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Lobbyists Urge South Australia To Drop Open Source Bill

Posted by timothy on from the commonwealth-means-what-again dept.

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"."

3 of 248 comments (clear)

  1. Initiative for Software Choice? by Bloodmoon1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    So, basically if I'm understanding this right, and correct me if I'm wrong, the Initiative for Software Choice is lobbying to basically remove South Australia's choice to use Open Source Software from consideration and more or less force them into using closed source software. Kind of ironic. Groups with names that don't support their actual agenda like this should really be openly chastised by major media outlets for being hypocritical to the point of just being ridiculous, if not just made flat out illegal. Think of it as a truth-in-advertising kind of thing. A company/group/whatever's name is their best form of advertising, it forms the base of their brand recognition. So if their name is so out of whack from their goals, it's kind of like misleading advertising.

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    1. Re:Initiative for Software Choice? by henbane · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Whilst I haven't done any background checking on the Initiative for Software Choice I think what they seem to be saying is that the best tool for any particular job should be picked. In a case of government contracts I don't see why this should be a problem. Just because they're favouring one side now and it happens to be yours doesn't make it a better system - if the current bill was advising to try proprietary software before open source you'd think it was ridiculous so why isn't the reverse true?

  2. You should lobby too by gregluck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    You can lobby the premier directly through this web-based email form I met with Richard Alston, the Federal Australian Minister for Technology a few years ago at an awards ceremony and spent a half hour with him explaining open source and the famous role some Australians play in it (e.g. Andrew Morton - kernel, Paul 'Rusty' Russell iptables, Andrew 'tridg' Tridgell - Samba, rsync ...) and found he was genuinely interested. He asked for some submissions which I sent to him. You are never sure of a result, however the Federal Government recently issued a pro open source policy, so at least I think I did no harm. So, you can probably help by offering your support, particularly any South Australians out there.