Open Source In Public Sector Meeting Opposition

Open Source movements have been gaining popularity everywhere, but not everyone is happy about that. Johans wrote to mention a ZDNet Asia story discussing a controversy within the Malaysian computer industry over the government's 'Public Sector Open Source Software Masterplan. From the article: " ... the government has stated that its first choice in IT procurement are infocomm technology solutions developed on the open-source platform. It states that 'in situations where advantages and disadvantages of open-source software (OSS) and proprietary software are equal, preference shall be given to OSS' ... However, some industry consortiums have stepped out to voice their concerns over this policy." Meanwhile, Anonymous Coward wrote to mention a Fox News article entitled 'Massachusetts Should Close Down OpenDocument', calling the attention of journalists to the 'huge mistake' that Massachusetts is making by switching to OpenDocument. From that article: "Officials in the state have proposed a new policy that mandates that every state technology system use only applications designed around OpenDocument file formats. Such a policy might seem like something that should concern only a small group of technology professionals, but in fact the implications are staggering and far-reaching. The policy promises to burden taxpayers with new costs and to disrupt how state agencies interact with citizens, businesses and organizations."

Comments

Pendergast is a lobbyist.

[grub]

The Fox News article is by James Pendergast, hardly a friend of open source. More of his FUD-laced Fox articles can be found here.

If you don't want to read any more of his tripe at least look at the Founding Members of his organization... ah Microsoft. He's just a shill protecting MS' monopoly.

Re:Pendergast is a lobbyist.

[SimilarityEngine]

That's the same impression I got when reading this article. For example:

In a letter to Governor Mitt Romney about the policy, Citizens Against Government Waste righlty (sic) pointed out that, "Not only will this mandate undermine free market competition and drive up costs, it will also curtail the ability of the people and government of Massachusetts to benefit from future innovation."

Rightly? I think the issue is far from settled. I'd argue that encouraging the use of a common standard would enable competition, by preventing lock-in to a specific vendor. But hey, there I go refusing to look at things in the same short-sighted way as the reporter...

Re:Pendergast is a lobbyist.

[Shelled]

"Not only will this mandate undermine free market competition...."

Free market? Do these people even read their own bullshit any more? The OS marketplace and document 'standard' are owned by one convincted monopolist the current administration let off the hook. What free market? It's a meaningless boogeyman term these nitwits spout nowadays by reflex, much like "save the children" and "burn the witches".

Re:Pendergast is a lobbyist.

[Eslyjah]

Open Source Software is the free-market response to closed, expensive software. THAT is what the author does not understand.

Re:Pendergast is a lobbyist.

[arkanes]

The bullshit that comes out of these peoples mouths is increcdible. The entire article focuses on the fact that since Microsoft won't supported OpenDocument, it makes interoperability much harder for everyone - MA won't be able to use Office anymore, businesses and citizens will have to get new products to interoperate with the government, etc. Okay, fine. All that is to an extent quite true. But how the hell can they claim that it somehow subverts competition in the free market when *one* company refusing to support this standard blocks *all* interoperability?

People keep focussing on the problems with OO.o vrs Office, including a totally irrelevent dig at Calc (that doesn't match my experience - at my last job I downloaded and used Calc to data munge some Excel spreadsheets because Excel would lock up for 5 seconds every time I opened or closed the "find" dialog. Nice)

There's plenty thats just plain wrong, too. PDF *is* an open, documented standard with, as far as I know, no patent issues preventing outside implementations. Notably, non-Adobe PDF implementations don't have to rely on difficult and time consuming reverse engineering to interoperate.

And he claims that, up till now, bidding on technologies has been open and merit based.... but he thinks that they should mandate Office. Right. Thats right from the mothership - "Cross platform means NT *AND* 98!". You can implement any "merit based" technology you want, as long as it Microsoft based.

God. So much lying.

Re:Pendergast is a lobbyist.

[metternich]

Some people seem to be confused. A monopoly is not a free market, in fact it hinders a free market. One of the ways it hinders a free market in software is by adopting closed formats. Therefore forcing open formats promotes the free market, thus fostering innovation. Nothing is preventing Massachusetts from using Microsoft's products once they decided to adopt open formats.

Re:Pendergast is a lobbyist.

[gmack]

And hes quoting an article by Citizens Against Government Waste who are also a lobby group with close ties to Microsoft.

They are recyciling each other's crap.

Re:Pendergast is a lobbyist.

[MrResistor]

Your whole argument is based on a false premise: that the average citizen wouldn't be inconvenienced if MA stuck with the current "standard", MS Office. But what about when the state upgrades to the next version of MS Office? Now everyone who wants to read current government documents has to upgrade as well. Even if all that means is downloading the free Doc Reader, how is that any less inconvenient than downloading OpenOffice, or AbiWord, or one of the other free tools that can read and/or write OpenDocument files.

Even better; how do you open a document created in MS Office 95? Government documents often need to be kept around for decades, even centuries, and yet MS doesn't even provide a way to open a .doc that's barely 10 years old.

The citizens will be inconvenienced either way, that's just a simple, unavoidable fact. But, at least with OpenDocument it won't cost them any money.

Not content to either do what it takes to win fairly or lose gracefully, they instead use the same tactics they accuse Microsoft of and engage in the holy effrontery of the self-righteous.

Sorry, but turn-about IS fair play. And anyway, what makes you say that the FOSS people have engaged in MS tactics? Who did they pay off? What special, one time only discounts did they offer? How many jobs did they threaten to move to another state? Which competing formats did they buy up and strangle?

All I see here is a state government that's actually considering the long-term effects of their IT policy, and making a perfectly rational decision. Perhaps you'd like to try and convince me otherwise?

Check out the OpenDocument author...

[gowen]

It's James Prendergast.. Who's he? Well, he works for Americans for Technology Leadership. And who are they? Well, last time they made the news, it was for a letter writing campaign, in support of Microsoft, in which thousands of largely identical letters were sent, including a number from dead people.

Can you say "Astroturfing"?

Translation

[Nf1nk]

"We can't figure out how we can make money from this move, It must be bad for every one, and by everyone we mean us."
Of course microssoft and friends are upset, office is there big cash cow, and if Mass pulls this off and saves some money, then there is every possibility more states will follow.

Costs

[spurtle15]

The policy promises to burden taxpayers with new costs...

Boss: How much is the software going to cost?
Tech: Um, it's free.
Boss: How about all the manpower hours?
Tech: Alright, we'll shutdown the Quake server for the time being.

Re: Nice detail on their page

[mwvdlee]

You've just GOT to love this little gem...

The article titled "ATL's opposition to the proposed Mandate of Open Office and Portable Document Format (PDF) formats as contained in Enterprise Technical Reference Model v.3.5." links to a PDF.

How difficult is it for MS to just...

[Asmor]

How difficult is it for MS to just add OpenDocument support?

The article mentions ease of interoperability, claiming that everyone should use Microsoft Office since everyone else uses Microsoft Office.

THAT'S NOT INTEROPERABILITY! That's a monopoly! Microsoft is well aware of that fact, too, which is why they DON'T want to support OpenDocument. If they did, then people would be able to choose a different office suite and still be able to maintain working relations with others. Suddenly everyone has choice, and that's a bad thing!

Maybe this is just the spark needed to light a fire under MS's ass. Either they or the state of Massachusetts is going to have to crack, and I'm betting they will. It's trivial to add OpenDocument support to MS Office. Of course, once they do, they'll open the floodgates to personal choice... so maybe they'll bite the bullet and wait out Mass.

Disclaimer: I'm not an anti-MS zealot. I merely go with what is in my opinion the best tool for the job. I run Windows XP, Firefox and OpenOffice.org.