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Using Closed Standards To Pay For Open Ones
An anonymous reader points to a story at NewsForge, writing "EGOVOS analyzes the recently passed South African OSS plan and proposes a great way to fund Open Source education and development until companies comply with open standards. Microsoft pays a 10% penalty until their products comply with open standards. That would be billions of dollars to Open Source to compensate for an unlevel playing field until it is leveled. All the policy guidelines for governments are worth reading. This looks like a workable plan from a credible group." Reader johndiii clarifies: "From what I have been able to see, the strategy document is 'proposed,'
not 'recently passed,' and is not yet official policy of the South
African government."
Support them in some form? What if Microsoft supports a standard, and then adds on it, thus requiring others to use the "enhanced" standard? Is that still compliance? What if some other OSS group wants to extend a standard to meet their needs? Would they be limited?
I'm conflicted. The open source advocate in my LOVES the idea of 10% of Microsoft sales to a government going to fund Open Source. The libertarian in me says this smells like governments interfering in with free market principles. HELP! I need a bunch of Slashdot users to tell me what to think! ;)
My journal has hot
That's just asking for a Microsoft-coup to remove you from power.
But who's gonna get the money? There's hardly one big open-source organisation entitled to all the money.
But what happens after they do manage to level the play field a bit. Wouldn't there be a huge lack of funding after there are less closed source companies to pay the penalty? I'll be watching this one as it plays out.
only 1 country in all of the developed/undeveloped world admits that the playing feild is unleved. Well, progess is progess.
Come on, just reading the blurb on Slashdot makes it blatently obvious that it'll never work for 1001 reasons.
I'm all for OSS, but this is just a too "pie in the sky" for my liking.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
That's it. Time to move to South Africa.
Good idea, but I don't think it's exactly legal to have a monetary penalty for companies who write proprietary/non-compliant software. You just don't buy their stuff, and if they want your business, they'll have to adapt or go out of business. So, switching to open-source might eventually force Microsoft to head that way, but charging them a fee for non-compliance with this policy is antithetical to an open market.
IAALS.
Yeah this will work... =P Sounds interesting, but just another proposal, nothing more ;)
What is this world coming to? Microsoft has to open up it's source code so anyone can copy it, but yet we prosecute and punish art copiers.
Hello.
If we had GPL style licenses for standards, companies would have to publish any extensions they came up with.
The latest Slashdot meme.
That would be billions of dollars to Open Source to compensate for an unlevel playing field until it is leveled.
That isn't leveling the field for open source, it's tilting the field unfairly in favor of open source. If the technology can't compete on its own merits, why throw good money after bad to support it? Of course, I think open source software can compete on its own merits, so this measure is redundant.
It's just a high-tech double standard, and that leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
john
Big Dubya Is Watching You
All I Want For Christmas Is My Constitutional Rights
What an awful idea. Yeah, let's have the government decide what is better for the market, since the market obviously cannot decide for itself! *sigh* Having the mafia on your side does not make it a mafia any less...
1) Who defines which standards are open? (And will governments agree on what that means, or will a software company have to internationalize their interfaces to support one standard in one country and another standard in another?)
2) Isn't this already happening in a less official way? If you're a non-US government, just mention Linux and you too can get a huge price break from Microsoft (probably even bigger than the 5-10% proposed non-compliance fee).
It would be nice if governments that wrestle such price breaks from Microsoft turned around and used those funds to generate additional open source tools, but governments have a lot of competing needs to deal with, and the freed up funds are more likely to go to any underfunded services (and any government service is going to have defenders that say that their particular niche is underfunded).
While this plan is just good economic common sense (tax the rich to feed the poor), I have to question its applicability in South Africa. These people need medicine, clean drinking water, and a strong police force, not software, be it open source or otherwise.
Even if it passes, the government will probably be overthrown in another four months. A major victory this isn't.
Boromir, son of Faramir, King of Gondor and Minas Tirith
Other than possible WTO issues, who says that SA needs to support an open market? It may well be antithetical to the idea of free markets but lots of things that countries do are.
Stealing 10% from Microsoft just because they're Microsoft isn't a good thing, even if it is to fund Open Source. How would that level the playing field, anyway? Microsoft would still have revenues measured in billions of dollars, so what if the open source guys get some of their chump change?
Microsft needs to fail as a business on it's own merits, not on the merits of extorting 10% of their money and using it to further the Open Source cause.
Well, it will be billions of dollars to somebody.
I understand the appeal of reaching into someone else's pocket for money, but there are people out there far better at getting their fingers into every pie than open source developers.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
How long would consumers end up footing the said bill though?
Is that they don't have to give a crap about your desire for Open Standards. They want to force Microsoft to give them a 10% discount, or they'll refuse to buy the product. Well, too bad. Because of the monopoly, they probably already own some of the product, they probably have a requirement to work with other Windows systems, and all Microsoft has to say is "neener neener". They'll buy anyway, because the reason for buying Microsoft products is very simple: they have a monopoly.
It's a nice thought, but I don't think you can just give someone a level playing field, all anti-trust laws to the contrary. Ultimately, OSS has to stand on its own merits, or it's not a competitor, it's just an also-ran.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
This article makes for some interesting reading. Are they really after Open Source? Or is the MS version ("Shared Source") their aim?
Floating face-down in a river of regret...and thoughts of you...
If someone takes code currently under the BSD license, modifies it, makes the changes private, and sells it for a profit, would they be subject to penalties too?
This article should be moderated -1 Flamebait. The idea of forcing MS into following standards is absurd, and if it wasn't for deep anti-MS sentiment in the community here, this would have never been posted!
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
From Hans Reiserâ(TM)s last answer:
... but there isn't enough money floating around to attract any genuinely bad folks into our industry.
;-)
âWe should all keep in mind though that there aren't any hard core greedy evil people in our industry. They are all basically good hearted people who chose trying to create a better society as their life's work at a substantial cost in personal income.
Not yet....;-)
With change accelerating we canâ(TM)t even have a âoenot yetâ last through the day. I dunno, that wink at the end seems a little more evil than I recall two hours ago...
Esteem isn't a zero sum game
I'm all for open standards, but this sounds a bit strange.
If goverments want open standards, they should just refuse to buy products that don't comply. That is more effective than a "tax".
The problem comes in on what definition of compliance you use. It's as much a legal term as a technical one. A notorious rat hole. How often to people around here debate the various browsers' html compliance? I don't think this would work.
Four fifths of all our troubles in this life would disappear if we would just sit down and keep still. -C. Coolidge
I'm concerned about this idea on two fronts:
1) First, this seems to conflict with principles of a free market. Without a doubt, Microsoft clearly has engaged in anti-competitive practices. But, aren't open source solutions at the point where it really is a viable option, if organizations take the time to implement it carefully?
2) Second, wouldn't an organization like Microsoft merely jack up negotiated costs on software to accommodate for the "loss" of a percentage of sales for monies moved to fund open source development?
Hmm.
It'll go something like this.
1. Create entity to enforce open standards.
2. Always state that M$ is non compliant.
4. PROFIT!!!!!
Shop smart, Shop S-Mart.
The real question is how wo would end up on the commity which determines whether Microsoft is
"conforming" and how "bribable" they are.
A good strong law that says "the government shall not store any data in any format that is not *completely* accessible via an open standard, and shall be enjoined from purchasing or using products that do not directly and naturally favor the open and publically defined means of storage, unless no such open product does exist..." make sense.
Penalty taxes dont.
Microsoft and similar have rat-ba^H^H^H^H^H^Hlawyers and marketroids who *live* to be so constrained so that when they are ruled "compliant" by whatever means they are then validated that ".doc format is as open a standard as can be, see where this government body said so"
etc. od nausium, ahmen... 8-)
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
OK, after thinking about it, here's my take on the thing.
1. There is a part of me that likes the idea of "If you don't comply with the Open Standards, then part of your profit from your sale will go to finance a community that will." As it says, it levels the playing field. What would happen if the Open Office folks suddenly had $5 million to hire programmers and work on making Open Office better? How long until everybody supported XML based document formats that were all truly interchangable?
2. The big issue. Who the hell gets to decide on what the "Open Standard" we like is? Oh, sure, everybody's got documents/spreadsheets in XML - but suppose we decide that some display feature available in one Open Source Office system is the "standard Open Document" and the other isn't? I've seen companies all the time declare they follow "Open" standards - when they control it lock, stock and barrel. (It's Open because you can bitch about it in public.)
3. I don't mind seeing Government Money go into research grants that can then be used to finannce open source projects to fulfill XYZ needs, and the code/research being put under the GPL so everybody can use it (we're not going into a "Governments should GPL everything/no, they should BSD everything here - it's an example, thank you, move on").
4. If they truly want to penalize a business for using proprietary standards, stop buying their stuff. You'll be amazed how quickly a business goes from "Well, we need to do everything under Novell eDirectory because Government Office XYZ does it" to "Well, Government Office ABC says 'no more proprietary', and they've stated LDAP is the standard now - so code to that." Trickle down from there - the companies that support government follow it, so the companies that support those companies follow it, and on down the line.
So while the idea does make me go "Oh, yet - take money from the rich and give to the poor", I think there's better ways of going about it than "All your base [code] are belong to use!"
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
[some bozo] proposes a great way to fund Open Source education and development until companies comply with open standards. Microsoft pays a 10% penalty until their products comply with open standards.
Ooh, la de la, we all live in fairy-tale land.
I think I'm going to propose a system where all of the fruit loops working on Python and Java all decide to work on Perl 6 instead! La-de-la!
Oooooh, and I think that Dell should give 10% of their profits to Apple until they both have an equal share of the marketplace, la-de-la!
And I think all members of the Linux 'cult' should pay a tithe of their income to help support poor old SCO, la-de-la!
It's okay proposing nonsense, but it's whether it's actually legal and feasible that counts. This project is neither.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Microsoft wouldnt be the only one to be paying for this. There are a hundred other firms working on OS projects. I mean, come on guys, lets be realistic!
And what's wrong with the situation as is? I like Linux's "underground movement" apect, it gives it more legitimacy as a labor of love, not $$$. And Red Hat is just now starting to turn a profit, if that's what you are intersted in!
One more reason to keep an eye on your money.
He's the all powerful Oz of OS. Everyone knows that. I'm sure he can be trusted to determine who should get what money.
Now, let the unending flow of crappy half finished open source projects begin. So long as we get 1 good project out of every thousand or so we should be good. Now where can I sign up to get my fat money check?
I can see the comments already: unethical blah blah, free enterprise blah blah. Tell me this: what is a difference between the Gov bailing out businesses and industries (think Airlines in US, Banks in Japan) and this proposal?
Misappropriation.
I mean really, it's a government we're talking about here. It's not as though governments (on the whole, and often in specifc) have the best reputations for money going where it belongs, even if where it belongs is easy to figure out.
Behold the Power of Cheese!
This is not the way to handle funding open source. As much as I would love to take Microsoft down a notch or two, robbing from software companies to pay for the development of competitor's products is the worst idea since communism. Oh, wait, it is pretty much communism, isn't it?
Let market forces decide who lives and who dies. If that is Microsoft, so be it. It is not government's place to support open source at the cost of other legitimate businesses.
In fact, this could be about the worst thing that could possibly happen to the software industry. With this 10% tax on closed source software, there would be reduced incentive to produce software for profit. Without profit, developers would not get paid as well. Innovation would shrivel and eventually die, even among open source developers. Developer skills to atrophy and before long the only software produced would be paid for directly by government. We all know how efficient government is, donâ(TM)t we?
This might sound alarmist, but I am a big believer in the free market determining the survival of products and companies. That is the only surefire way to ensure quality products at a reasonable price (or free).
Phathead
While government procurement policy should be neutral to ensure that governments do not introduce market distortions into the world economy, there should be an appreciation of the social benefits of fostering Open Source software development in a proper Open Source Government Policy plan
Wonder what functions I will find in the "Social Benefit" API.
This is industrial policy writ large... If we want to see the software industry go down the same path as the steel industry, this is the map to use.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
Is gcc compliant with the C++ Standard, ISO/IEC 14882? I don't think so. Does the IJG's JPEG library fully implement CCITT T.81. I don't think so. Who determines whether a piece of software is compliant. For something like C++ there is no process in place.
All of the "it's against free market principles" comments seem to forget that Microsoft has been convicted of monopolistic and anti-competitive practices. The remedies the court approved are a sad joke. Getting MS to behave will require a big hit to their wallet, not a light slap to their wrist.
Granted, the distribution of the funds would be a big problem...
This is Communism.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Whenever I hear someone mention "10%" little bells in my head go off ringing "baksheesh, corruption, dash, bribery!!"
I have one more objection to this. Does anyone here know that in Holland you can register as an official Artist, and get money from the state to make your art. You must produce, of course. Well, each year the Dutch government takes boatloads of 'art' and sticks it in warehouses. The artists don't starve, but they produce shit. OSS is art, and only starving programmers can produce the sheer genius we need. And that is not supposed to be a troll. Government-sponsored OSS will lead to poor results. OTOH I'm deeply in favor of commercially-sponsored OSS. If SA wants to help its IT sector it can ask that all government-paid IT work be OSS, but this should not be paid for by a tax.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
I think that the way that Transgaming and Codeweavers (Winex and Crossover respectively) manage revenue collection / open source application source generation is very intelligent. For a small fee, you get their 'enhanced' version of an open source program (wine), for which they get paid. In return, both companies contribute to the source of the main project with well bug-tested code. It may be a rev or two behind their 'pay' applications, but it allows the project to make great leaps and bounds being funded totally by commercial use.
Personally - I have purchaced both and use them extensively to get to everything from Office 2000 to Diablo II working on my Linux boxes at home and work. I like that with Winex, I purchace a 'subscription' for $5 a month, which I can discontinue at any time, which only cuts me off from updating my binary.
If Microsoft was willing to publish 'old' API suites for free (even ones for Windows 9x), it would be a step in the right direction. It would give the communities of Windows Application Developers a stand on the playing field for begining to develop stable applications in the new (XP / Windows 2003 Server) environment.
Clinton made me a Republican. Bush made me a Libertarian. Trump is making me question reality.
That would be billions of dollars to Open Source to compensate for an unlevel playing field until it is leveled.
How can it possibly be an "unlevel playing field" when many OSS products cost $0? What that says is that OSS products are so bad in most cases that they can literally not even be given away. The playing field is very level. Either you pay a lot for closed software that works out of the box, or you pay $0 for something that requires a good bit of work. Closed source companies shouldn't eb penalized just because OSS products aren't up to snuff.
Stupid...dumb...idiotic...preposterous - those are just a few words that come to mind. The government should really leave businesses alone for the most part. Seriously...
I hope I don't get modded down for that. I use OpenSource software, but Gates was right when he wrote that paper of his years ago -- there is no "real" money with OpenSource. And no money leads to no jobs leads to bad economy leads to...(vicious cycle ensues).
Many GNU tools violate POSIX in some way, for example! To find examples, grep the GNU documentation for POSIXLY_CORRECT. One example is GNU du which will display the size in kilobytes instead of blocks (1 block = 512 bytes), which is a much more useful display.
;-)
Also, many open standards stink to the high heavens.
And how do you differentiate between willful and accidental violation of a standard? Yeah, I know, you don't care as long as Microsoft has to pay
This is too simplistic a view because it ignores patent and licensing issues. Is PDF open? Is Flash/SWF open? Is MP3 open? Is MPEG open? All those formats are "made known", and users can develop programs...of course they may have to pay a bit or submit to certain restrictions.
Now, ONE of the formats I listed there really is open. Do you know which one? I encourage you all to go to the Open Data Format Initiative site and join the mailing list, where we are hashing out just exactly what an open format should be for government use.
- adam
In fact, let's extend it some more! I've always wanted to open a fast food restaurant, Mcdonald's has such an unfair advantage due to their existing market share. Let's require Mcdonald's to pay 10% of their profits to people like me who haven't been as successful so far.
How is it that Open Source is so pitiful that we have to get M$ to support it? I thought we were unstoppable because OSS is a better idea, not because we could gouge some other company for money.
And if it is okay for a government to slam M$ for money, then it will only be a quick swing of the pendulum before the gov comes demanding unjust taxes from OSS.
It's a whitewashed sepulchre. Run away.
Be careful what you wish for...
Where your treasure is there is your heart also...
Ah, yes, lets take lessons about Equal Opportunity from South Africa... bwwwahhhhha ha ha!
Agreed. 100% and totally. If it was Microsoft getting the favor, we'd all be screaming bloody murder.
We'd all be pissed if there was a 10% tax on Free Software, right? Let's see, 10% of...oh yea. LOL
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
How do you fine someone for selling you software? If you don't want it, don't buy it. Basically what they're saying is that they should take a 10% discount on all non-open software, which just means that Microsoft and others will slap on a 10% "sales to countries with stupid policies" sales. I don't even know if policies like that are constitutional or enforceable in most democratic countries.
Although Open Source has it's benefits, this new law is not the way to advocate it. The world doesn't revolve around Microsoft, many companies would be affected by this. The average computer user doesn't care whether the source code is available or not, they want the program just work. This type of bullying is what Microsoft pulled for many years and got caught.
If the author of the program doesn't want to show their code, they shouldn't be penalized for it. Furthurmore it will hurt the entire hobbyist/shareware movements which barely make any money to begin with. I hope this sort of communist approach isn't passed in North America, because both OSS/Closed-source programs have their benefits. The whole point of OSS was to have choice, not to have choice while penalizing the competition.
I keep reading posts on this being a bad idea because it goes against a free market. Or that it prevents competition. OPEN STANDARDS help keep competition. Microsoft has been killing competition by closing formats and such. This will simply cause companies like Microsoft to pay for their anti-competitive practices. Thus, it will increase open standards in government and create more competition. It is bad enough many slashdotters don't read the articles, but not reading and understanding the summary post and making an ignorant comment about it, that just pisses me off.
Question everything.
All three are examples of bad government.
This reminds me of some of the practices espoused by Ayn Rand's future USA in Atlas Shrugged. It's horribly unfair that you're making more of a profit than I am when I compete with you, so we must 'level the playing field' at all costs. Of course, the net effect is that successful firms are eventually driven out of business, and the ones with political power rise to the top (regardless of how noble the original intentions). I am disturbed that people are letting their hatred of Microsoft get in the way of their common sense.
As was pointed out, the South African government is not likely to be overthrown anytime soon, just because they are "African." And I do not know where you get the idea that they need a strong police force. They do have a major AIDS problem, and the foolish government is stopping access to drugs, but that does not mean they don't need software. It is a very strange argument, and you clearly know very little about the place.
Would that be Open Source, or GPLed communism?
Doing that is very similar to a sin tax on cigarettes, say, which many governments do as well. It is a method of encouraging behavior that a government decides is desirable.
One can certainly argue whether or not doing such things is a desirable function of government, but it is not just about tilting playing fields towards open source. It is about applying a tax to closed formats if they want to be involved with government.
Also somewhat similar, say, to some fees charged by the US government when someone like Lockheed fails to produce documents by a certain date on a government contract.
I forget what 8 was for.
News for Nerds. Stuff that feeds the M$ Trolls.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Think about it. Impose a 10% tax on software along with the administrative costs of collecting and passing on this money.
You know what you'll see? A 12% increase in software prices. The government will be paying itself via the software companies minus a handling fee.
I suppose the idea is to get the tax revenue from NON-government spending, but in that case you're increasing the costs of the businesses and decreasing their revenues and thus the tax base...
I think the best thing is to have the governments demand that all electronic data be in open formats and leave it at that.
--- I wish I could hear the soundtrack to my life. That way I'd know when to duck.
This reminds me of the problems surrounding SCO: they can't stand on their own two feet, so they sue every major company to acquire *their* feet.
I think this is an unfair move as I see others have already posted. Everyone knows that it's hard to make money off OSS (some of the questions to Hans Reiser asked about that) but there is no reason to penalize companies who can make money so that OSS can stands on *its* own two feet.
Whatever your stance is (for or against OSS or Microsoft - and, hey, there are many others to be fair), it's hard to deny that this is a foul play in the world of free markets.
This is moronic. There is no way we should make someone pay for to help their competitor. Imagine being told that you have to give up 10% of your salary and give it to the intern, because he can't find a way to be profitable.
Red Hat found a way to make money off of open source and everyone is mad at them for being the M$ of Linux. This is simply a case of goverment trying to control the free market, not the free market controling itself.
The key thing is, open source or outright purchase of the source code is good for governments.
We trust governments with an enormous amount of person our governments. It's not voluntary, if we don't provide it we go to jail. Do you want to pass that information to industry?
We trust governments with our safety. Do you want to trust our safety to some multinational that who's top exec (or lowly coder) could be bought off for a few billion?
In order to work in several government departments, you need security clearance. In order to work on the NT kernel you just need to fill out a co-op job form.
I don't want my government held hostage by any corporation, especially a foreign one (e.g. Microsoft but there are many others).
Open source guarantees that governments have control. They are hostage to no-one.
That kind of security should be subsidized.
Maybe, but the fine might cause enough hurt to encourage publicising of/complying with, (yes, that proper English!) standards..
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Ye Gods, how are they possibly going to deal with a 76% profit instead of a 86% profit on every copy* of Windows sold? It's a disaster I tell you.
Much more pertinent would be the public flogging of any person who deliberatly produced a broken implimentation of an existing standard - for example HTML (IE), Signatures (OE), Mail (Outlook)... {cont pg 2-100000}
*including the first BTW
Beep beep.
When the typical person sees a problem they instinctively say "we need a law!" If this person is slightly more sophisticated they might say "we need a regulation, tax, fee, oversight committee, etc". But no matter what words they use, the typical response to a problem is an increase in government power.
Is there a problem with the balance of FS and PS in the marketplace? Of course! But why must we instinctively rush to the government to solve the problem? We do we treat government as a god that we pray to for health, wealth and bountiful harvests?
If there is a bad law then by all means it is proper to eliminate it via a good law. If the FS/PS disparity is due to bad law, then let's eliminate that bad law. If it's due to obsolete bidding rules then let's change the bidding rules.
But this proposal doesn't do that. It's a prayer to the god'vernment to save the petitioner from the heathen proprietary hordes.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
This reeks of what Ayn Rand was warning us about in Atlas Shrugged. Capitalism is the way to go. If Microsoft has an unfair advantage (according to the spirit of capitalism), punish Microsoft, but DON'T reward OSS.
OSS is free, MS products are expensive. In principle at least, that is a tremendous obstacle for MS. The main problems for OSS today are 1) making an OS product that is easier to install, use, and maintain than Windows XP, and 2) make OpenOffice easier to use than MS Office, and able to easily share files with it. This has to be true for the most naive and computer-phobic users.
Hello everybody! Those two conditions have not been met!
The idea of giving OSS a multi-billion dollar enema is absolutely terrible. It will guarantee corruption, bureaucracy, and irrelevance. OSS will become the IT equivalent of a corrupt Third-World dictatorship. When that happens, MS wins again.
I agree totally, especially #3.
1. The 10% tax were directed towards entities who support taxing software companies because they don't support open source idealogies.
2. The tax proceeds would go towards a) commercial software companies in the form of grants, and b) people who don't have a problem paying for the software that they use.
3. The tax would only stop when open source propagandist stop ramming their wet-communist-dreams down the throats of the general populace.
Make those ammendments and I'm all for it!
Will
I really really want to know who and what is qualified to verify whether or not a company complies with an open standard.
When Microsoft does not comply with standards I do not fly through my windshield! Plus we are talking about different types of standards. If your meaning of standard was the same as the articles meaning of standard then a sitcom would be like:
" :Character="daughter"
Action="enter set":Character="father"
Action="misunderstanding
Action="hilarity ensues":Character="all"
So that my television would be able to parse it without having to use a proprietary Hollywood studio to act it out.
Slashdotter are stupid and biased.
And this has about as much chance of success as that.
sulli
RTFJ.
..the logic here is flawed.
My company is active in SA and I had a chance to talk with a colleague about the SA gov over dinner. From what I gathered, the government there is EXTREAMLY corrupt. The cash collected here probably wouldn't be going to fund open source projects, it would be going into politicians pockets.
While this might be a good model if properly implemented in a country not riddled with corruption, M$ would just write this off as the cost of doing business in South Africa without concerning itself with open standards comformance.
All your base are belong to us!
Good intentions. Stupid worthless idea.
Not even good theory, bad in practice. This isn't even good in theory. I want toast.
Many bad things could come from something like this.
1. An end to corporate involement with innovation.
2. Bad standards.
You have to remember, there are TONS of conflicting standards out there, plenty of standards bodies out there... WHo is going to set the standards for the standards bodies then?
Also, if people didn't break some standards and go off on a tangent, how would we get improvement?
BBC article from last year about crime. Lookes pretty bad. i was wrong.
As other's have pointed out, this does not create an advantage for FOSS. In the long run, it hurts all software development.
The reason why the playing field needs to be levelled is because proprietary companies have undue influence in governing bodies and an enormous financial advantage.
A good solution is to mandate that all government agencies use FOSS whenever possible, that if they choose not to use it they provide a justification (as they are asking the tax-payers to pay more money), and that all government information be in open standards.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I must be missing something here!
MS can well afford an extra 10% to be exempted from OSS purchasing requirements. They'll certainly never open their code for that, (they'll just charge it back to their customers, maybe after a year or two.)
They'd probably give SA an even bigger discount than 10% (they have before) if they were faced with a mandate or users switching to cheaper, better OSS solutions that they can't compete with.
Unless I majorly missed something, it looks like South Africa is trying to look good by mandating OSS and then quietly retracting so as not to hurt MS.
If one does it, who cares, tiny lost market that isn't that much money anyway.
If ten do it, Hm, is that interesting? Are there network effects?
Please, iterate in this vein.
I completely agree that OSS must stand on merit. I'd add that organizations will make their own choices, and OSS will do well when a critical mass of organizations make a choice.
God love 'em (ahem), governments are organizations, and have strange ways of making choices.
But they do.
I forget what 8 was for.
I think it is sufficient to have the government give explicit preference to OSS projects and keep funding OSS projects through existing channels (government grants, universities, etc.).
Trying to exact an extra tax on this and then redistribute it by some new mechanism just invites corruption. And where does Microsoft get its money from anyway? From customers. Most likely, they'd just raise their prices 10% and the SA government would pay for its own tax.
...retarded as well....
Now piss off.
It doesnt force microsoft to do anything. Its just a tax on users of most closed software: those applications that use proprietary data formats in particular.
It doesnt necessarily impose any cost on microsoft itself. Those customers who couldnt afford the extra 10% probably arent paying for their software at all.
What it does do is send a message to the businesses of the county that proprietary data formats are frowned upon.
So the South African government believes in a neutral procurement policy wrt proprietary and open source software. Then why is it phasing in an open source software procurement policy over the long run? The government might as well just implement an open source procurement policy now. It would be a lot more honest.
.............. kris
"I thought I could organize freedom. How Scandinavian of me."
The Free Software movement isn't about freedom. It isn't about excellence. It's about socialism.
I've been saying it for years. Brett Glass has been saying similar things longer than I have. And, if you try to call us "astroturfers" I will personally KICK YOUR ASS (TM) because we were all saying it years before the Halloween Documents. Some of us were saying it before Windows!
This is just classic. It's classic class warfare. It's a classic conflict of interest; like taxing cigarettes to pay for healthcare. Rush Limbaugh said it best when he said you now have a duty to smoke. Of course the money won't go for healthcare, it'll go for some boondoggle of a beurocracy like all socialist programs do. So. Slashdotters now have a duty to buy MS products if they believe this is a good idea.
I know a lot of people will disagree with me, but if just one person wakes up and realizes what's going on, I'll feel better. I think a lot of people have been fooled because there is technology involved. People think "things are different" when it's tech. It's not different. Welcome to the new new politics of the new new economy.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
I didn't read the article very thoroughly, so take this comment with a grain of salt, but it seems to me that Open Source has little to do with Open Standards, except coincidentally. I could very easily write a closed-source application that implements an open standard, or I could write an open-source application that uses a proprietary data format.
To me, these are apples and oranges and the article refers to the terms ambiguously. I'm all for government supporting open standards, but I'm leery of supporting a particular development methodology such as open source. Security though, IMHO, is a valid basis for supporting open source (due to increased peer review).
One other question: who gets to determine whether a given software package "supports" a given open standard? I'm sure Microsoft would say that IE supports CSS 2, but that doesn't necessarily make it true. Likewise, there's probably always going to be something that somebody could use to say that it's not 100% supported. Seems to me there's a continuum here, and more definition is needed.
Read my keyboard review.
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA
... PAY MONEY ???? FOR OPEN SOURCE?????
i mean come on, this is the worst idea I've heard in a long time. Microsoft
you got to be kidding me.
But at least you have the source in the OSS ones, so you can fix them/have-them fixed, and made standards compliant.
I never said they were the same....
and subscribe to the ideals that the source code should be freely given away, don't go crying to the government that companies that have the "audacity" to charge for their product have more money to put towards development than you do.
This idea needs to be refined greatly. In order for open source to do any business, they must pay closed standard companies 10% of their profits. I think that's fair, considering they have no other way to make money.
and, as usual, so wrong. Simple solution = wrong answer. Of course, that is pretty simple. Betcha it isn't always right!
If a government really wants to enforce Open Standards, they must specify the selected standards in some regulation akin to the building code for construction. Then they should create an independent agency to certify compliance through a public and non discrimatory procedure. If governements don't want to go that road, then they should leave the market play its role.
I'm a great fan of Open Source but this goes way too far.
Open Source is about programmers rights - the right to use your computer, and the right to write whatever programs you want. But it should not be about forcing people to do things, which is what this seems to be about. This proposal seems to be about imposing "punishment" on programmers and companies that do not use particular file formats. As a programmer, I should be able to write whatever programs I want without fear of reprisal, or "taxes" because I didnt write it the way "the government" wanted.
This seems to basically be equivalent in its level of evil to that of Software Patents - both of them restrict what programmers are allowed to write. All developers, for both Open Source and Proprietary software, should be able to write whatever code they want without being "punished" for the way they write it.
In any case, my tried-and-true simplistic worldview is shattered. And I haven't had my mid-afternoon coffee yet...
The correct solution is to write the procurement to require that any and all software provide a complete specification of the data formats and the rules for display of data. Such a requirement seems reasonable in a governmental context where documents frequently have a lifetime longer than Word processing software. With the specs, future programmers would be able to decipher the important hieroglyphics even if the latest word processor won't.
If Microsoft software doesn't comply with the degree of openness you require, then simply don't buy Microsoft software.
That's all.
Buying Microsoft software and then assessing penalties against MS would be blatantly unfair.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
[Background - I use OSS myself - Linux, Apache, PHP, Quanta etc. both for leisure & work. My main source of income is as a .NET developer, using C#.]
I'm not opposed to Governments mandating the *internal*, i.e. Governmental, use of OSS, provided it's cheaper & more secure.
However, any proposal to force companies to adopt standards etc., is simple fascism. It's as bad as saying MS can't package whatever software it owns, in whatever way it wants. Oh wait, you've done that too, haven't you?
In NZ, we have a term for this type of behaviour - tall poppy syndrome.
Is that as much software as possible be FOSS, particularly in the government. As a minimum standard, all government data formats should be open and easily understandable (e.g., not so obfuscated as to be uninterpretable). My point here is that you need to level the playing field against competitors that have enormous -- and probably questionable -- influence over the government.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Some Republicans want to enforce their "Christian" morality on the entire country. That does not mean that all Republicans are like that.
Some Democrats fuck interns and lie about it. That does not mean that all Democrats are like that.
Some "Muslims" are terrorists. That does not mean that all Muslims are like that.
Some French people are rude, snotty, and/or hate America. That does not mean that all French people are like that.
Some Americans are unable to distinguish between the opinions or actions of one member of a group and the opinions or actions of the rest of the group. That does not mean that all Americans are such stupid asshats.
I keep reading posts on this being a bad idea because it goes against a free market. Or that it prevents competition. OPEN STANDARDS help keep competition. Microsoft has been killing competition by closing formats and such. This will simply cause companies like Microsoft to pay for their anti-competitive practices. Thus, it will increase open standards in government and create more competition.
The idea that markets are made "freer" the more the government interferes is perverse. Your post reminds me of the following quote: "A free economy cannot exist without competition. Therefore, men must be forced to compete. Therefore, we must control men in order to force them to be free." (from Atlas Shrugged).
Cheers,
IT
Power corrupts. PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.
Okay, to assuage the libertarian in you, let's just set our terms straight.
Government = purchaser
Microsoft = seller
Now it becomes much easier to see how this works without those perjorative terms in mind.
The purchaser has specific needs, of which open source is one of them. Now, the purchaser is free to choose not to use closed source at all, but is smart enough to realize that there may be some benefits to doing so. The purchaser tells the seller.. "I prefer closed source, but I'm willing to purchase your product at a 10% discount, even though it doesn't match my preference"
If the seller agrees, no problem.
If the seller doesn't agree, nobody's forcing the sale.
See, open source and libertarian all in one.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
Welcome to Slashdot.
I see you've learned the first lesson:
Don't have a fucking clue what you're talking about.
For had you read the article, you'd see that this has nothing to do with the market and instead has to do with sales to the government.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
How on God's good Earth would a country on another continent make them actually pay money to that same competition?
The government HAS to get the source code, while the source code can be kept from prying eyes and its just an insurance against the supplier going bankrupt and vanishing (think it can't happen, think what if Enron sold energy management software as well,) taking its software with it.
The vendor can enter into non-compete agreements with the government and the code never gets out unless the vendor goes tits-up.
The government HAS to get the file formats and they HAVE to be entered into the public domain. Otherwise interoperability is impossible.
No compliance, no sale.
Simple, clean and fair. No preferential treatments for anybody and no more shifting software base costing billions every year.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
After all, it's not like Microsoft will be unaware of the policy.
And every EULA they have say that they can revoke your liscence for any reason whatsoever.
So if MS doesn't like it, they just revoke and give back the full purchase price, while demanding their software back.
It works out about the same, except that in this case, MS can still sell their product to the government while maintaining their close-source business model. They just have to acknoweldge a penalty for it. In the other case, they don't even have the option.
That Jesus Christ guy is getting some terrible lag... it took him 3 days to respawn! -NJ CoolBreeze
why on earth should microsoft be forced to pay 10% of its profits to help fund the competition?
i usually skim over slashdot with a (large) grain of salt, but this is just plain silly.
that's like saying coke should give 10% of its profits to pepsi, because "more people drink coke".
i'm rolling my eyes so far back in my head i think i may hurt myself.
hmmm, which would happen faster 10% price increase on all software or the creation of the indian territory of seattle (Tir tanguire for you shadowrun fans). My bet would be on the new country, headed by big wappum Bill He-who-rakes-in-the-cabbage Gates
no it is like charging ford and chevy 10% more for making cars that run on whale blubber. nothing is stopping close source programs from using open standards.
read the article
"governments should immediately mandate that only products abiding by enforceable Open Standards and Open Protocols be purchased."
But in practice, it's just going to be One More Bloody Tax.
Whoever came up with this harebrained scheme needs to be pummeled about the head and shoulders with a copy of the Internal Revenue Code.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Gee, the open source "movement" is going nowhere fast, so let's just take money from a company that is apparently successful at making products that people actually buy. Sure, that's a good idea.
OK, enough sarcasm. OK, maybe a little more: why don't we just tax Microsoft and give the money to Apple? That would level an unlevel playing field too. Or why don't we just mandate that Windows XP cost $25? What other aspects of Microsoft don't we like that we can "fix"?
Open source software is all well and good -- it's a pleasant hobby that keeps off the streets a lot of programmers with nothing else to do. But if it can't compete with commercial software, don't punish people who are actually making a living providing products to real customers.
I am about as anti-Microsoft as they come, but give me a frickin' break. Tax them to support open source? What a waste of money. I'd rather tax Microsoft and give the money to homeless people.
This is what making laws amounts to.
It is amazing that anyone expects it to work, but technical understanding isn't the strong point of legislators, I guess.
Lew
"The Constitution, the WHOLE Constitution, and nothing but the CONSTITUTION."
The immedate post sept 11 bail out was neccessary. It was the airlines fault that the government ordered everything grounded for a week and caused massive caos in the airline system. All of the others have been examples of bad government.
Perfect rendition of a Nigerian scam. Great post!
This whole suggestion is ridiculous, and distasteful.
Let's say that we have OpenGL. It's an open standard. If this suggestion was implemented, anyone who develops their own API and libraries, which perform better or give better image quality for their specific application would be punished, just because that individual or organization is then trying to push a solution that does not conform to the open standard.
If Open Source claims that it competes through all the programmers contributing, and their bug-checking, why should we then push for a law that banishes competition and innovation?
Innovation is creating something new, that hasn't been done before. Not imitation, and all conforming to the same thing. Innovators have always been those who have broken away from the rest of the people. But instead, the more I see of the Open Source community, the more I see a community, stagnant in it's way and beliefs, and intent on gettings it's way, and preventing other choices. In effect forming a sort of monopoly, but in this case an ideological one, which goes against freedom of choice.
Please, compete through promoting the open standards, instead of working for a ban against innovation, because, for many solutions, not conforming to a standard can give much better results. The only thing an open standard helps with is ease of programming, and ease of immitating... And I'd also like it if the open source community would start to try and innovate, instead of only immitating what others have already done before. Browsing through SourceForge and Freshmeat, I've never seen anything inventive, only a different kind of implementation, or a direct immitation.
Personally, I use what works best for me, and what I need to do. I use Apache, Dreamweaver, PHP, Maya, CodeWarrior for programming C++ and Java(No, pundits, GCC is nowhere near CodeWarrior in speed, on any platform it supports. Especially not MIPS).
No matter how much you think the poor deserve it, it's still wrong to steal from the rich.
Translation: "Hey Microsoft! Our givernment is a little over budget this year. Come 'donate' a few million computers and Windows OS Licenses to our government and schools, mmmkay? Then we'll forget all about this silly OSS business."
_______
2B1ASK1
You've clearly never worked on a government contract. Cost gets factored in. Even probabilistic costs.
Your cases make very little sense. Case 1 almost does. Case two fails to take into account case 1.
Hate to be an ass, but get back to me when you've been through the process.
I forget what 8 was for.
... althougth I'm sure to get flamed for my opinion. So be it.
Why? Not because I'm an anti-Microsoft bigot, though in large part I am, and not because I'm an open source advocate, although I am that as well. The reason is because I believe strongly in the value of open formats and protocols. Open formats are valuable for the industry as a whole, but I think govenments have a *responsibility* to ensure that the documents they produce on the public's behalf not be locked up, beholden to one software vendor.
Since open formats and protocols are so valuable, how is it that we don't currently force all our software vendors to publish their formats and protocols? Because the world at large hadn't realized how valuable they are (and perhaps we should thank Microsoft for that -- it's their abusive behavior that has made it so poignantly clear, even to less technical people). Given that we now realize it's important, how do we go about getting there?
There are a few obvious options:
Option 1 is the purely libertarian solution. I'm fairly libertarian, so it's appealing to me. However, it will be a very slow-acting solution, because the current closed format options are so deeply entrenched. For a country like South Africa, though, there's another issue: Do they really want to export all that cash to the US?
Option 2 is just distasteful. It's certainly going to be massively inefficient in the short run, and it's just plain wrong not to allow companies to at least attempt to compete with their CFP approaches.
Option 3 is, of course, what they've proposed. It is slightly offensive to my small-government sensibilities, but it really is a small, measured interference. Unlike, say Affirmative Action, which affects companies and citizens and requires a significant bureacracy to oversee it, this only affects government purchases and should be trivial to manage. The idea of the government taking Microsoft's money and giving it to random groups of open source developers would be deeply wrong, and if that's what they're planning (the article doesn't say), then I'm opposed. But that doesn't need to be the case.
In the short term, this action will increase government expenditures on software by 10%, which probably equates to a lot of money. That's a bad thing. In the long term, however, putting competition back into the picture will save them far more money. The competition isn't necessarily even OSS vs CSS -- if the government cat get OFP software, it doesn't matter if it's also OSS, because at least then other companies will be able to compete with the entrenched competitor, who will then be forced to compete on features and on price, as it should be.
The slickest thing about this proposal is that, unlike, say, Affirmative Action, it phases itself out automatically as it becomes unnecessary. As more OFP software becomes available (whether OSS or not), the government will buy less and less CFP software, reducing the "taxes" paid in. Eventually, the government will be using all OFP software, whether closed or open.
Here are some of the concerns I've seen in comments, and my responses:
Who are the open source developers who will get the money?
I think this one's easy to solve; the government should hire the developers and make them available to all of the government organizations, to build whatever kind of software is needed, with the caveat that all of the code will be open source. Why the requirement that it be open source, rather than just open format? Mainly because that way these developers can leverage the broad base of OSS that exists to make themselves more productive.
This (a) provides a valuable service to the government organizations who can get nicely customized software that they otherwise couldn't get at all, (b) keeps that software m
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
There's not much difference, both are wrong and very damaging to the free market.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
.. it's always a great idea if it costs Microsoft money.
OSS has no moral "right" to even be helped in such a manner. Today software, what next tomorrow? This is nothing but Affirmative Action.
If OSS can't compete on it's own merits, than it never was worth it in the first place.
It can save in .rtf (Rich Text Format). This is an open standard. Case closed, go away troll/Zealot.
Need more examples? Internet Explorer. It saves pages in a standard HTML format. Netscape, even your vaunted Opera can open them.
This is the worst case of socialist entitlement I've seen proffered on these pages. Microsoft already pays taxes for being in business. To be taxed specially is just being a looter now.
Earth to Slashdot: If you don't like a certain piece of closed source software because it is closed source, then develop your own version and give away the source. It's as simple as that.
Amazing magic tricks
I'm sorry you had to be an ass too. Thanks for taking on a thankless job though.
FYI, in my day job I'm part of a team working under a government contract (just got back from JavaOne courtesy of the contract), and in my night job I'm contracted directly by the government (U.S.) to provide services (software is the deliverable). IT in both cases. Oh yes, and in my other other job I'm in the Air Force Reserves. I'm a little familiar with government work...
So the govt. want to buy software and then fine the company if it's not in compliance with some open standard? Does anybody else see how destructive to free market that is? Basically, the buyer is demanding money from the seller in compensation for not liking the product. If I was the seller, I'd tell them I wouldn't sell to them at any price if they adopt such a policy. Principles are more important than money at times. What would really be funny is if they started fining OSS for non-compliance to standards. Who's going to pay?
Vote for Pedro
South Africa, pillar of civilization as it is, should not be looked at for any leadership in this area. It is a rabidly socialist government, and what it is proposing makes little sense. SInce when does it make any logical sense for government bureaucrats to tell companies what type of software to produce? This plan sounds like South Africa's was of creating it's own stable of programmers that it can harvest at no cost to itself. What, free linux, mysql, and open office is not enough??? Sounds like another way of taxing. I dont mind taxing corporations, it is done everywhere, but I dont know how SA would determine what software companies get the extra tax. Insane--and unenforceable--I am sure there are plenty of companies that wold avoid the "lucrative" market of South Africe, if necessary. It would not pass World Free Trade laws, in the final analysis, anyways.
I agree wholeheartedly with all those dissing this suggestion. Open Source software should stand on it's own two feet rather than be subsidised by proprietary software companies. I think this suggestion goes against the spirit of OSS. People should be free to choose proprietary software with proprietary file formats and face the seemingly inevitable vendor lock-in. It's their loss.
It doesn't take a genius to realise that vendor lock-in isn't desirable for the customer and that there is a better alternative available: OSS.
OSS doesn't need a "quick-fix" solution like this. People are starting to realise the benefits for themselves. OSS is very gradually eroding away the value of proprietary software and file formats. Let it be. It *will* work on it's own. Gently, gently people!
As Frank Sinatra once sang: "Nice and easy does it every time!"
Cheers
Stor
"Yeah well there's a lot of stuff that should be, but isn't"
"It's a nice thought, but I don't think you can just give someone a level playing field, all anti-trust laws to the contrary. Ultimately, OSS has to stand on its own merits, or it's not a competitor, it's just an also-ran."
That's exactly the point. EXACTLY. OSS can't stand on it's own merits as software if it has to keep handling Word document bull, and a lot of other bizarre closed formats. Reality check - all governments/businesses/etc. want is to read their documents. They don't pick software based on quality, they base it on their current use and what the least complicated thing will be. Time=money. This isn't the 80s and early 90s, when everyone was figuring out what software they wanted to use. That already happened. Now, the question is what is the best software that can be used in our current setup? OSS has to be a drop in replacement and it can't do that until standards can be open. Toyota is a drop in replacement for Ford, because everyone can get the same gas and put it in both cars. If Toyota had to use hydrogen, they'd never sell any cars because everyone's already using gas and no one uses hydrogen, and people want to run their gas cars. But Toyota can handle the gas from the local pump too, and thus they can compete on merit. That's what we need for software. Microsoft is a monopoly, and closed standards are one of the things that will keep them there. This makes that expensive for them, and I say it's worth considering seriously.
"I object to doing things that computers can do." -- Olin Shivers, lispers.org
How about instead of giving the 10% tax to OSS Projects, give it to schools, health care, etc. That way Microsoft and other companies which don't use open standards get penalised, whilst at the same time OSS doesn't benefit. This allows OSS projects to continue as they are and win on their own merits of Standards, Openness and stability (like they have done so far) and not thru government intervention (via unfair advantage). Oh, and Health and Education Departments benefit as well⦠;)
signature placeholder for rent.
I have done a couple of projects for the government in SA and I can tell you this is to make the field level. Microsoft is very dominent in the government on all levels. The projects I have worked on we had not choice but to use Microsoft. 'You will use it and make it work' has been said to me many times over. And the government has been burnt by this many times over. Our tax payers will be suprised how much money had been wasted on failed projects because Microsoft just could not do the job where other alternatives would have been able to.
Simply up to now every-jack-in-the-box in the government has developed/deployed a system for specific tasks in the government. Now our the people at the top want the information in these thousands of system at the touch of a button. Guess what?? They can't because the stuff are all proprietry and you can't get to the data all at once.
This would've prevented the Windows/DR-DOS FUD and would prevent Microsoft's Kerberos uninteroperability. Come to think of it, I recall some 30-60 day timeframe for documentation prior to execution as part of a Microsoft Antitrust settlement option.
Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks: temporary loans from the Public Domain, not real property ("intellectual" or otherwise)
What happens when the storage facility where the software is kept burns down and the company (with the copyrights) has gone out of business? Good luck reading the data!
The point of this whole thing is preventing vendor lock-in, increasing competition is merely a side-effect.
Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks: temporary loans from the Public Domain, not real property ("intellectual" or otherwise)
Just one question to bring this analogy in line with the discussion: Do you have really old food that you don't know how to eat?
Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks: temporary loans from the Public Domain, not real property ("intellectual" or otherwise)
(Yes, not exactly what you asked but quite close.)
Copyrights, Patents, Trademarks: temporary loans from the Public Domain, not real property ("intellectual" or otherwise)
But I'd say that if they publish the standard openly (i.e. not under NDA, free of charge, w/o discrimination against any group, like the M$ CIFS/SMB papers or alternately, submit it to Government body who publishes it similarly), then it is open. IF on the other hand it is found that it did NOT comply with the standards after someone tried to implement it, they would be liable to pay a levy of 20% to cover their dishonesty.
Michael
Actually, I think it's a good question. What is the definition of and "open standard"?
Since W3C isn't a standards organisation, they "only" create so called "recommendations"!
My definition of an open standard is:
1. It's properly documented and freely available to anyone.
2. No restrictions in regards to implementation and use.
3. Open development.
In regards to the third point - if MS made the full specifications of their .doc format freely available to anyone (#1 and #2 in the above list), I wouldn't call it an open standard, that is an open specification. MS is still 100% in control of furture changes.
This is currently discussed in Denmark too (should open standards be a requirement), but no one has defined what they mean when they say "open standard". MS Denmark is saying that they fully supports the use of open standards. I'm pretty convinced that their definition of an open standard isn't the same as the definition above...
I would personally be happy if they just made "open specifications" a requirement.