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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."
Text of article, complete.
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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
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.
Even better: Imagine flawless powerpoint support in PowerPoint!
"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it." -- Ayn Rand
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.
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
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 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.
Remember DOC, DOC, DOC, DOC, DOC, DOC, DOC, DOC, ....
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.
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.
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