Governments & Open Source

sydney-computer-support writes "The Greens in New Zealand who advocate the use of OSS are upset about a Novell contract because it doesn't support open source. The article mentions the greens spokeperson saying the contract "cleared the path for government agencies to adopt and expand their use of non-proprietary software" -- failing to note that Novell is a company offering proprietary versions of OSS."

Comments

Proprietary doesn't matter...just get there

[flinxmeister]

My workplace recently started moving some critical servers from Solaris to Red Hat. Of course this is a proprietary (and often reviled) Linux. But that's not important.

What's important are the number of people installing test boxes and "piddle" boxes running Linux to get more familiar with it. Some of these are Red Hat, but a couple folks are starting to look at the other non-commercial packages. I fully expect more to do this.

Once corporate folks have put their feet on the Linux platform and found it will both hold weight and perform fabulously, they can then move on to the freer options. I think almost all of it has to do with support and CYA.

Personally, my philosophy is "best tool for the job". If that's a commercial/proprietary Linux, so be it. If it's Sun, so be it. MS...same deal. This adoption of proprietary Linux is a first step towards a similar, more open philosophy, so it shouldn't be poo-poo'd.

"Proprietary versions of OSS"

[overshoot]

This is apparently the new version of the "Red Hat is becoming Microsoft."

Novell, in case the Greens didn't notice, has been releasing more and more of the Ximian and SuSE code under the GPL and making their distribution much easier to acquire gratis as well as libre. So what's their complaint? Reading TFA it's hard to tell.

I'm confused

[Digital_Quartz]

The news post claims the greens are upset about this deal, then links to an article in which two different spokespeople from the green party praise the deal.

And what's with the jab at Novell for offering "proprietary versions of OSS". What does that even mean? Is Suse Linux somehow now less open because Novell owns it?

Am I missing something here?

Re:It doesn't matter...

[ThosLives]

I think I just realised that "vendor lock-in" is not the thing to fear - that's just a symptom of something more ominous. For instance, what do you really mean by "vendor lock-in"? I think the issue here is "we want to be sure we can always access the information without having to [pay tribute] to a specific individual/organisation". If the latter is indeed the case, then the idea will never be realised. Granted, having "closed source" tools make it difficult to keep information readily available. However - what do I care about what format the goverment uses internally? I'm under the impression that governments that are more open in general will, upon request, send you a printed copy of requested information. If you can get the printed copy, a hard, physical copy, what does it matter what format the document is in? Or, alternatively, the government should convert its documents to your requested format if you don't want a hard copy. It should be on the shoulders of the government to conform to the people, not the other way around.

If the issue is that the government is starting to make printed material unavailable, the thing to do would be to start putting political pressure to make it available again. After all, saying "you can have information but only in the form we want to give you" is subtly controlling.

Re:Govt. logic, go figure

[hey!]

Well, it's funny to me, since I'd resolved to teach myself French around the start of 2003.

I'd noticed around that time that a lot of people were pushing the idea of France as (variously) the enemy, or the most contemptible country in the world. Then I looked at the principles of the people selling this idea, and the intelligence of the people buying it, and discovered that I liked France more than I thought.

Re:Right-tool-for-the-job advocate

[Pxtl]

Word doc reader is only free to people that already have paid microsoft for their use of the windows platform. That's like saying that your car doors were free with your car - no, the doors came with the car, they were part of what you paid for.

When MS publishes a DOC reader for a free operating system, or releases a win32-compatible operating system for free (with a perpetual license) _then_ the Doc reader will be free.

PDF, on the other hand, can be viewed with free tools.

Greens

[ajs318]

This does not surprise me. In my city there were plans for a power plant which would use household waste as a fuel. First there would be a multi-stage segregation process to divert glass, metal and some plastics for melting down; secondly a gasification stage converting organic matter to methane, and finally a turbo-charged, intercooled, internal combustion engine spinning an alternator at constant RPM.

The local Friends of the Earth miscategorised this as an incinerator, claiming that it would produce dioxins {about as much in one full year of running as 5 November} and CO2 {instead of an equal amount of CO2 which would no longer be produced from other power plants and some of which would be from non-fossil fuel sources due to the presence of plant and animal matter in the process feedstock}. When these arguments were shot down, they still claimed that the plant was a bad idea as by improving recycling rates it would encourage people to throw stuff away! In the end, the plant did not get built and people are still being poisoned both nearby {by leachate from landfill sites, which produce methane -- one molecule of CH4 is equivalent to 21 molecules of CO2 in terms of heat-trapping power} and far away {by mining metal ores to replace the recyclable metal being buried in landfill}. All to avoid a negligible effect on air quality in an area where the majority of the population smokes fags anyway.

There's no point even trying to reason with Greens, because they fundamentally don't get science.