Slashdot Mirror
CCAGW Misreads Mass. Policy, Open Standards Generally
mhrivnak writes "The Council for
Citizens Against Government Waste made this press
release blasting the Massachusetts policy decision to move to Open Source. They explain why Linux is a 'monopoly,' how this policy is
'socialist' and why 'The old Soviet Union could not have done this any better.' The CCAGW has been previously informed about the benefits of open source software in
government. Tell them what you think!" The CCAGW is at least not completely one-dimensional; the group
is also opposed to mandatory embedded
snoopware.
Maybe they don't realize that conventional
closed-source software
has
big costs worth avoiding.
"The state's taxpayers deserve nothing less." -CAGW President Tom Schatz
Dear Mr. Schatz,
I agree 100%, but not in the way you may think
The site www.cagw.org is running Apache/1.3.12 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.6.5 OpenSSL/0.9.6e ApacheJServ/1.1.2
mod_fastcgi/2.2.10 on FreeBSD.
Trolling is a art,
Socialism is just a red herring. ...or maybe that's Communism.
:-)
Oh crap, now I'm confusing Clue quotes... heh
All I want is a kind word, a warm bed and unlimited power.
The actual quote is:
"It is ironic that Massachusetts, as the only state remaining in the lawsuit accusing Microsoft of antitrust violations, is creating its own state-imposed monopoly on software."
So, while misguided, the CCAGW isn't exactly calling Linux a monopoly, but rather the government of Massachussets.
Umm, no, government waste is when you make policies that impede the ability to use the best and cheapest tool for a certain task, and wind up having to pay someone to reinvent the wheel for you.
Government using linux, good. Government forcing the use of linux and ignoring sound procurement procedures, bad.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I think the state wants to only consider software that uses open data formats, whether the software is open source or closed source. The data formats must be open.
This means that no-one is excluded from competing for the software contracts, as long as their software uses open data formats.
It's not unfair, and it is indeed the least that the people deserve. Proprietary data formats will become very expensive in the future. The Slashdot-post example of this is the proverbial Word 95 document that is hard to import into a newer version of MS Word without loss of something. (Note: I haven't checked that myself, I just see it posted here over and over again.)
I suffer from attention surplus disorder.
"Linux is a monopoly"
Thanks CCAGW, I needed a good laugh.
It's clear that you didn't RTFA.
I would like to point out that the only time the word "monopoly" appears in the press release was in the following sentence:
It is ironic that Massachusetts, as the only state remaining in the lawsuit accusing Microsoft of antitrust violations, is creating its own state-imposed monopoly on software.
For the others of you who did not RTFA, I would also like to point out that the CCAGW was not criticizing the value of using open-source open-source itself, but rather the decision to exclude all other competitors in the bidding process. If they were excluding all competitors to the benefit of a for-profit corporation (Microsoft would be a good example), the criticism would be the same, and the process would be unethical at best, illegal at worst. Why is it suddenly alright to do the same thing with open-source vendors and projects?
Here's the sum-up of the press release for those of you who still refuse to RTFA:
Open-source software = good, admirable
state mandated zero-competition = bad, socialist
Don't become a regular here, you will become retarded. -- Yoda the Retard
Y'all ought to check out how CAWG seems to applaud the death of any and all MS Antitrust work. In fact, it appears to be a group founded by the Reagan administration.
Sounds like a shill to me.
The truly hilarious thing is that they are running Apache for a web server. |Makes me think they have no idea what open source really is.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
If GPL'ed software gets a monopoly, then it's a monopoly of a sort wholly new to the world: a monopoly where no single group has total control over it, and nobody can take exclusive possession of it.
A world where Linux dominates is a world where no-one dominates. Everyone is free to take software and use it, study it, and modify it in any way they like. The only restriction is on redistribution, and if you don't like the terms, hey, use something else.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!