walks slowly out the door....
What? How did this get modded up to +5?
If software vendors release their software as open source, they may find that cash-strapped governments in other states gladly help themselves to it for free, so the vendor may get only one paying contract instead of fifty.
IIRC, the GPL specifies that you only need to make the source available to the entities to which you distribute binaries. I.e., if Michigan gets a contract with some company for some software, the company can release the software as GPL and only provide the source to the Michigan state government. It is then in the best interests of the state government to NOT redistribute the software. That way another state, say New York, also buys the software to make sure that the company is still there next year. The best thing is that if company X pisses off the state, they can take the source and hire company Y to maintain it. If I understand the intent of the GPL, this is the kind of choice that is available with free software.
Compare that to a previous post (I don't recall the exact thread) where the poster pointed out that his organization used a particalur personnel management product. PeopleSoft bought the competitor and disconitnued the product. Security flaws were found, his company had to spend $2M to switch to PeopleSoft. Had that software been GPL, they could have just hired another company to fix/maintain it. Again, in that situation it is in the company's best interest to NOT freely (as in beer) redistribute the program.
I think the same can be said for many non-commodity software products. I mean, how many people actually need or want (or have the hardware) to run a PeopleSoft level program at home? Better yet, if a company pays, say $250000, for a program and accompanying support, what incentive do they have to turn around and give it away? It seems to me that the GPL is really perfect for situations like this.
All the more reason not to have seatbelt laws. If they don't actually help save your life, why should you have to wear them?
Because they cut down on injury. This is a better justification in any case.
BTW, where did you get your statistics?
If I gave specific numbers, I made them up (and I think I made that clear). I don't have a good enough memory to recall the exact numbers.
The information came from an (Australian) government white paper on seat belt related injuries I stumbled across a few years ago. Unfortunately, I can't remember the URL.
A google search on "seat belt injury statistics" gave a few good sites, including this one. Of course, those are guvmint stats, and people so pro-individual as to oppose seat belt laws do tend to distrust the guvmint...
(The exact site I referenced has a flaw in that it doesn't compare similar types of accidents. It finds, for example, that not wearing a seatbelt makes it more likely you'll die in an accident. The Australian study I read implied that fatality rates were pretty even for really bad accidents, BUT that there was a correlation between people who don't wear seat belts and people who drive recklessly (big surprise). This helps explain why 64.5% of people in Illinois who died in car accidents in 1997 weren't wearing seat belts... they self select)
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
I am the author of the Oregon Open Source bill.
You are seeing things exactly as I saw them when I wrote the original bill: I felt that its real power was not in the open source provisions -- those were there to get media attention -- but in the requirements for open standards.
I was unable to contact the one person I needed help from when writing the bill -- Larry Rosen of the Open Source Initiative -- until after the bill had been introduced with all of the flaws and mistakes I made.
Please, get advice from Larry Rosen in writing your sample bill. I won't post his contact info here, but I'm sure you can find him if you look.
Ken BarberIn times of universal deceit, telling the truth gets you modded -1 Troll
Specifically, the applications must be able to save by default in the archival quality format.
This brings to mind the discussions of technological obsolesence that surfaced briefly in computer magazines a year or three ago. It's a timely subject, even if it is forbidden by Chairman Bill.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Oregon has been cited for introducing open source legislation: but unfortunately is also one of the few states that have allowed state and local government entitites to charge development fees and a marginal copying fees for certain types of information (Oregon Revised Statues, section 190).
The federal government passed the 1995 Freedom of Digital Information, but not many states have followed similarly with their state government data... thus some states are are charging for data that isn't or can't be produced in the private sector (aka lucrative government data monoplies).
Access to government data *period* should also be a considered in the open source/format debate. Don't just assume that government data is available, it isn't in instances where it should.
No, not necessarily. As I said in my previous post (and which you so haughtily ignored), there is no evidence that this is the case. 1) responders still need to respond to the scene of an accident, regardless of who was wearing seatbelts and who wasn't. 2) Most of the time, accident victims, whether hurt minorly or not, will still visit the hospital.
In addition to this, there are studies that have indicated that drivers who wear seatbelts are generally more agressive because they feel safer. More aggressive drivers leads to more accidents. Sure, they're wearing their seatbelts, so the overall individual effect may be less harm to themselves, but accidents don't always involve only people in cars. They also involve pedestrians, bicyclists, and Amish people (not to mention their horses). More accidents cause insurance premiums to go up, not just for those involved in the crash but for everybody. Increased danger from agressive drivers and higher premiums both hurt society.
And finally, just because injuries/deaths are down in generally doesn't necessarily mean it's due to the wearing of seatbelts. More cars these days also have airbags, some of them even have side-impact airbags. Also, cars are generally sturdier. These things may also be the reasons for fewer major injuries.
First obvious retort: If a person always has a choice, and if a law doesn't hinder the effect of that choice, then why have the law?
But you must not really believe that. It was just an attempt at a quick and witty reply. Really, the fact that there is a law probably does hinder one's choice (or at least artificially weigh a person's options heavily in favor of one--the one for which the law is written). Also, you have to consider that with the law has come increased education about the benefits of wearing a seatbelt (i.e., you're less likely to die or be seriously injured). It's hard to determine which one really is the reason. I'm all for education about seatbelts--just not making wearing them a law.
Second obvious retort: There's no evidence that seatbelt laws significantly benefit society as a whole. See above.
[example about vaccinations deleted as it is like comparing apples to oranges]
Yes and no. Individual choice is certainly selfish, but if everybody in a society can choose for themselves, then it benefits society as a whole.
To quote Ayn Rand: "Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual)."
Yeah, yeah, I know what you're gonna say -- "It's not an oppression" and blah, blah, blah. But the simple fact is, before seatbelt laws were passed, people were allowed to choose; that's freedom. Now they are not; the former freedom has been taken away, and that's an oppression.
"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand
Nice troll and almost completely incorrect. You can still suffer from major internal bleeding with a seatbelt and in any case, you are still prone to decelleration injuries on major organs in a seat belt. However, by not flying around, you are *still* less likely to cause injuries to yourself or others.
See my journal, I write things there
Actually as an aside, I've alway wondered that, given the fact that corruption is almost unescapable, wouldn't it just be better to have an open market for politicians and officials with an auction process? When we know how much they can make, then they can bid for their own positions.
Anyway, back to the matter in hand. It is to the advantage of the people if the government isn't tied to a particular vendor by their data formats? Even within an organisation, data formats can be annoying, which is why many organisations license at least MS Word and Excel to everyone except the cleaners so data can propagate
As regards the ability to use anything for temporary work, this sounds reasonable. However, this can be a problem because information may not be availÃable in an open format until a project is finished. Once it is finished, it may not be possible to reopen a project.
For example, I can edit with MS Word and then I can use Distiller to produce pdfs, which sounds fine. However, must I buy Acrobat to reopen the project? Where are the original MS Word documents?
See my journal, I write things there
I never comment on slashdot stories, but ss a non-American, one of the things I admire about the American market is precisely that - it is a market.
Bureacracy and laws make things worse - take the free market approach and let the market decide.
Nobody forces anyone to buy Microsoft or any other software product for that matter.
There are often unintended consequences of legislation that seeks to do "good", that make things far worse.
For example, income tax was originally introduced only for the rich - but now the rich avoid paying (legally of course) and it is the middle class and poor who land up paying.
I never said seatbelts prevent all injuries; just some of them.
No trolling, and completely correct.
"Software is too expensive to build cheaply"
Wrong. By making the native format of the application open the format must fully represent the data. With input/export formats it's just too easy for unethical companies to leave out some critical element, making them useless for interoperability. eg. M$Word's useless "XML" format.
That is all, thankyou.
Bad example. Not wearing a seat belt affects more than you (believe it or not)....
Okay, I'll use your logic: playing football or swimming affects more than you in the same way also. These are dangerous activities killing or injuring thousands each year at great cost to society. Therefore, there should be a law banning these activities.
Seatbelt and helmet laws are among the most rediculous, nanny-state legislation out there. BTW, I always wear my seatbelt, and I was saved by one in an accident (walked away without a scratch). This habit started before any seatbelt laws.
Laws designed to curtail behaviour that has negative impacts on other people, or society as a whole, are not wasteful.
The problem is that governments can, and do, take the collateral impact argument too far without being consistent in the application. It always comes down to "unpopular things are banned." You just don't mind it since, most likely, something you like hasn't been prohibited yet.
Welcome to the Nanny State.
Or would you prefer a law that if you weren't wearing a seatbelt, then you don't get medical treatment in the event of an accident?
No, I wouldn't prefer a law. Laws are used first by the foolish, last by the wise.
I would prefer your car and medial insurance to have clauses denying or reducing coverage (or raising premiums) if you weren't wearing a seatbelt. Same goes for motorcycle helmets, playing football, or anything else dangerous. Life insurance companies already do this with smoking.
The government that governs least, governs best.
I've seen all the comments on loopholes and inconsistencies in this proposed law. This is why the politicians and corporations normally write the laws.
Unlike us, they know how to eliminate loopholes and gross internal inconsistencies. Take, respectively, the tax laws and the DMCA for example.
...though it should also extend to network protocols. We could call it the Interoperable Technologies Act or something like that. Or perhaps we could even usurp the name PATRIOT (Progressing Always Towards Real Interoperability in Our Technology) or something similarly stupid but catchy and spinny.
My basic idea would be this: data storage formats and transmission protocols are mandated to be publicly documented, available to anyone at no charge (or at cost). One might also require that a public-domain reference implementation be provided, but I think that's going a little too far.
As a result of this, one might theoretically say that the cost of the time spent to develop this documentation (and the reference implementation, if that is required) ought to be made tax-deductible; this seems fair enough, since that time doesn't generate income, but is involved in a contribution to society (by promoting interoperability, which benefits us all).
My apologies, I thought I was replying to Acidic_Diarrhea's post. I agree with you, seatbelts do help protect against a lot of injuries and it is a valid area for government intervention (as are data formats).
See my journal, I write things there
...it was someone at the Ministry of Health here that was doing research on smoking. They ended up with that smoking was good for the public economy, because the smokers mostly got most of the working years in, but died before the state had to pay out their pensions. So in fact they saved more than the hospital expenses and all that.
Of course, the anti-smoking lynching mob didn't approve of it, so the research died a sudden and quiet death. Ah well...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
In MY day, trolling was an ART. People wrote believable but totally false posts and waited for the gullible masses to dogpile them with flames, then responded with a simple "YHBT".
Nowadays, with all the artless "FP" trolls and the wannabes who keep posting the same stupid crap (such as the above, the old man porn, and the hLife letter), it's almost impossible to find a REAL troll.
Oh, well, I suppose the talentless hacks have to do something to pretend they're actually trolling.
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
Did you read the article - MS's XML format is no more open than if I zipped a .doc file. Surely zip is standard - yes, but it's still a .doc when I unzip it ...
Would this be the warranty described in the EULA that basically says "no matter what, you can't blame us, it's not our fault, and we won't fix it, except for a bucket of money".
.. you lose a freedom. Let the market decide the formats. This law sounds like something Europe would make.
Why did you call his post a troll? Because he offered an opinion that differed from yours? That's very mature.
You left out the fact that seatbelts prevent you from being tossed OUT of your car. It is much harder to get injured by other cars in an accident if you are still inside yours. A lot of the serious auto injuries and deaths I hear about involve people going through the windshield and getting run over or hitting someone else.
I'd also love to see the statistics that back up your contention that deaths aren't significantly reduced by seatbelts. I know it is only an anecdote, but the only person who was wearing a seatbelt was the one who survived Princess Diana's fatal car accident; and I know of a lot of other accidents where the people with seatbelts were much better off.
For the hell of it, Iâ(TM)ll add another thought to the mix. Most serious injuries and deaths in car accidents are caused by head injuries (just like with bicycles), so it might make more sense to enforce helmet use in cars than seatbelt use. Of course, wearing a helmet makes you look like a dork and messes up your hair, so no one would ever seriously consider this; letâ(TM)s introduce more expensive and less effective side airbags instead.
-- Pot is safer than Beer
Open data laws. If you sell something to me, it should be readable and undestandable by me. If the program is a compiled one, I should get the source because precompiled code would be illegally encrypted. No more chips with codes designed to prevent me from using my property in the way I want to. No more DMCA because selling things that need to be protected by the DMCA would be illegal.
Eat at Joe's.
If you have a law forcing data to be in properly-documented formats, proprietary software companies are free to implement apps that work with that format, without open-sourcing anything.
.doc format works".
They'll just have to compete (with open-source apps, and with other proprietary apps) on features, ease of use, reliability and things like that, that actually help the user, as opposed to competing on "but we're the only people who *really* know how
(IMO governments should use open formats; private companies shouldn't be required to use open formats, except when they interact with governments, which would hopefully mean they see the sense of going with open formats throughout.)
(Of course, if someone decides the best way to document their format is to open-source a sample implementation, that'd be nice too...)
Forcing one particular format is a recipe for disaster - as soon as a feature it doesn't support comes along, you need a new law.
What is worth forcing is that the format is documented sufficiently well that it can be reimplemented.
In this particular case, the format is easy to document, because you can just say "It's XML, it conforms to specifications A, B and C, and the whole thing is in a zip file as described by RFC 1234" - so all you actually need to document is the particular "application" (sub-language) of XML that you're using, preferably along with forwards-compatibility notes like "unknown elements are a fatal error" or "unknown attributes must be ignored" or whatever you like.
Open Formats are definitely better. Much of Microsoft monopoly on Windows and Office is dependent on closed formats such as .doc. If a set of open formats for images, text, databases, music etc. , companies could focus more on features then reverse engineering Microsoft formats.. These open formats could be regulated by National Institue of Standards and Technology.
Expect Microsoft to fight this though. One it would threaten Microsoft monopoly. Two, Microsoft bring in revenues on the licensing of it formats.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
The people who mentioned patented formats all brought up a good point that I didn't really address. But I think patented formats are OK. The patent itself presumably defines the layout of the patented part of the file. So then it becomes an issue of is it legal to read data that is stored in a patented format, or do you have to license it, etc.
But the general idea of preserving data for later would be OK if the format were patented. And the patent will eventually expire.
- adam
Open means it is documented and the DOCUMENTATION is human readable. The data format itself can be whatever you want, you can "embrace and extend" to your heart's conetent -- just doc it.
Actually I think there are good arguments why open data formats are good for both dominant companies in a market (because it allows their format to become a de facto standard) and small companies (because it's a slight competitive advantage allowing them to make gradual headway). I think the case where you have 3 or more roughly equal competitors is the one where companies will be leery of opening their data formats (or at least being the first one to do so).
- adam
Thst's why I submitted this to slashdot, to get the loopholes and inconsistencies pointed out. Which has been done pretty well, I think.
- adam
So you are arguing that people who write software that does not conform to your wishes should be fined, prohibited from selling it, and or thrown in jail (for refusing to comply with said fines/prohibitions)? This is a complete abuse of the legal system in a free country. Puhleez let me just write software and not have to worry about going to jail. (Or paying some beaurocrat to let me sell it.) If you don't like what I write, then don't buy it, stage a massive boycott. I don't care. But it is wrong for you to threaten me. -- w0nderd0g
Open data formats prevent this. It's an effective punishment for monopolistic behavior, because it enables and encourages honest competition in the marketplace. Somehow, Judge Jackson missed this and came up with the "break-up" remedy, which has since been reversed and emasculated to the point where it's business as usual in Redmond, WA.
Forcing all file formats to be openly-licensed could indeed have the effect of discouraging innovation in efficient/robust storage formats.
But there is a distinction between the content that the user owns and the innovative way it is stored.
Database vendors have long recognized the need of users to unload their data without loss of any semantics. Document editors need to recognize this same need.
But there is no need for a law. If the federal government merely made this a requirement for any software that edited their documents the market (even MS) would have to adjust quickly.
Frankly, I do not understand why the bean-counters did not figure out decades ago that allowing Intellectual Property that they value at millions of dollars to be stored in a Proprietary format is a very bad idea.
Imprudent, to be more precise.
So you are arguing that people who write software that does not conform to your wishes should be fined, prohibited from selling it, and or thrown in jail (for refusing to comply with said fines/prohibitions)?
No no no, not at all. What I have suggested places no restrictions on writing software whatsoever. It only says that file formats and network protocols must be properly documented, and that this documentation must be made available to anyone who is licensed to use the software (under whatever license the software maker chooses to use).
I agree that jailing people for writing software that doesn't conform to a specific set of wishes is an abuse of the legal system. But that is not what I have suggested happen.
I had not heard the GPL interpreted that way, so please expand on that. My understanding was that you had to make the source code available to anyone for a nominal fee (cost of distribution) and that you could not place any restrictions on its use.
- adam
NSF also allows to enter all the data directly into their site.