Slashdot Mirror
Lobbyists Urge South Australia To Drop Open Source Bill
Red Wolf writes "The Age reports that South Australia has caused eyebrows at the Initiative for Software Choice (ISC) to be raised in concern, with the organisation writing to Premier Mike Rann over a proposed Open Source software bill. The ISC, by its own definition, is a "global coalition of large and small companies committed to advancing the concept that multiple competing software markets should be allowed to develop and flourish unimpeded by government preference or mandate"."
... I have to say that *my* opinion has been changed by the slashdot news items, and I think other peoples' may be too.
Normally, I like to choose the best software for the best application. However, the idea of public data is important.
The argument that convinced me was the pro-business alternatives that should be required: open data format, with full perpetual license to read and convert to other formats, should be acceptable for most purposes [not voting: The US demonstrates the flaws of closed-source vote tallying].
That said, I feel that even this requirement should stand only for the case of items of public record on computer. That is, you don't need MS Word to be open source/data format, if your only documents of record are on paper.
Now, people have had this flamewar going for who knows how long. But even flamewars can convince people. They moved me from "no regulation" to "encourage OSS".
After all, it is one person who decides which software to buy. But he's deciding for the property of others. Closed and open formats are not equal, therefore.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
As someone who's just started meddling in the NSW (Australia)public service (local government) after several years in private IT sector, I see the call for open source in the best interest of our clients, i.e the public.
People are becoming alot more concerned with how public money is being spent. Government not only has the opportunity to save money, but also can start giving back to the public by contributing, and most importantly being seen to be contributing, to opensource software which tax payers can then use for themselves.
Although I'm not strictly in an IT position, I am known as one of the IT guys, who can unlock peoples accounts when they are unable to enter their l/p properly after 3 goes.
Unfortunately, it seems, the IT professionals who take up positions in local government come from the bottom of the IT barrel (including myself), often stepping over from other positions and taking up the 'IT person' status, and therefore lack an understanding of possibilities that open source software hold, and have been brought about already by private businesses. With a couple of years working for a small town ISP, looking after half a dozen Linux servers which ran the business, I have developed a opensource/linux background. (Oh, and of course.... constant reading of slashd^H^H^H^H^H^H^ linux Howto's)
Of the several people I have mentioned opensource, prominantly linux, software to, they have been baffled. Downloading the latest win32 OpenOffice is a great first step. Especially with the Export to pdf button.
I will be pushing opensource initiatives, taking on the burden of being the opensource mole, with already open office looking to replace our current proprietry office suite, linux on our main file/backup server, two NT2000 servers look to be replaced by a single linux server, and an old server resurected into a internet gateway. Hey... who thinks I can turn this into a reality TV show??? can't be any worse then....
Sometimes affirmitive action policies are considered neccessary in order to force employers to think outside the box, and consider employees that may not be in the normal "zone of comfort" for the employer in question. Once the bar is raised, and the targetted group is "inside the zone of comfort" once more, the policies could potentially be considered a success.
In order to communicate the SA legislation effectively to other legislators, it shouldn't really be considered a 'statement of preference'.. perhaps it should be referred to as a "software affirmitive action policy".
Let's just take a few lines from the ISC letter, liberally changing "software" references to "people with green eyes" (nods to William Peters classic blue-eyes brown-eyes psychological study). Lets further pretend that green-eyed people are considered to be a "lower caste" by most members of society, and though just as capable as brown, and blue eyed people, are generally not considered equal by employers.
On behalf of the Initiative for eye-colour choice, I write to express our concerns regarding the proposed employment bill, which gives undue preference to people with green eyes, over people with other coloured eyes. The IEC believes that if this "preference" legislation were to be enacted, it would severely limit employment opportunities for South Australia's government, harming not only its citizens, but also South Australia's vibrant government employment sector.
The IEC is a global association overwhelmingly made up of, and supported by, blue and brown eyed people, with over 15,000 members in 89 countries. The IEC strongly supports equal opportunity for people with blue, brown and green eyes, and believe that "preference" policies may not select the most meritorious potential employee in any one project, at the expense of providing equal employment opportunities to green-eyed people.
Sometimes, a government needs to put the good of the many, over the good of the few; and software preference legislation has the potential to level the playing field a little for open source tools, and open-source-related services, in the mind of government project managers.
As a developer of BOTH commercial and open source software, I think there is certainly scope for affirmitive action in software choice.
Red.