EU Wants To Redefine "Closed" As "Nearly Open"

Glyn Moody writes "A leaked copy (PDF) of Version 2 of the European Interoperability Framework replaces a requirement in Version 1 for carefully-defined open standards by one for a more general 'openness': 'the willingness of persons, organizations or other members of a community of interest to share knowledge and to stimulate debate within that community of interest.' It also defines an 'openness continuum' that includes 'non-documented, proprietary specifications, proprietary software and the reluctance or resistance to reuse solutions, i.e. the "not invented here" syndrome.' Looks like 'closed' is the new 'open' in the EU."

Comments

Well, actually ...

[ScrewMaster]

Looks like 'closed' is the new 'open' in the EU.

Actually, it looks like "corrupt" is the same old corrupt that it's always been. Gotta wonder just what changed hands to make that happen.

Re:Well, actually ...

[mabhatter654]

nothing has to change hands... this is how the lobbyist sycophants work. "Open Sources" was the new buzzword the pleb bureaucrats want.... so lobbyists continually re-spin words until something sticks... like little kids begging daddy for candy it goes from "no candy" to "how many pieces to get you to shut up so I can work". Unfortunately lobbyists aren't treated like begging children.

Re:Well, actually ...

[Gerzel]

Money, wealth, power, flattery and the occasional sexual favour. The usual.

Re:Well, actually ...

[ozmanjusri]

Suck it, Europe! What with Canada...
USA! FUCK YEAH!

How's your education system going? Any improvements?

Re:Well, actually ...

[ArbiterShadow]

How's your education system going? Any improvements?

Obviously not, or he'd know that there are more than 4 countries in the world.

Re:Well, actually ...

[dakameleon]

How's your education system going? Any improvements?

Obviously not, or he'd know that there are more than 4 countries in the world.

Or that Europe's not a country?

Re:Well, actually ...

[Xaositecte]

The USA is the only country in the world.

Everything else is just a proxy state.

Re:Well, actually ...

[SanityInAnarchy]

The U.S. has the freest internet access in the WHOLE WOILD!

If true, that's pretty sad.

Fortunately, I'm pretty sure it's not true.

Re:Well, actually ...

[palegray.net]

I find it "interesting" that you've been modded "funny."

Re:Well, actually ...

[Hucko]

In my family, for non essentials (lollies) the more you begged the less you got. We start with none.

Re:Well, actually ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! Your subliminal messages will not work on me!
*refoils hat*

Re:Well, actually ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Possibly the slowest though!

Re:Well, actually ...

[boombaard]

Oh, for the love of god.

The more that power and national wealth are centralized in the hands of the national government the greater the incentive and opportunity for corruption, patronage, and undue insider influence to occur.

[citation needed]

In fact, many of the wealthy families of Europe have maintained their fortunes, at least in part by, successfully manipulating these national governments through patronage and corrupt bargains with government officials and elected representatives.

And If you start a sentence with "in fact", [citationS needed]. Do you really mean to say that you believe your Bush family today isn't at least as nepotist as "our (hidden, because I can't say I can think of too many offhand) old elites? I'm curious, what do you call buying a representative's allegiance through "campaign contributions"? Because I suspect that if you were to correlate donations with voting behavior, you'd be pretty shocked and appalled. And yet, the fact that that happens has nothing to do with "big government", just with people creating rules that are to their own advantage rather than to another's, and nobody caring enough to protest as long as they keep it hidden from view.
In any case, "The libertarians amongst us" are a bunch of twits who use banal stereotypes in order to support their own beliefs, fearing to actually look for sources for their idiotic claims about "Europe" or "communism" because all they're interested in is pushing their own agenda, and for that you need fear of government. You rail against this "socialism" shit, yet you're afraid to look for confirmation from sources other than Glenn Beck's writing (because fuck knows he's the poster child of academic rigour in his research). If you want to see what deregulation did for the American consumer, go read Elizabeth Warren's "The Two-Income Trap". If you deregulate banks, they're not suddenly going to be nice to you, as though the 2500 year old usury laws/taboo was utter nonsense. They're going to try to suck you dry for all you're worth, and even if they don't succeed with you, they will succeed with your friends and neighbors. Only they won't talk about it because they feel it is their personal failing that they couldn't get better rates from the bank. Yet "libertarians" suck it all up and say "this is a risk of the free market. What the fuck is free about it? The relative bargaining power of the bank vis-a-vis the lone consumer is enormous. Of course there's going to be abuse of power there, resulting in terrible deals for the consumer. Remember that slogan "everyone is equal under the law"? You need regulation to enforce that. The open market won't create it. Why would they? There is no incentive whatever to do so, as there is nobody who can check their power except the government.

Those who believe that they will "punish the wealthy" need only look to Europe to see that the wealthy will largely keep their wealth while the middle class chafes under high unemployment, high prices for consumer goods and high taxes.

Have you not been watching the news in your country? How, pray tell, do you maintain this idiotic notion that the USA doesn't suffer from high prices? Try talking to anyone who's needed to go in for some sort of medical treatment, and see if they didn't go bankrupt afterwards because of lost income, or somesuch. as for high unemployment, again, [citation needed]. You kept the entire automobile industry alive through huge tariffs and subsidies, not least of which through actually subsidizing gas prices so that manufacturers didn't feel the need to try for better mileage. That industry's dead now, and you've got at least 10-15% unemployed atm. Think they'll be going away soon?

Re:Well, actually ...

[Anonymous Coward]

You had to give lollies to your parents?

Re:Well, actually ...

[jipn4]

What's there to improve?

What about Europe's educational system? Is it improving?

Re:Well, actually ...

[Carewolf]

No, the article looks like a troll.

An openness scala needs to have two extremes to be useful, which is why it also needs to included the worst of the worst in closedness, which reflects the minimum of openness.

Re:Well, actually ...

[he-sk]

"Punishing the wealthy" is a strawman perpetraited by those born with a silver spoon in their mouth who never had to do any real work in their life.

Get a clue. It's about leveling the playing field. The goal isn't to make everybody equal, it's to give everybody a fair shot at success as far as this is possible.

And you're deluding yourself if you think Europe is any more corrupt than the US.

Re:Well, actually ...

[ThaReetLad]

I wish I had some mod points right now. Excellent stuff.

Re:Well, actually ...

[Hucko]

Well yes, I suppose that is one way of looking at my statement, and what happened. Any lollies that would have come to us got absconded for a higher purpose.

Re:Well, actually ...

[dcarmi]

The USA is the only country in the world.

Everything else is just a proxy state.

It just your turn for now. The "only country in the world" event passes to China very soon.

Re:Well, actually ...

[Verdatum]

Curses! Foiled again!

Re:Well, actually ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm curious, what do you call buying a representative's allegiance through "campaign contributions"? Because I suspect that if you were to correlate donations with voting behavior, you'd be pretty shocked and appalled. And yet, the fact that that happens has nothing to do with "big government", just with

You, sir, are an elitist twat.
Anyone that disagrees with your view of a need for an all controlling government doesn't understand contribution bribery? Really?

Furthermore, you completely miss GP's point. In a smaller government, there two mitigating factors:
A) The government has less power to give you stuff, and therefore buying a congresscritter/MP/PM/whatever is less valuable.
B) The government has less power to take stuff from your or prevent you from doing something, and therefore buying a congresscritter/MP/PM/whatever is less necessary.

If you want to see what deregulation did for the American consumer, go read Elizabeth Warren's "The Two-Income Trap".

Deregulation of trucking was a huge win.

Have you not been watching the news in your country? How, pray tell, do you maintain this idiotic notion that the USA doesn't suffer from high prices? Try talking to anyone who's needed to go in for some sort of medical treatment,

Had multiple people close to me need the following:
Tripple Bypass
Chemo
Chemo (again)

Zero of them went bankrupt, lost their house, etc.. Most people do in fact already have fine insurance here. Continue believing your myths, however.

You kept the entire automobile industry alive through huge tariffs and subsidies, not least of which through actually subsidizing gas prices so that manufacturers didn't feel the need to try for better mileage.

You're quite the kook if you think that keeping gas prices down was done for the auto industry. We've had high MPH cars here for decades and Detroit never had a serious problem shifting to them if market demanded it. Prior to 06-now it never did, minus a few blips due to oil embargos. Keeping petrochemical energy STABLE was a nice benefit for Detroit as high swings do nasty things to market planning. As for keeping them low, that is a benefit the entire economy since energy drives all economic sectors at multiple levels.

Re:Well, actually ...

[kevinNCSU]

If "punishing the wealthy" was a strawman that the rich were perpetuating then wouldn't that mean they would argue how punishing the wealthy doesn't actually exist or is easily disproved and then use that to incorrectly claim some entire argument is therefore invalid?

A view or claim that a person is perpetuating that they themselves subscribe to is not a strawman, it's just that, a view or a claim. A strawman is when a person sets up a false or flawed claim for their opponent, and then knocks that false claim down in order to say their opponents entire viewpoint is invalid.

Re:Well, actually ...

[Veretax]

This reminds me of the Pixar Movie the Incredibles, where the Villian "Syndrome" says "He'll make everyone super, and when everyone is super, no one will be." When you try to make everything equal you end up lowering standards, and hurting those among us who are truly exceptional. That isn't smart for a country that needs smarts to solve its problems. Granted I'm not happy with several things, namely the educational system. It should not be about having common standards it should be about achieving a high base standard of education. The current system really dumbs things down, and plays to the lower end of the spectrum leaving the truly bright and gifted, bored, or worse.

Re:Well, actually ...

[Anonymous Coward]

When interviewing politicians about their decision, they said they are "open" to comments

Re:Well, actually ...

[Hognoxious]

The more that power and national wealth are centralized in the hands of the national government the greater the incentive and opportunity for corruption, patronage, and undue insider influence to occur.

[citation needed]

Give it a rest and apply some common sense. Corruption occurs when some resource (usually but not always money) is under the control of someone who is not its owner. One example of that is a state with a relatively large public sector handing out contracts left right and centre. Of course it's not the only one, it happens in corporations too - at least ones that aren't managed by their owners. You wouldn't take a kickback to overpay for inferior materials if they were going into your own house, would you?

Look at it another way. Would it be worth buying the government of Somalia,sinced they don't run the place anyway?

Re:Well, actually ...

[StayFrosty]

You kept the entire automobile industry alive through huge tariffs and subsidies

Just about every country protects their domestic auto industry. I remember reading a few years ago that in Japan a Ford Taurus costs more than a Mercedes because of the high tariffs. Protecting domestic industry is the only way to keep manufacturing jobs in the US. Low wages and few/no environmental controls in India, China or even Mexico make it way too tempting to outsource manufacturing jobs. Tariffs are one of the government's tools to try to level the playing field.

That industry's dead now, and you've got at least 10-15% unemployed atm.

I'm going to call Bullshit. Ford is still alive and kicking without any sort of bailout. GM and Chrysler are still around, making cars and employing people. I wouldn't call that "dead." As of September unemployment in the US was 9.5%. That's nowhere near "at least 10-15%."

Re:Well, actually ...

[SteveFoerster]

>> Suck it, Europe! What with Canada...
>> USA! FUCK YEAH!

> How's your education system going? Any improvements?

Not bad. How does yours compare?

Re:Well, actually ...

[Attila Dimedici]

Since this is a story about the EU, when he said Europe he was clearly referring to the EU, which is a much of a country as the U.S.. It's just that the member states haven't realized that they aren't countries anymore.

Re:Well, actually ...

[Hognoxious]

I remember reading a few years ago that in Japan a Ford Taurus costs more than a Mercedes because of the high tariffs.

The Japanese put tariffs on American cars but not German ones?

Re:Well, actually ...

[StayFrosty]

The tariffs were different...probably because there is more competition in the mid-size sedan market than in the luxury sedan market in Japan.

Re:Well, actually ...

[ubercam]

This reminds me of what a complete and utter idiot told me one... she said "I know the solution to all the world's poverty problems.. give everyone a million dollars and no one will be poor anymore!" Needless to say I laughed for a really long time. What an idiot.

Re:Well, actually ...

[daveime]

The U.S. has the freest internet access in the WHOLE WOILD!

And the slowest. Two records at once, how proud you must all be.

Re:Well, actually ...

[CodeBuster]

If you look at the statements of the Libertarians during the Bush administration I think you will find that we criticized Bush for many of the same reasons that we now criticize Obama. Excessive government spending is undesirable whether it comes from the Democrats or the Republicans. It should also be pointed out that Libertarian != Republican. Our position is distinct from that of the Republican Party in many important ways, particularly with regard to social policies. For example, the war on drugs.

As for the banks, you will find that many Libertarians are NOT friends of government fiat currency and fractional reserve banking. In fact, we tend to favor commodity backed currency (gold in particular, but other valuable commodities too).

Remember that slogan "everyone is equal under the law"? You need regulation to enforce that.

By equalizing outcomes at the point of the sword? That is the problem with "the government has to step in" argument because it necessarily advocates the use of violence to redistribute wealth. The government controls the army, the police, and the means of extreme violence; that is the ultimate source of government power. This is what we Libertarians object to, the use of violence to alter the outcome in an otherwise voluntary system.

How, pray tell, do you maintain this idiotic notion that the USA doesn't suffer from high prices?

High in whose estimation? If prices are higher than they otherwise would be because of poor government policies, as they often are in Europe, then that is an issue. I have a few Italian friends with family still living over in Italy and they tell stories of how prices for even the basic necessities are rising much faster than wages. For example, a quart of milk might cost between 6-8 Euros while wages may be only 4-5 Euros per hour after taxes at the minimum. In Italy they talk about the "third week problem" where a household has spent all of its available income for the month before the third week arrives. Perhaps now you can see why so many honest and hard working Italians have come to America instead of remaining in Italy.

Please try to understand that Libertarians have positions distinct from that of the Republicans or the Conservatives. We have many of the same goals that most Americans have; The difference is that we do not believe that using the power of government, which is to say the power of force, to achieve those goals is the right approach. The desire for the government to "step in" is perhaps understandable because many people are impatient for "good things" to be done, but ultimately the government will fail to deliver on those promises and we will be right back where we started (or worse) instead of making persistent and steady, if slow, progress towards those goals.

Re:Well, actually ...

[CodeBuster]

The goal isn't to make everybody equal, it's to give everybody a fair shot at success as far as this is possible.

So you say, but it is not possible to give everyone the same chance at success because we are not all possessed of equal talents, drive or ability. The best that can be achieved is for the government not to stand in anyone's way. Everyone has the right to an opportunity for success, but chance is not the same for all and using the power of government coercion in a misguided attempt to make it so will not benefit society in the long run.

And you're deluding yourself if you think Europe is any more corrupt than the US.

I don't think so. The Europeans are probably just more sophisticated in their corruption and better at sweeping it under the rug (they have had much more practice than their bumbling American counterparts). In Europe, where redistribution is the norm rather than the exception, even otherwise honest people are pressed to cheat in order to protect a more equitable split of their income from the taxman.

Re:Well, actually ...

[LordKazan]

"f you look at the statements of the Libertarians during the Bush administration I think you will find that we criticized Bush for many of the same reasons that we now criticize Obama."

Bullshit

Re:Well, actually ...

[wonkavader]

No. Things are really only getting worse.

I know you know that from what you see around you -- for example the above poster. But just in case you might have thought there could possibly have been an improvement in the past couple of years that hasn't started to show up yet... there isn't one.

I'm a US resident and a very discouraged person.

Re:Well, actually ...

[CodeBuster]

As Mohandas Gandhi said, "There are none as blind as those who will not see."

Re:Well, actually ...

[he-sk]

So you say, but it is not possible to give everyone the same chance at success because we are not all possessed of equal talents, drive or ability.

Hence my caveat, as far as possible.

The best that can be achieved is for the government not to stand in anyone's way.

The current financial crisis directly contradicts your proposition. The governments removed regulation that was supposed to keep the big players honest. As a consequence, everybody and their mother speculated with money that wasn't theirs, investing in schemes they did not understand. When everything came crashing down like a house of cards they looked for the government to help them out. Hypocrisy at its worst.

And you're deluding yourself if you think Europe is any more corrupt than the US.

I don't think so.

The corruption index from Transparency International lists the US right in the middle of where European countries are found. Personally, I know enough incidents of blatant political corruption on either side of the Atlantic.

Re:Well, actually ...

[he-sk]

Are you trying to argue with me? I can't really tell, because I explicitly said that it's not about making everything equal.

Re:Well, actually ...

[CodeBuster]

The current financial crisis directly contradicts your proposition. The governments removed regulation that was supposed to keep the big players honest. As a consequence, everybody and their mother speculated with money that wasn't theirs, investing in schemes they did not understand. When everything came crashing down like a house of cards they looked for the government to help them out. Hypocrisy at its worst.

It might seem to be so at first glance, but the problem lies not with the free market, as some are quick to say, but with the money supply itself; the one part of the financial system which is essentially NOT free. I agree that regulation is necessary as long as we wish to maintain the fictions inherent in the present system of government fiat money and fractional reserve banking. However, I do not believe that that is the best monetary system; hence my dissent against regulation as being necessary in all cases because of a "failure" of the free market. The failure lies in the monetary system itself which underpins everything and is ultimately controlled by the government. Without fiat money (backed by nothing except more fiat money) and fractional reserve banking, the expansion of credit which created the present crisis would not have been possible .

The government mandates that the fiat money is legal tender for all debts public and private AND they grant some private entities, namely the banks, special privileges to loan out more money than they actually have ...fractional reserves and therein lies the problem. Each new boom cycle contains in itself the seeds of the next bust. If the money supply were truly free, backed by commodities stored in reserve for the money in circulation and payable on demand, and fractional reserve banking was not allowed then the boom bust bubble cycle would no longer be possible because we would not be able to get so far ahead of our means.

Re:Well, actually ...

[commodore64_love]

>>>Or that Europe's not a country?

Just wait 50 years, and the difference between the United States and the Union of Europe will be nil. Then the EU too will be a "country" like the U.S. became a country.

Re:Well, actually ...

[commodore64_love]

>>>>>"If you look at the statements of the Libertarians during the Bush administration I think you will find that we criticized Bush for many of the same reasons that we now criticize Obama."
>>
>>Bullshit

No, not bullshit. Most Libertarians voted for Harry Browne in 2000. We knew both Bush and Gore (and later Kerry) were just power-hungry individuals.

Re:Well, actually ...

[V!NCENT]

Well... the EU is slowly starting to become like an actual country USA style... Where each country is a state and the EU gets a president... Hmmmmm...

As a citizen from a country in the EU I was fearing that this might happen someday and sadly the corruption is already starting to develop :(

Re:Well, actually ...

[V!NCENT]

The level of education in Europe is much higher than the rest of the world. For example, here in the Netherlands, hbo (freely translated into "higher job education"), which is below university in our country, counts as a university degree in the USA. 'Nuff said...

Re:Well, actually ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you really mean to say that you believe your Bush family today isn't at least as nepotist as "our (hidden, because I can't say I can think of too many offhand) old elites?

Whether or not you feel you can trust Michael Moore - his F9/11 film certainly made plenty of connections between the Bushes, some group with a name like Haliburton, and the lot of them getting richer off the pointless conflict the Americans got themselves embroiled in. But, then, F9/11 was discredited along the way, perhaps by people working for those aforementioned? It seems strange how fickle the mind is, for a few innacuracies doesn't necessarily destroy the message. It's a lot like Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" which, granted, does make a few currently unverifiable assumptions. But, guys, why are we running around saying that these attempts of investigative journalism are corrupt lies when there is a chance that they're one of the few attempting to tell us something akin to the truth? Maybe it is easier to do nothing? Maybe it is easier to live in a coddled little world and have full trust and confidence in your President?

Here's a fact. Consider it carefully. Those in power are corrupt. Nice guys get squashed, scum rises to the top. Your leader might look nice, but he's a lying cheating stealing freeloader. You don't need to write "[citation needed]", just open a newspaper. If you can't find a suitable article to back up my point, just wait a couple of years and try again.

Because I suspect that if you were to correlate donations with voting behavior, you'd be pretty shocked and appalled.

Indeed, when the lawmakers make decisions that seem illogical or out of step, you wonder how much cash is being passed. Look at the "Vivendi Universal" amendments on the French DADVSI law. Or look up (Lord) Peter Mandelson in Wiki and read the bit about his sudden shift in view over "Internet copyright policy".
I'm sure we could fill an archive with similar examples. They all think they can get away with it, and the worst part is... they more or less do.

and nobody caring enough to protest as long as they keep it hidden from view.

Or even that blatantly in the open. Sometimes I wonder what destroys more - the corruption or the apathy? Nobody wants to be the first. Nobody wants to speak out. This is all the worse in the UK where the government wants you to dob on your neighbours (especially in they are benefit cheats), but if you should blow the whistle on them, you get crucified. Wasn't Russia once run like that?!?

and for that you need fear of government.

Explain, please. I know what you are getting at, but I never really understood this "fear of government" thing. Our government should be working for us. That's damned naïve, I know, but if it isn't for making OUR lives better and organising the country, then what is the point of a government?

If you deregulate banks, they're not suddenly going to be nice to you,

Banks are only nice to you when they feel they can make a profit from you. I've had both extremes in my life. When it all went wrong, the bank "nicely" sent me a letter to tell me I was overdrawn, and charged me an obscene amount of money for the processing of the letter. This happened regularly thus ensuring anything I earned and deposited would be paying for those bloody letters and the situation wouldn't change. When times were good, they were throwing functions and services and lots of customised suck-up letters at me. They even took it upon themselves to dick around with my withdrawal and credit allowances to be generous beyond the point of sanity.
Now? Times are okay. I have a post office account for "debit card" payments, closed my bank accounts. Don't want to venture to either extreme again. My post office "bank" is neither nice nor nasty. Just functional. Which is exactly how I want it.

Re:Well, actually ...

[shaitand]

Depends on whether you ask the Europeans or someone else.

To those of us over here in the US your countries appear to have financial power, land area, population, and military power comparable to individual US state. The states are (supposed to be) independent here as well with an agreement that the combined federal government negotiates with other nations on their behalf and controls the navy and the army that is formed by assembling together all the militias in time of war. Up to the civil war there were no U.S. citizens either, everyone was a citizen of their state.

The EU is on the same path, it just isn't as far along it yet.

Re:Well, actually ...

[Anonymous Coward]

USA! FUCK YEAH!

Coming again, to save the motherfucking day yeah! America, FUCK YEAH! Freedom is the only way yeah!

Re:Well, actually ...

[shaitand]

"By equalizing outcomes at the point of the sword? That is the problem with "the government has to step in" argument because it necessarily advocates the use of violence to redistribute wealth. The government controls the army, the police, and the means of extreme violence; that is the ultimate source of government power. This is what we Libertarians object to, the use of violence to alter the outcome in an otherwise voluntary system."

Of course at the point of a sword. Everything is at the point of a weapon. If you eliminate government interference then the result is that financial power becomes the weapon that replaces it and the powerful abuse the weak and utilize their power to perpetuate itself. The flaw is that the wealthy already control the government as well.

This can be seen clearly. For instance, notice that you will often hear about reducing government by eliminating capital gains tax. But never eliminating income tax and increasing capital gains tax thus eliminating punishment for production and shifting the tax burdern entirely to those with disposable income and in proportion to that disposable income. Or eliminating all fees for government services and instead funding them entirely through the tax system that is supposed to pay for government services.

No instead you hear about things like 'the fair tax' a blanket income tax. This would probably catch on more quickly among the wealthy if they were sure the benefits outweighed the current racket. Of course the wealthy utilize their financial power to pay lower prices for goods and services than the rest of us so they will pay lower taxes than us in fixed tax system. The idea of rebates at the end of the year to patch this up is something only someone who has never lived paycheck to paycheck could come up with.

I doubt I'm the only one who has noticed that the wealthy are selective about which interference they want to eliminate as well. I don't hear many gun shop owners opposed to the need for an expensive commercial license to run a gun shop for instance. These licenses are always priced just right to assure someone living paycheck to paycheck can't worm his way up the ladder easily but low enough not to be a problem for already established business or those with investment level means.

Just once I would like to see someone be given a voice who advocates limiting government authority by empowering the individual and I don't mean in the marketplace. The elimination of gun control and reduction of the commerce clause power to actual interstate commerce would be a start. Provisions for petitioned constitutional amendment and lawmaking (and eliminating) would be another step in the right direction.

I am opposed to forcing change at the point of the sword as a general principal. But there does come a time when the change is needed and that is the only way that remains to impose the change.

Re:Well, actually ...

[shaitand]

Indeed punishing the wealthy is not a strawman. It is a red herring. The wealthy make and control the laws and the aren't afraid of "punishing the wealthy". The last thing the wealthy want is the elimination of regulation. Regulation raises the barrier to market entry and makes life harder for the small fish.

Re:Well, actually ...

[shaitand]

"So you say, but it is not possible to give everyone the same chance at success because we are not all possessed of equal talents, drive or ability."

Giving everyone an equal chance does not require they all have equal talents, drive, or ability. It requires eliminating the advantages and disadvantages that have nothing to do with those things. Particularly any advantage provided by wealth or the lack thereof. For instance providing harvard level funding to public schools and eliminating private ones. Making admission and advancement in education be based on aptitude.

There you have leveled the playing field by making education the best that we can provide. Everyone now has access to the same education, the same names on their resume, and their only limitations as far as education are concerned are their talent, drive, and ability. If they lack talent/ability they won't have the aptitude to advance or utilize their education. If they lack drive they won't continue it or have the drive to use it to succeed.

Nobody can complain about paying for said system with taxes (at least not after a couple generations) because they will all owe the fact that they have wealth to tax on the fact they had an equal opportunity to receive education.

Oh wait, you mean one really doesn't want to see equal opportunity? One really just spouts some crap because one want to maximize ones (and your families) own wealth and use it to provide advantage to ones children?

Another big step of course is to eliminate the passing of wealth from parent to child. As long as we allow that then you can in a roundabout way take it with you. That is the secret to breaking up most of the entrenched power. By separating the success of the parent from the opportunity and success of the child you break up most of the entrenched power in short order.

Re:Well, actually ...

[Anonymous Coward]

More likely the bureaucrats have simply heard more information from lobbyists for the software industry (EU and foreign), and have been convinced to update their opinions.

The EU is not like the USA, where political bribes (so-called 'campaign contributions') are essential if politicians are to stay in office. No, EU Commissioners are appointed by elected national governments, and are free to act in the best interests of the EU.

There has been a great deal of lobbying for so-called 'open standards', often by firms that wish to replace proprietary software at one level with bespoke software and services at another. Instead of buying proprietary software for which skilled staff are easy to find, for example, this might entail using open source software and bespoke solutions that require extensive vendor services to maintain (and which staff from rival vendors would have difficulty supporting). The so-called 'lock in' effect thus moves from the software layer to the services layer.

Supporters of open standards were very vocal and often quite persuasive, putting only one side of the argument of course. The use of open standards can provide benefits, but the reality is that most systems used in the EU are proprietary, and interoperate very well with other proprietary systems, in general including systems from a range of vendors. The claimed interoperability benefits of standardisation can thus often easily be achieved with proprietary systems, which may be more cost effective and more technologically advanced. Standards, after all, take time to develop, often merely codifying what has already been implemented, whereas market competition in innovation can drive rapid improvement.

From my reading of this revised draft of the EIF, all that has really happened is that both sides of the argument have now been taken into account. Organisations can still opt for open standards, but are less likely to be pushed to accept inferior open solutions when proprietary solutions offer better collaboration and interoperability possibilities. The ideology of open standards that briefly held sway over pragmatism has given way to an approach that aims first to achieve interoperability between public services organisations, rather than to promote a hidden ideological agenda.

Re:Well, actually ...

[CodeBuster]

For instance, notice that you will often hear about reducing government by eliminating capital gains tax. But never eliminating income tax and increasing capital gains tax thus eliminating punishment for production and shifting the tax burdern entirely to those with disposable income and in proportion to that disposable income. Or eliminating all fees for government services and instead funding them entirely through the tax system that is supposed to pay for government services.

While it might be a bit of a shift in the conversation, I feel that I should point out that many libertarians also support the Fair Tax Bill which, by replacing Federal income taxes with a national sales tax, would accomplish, among other things, precisely what you suggest; taxing consumption and spending but not income from productive effort undertaken in the economy through labor, saving, or investing.

I don't hear many gun shop owners opposed to the need for an expensive commercial license to run a gun shop for instance. These licenses are always priced just right to assure someone living paycheck to paycheck can't worm his way up the ladder easily but low enough not to be a problem for already established business or those with investment level means.

There is a similar situation with taxi cab medallions, but again who limits entry into those fields? It is usually groups of individuals lobbying for their own regulation (i.e. the cosmotologists) through government intervention. If the government refused to intervene or instead issued licenses to anyone who could show reasonable competence without unnecessary restrictions then we wouldn't have these types of artificial scarcities.

Almost every time I hear a criticism of the free market there is always, at the heart of the problem, the government. Sometimes it takes a bit of digging to reveal the role of the government in the "market failure" but it is almost invariably some government policy creating the distortion.

The elimination of gun control and reduction of the commerce clause power to actual interstate commerce would be a start.

Many libertarians would agree with and support those goals with the caveat that some controls on personal armament are necessary in order to protect the peace and progress of society at large. For example, vehicle mounted heavy machine guns and howitzers probably don't pass the personal defense, target shooting, or hunting tests and even the NRA does not advocate for NO restrictions whatsoever on personal gun ownership.

Provisions for petitioned constitutional amendment and lawmaking (and eliminating) would be another step in the right direction.

Many laws now feature sunset clauses which recognize the their time limited nature. IMHO, this is a step in the right direction.

The Constitution itself is a bit tougher. Most libertarians would be hesitant to tamper with the amendment process or even the Constitution in general. For the most part the Constitution, excepting certain anachronistic passages such as the 3/5 compromise, is a remarkably concise and well written legal document; truly one of the great masterpieces of Western civilization and legal thought. Alterations to it should be undertaken carefully if they are undertaken at all. Hence, the stringent requirements for Amendments put in place by the founding fathers in order to make it difficult, although not impossible, to alter. Besides, the Constitution is really more of an expression of our ideals and who we are as a people rather than spelling out the details necessary for day to day governance; that is why we have the Legislative branch and laws after all.

Re:Well, actually ...

[shaitand]

"While it might be a bit of a shift in the conversation, I feel that I should point out that many libertarians also support the Fair Tax [wikipedia.org] Bill which, by replacing Federal income taxes with a national sales tax, would accomplish, among other things, precisely what you suggest; taxing consumption and spending but not income from productive effort undertaken in the economy through labor, saving, or investing."

To quote the post you replied to:

No instead you hear about things like 'the fair tax' a blanket income tax. This would probably catch on more quickly among the wealthy if they were sure the benefits outweighed the current racket. Of course the wealthy utilize their financial power to pay lower prices for goods and services than the rest of us so they will pay lower taxes than us in fixed tax system. The idea of rebates at the end of the year to patch this up is something only someone who has never lived paycheck to paycheck could come up with.

"personal defense, target shooting, or hunting tests"

They do when you include defense against tyranny in the 'personal defense' category and since that is the purpose of the Second Amendment...

Re:Well, actually ...

[CodeBuster]

Particularly any advantage provided by wealth or the lack thereof.

Why should we single out wealth as an unacceptable advantage. Is it fair for some children to be born with great musical talent or athletic ability but not for others to be born into families with significant stores of wealth, perhaps in the form of stocks or bonds that they can pass on to their children? I do not see the value in making this sort of distinction: that "natural" talents are OK, but inherited wealth is not. Actually it is interesting that you brought this up, because Milton Friedman addressed precisely this topic in Free to Choose Volume 5: Created Equal. For a followup on our education system check out Volume 6: What is Wrong with our Schools (sadly, not much has improved in the nearly thirty years since that video was produced).

Re:Well, actually ...

[nagnamer]

Actually, it looks like "corrupt" is the same old corrupt that it's always been. Gotta wonder just what changed hands to make that happen.

Up is down, slavery is freedom, and wrong is right. Typical shit that can be expected from corrupt governments and the corrupt people who put up with them.

It's not 'corrupt' people. They are just 'uninformed' (as in 'dumb'). Most of them will never become informed anyway, because, to use the politically correct term, they don't give a fuck.

Re:Well, actually ...

[nagnamer]

Well yes, I suppose that is one way of looking at my statement, and what happened. Any lollies that would have come to us got absconded for a higher purpose.

You are probably not the only one. But it gets worse once you start believing there is such a thing as a 'higher purpose'. That's the way to create a bunch of docile masochists (not saying you're one) who will vote for just about anyone who'd take their lolly away for 'a higher purpose'.

Re:Well, actually ...

[Hucko]

Well yes, the higher purpose was tongue in cheek.

Re:Well, actually ...

[ScrewMaster]

Suck it, Europe! What with Canada... USA! FUCK YEAH!

How's your education system going? Any improvements?

Apparently, you misunderstood the parent. He was actually criticizing the U.S. (or perhaps you didn't get the "USA! FUCK YEAH!" reference.)

Re:Well, actually ...

[ScrewMaster]

The USA is the only country in the world.

Everything else is just a proxy state.

It just your turn for now. The "only country in the world" event passes to China very soon.

I wouldn't be too sure of that. China has it's own set of problems. They're not making the same set of mistakes that the Soviet Empire did, true, but their ultimate success in this game is by no means assured. Time will tell, however.

"Closed" as "Nearly Open" ...

[Korbeau]

Yeah, that's what they always say at first, you have to work your way ...

How hard is it?

[Darkness404]

How hard is it to define open as

A) Open specs
B) An open implementation of those specs both on
C) Not patent encumbered


For just about everything there is a suitable open format. Lets see here:

Images? There are many
Audio? Ogg Vorbis
Video? Ogg Theora
Document? ODF or PDF (not sure how "open" PDF really is but its pretty universal)

There isn't a single thing that governments really need that isn't open or can be created for less cost than contracting it to proprietary vendors.

Re:How hard is it?

[innerweb]

The only cost to the politicians is votes and cash.

InnerWeb

Re:How hard is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

C) Not patent encumbered Proving this is often extremely difficult and costs millions of dollars in IP research. For example, one should note that such research has never been done for Ogg Vorbis or Theora, which is why some paranoid companies are still unwilling to adopt them.

Re:How hard is it?

[danlip]

not sure how "open" PDF really is but its pretty universal

Wikipedia says "Formerly a proprietary format, PDF was officially released as an open standard on July 1, 2008, and published by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO/IEC 32000-1:2008". It also says Adobe has patents on it "but licenses them for royalty-free use in developing software complying with its PDF specification".

even if that wasn't the case there has long been a lot of fully compatible implementations of it (unlike Word).

Re:How hard is it?

[digitalunity]

There has been a lot of compatible PDF viewers, but the pool of PDF creation software is limited. Most OSS solutions implement a subset of the features. Even now, there really is nothing to complete with the feature level in Adobe Acrobat.

Re:How hard is it?

[betterunixthanunix]

"PDF (not sure how "open" PDF really is but its pretty universal)"

PDF is very open -- although there are still extensions that are difficult to work with without proprietary software. As an electronic document medium, PDF is pretty much what I demand from people who send me formatted documents; it is, in my opinion, something of a lingua franca for formatted documents. There is also DVI, though it is not as popular, and if all else fails, Postscript (which can, in the worst case, simple be sent to a printer).

"There isn't a single thing that governments really need that isn't open or can be created for less cost than contracting it to proprietary vendors."

True, but sadly, it is not something we will see here in America. Proprietary software is so deeply ingrained in our government, and corporate interests are so powerful, that I would be very impressed if it could all be shaken off within my lifetime. Further compounding the problem is the level of understanding of technology that key decision makers seem to have, which is a level that can only be described as "complete ineptitude."

Re:How hard is it?

[syousef]

There has been a lot of compatible PDF viewers, but the pool of PDF creation software is limited. Most OSS solutions implement a subset of the features. Even now, there really is nothing to complete with the feature level in Adobe Acrobat.

Hey, that means it's "nearly open"!

Re:How hard is it?

[h4rr4r]

You may well want to check out scribus.

Re:How hard is it?

[danlip]

There has been a lot of compatible PDF viewers, but the pool of PDF creation software is limited. Most OSS solutions implement a subset of the features. Even now, there really is nothing to complete with the feature level in Adobe Acrobat.

I'm not sure what all the features are, what I need (and probably what 99% of the population needs) is "convert some non-PDF document to PDF". Mac OS X does this natively, and I have used several free/cheap PC utilities to do the same. I've never had a document they couldn't do. They generally plug in through the print utility, so if you can print it you can convert it to PDF.

Re:How hard is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

which is why if your the eu you adopt an open format and declare that it doesn't infringe on any patents.

Re:How hard is it?

[digitalunity]

You're right, if all anyone wants to do is use an editor program to store a static content document in a portable format that will have the same layout everywhere, the existing PDF generators work great.

If you want to take advantage of the advanced PDF features like embedded javascript or forms that submit to the web, you're basically SOL without Acrobat and even if you could create them, most of the OSS readers don't support the advanced features.

Re:How hard is it?

[Tacvek]

The problem is that many companies see no problem with paying RAND patent fees, and fail to see why that would make it not open. The is especially true in areas where patents are pooled, so if you have even one patent that might apply you add that to the pool, and either get a partial refund on the fees by being part of the pool, or having the fees waived entirely. (Depends on the specific patent pool).

Also what is an Open Specification? Is it one that is publicly available without fee? In that case the C programing language would not be an open standard, nor would many other ISO or IEEE standards that we all take for granted. (Admittedly some of those standards also have freely available standards that are effectively equivalent or even superior, like PDF, where the ISO standard is a subset of full PDF, or PNG where the ISO standard should be equivalent to the PNG specification).

Re:How hard is it?

[SuperAlgae]

Agreed. Governments are the one entity that can actually defend an open standard by simply saying that no patents apply to it. If someone thinks they have a claim, then they can raise the issue before it gets that far. But even then, if given the choice between denying someone a sanctioned monopoly (patent) or denying the entire world a viable standard, it's hard to justify the monopoly. Even reasonable patents are generally more an inevitable result of the state of technology than of some unique, singular leap. People are denied patents all the time. For every granted patent, there are any number of people doing equivalent work that are not only denied the patent but may be denied even the right to use their own work since it then violates the patent. Limiting patents as they apply to open standards hardly seems like a high price to pay.

It is pretty clear that the real impediments to open standards are a matter of "follow the money".

Re:How hard is it?

[registrar]

PDF is pretty open, but that's not open enough for my liking. The standard mandates that any implementation honour the dopier "protections" in PDF documents ("Conforming readers shall respect the intent of the document creator by restricting user access to an encrypted PDF file according to the permissions contained in the file.") Honour them means you're bound to write a stupid implementation of DRM; fail to honour them and you get sued.

For example, I have a PDF file on my computer for which I do not have permission to save a copy (or print, etc.). That's right, I don't have permission to save the file. Fortunately I have a ready work-around for "saving" the file (i.e. copy it within the Finder), but seeing the Finder itself is (or, embeds) a capable PDF reader, I wonder if Apple isn't in violation of the standard by allowing their OS (which can interpret PDFs) to copy such files.

A file format is a structure for exchanging information between programs; a standard should be limited to describing that structure. The problem is that Adobe &c have extended the notion of "file format" to cover their intentions for behaviour of programs making use of that format.

Now I really wouldn't care if there was simply some kind of branding/trademark that allowed Adobe and mates to honour DRM within PDF readers and writers. If I want to make my own PDF reader/writer that doesn't fully honour the standard, then I have the option and can't use the trademark... but the fact that patents could be used to enforce the intent of the standard author means that the standard is not open enough. The GP's requirement needs to be that the standard not be patent encumbered in any way whatsoever.

Re:How hard is it?

[danlip]

If you want to take advantage of the advanced PDF features like embedded javascript or forms that submit to the web, you're basically SOL without Acrobat and even if you could create them, most of the OSS readers don't support the advanced features.

If you want a form that submits to the web, why wouldn't you use a form that is on the web, and built with HTML/Javascript?

If you want a form you can fill out and save and email back to someone (which is also quite useful), then I agree that PDF is nice, and I also agree there is a lack of non-Adobe software, both for creation and for using the form. Since PDF is rarely used that way, there is not much software to support that use, and since there is not much software it is rarely used that way. Which sucks.

(you can also use Word for forms, and almost everyone has Word, but using Word for forms is highly painful (I've done it))

Re:How hard is it?

[Random Person 1372]

Okular (the KDE PDF viewer) also obeys DRM restrictions by default, but at least it can be turned off in the preferences (Setting Configure, General, Obey DRM limitations). I believe this was implemented due to Adobe's requirements. If Apple's PDF viewer does not allow to ignore DRM restrictions, maybe you should just use a different one that allows to do so?

Re:How hard is it?

[registrar]

If Apple's PDF viewer does not allow to ignore DRM restrictions, maybe you should just use a different one that allows to do so?

Obviously. Until Adobe starts suing people, it's a theoretical threat. But it is reasonably likely that at some stage in the next 15 years or thereabouts, Adobe goes all SCO-like... self-destructive perhaps, but painful for all concerned.

For me as an individual, it makes sense to take my chances and "get it done" using software that might be in a technical breach of patent law. But it is irresponsible for the EU to expose themselves in the same way.

So my point is that a file format should only be considered acceptably open if the parties that establish it make an unconditional promise never to enforce patents concerning it. You obviously can't know about independent patent trolls, but that is a different problem and I think reasonably likely to be fixed through legislation.

Re:How hard is it?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Is there a reason "print to PDF" isn't sufficient, for anything you'd use a Word document for?

Re:How hard is it?

[ProfessionalCookie]

Anything you can print you can just write to a PDF.

Re:How hard is it?

[the_womble]

The non-Adobe PDF creators do not implement feature that no-one uses.

Re:How hard is it?

[Kynde]

How hard is it to define open as

A) Open specs
B) An open implementation of those specs both on
C) Not patent encumbered

Apparently not trivial, since two thirds of your requirements adopt recursion.

Re:How hard is it?

[Hurricane78]

You seem to be under the false assumption that they had any interest in defining "open" that way. Ask yourself: Who would befit from something?
And then ask: What control over the government do those ones have?
Then you will know what will happen.

But don't make the beginner's error of thinking that the "general public" had any control! Because they can only choose which of the groups of straw-men that are offered to them they will take.

Re:How hard is it?

[cgenman]

here isn't a single thing that governments really need that isn't open or can be created for less cost than contracting it to proprietary vendors

How about project management software, 3d rendering tools, Production Ready video editing tools, and automated translation middlewear?

There are definitely needs out there which are non-trivial and which Open Source software hasn't fulfilled. There are a lot that are, and many times better than paid options. But you can't just broadly blanket mandate OSS on principle.

Re:How hard is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no software patents in Europe. So all standards are free of patents.
Software patents are the curse of the US software industry, and the food for the trolls. Created to keep american lawyers in the job, and thus unlikely to be removed.

Re:How hard is it?

[Errol backfiring]

D) Freely available.

I wish I could call SQL an open standard. People should not have to invest in a standard when writing free software.

Re:How hard is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. Governments are the one entity that can actually defend an open standard by simply saying that no patents apply to it. If someone thinks they have a claim, then they can raise the issue before it gets that far.

Ah, the "speak now or forever hold your peace" moment ... neat!

Re:How hard is it?

[geminidomino]

If you want to take advantage of the advanced PDF features like embedded javascript or forms that submit to the web, you're basically SOL without Acrobat and even if you could create them, most of the OSS readers don't support the advanced features.

How are those "features", advanced or otherwise, in a format that was supposed to be about making sure the document looks like it's supposed to anywhere it's viewed?

Just because adobe wants to hang a bag on the side of it doesn't mean that if they're trying to use that crap, they're using the wrong tools.

Re:How hard is it?

[geminidomino]

NOT using the wrong tools. Yay insomnia.

Re:How hard is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're assuming that software patents exist. This is not a valid assumption; they exist at the moment in the USA legal system (since 1998?) but when they're gone nobody will miss them, just like that Iowa? law that pi == 3.

Re:How hard is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

In the environmental directives of the EU there is a principle of using the best available technology, the availability implying a technology which is not patent encumbered, among other things. Of course, this a reach really (for the eurocrats) but perhaps something to consider in this formation of ah-so-trendy electronic government.
The reasons for using unencumbered technology would be even more convincing considering the differences between a digital government and an industrial process having an environmental effect. The government is should not be profitable, the industrial process should. The government (institution) should be able function in the scale of rise and fall of independent nations, while being capable of reading the documents the successive governments have produced. The industrial process should work as long as it is sufficiently profitable and is not deemed dangerous or illegal.

Re:How hard is it?

[init100]

There is no software patents in Europe.

Wrong. There is no directive requiring member states to recognize software patents, but member states can do so if they wish. According to e.g. the Swedish patent office, software can be patented, but whether this has any basis in the law is unknown to me. In other words, the Swedish Patent Office may grant you a software patent, but if the law doesn't recognize software patents, the patent is a worthless piece of paper since you cannot sue anyone for infringement.

Re:How hard is it?

[molecular]

Images? There are many

Audio? Ogg Vorbis

Video? Ogg Theora

Document? ODF or PDF (not sure how "open" PDF really is but its pretty universal)

Ahaaa! Gotcha right there. Looks like you just proposed to define some sort of an 'openness continuum' there, by adding something that is not open, but merely 'pretty universal'. So who bribed you and how much did it cost them?

Re:How hard is it?

[howlingmadhowie]

i think that's false, unless you cast pi as an int. :)

Re:How hard is it?

[Bert64]

I have encountered PDF forms where acrobat wouldn't let you save, it would only let you print, and it would not let you print to a file...
As the form was rather long, and i didn't have all the information immediately, or access to a printer at the time it just rendered itself unusable.

Re:How hard is it?

[Yaa 101]

That is because proprietary vendors don't stick to the protocol in a lot of cases, so any other group that does stick to the protocol has an incomplete spec.

Re:How hard is it?

[Bert64]

Yes...
When you do that, you lose any metadata... The PDF output i've seen from "print to pdf" options in programs like word is usually pretty nasty, there are no hyperlinks or clickable indexes, it's just a series of pages...
If you're going to have an electronic file, you want to take advantage of features inherent to it being electronic, since a printed document won't have such features the print option doesn't export any such information.

Try using openoffice to save a pdf file with hyperlinks and a table of contents (create it using the proper toc feature), it works a lot better... pdflatex is also very good at this.

Re:How hard is it?

[lahvak]

If you want to take advantage of the advanced PDF features like embedded javascript or forms that submit to the web, you're basically SOL without Acrobat

Actually, pdfTeX lets you do both of these quite easily, and I believe Scribus does, too. There are features of pdf that you do need Acrobat for, but the two you mentioned are not among them.

Re:How hard is it?

[devjoe]

This is based on flags that the document authors set when they create the document. That is to say that the author either shot himself in the foot by setting stupid permissions, or only wants a printed response and should make that clear in the document or where it was presented.

Re:How hard is it?

[Anomalyst]

Well Scribus, appears to be able to create PDF forms, just not import them. http://www.scribus.net/?q=faq/pdfpsimport

Can Scribus-1.3.3.6 : 1) import an existing pdf form and add fillable fields to it ? and/or 2) import the .ps file from which an existing pdf was created (with Ghostscript) ?
1) No, Scribus can import PDF, but they are imported as images currently. The only way to edit a PDF form is with Adobe Acrobat full version. Scribus can create PDF forms without a problem and it is very versatile. 2) Scribus can import a wide variety of EPS and PS files with most content imported as native Scribus objects.

Re:How hard is it?

[Richy_T]

Thing is, it's not the patent owners who "enforce" patents, it's the government. That suggests a solutions to patent issues for open formats right there.

Re:How hard is it?

[V!NCENT]

>ven now, there really is nothing to complete with the feature level in Adobe Acrobat.

Koffice2 series features I think all Acrobat features, with the exception of 3D (seriously, who cares?) and exports to PDF at least when it prints...

Re:How hard is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

Document? ODF or PDF (not sure how "open" PDF really is but its pretty universal)

Universal does not mean open. Look at the GIF debacle.

How hard is it to define open as
A) Open specs
B) An open implementation of those specs both on
C) Not patent encumbered

I can see two problems. The first is that what is valid as a patent may not be valid somewhere else. There is also the grey area of apparently who-patents-first-gets, which means a format initially designed as open could end up infringing by manipulation of how the patent process works.
The second, and more important, problem is that it is likely that there is a loooong heritage of files for legacy systems from, shall we say, less enlightened times.
Now along comes Bleaty the sheep-like dealer. He is a fan of Microsoft because it is what he knows, grew up with, etc. He will recommend Word/Office/whatever in preference to stuff like AbiWord or StarOffice because it is something completely different. That it looks and feels like much the same thing is only apparent once you've overcome enough mental hurdles to actually install it.
Then there's the kicker. It is mostly file compatible, but not completely. I tried this on some of the girls at work. They didn't know what it meant, and seemed quite surprised that somebody was "giving away" something akin to Office. But not surprised enough to change.
Because, well... better the devil you know.

And I think *that* is one of the main obstacles the open source movement is facing. An army of the clueless who are "comfortable" with the crap they're using and don't want to venture out of that comfort zone...

Audio? Ogg Vorbis
Video? Ogg Theora

I have an Ogg-free system. There might be a codec around somewhere, but the DVD player can't do it. Neither can the other one. Nor the Zen. In the end, a format is only as good as the hardware that supports it. Some can Ogg. Many can't.

Re:How hard is it?

[V!NCENT]

>But don't make the beginner's error of thinking that the "general public" had any control! Because they can only choose which of the groups of straw-men that are offered to them they will take.

It's not like the 'general public' can' t form political parties. So the 'general public' get the government they deserve...

Re:How hard is it?

[V!NCENT]

>How about project management software
One out of an endless list of FLOSS project management: http://www.openworkbench.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=37

>3d rendering tools
Puh-lease: Blender...

>Production Ready video editing tools
What do you mean by 'Production Ready' ? Hollywood stuff? How many people actually use that outside of Hollywood!? For Sony Vegas users there is Kdenlive: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kdenlive

>and automated translation middlewear?
Babelfish?

C'mon man...

Re:How hard is it?

[V!NCENT]

Pov-ray, etc

Re:How hard is it?

[Anonymous Coward]

How about project management software
One out of an endless list of FLOSS project management: http://www.openworkbench.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=37 [openworkbench.org]

In my limited experience, none of those are really ready for a commercial environment of above 20 people.

3d rendering tools
Puh-lease: Blender...

Unless Blender got *MUCH* better in the past year, it's not of similar functionality to Maya or 3DS Max. Similarly, the engineering and rapid prototyping applications of blender are highly limited compared to real engineering software applications.

Production Ready video editing tools
What do you mean by 'Production Ready' ? Hollywood stuff? How many people actually use that outside of Hollywood!?

On a government level, anyone who creates commercials, education pieces, news releases, or any other sort of propaganda.

and automated translation middleware?
Babelfish?

Babelfish is not middleware, and the SYSTRAN system which powers it is not FOSS.

Again, my statement that a blanket requirement for entirely FOSS solutions at a government level is nicely idealistic, but for certain specific applications FOSS doesn't yet have equivalents. Nobody on a government level should be on Microsoft Office. But I doubt you'd get much traction in switching your workforce over entirely to linux-based telephones.

Re:How hard is it?

[Jeremy Visser]

For example, one should note that [patent] research has never been done for Ogg Vorbis or Theora, which is why some paranoid companies are still unwilling to adopt them.

Use Dirac then. The BBC have specifically engineered it to not violate patents that they have researched.

Re:How hard is it?

[shaitand]

They have a format for that, it's called HTML. PDF is essentially postscript and the purpose is encode visual information in such a way that it displays correctly independent of viewing device. In other words its supposed to show you the same picture whether you print it or view it on your screen. Links don't even belong.

Re:How hard is it?

[shaitand]

"It's not like the 'general public' can' t form political parties. So the 'general public' get the government they deserve..."

Of course they can. Of course the general public has no money so forget buying attention. And obviously no news outlet will cover their candidates. Even if they did somehow get heard of by anyone who could vote for them the rigged electronic voting machine elections could solve that problem easily enough.

Even if one or two of them slipped through the cracks of the system things are well enough set up in the law making branches of government to assure they couldn't effect any sort of change that runs contrary to the interests of the wealthy.

I don't know about where you are. But here we have two houses in our congress. Anyone who slipped through the cracks I refer to would be the house of representatives. For that very reason the wealthy elite aristocracy who founded our nation established the Senate which is entirely populated by the wealthy and acts as a safeguard against the silly acts of the "unwashed masses".

Re:How hard is it?

[CaptnMArk]

It's NOT independant of viewing device. My A4 viewing device will not work properly with Letter formatted document.

Re:How hard is it?

[Bert64]

If you don't want links, then use postscript... why have 2 formats to serve the same purpose?

PDF provides useful functionality that makes a document easier to navigate while it's still in a digital form, the fact this functionality is lost by printing is a drawback of the printed medium and not the fault of PDF.
I personally hate receiving PDF files without proper indexes, that eliminates some of the benefits inherent in having a digital file.

Read the line about community of interest 5 times

[selven]

What exactly does it mean? Does it mean that anything with an active helpful community is open? That makes practically anything that's distributed to the public "open".

lol

[Anonymous Coward]

let's all congratulate Microsoft and Apple on their "Nearly Open" source software

*golf clap*

This'll do wonders in the long term

[Anonymous Coward]

Many years down the road our children might want to know what our benevolent bureaucratic overlords were up to now, to see how things have come to be. Thankfully they'll be spared that ordeal because nobody will remember the formats and the software will have bitrotted away. It's mercy with foresight, it is.

Continuum

[lennier]

" also defines an 'openness continuum' "

So - just like Creative Commons, then?

(IHNRTFA)

Re:Continuum

[Brian Gordon]

Yes, thank you. Part of being open is being OK with alternative viewpoints. People don't have to give their work away for free if they don't want to. And recognizing proprietary developers who nevertheless take care of their community is better than turning up your nose and saying NOPE NOT GPL COMPATIBLE GET OUT

Re:Continuum

[Tellarin]

First of all, 'open' formats has nothing to do with source code.

Second, "open source" is not synonym with "free software" (like software that uses the GPL as license). This has nothing to do with the discussion. And open source does not even means giving work away for free. If somebody sells their code, it is open source, for example.

Creative commons is another example of "opening" stuff that is not code.

I agree that there is a continuum from completely closed to completely open, but any format demanded by governments should be open and non encumbered by patents or other licenses.

There is nothing stopping someone or some company form writing a proprietary piece of software to read/write some open format. But in many cases it is not possible to have a open/free/whatever version of a software to read/write some closed format. This causes an artificial restriction on access to the information made available in that format, what should be inadmissible in certain scenarios.

Why should someone need to license or buy a piece of software form specific companies to have access to government data? This is unacceptable.

Re:Continuum

[h4rr4r]

The folks your talking about are interested in FREE software, libre not gratis, open has very little to do with that.

Even FREE software can be sold.

Re:Continuum

[causality]

Part of being open is being OK with alternative viewpoints.

Alternative viewpoints are great. Alternative definitions, however, are intentionally misleading. This is an alternative definition.

You see, the viewpoint that closed-source and proprietary standards are great already exists. The viewpoint that open-source and non-encumbered standards are great also already exists. There is no new viewpoint being proposed here. That's beacuse this is not a matter of viewpoint. It's a not-so-subtle attempt to blur the definitions that distinguish two existing viewpoints. There is only one reason for accidentally doing this: sheer incompetence. There is only one reason to deliberately do anything like that: the desire to equate things which are inherently distinct; that is, the desire to confuse. It's either incompetence or it's deception and neither of those are worth defending.

Whether you're offended that some people care about the GPL more than you would like them to has nothing to do with it. Whether commercial/proprietary software gets a bad rap more than you want it to also has nothing to do with it.

People don't have to give their work away for free if they don't want to.

That's absolutely correct. I can develop a program, or a protocol, or a format, and I can lock it away in a safe and bury it if that's what I feel like doing. I can copyright it and restrict it on that basis, or I can try to patent it. I can hoard the source code and release it only as a black-box binary. However, if I do that and then refer to it as "an open standard" then that would make me a liar. This is really simple.

I never understood why you and so many others want to equate the desire that things be called what they are with telling others what they should do with their work. They are not remotely the same. If I don't want to use a program because it's proprietary, I am not forcing that program's author to do anything. Nor am I telling him how he should use his programming talents. He is free to find someone else who does want to use his program. This is just another thinly-veiled "accept this thing and like it, or else there's something wrong with you" and I'm not buying it.

There is also a question about the morality of governments releasing public information in proprietary formats. My tax dollars have already paid to produce whatever documents the government releases. It belongs to we the people. Why should I have to pay a second time to obtain a proprietary program to access this public information that my tax dollars have already paid for? I celebrate the right of private citizens and private businesses to use whatever format pleases them, whether it's freely available or not. But when we are talking about governments there is a perfectly valid objection to the use of proprietary software, whether or not anyone finds that convenient.

Re:Continuum

[Brian Gordon]

Are you sure they're really scrapping the previous definition? It sounds like they're just supplementing it with additional guidelines on how to recognize these non-evil-but-patented formats.

It belongs to we the people. Why should I have to pay a second time to obtain a proprietary program to access this public information that my tax dollars have already paid for?

The information is free, the medium is not. If you wanted paper copies of the records your argument wouldn't apply to paying a small fee for the paper, printing costs, and delivery. If you want electronic records they have to be encapsulated somehow (like in a PDF or something), and those formats do cost money to develop. Of course, there are free formats out there and the government should use them or it's being wasteful, but this is definitely a "use the best/cheapest thing out there" thing, not a "I take a moral stand against paying for electronic records" thing.

Re:Continuum

[Tellarin]

I think the misunderstanding in your post is that the stand is not necessarily against not "paying for electronics records".

One can pay or not and receive or not the data in an open format.

If I pay for the electronic record, one can argue if I should pay as my taxes kind of already paid for that, but that is not the issue here.

The thing is, especially if I need to pay for the records, if I receive the data in a proprietary format then I need to pay for a piece of software to access that data.

In this case (closed format), one would need to pay at least twice to access the info:
a- Pay 3 times: pay taxes, pay for the electronic record, pay for the software that reads the proprietary format. The last part would unjustly benefit the company that created/controls the locked format and penalizing the final user.
b- Pay 2 times: pay taxes, do not pay for the electronic record, pay for the software that reads the proprietary format. Again, unjustly benefiting the company that controls the locked format and penalizing the final user.

If its an open format, there is no unjust benefit and extra burden on the person accessing the data.

Re:Continuum

[causality]

Are you sure they're really scrapping the previous definition? It sounds like they're just supplementing it with additional guidelines on how to recognize these non-evil-but-patented formats.

Scrapping and replacing it would be less sophisticated than what is being done here. You could say they are extending it, or you could say also that they are blurring it. If it were a great unknown, or new territory, or something like that for which there were not already clear and well-understood definitions, then that may make it excusable or at least understandable. However, that's not the case here.

The information is free, the medium is not. If you wanted paper copies of the records your argument wouldn't apply to paying a small fee for the paper, printing costs, and delivery.

It wouldn't apply there because paper is not inherently free. Someone has to cut down the trees, someone has to process the wood into paper, someone has to ship that paper from the paper mill, and someone has to print on it. The printed copies are a limited resource. If you have 100 printed copies, you cannot sell or give away 50 of them and still have 100 copies. Any that you sell must be replaced with more or else you will run out and be unable to sell or give away any more.

Electronic records are nothing like this. The government already has computers and Internet access because it has used tax dollars to pay for those. Now that it owns them, those can be reused to distribute infinite perfect copies of electronic records at no additional charge. There is no ongoing cost of acquiring more paper and using more ink.

If you want electronic records they have to be encapsulated somehow (like in a PDF or something), and those formats do cost money to develop.

Yet people around the world are willing to release both those formats and software that can work with them for free. Maybe those individuals are taking one for the team and bearing that cost themselves. The end result is that all of the rest of us do have formats available that don't cost us anything at all. The people who produced those formats and that software have specifically and deliberately taken steps to make sure of that, examples of which include their decision to use open licenses and their decision to seek no patents for their creations.

Of course, there are free formats out there and the government should use them or it's being wasteful, but this is definitely a "use the best/cheapest thing out there" thing, not a "I take a moral stand against paying for electronic records" thing.

There's something about taking a moral stand that makes many people uncomfortable. I suspect that's because it goes against their beliefs that convenience is everything by providing a counter-example. Can I prove that? No. Does it seem rather obvious to me? Yes, it does. Just as people who follow a religion can fail to adhere to its tenents without deliberately and consciously deciding "hey, I think I'd like to be a hypocrite," people can believe that immediate convenience is the only worthy criteria for decision-making without necessarily being aware that their choices reveal this pattern. This means you must use introspection and cannot correctly assume the reality of your stated intentions, however sincere and heartfelt they may be. It's the reason why all of the differing views about wisdom and what it actually is generally agree on one thing, and that's the importance of truly knowing yourself.

If you really want a mundane response, I will say this much. A government that is wasteful when it is capable of not being wasteful is, in fact, taking advantage of its people. This is much worse when it behaves this way because of financial and political interests that stand to profit from said waste, because then it is no accident. However, it's still pretty bad when it's an innocent mistake, and we the citizens should expect better. I believe this to be the morally correct, or if that is really an obstacle for you, I also believe it to be ethically correct.

Re:Continuum

[Anonymous Coward]

And open source does not even means giving work away for free. If somebody sells their code, it is open source, for example.

Neither does free software mean it is free. Free software == libre software.

When we talk about open source, we talk about OSI accepted licensed, that includes GPL. http://www.opensource.org/

EU follows the http://www.opensource.org/docs/osd

Re:Continuum

[Anonymous Coward]

Why should someone need to license or buy a piece of software form specific companies to have access to government data? This is unacceptable.

Why not? If data are offered online, you already need to buy hardware, an internet connection, etc to access it. If the data should be freely available, then the state can buy licences to be used by end users.

It's important to insist that a format is documented, to avoid loss of data if the format becomes obsolete, but if a closed (but documented) format is more cost-effective because the software that uses it is better, then it would be wasteful to use something else simply because it is open.

Re:Continuum

[Anonymous Coward]

You need to think about this a little bit more. There are ongoing costs involved with storing and managing data, and making records available to the public. There are the costs of the hardware, the costs of the software, the costs of the administrative services to manage the hardware and software, the costs of electricity and network connectivity, etc. It's just like providing paper records, really, except that the unit breakdown of the costs is slightly less obvious and somewhat more variable.

People who view open standards as somehow a 'moral issue' usually don't have a full understanding of the total costs involved with information technology infrastructure. There is nothing 'moral' about buying systems/services where value is added primarily at the services level instead of the software level. Firms that add value primarily at the services level, eg based on open software platforms, obviously lobby for open software standards to be imposed by legislation, since this makes it more difficult for firms that add value at the software level to compete. It isn't clear, however, that the resulting solutions are better than, or even as good as, solutions based on proprietary software.

Re:Continuum

[causality]

People who view open standards as somehow a 'moral issue' usually don't have a full understanding of the total costs involved with information technology infrastructure.

Or maybe they understand that those infrastructure costs are a given whether or not you use open standards. When Maxtor sells you a hard drive, it's not like they charge more per gigabyte if you tell them you'll be using an open format to store your data. The government already needs computers and networks for their own purposes. Using tax dollars to pay for these things is a legitimate function of government and I have no problem with it. To then use restricted formats on the machines my tax dollars have purchased is the moral issue. To require me to spend additional money to buy proprietary software only to access what my tax dollars have already paid for is the moral issue. You can post AC all you like and you can repeat yourself all you like, it doesn't change this basic fact.

Re:Continuum

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe they understand that those infrastructure costs are a given whether or not you use open standards.

Or in your case, misunderstand. The costs of managing an IT infrastructure are not given. If it costs x units of currency per year to manage the infrastructure using standards-based software and 1/2 x to manage it using proprietary software, then proprietary software is cheaper as long as the total licensing costs (for the state and the end users) are less than 1/2 x.

Again, your problem is that you are looking only at immediately visible variable costs, without a deeper understanding of total costs. When looking at total costs for IT infrastructure, staff costs almost invariably dwarf software licensing costs (and hardware costs). This is why systems based on open standards without licensing fees can and do in fact sometimes cost more than proprietary systems with licensing fees.

Consider a situation where you can (a) pay y in tax for a standards-based IT infrastructure that allows you to access some information z 'for free' (as you imagine it), or (b) can alternatively pay 1/2 y in tax for a proprietary IT infrastructure, together with 1/4 y for a licence to use some proprietary software to access it. It is obvious in this scenario that access under (a) is not in fact free, but indeed costs more. The better option in this example is clearly (b).

If some short-sighted citizens are unable to look beyond immediate costs and understand that (b) is the better option, then the state can simplify things by paying for the end-user licence out of taxation as well. These short-sighted people then simply see they are paying less in tax, and continue to imagine they are accessing the data 'for free', even if this remains as much an illusion as under (a).

Clearly there is no moral difference between using open standards and using proprietary systems. The only moral issue is whether end users are required to pay any direct fees that are not proportional to income, or whether these are paid from tax. This issue arises with paper-based distribution as well, if for example end users are required to pay for the costs of looking up, printing and transporting the paper-based data. Although you may have difficulty understanding it, this issue arises with option (a) above as well, insofar as IT staff time, hardware, network traffic, etc are not costless.

Re:Continuum

[Anonymous Coward]

If the costs from general taxation are the same for the open and proprietary solution, then it would indeed be wasteful to use the latter, but there is no moral issue involved.

Consider your options 'b' and 'a'. If the total cost of a proprietary solution is lower, then the state can simply buy a licence for you when you request the record. This means either that all costs (b) or all costs except the record-access fee (a) continue to be paid from taxation, with no additional financial burden on you.

If the total cost of the proprietary solution is lower than the total cost of the open solution, then the proprietary solution is optimal, and the fee paid to the proprietary provider of the solution is no more unjust than it is unjust for the state to, for example, hire a private firm to transport goods (at a profit), rather than maintaining its own fleet of vehicles and staff (operating without a profit) for the same purpose. The issue is simply whether the private firm can do the job more cheaply, and this depends on the importance of specialisation etc.

Doublespeak and Redefining

[innerweb]

The older I get the more I realize how powerful those in power are. Not a conspiracy, just a bunch of greedy SOBs who will do whatever they can get away with to control and own more. From marketing being used to dilute meanings to out and out bribery of committee members to swing votes or bypass procedures. The worst part is that they get their power readily from another group, far more numerous than they, of individuals too lazy or too overwhelmed to pay attention to what is being done to them.

Our history is full of cycles. Are we approaching another age of the Robber Baron in another form? Did the age ever truly leave? Nah. The rich and powerful and greedy have always been and always will be the rich and powerful and greedy. Only now, they are immortal corporations. They can die, but not in ways we can, nor are they truly limited in years. The funny part, like a good tragic comedy, is that the greed that makes them so powerful and dangerous is often the very thing that kills them in the end.

But the carnage they leave behind.

Re:Doublespeak and Redefining

[sharkbiter]

It sucks to have to face the reality that in an almost infinite universe, a spiral galaxy's arm (one of many) of which an insignificant blue planet, (third from the sun), spins that there are such small minded individuals that are incapable of seeing future generations and simply not caring for the inhabitants that they're borrowing resources from. All to get a few material possessions or to feel that they have importance. Yes, they even think that digital watches are still pretty neat.

To the future generations we leave a legacy of distrust, distaste and disgust. They in turn will do the same for the next, until the life-form known as Homo Sapiens will be no more.
--------
“Believing in Father Christmas is important,” says Pratchett. “It trains our imaginations on the little lies so we can believe the big lies like justice [and] truth.” - UK Times.

Re:Doublespeak and Redefining

[DNS-and-BIND]

Please define one moment in human history when the example you cite was not the case. The study of history is a powerful anecdote to those who think their lives are novel and unique, and who heavily criticize our own society for not living up to some sort of Kantian ideal.

Re:Doublespeak and Redefining

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, small minded people like you don't realize the scale of freedom allowed in this world. An animal of prey would be punished by your "God" if it doesn't hurt something every day - yet you think your "God" is anything loving and good. The obsession with the so-called "better future" is simply there to make you a slave, bounded by ethics - why make a better future if that future is so far away that your mortal body won't be able to see? It makes no sense. Those who're not disillusioned like you aren't limited as you said - they simply see through the deception and tricks. A better future 100 years later is meaningless, we're not immortal, nor do we really know what each others feel - a better living NOW is what's meaningful.

A legacy of distrust, distaste and disgust - it's the natural order of things. Would a cat trust a mouse to not run away from it so it can more easily get its entertainment and food? Why are there so many animal species born with eyes optimized for the maximum viewing angle? A preyed animal is always wary of its surroundings, it needs to be... do you call that some form of trust? Man is just another kind of animal. Any concept saying it's a higher form of life is deception, created to chain yet more men into slavery.

Re:Doublespeak and Redefining

[Hucko]

Where did the gp even indicate that he believed in an afterlife let alone God?

Being bound by ethics is the dilemma of the civilised free man. Without civility, man has and can only extended the animal characteristics into new dimensions. This is meaningless too. With civility man is able to dream of improving both one's own progeny and the progeny of others. *

While obsessing with "better future" is meaningless to the individual, in evolutionary terms it makes sense to spread the wealth so that both progeny and future progeny potential partners have a better chance of survival. After all, keeping the genetic pool wide is a good thing in terms of survival of the species; look at the number of species on the endangered list that are mostly because they don't have a large genetic pool to draw from.

* Original 'research' (come on, let me have some dreams of grandeur!)

Re:Doublespeak and Redefining

[Anonymous Coward]

There are no ideals.

Know what you want.
Claim it your "right".
Adjust it enough so that majority of others either can identify with you directly or hypothetically, or can believe that supporting your case will boost their well being.
Using the supporters, fight those whose interests are contrary to what you want.
Win.
Eradicate remnants of your opposition as "evil" or "traitors".
Instantiate tradition and rituals to celebrate your victory and indoctrinate the newcomers, newborn as well as foreign-born, to perpetuate new status quo. Demand gratitude!
Occasionally instantiate a witch-hunt against "enemy agents", as any new opposition appears. Of all people, you know they aren't any better then yourself.
If opposition is reasonable, close deal with them to stage fake "revolution", to relieve the tensions and buy some time before the public sees through it.

Re:Doublespeak and Redefining

[innerweb]

To answer your request, I quote myself, "The rich and powerful and greedy have always been and always will be the rich and powerful and greedy".

Re:Doublespeak and Redefining

[viralMeme]

There are no ideals ..

Did you ever read something and just know it's true, well this is one of those times ...

Re:Doublespeak and Redefining

[Anonymous Coward]

The older I get the more I realize how powerful those in power are.

Maybe. But this case is just an example how bad Slashdot summaries can get. The EU paper considers an openness continuum with the extremes "open" and "absolutely not open", and the Slashdot submission makes it look like the "not open" case is the new definition of "open".

To quote the EU paper:
"There are varying degrees of openness.
Specifications, software and software development methods that promote collaboration and the results of which can freely be accessed, reused and shared are considered open and lie at one end of the spectrum while non-documented, proprietary specifications, proprietary software and the reluctance or resistance to reuse solutions, i.e. the "not invented here" syndrome, lie at the other end."

(Emphasize mine.)

Re:Doublespeak and Redefining

[Anonymous Coward]

A better future 100 years later is meaningless, we're not immortal, nor do we really know what each others feel - a better living NOW is what's meaningful.

By this attitude, our genomes are all going perish at the next ice-age. Our offspring is the only continuation of ourselves, the only thing that carries pieces our character to the future. Reproduction and protection of our gene lines is instinctive and the only reason we really have, in the end, to work our asses off in some collectively produced illusion called modern society. Thinking of the children is fundamentally selfish process if one prefers to anthropomorphize the human genome in a naive way.

News at 11

[markdavis]

News at 11- it is a huge surprise when it was found that money from commercial software giant lobbyists and special interest groups influenced the assumed impartial decision-making process of the EU. How could this happen???? If you can beat 'em, just redefine the playing field.

Europhilia

[Gothmolly]

What? No Orwell, 1984, or doublethink tags?

To quote Beavis and Butt-head

[Dachannien]

Butt-head: Uhhh, well, if nothing sucked, and everything was cool all the time, then, like, how would you know it was cool?

Essentially, that's what they're saying here. They include closed software on the "openness" spectrum because it's necessary as a basis for comparison. Zero openness is still a value of openness.

Maybe there's an attempt to redefine open source software to the benefit of companies who sell proprietary software, but this particular bit isn't the proper evidence for it.

Re:To quote Beavis and Butt-head

[Anonymous Coward]

At least it explains where the "Open" in OOXML comes from. And where the money MS invested into the legal dispute with the EU went to..

Re:To quote Beavis and Butt-head

[Anonymous Coward]

"Just because something's cool, doesn't mean it doesn't suck!"

Re:To quote Beavis and Butt-head

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh, well, if nothing sucked, and everything was cool all the time, then, like, how would you know it was cool?

I usually have a short attention span, but you really caught my attention with that one. It might be the deepest thing I've read on slashdot. AC 'cause I would not want my employer to find out I've been slacking. And now gotta go back to coding windows 8...

Re:To quote Beavis and Butt-head

[shaitand]

I really fail to see why there is a need to define a 'spectrum' of openness in the first place. Either something is completely open and documented and is innately and de facto unencumbered for any use by any person unconditionally or it is not.

Just add it to...

[ChangeOnInstall]

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

PS: The Slashdot lameness filter needs to be sent to the ministry of love.

Re:Just add it to...

[Anonymous Coward]

PS: The Slashdot lameness filter needs to be sent to the ministry of love.

Nope, to the ministry of magic!

Open is the pinnacle of ambiguosity.

[Statecraftsman]

Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation have championed the use of the word free to make sure user freedom stays in sight as the primary goal. Free is ambiguous as it can mean free of cost or free as in freedom and there are lesser known meanings(sugar-free) but those two are the main ones. RMS, the FSF and others have chosen the word free to rally around for a reason. Its the best choice in having a debate about user freedom. Open on the other hand means many things to many people. It might mean that your backside is open to corporate exploration. It might mean that a store is open for business. It might mean that something exists somewhere on the spectrum from opaque to transparent. If you're going to care about something, care about freedom, not openness. Don't support legislation that attempts to define open, ouvert, etc. Support legislation that upholds free, freedom, libre, etc.

Re:Open is the pinnacle of ambiguosity.

[dangitman]

free as in freedom

Yeah, that's certainly not ambiguous at all.

If you're going to care about something, care about freedom, not openness.

So, we should care about the freedom screw people over? After all, that's a freedom.

Re:Open is the pinnacle of ambiguosity.

[Statecraftsman]

No, that's power.

Re:Open is the pinnacle of ambiguosity.

[dangitman]

And power entails freedom to act. It's not an either-or proposition.

Re:Open is the pinnacle of ambiguosity.

[Anonymous Coward]

lol epically true - all these stupid words and stallmanists worshipping them as they had any meaning other than stallmans dick/ego. screw gnu/shithead ffs. JUST FUCKING BE OPEN!

Stop being cynical

[i_ate_god]

I see it more as an anti DMCA.

AKA: "We won't force you to be open, but if someone figures out your proprietary protocol, or someone writes a program that supports your proprietary file format, well... c'est la vie!"

Re:Stop being cynical

[rdnetto]

Which begs the question of whether or not it should be illegal to implement technological measures to prevent others from doing so, or to intentionally remove access/compatibility that once existed.

Lord corporation and his end-user vassals

[Logibeara]

The vast internet kingdom policed by the sheriff of Nautingham lawyers and Lord Bill gates extending his Feifs out to the money squandering corporations, enslaving the end-user poverty stricken vassals. But where is Robin Hood to be the great leveler?

Re:Lord corporation and his end-user vassals

[sharkbiter]

I agree. I simply can't believe that it's gone this far. Is the current generation so hung up on entertainment that they can't band together and lobby (harass) their respective representatives? I see the next generation flaunting the "rules" whenever and wherever they can, but it's not in the spirit of Jefferson who commented that "a little rebellion now and then is a good thing" to Madison in regards to Shay's Rebellion.

No longer do I see earnest learning with the spirit of improving oneself, instead I see profiteers.

The very institutions of learning; Universities and Colleges are _giving_ out sheepskins for dollars. Some still value their grade points and will refuse to pass, but others...

I realize that "Joe Six-Pack" is alive and well, that issues with a technical bent are beyond a certain group of technophobes, but I just can't understand when it equates to a loss of the very freedoms and liberties that our forefathers held dear being tossed by the very individuals that are elected to protect them for mere piddling material gains.

I'm sickened.

Truly.

Want to know who the next President of the USA/USR/EU is? Just ask the corporations, they'll tell you with their special vote: Monetary Units of whatever currency the candidate prefers.

What will happen when China weighs in with their marker? The future isn't looking very bright...

Yeah, joke about overlords. Pass off the Draconian measures to an antiquated business system. Explain that the new sharing isn't theft but a system of "Nottingham redistribution of wealth". I don't think those that have and will continue to consume the power base will permit it for much longer.

The bottom line is money.

Open standards committees inhibit innovation

[dirkdodgers]

The previous version required that interoperability standards be owned by non-profit committees. Having worked with a number of such organizations I can tell you that as a customer, being locked into a committee-owned standard is as great an obstacle to innovation and efficiency as is a closed de facto standard, especially when the government is involved.

It will continue to be far better for the customer over time when the customer can pick and choose which standards and vendors they will use. This allows customers to choose the balance they want to strike between compatibility and richness of functionality.

I do agree that a reasonable criteria for use by government agencies is that a standard specification be free and unencumbered, but no thank you to design by committee.

Because Almost Late

[Ralph Spoilsport]

is right on time?

They don't say what you accuse them of saying

[maxfresh]

With your selective quoting, and careful omissions, you have distorted and misrepresented what they have actually said. They never defined, nor attempted to redefine closed as open. In fact, they fully recognize and accurately define what constitutes "Open" and carefully noted that closed, propietary software and standards lie on the opposite end of the spectrum, or continuum. Here is the full, fair, non-distorted quote:

Specifications, software and software development methods that promote collaboration and the results of which can freely be accessed, reused and shared are considered open and lie at one end of the spectrum while non-documented, proprietary specifications, proprietary software and the reluctance or resistance to reuse solutions, i.e. the "not invented here" syndrome, lie at the other end.

By placing open on one and of the spectrum, and closed on the other, they very clearly are stating that the two are opposites. And to me, that seems like a perfectly fair and accurate description of the range of openness that exists in information systems and standards. Moreover, they conclude the section on openness with this recommendation:

Recommendation 5. Public administrations should favour openness when working together to establish European Public Service while taking into account their priorities and constraints.

Do you not see that by distorting their words to advance your own agenda, and attributing to them malicious intent without any basis in fact, you undermine the very cause which you pretend to champion? Is that what you want to do? Do you really want to undermine the credibility of those who advocate for free and open standards, especially in the public sector?

Here is the full text of the section on oppenness, so that everyone can see it in its entirety, and draw their own conclusions.

2.10 Underlying Principle 9: Openness

Within the context of the EIF, openness is the willingness of persons, organisations or other members of a community of interest to share knowledge and to stimulate debate within that community of interest, having as ultimate goal the advancement of knowledge and the use thereof to solve relevant problems. In that sense, openness leads to considerable gains in efficiency.

Interoperability involves the sharing of information and knowledge between organisations, hence implies a certain degree of openness. There are varying degrees of openness.

The spectrum of approaches that lies between these two extremes can be called the openness continuum.

European public administrations need to decide where they wish to position themselves on this continuum with respect to the issues discussed in the EIF. The exact position may vary, on a case-by-case basis, depending on their needs, priorities, legacy, budget, market situation and a number of other factors. While there is a correlation between openness and interoperability, it is also true that interoperability can be obtained without openness, for example via homogeneity of the ICT systems, which implies that all partners use, or agree to use, the same solution to implement a European Public Service.

Recommendation 5. Public administrations should favour openness when working together to establish European Public Service while taking into account their priorities and constraints.

Re:They don't say what you accuse them of saying

[maxfresh]

Apologies to all for replying to myself, but the most important paragraph was dropped when I copied the section from the original pdf text. Here is the corrected full text:

2.10 Underlying Principle 9: Openness

Within the context of the EIF, openness is the willingness of persons, organisations or other members of a community of interest to share knowledge and to stimulate debate within that community of interest, having as ultimate goal the advancement of knowledge and the use thereof to solve relevant problems. In that sense, openness leads to considerable gains in efficiency.

Interoperability involves the sharing of information and knowledge between organisations, hence implies a certain degree of openness. There are varying degrees of openness.

Specifications, software and software development methods that promote collaboration and the results of which can freely be accessed, reused and shared are considered open and lie at one end of the spectrum while non-documented, proprietary specifications, proprietary software and the reluctance or resistance to reuse solutions, i.e. the "not invented here" syndrome, lie at the other end.

The spectrum of approaches that lies between these two extremes can be called the openness continuum.

European public administrations need to decide where they wish to position themselves on this continuum with respect to the issues discussed in the EIF. The exact position may vary, on a case-by-case basis, depending on their needs, priorities, legacy, budget, market situation and a number of other factors. While there is a correlation between openness and interoperability, it is also true that interoperability can be obtained without openness, for example via homogeneity of the ICT systems, which implies that all partners use, or agree to use, the same solution to implement a European Public Service.

Recommendation 5. Public administrations should favour openness when working together to establish European Public Service while taking into account their priorities and constraints.

Re:They don't say what you accuse them of saying

[Wannabe Code Monkey]

Do you not see that by distorting their words to advance your own agenda, and attributing to them malicious intent without any basis in fact, you undermine the very cause which you pretend to champion? Is that what you want to do? Do you really want to undermine the credibility of those who advocate for free and open standards, especially in the public sector?

Thank you. I would have modded you as Informative, but you're already at 5, and I wanted to respond anyway. I'm getting really sick at how often not just the headline is inflammatory and just plain wrong, but even the summary. I can't believe how far some people will go to twist the true nature of a thing until they can claim it stands for its exact opposite. What's even worse is that it gets by people whose only job is to check this stuff out before posting it to the front page of a widely read website. If this is the answer to print journalism dying, then maybe I should start up a subscription to my local newspaper, because the alternative is apparently much worse.

Also, I turned off the classic index just so that I could vote this story down as 'stupid' and tag it as both 'badheadline' and 'badsummary'. I suggest others do the same. Next to just not reading slashdot anymore, it appears it's the only feedback we can supply.

Re:They don't say what you accuse them of saying

[DNS-and-BIND]

With your selective quoting, and careful omissions, you have distorted and misrepresented what they have actually said.

Hell yeah! The man deserves a job with the New York Times or other mainstream media. Come on, don't even pretend that the pros don't use this tactic when they have an agenda to push.

Re:They don't say what you accuse them of saying

[gsslay]

Do you not see that by distorting their words to advance your own agenda, and attributing to them malicious intent without any basis in fact, you undermine the very cause which you pretend to champion?

This is slashdot. People submit stories for many reasons, but high in the list for many is a desire to create a stir and draw attention. So the very cause being championed here is "Look at me! Outrage! Look at me! Horror!"

Accuracy, fairness and the cause of the greater good don't get much of a look in after that.

Re:They don't say what you accuse them of saying

[kikito]

Ok, my conclusions:

1. You should put the previous version's text too, if you want people to "draw their own conclusions"

2. The definition of "openness as a feeling of persons" still makes waters. It uses deliberatively weak wording - "willingness to share knowledge" doesn't actually mean that they are legally obligated to do it, for example.

3. They have invented one new euphemism ("on the other end of the openness continuum") to replace a very valid existing word: "closed" - which is not used a single time on the text that you pasted.

Re:They don't say what you accuse them of saying

[Anonymous Coward]

I smell a kdawson post here, and i am even not a bearded /.-er, the summary has all the traditional attributes. not that hard to recognize, really

Re:They don't say what you accuse them of saying

[petrus4]

In specific terms, my own definition of openness, is whatever allows the work in question to replicate/propogate itself.

So for a computer program, that primarily means source code. However, it can often mean specific elements of documentation as well. If you've got a program which uses conf files, generally speaking, downstream uses are going to need documentation of the conf file format before they can use it.

In the case of protocols, it means available, readable, implementable specifications.

When I made reference to a leftist stereotype at the start of my post, my point was that press writers often refer to software ecosystems. The point of FOSS licenses is to allow said ecosystem to continue to propogate itself. (Or at least that was the point with the GPL)

To a large extent, it's self-sustaining now, although it is still important, I think, to ensure that whatever corporate or legal fine print that exists, doesn't exist primarily for the purposes of ensuring that said propogation can't happen.

This, however, is also why the "non-discriminatory," element of the FOSS definition is so important.

If FOSS is going to continue to propogate successfully, it has to do so via positive and peaceful means. This isn't because of any high minded idealism; it's because software companies and paradigms are subject to the same evolutionary laws that biological organisms are.

That means that violent confrontation, opposition, and resistance, are ultimately not the means by which FOSS can successfully predominate. The focus instead has to be on absorbtion, subsumption, and osmosis. Watch Fern Gully on YouTube sometime, and observe how the devas there ultimately dealt with Hexus, the pollution spirit.

They didn't destroy him/it, because to do so not only would have been impossible, but also self-destructive. Destruction is self-sustaining and replicating, in the same way that construction/creation is.

They simply caused plants to grow up around him to the point where he was encased between them, and couldn't move.

That, ultimately, is what we have to do.

Re:They don't say what you accuse them of saying

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a nice pragmatic definition.

Now would you describe standards patented with "reasonable and non-discriminatory" royalties as open or closed or "a bit to the less-open side of the openness continuum"? Because that category of standards is a superset of "RAND and royalty-free" and thus not guaranteed to work well with GPL'ed software..

I believe that a hard definition of "must be royalty-free implementable" is the only workable kind, because those standards don't preclude and restrict any implementation at all; otherwise in the gray zone of the "openness continuum" we're talking about lawsuits to determine the exact openness of standards and legality of each implementation, and this is counterproductive to the self-sustaining nature because it casts a cloud over (some of) the implementations.

Re:They don't say what you accuse them of saying

[petrus4]

Now would you describe standards patented with "reasonable and non-discriminatory" royalties as open or closed or "a bit to the less-open side of the openness continuum"? Because that category of standards is a superset of "RAND and royalty-free" and thus not guaranteed to work well with GPL'ed software..

The ideal scenario with software patents, is one where they don't exist at all. I don't always agree with the FSF, as anyone who has read me on here for any length of time will know, but in trying to erradicate software patents, I think they're doing the right thing.

I am more of a supporter of the BSD license (non-discriminatory freedom of use + attribution + copyright + disclaimer) personally, but patents are no more desirable in association with that license than it is with the GPL.

Re:They don't say what you accuse them of saying

[nutshell42]

Let me add that the reason the whole thing sounds so vague is that they're defining the terms for the debate about interoperability of different public services. It's not about specific implementations or whatever. It is necessarily vague because its point is that when EC, EP and council try to enact a new directive on interoperability in a specific field they need common terms and recommendations as a baseline for said directive that will be less vague.

And even then it's not true that the draft doesn't talk about implementations:

5.2.1 Specifications, openness and re-use

The possibility of sharing and re-using service components based on formalised specification depends on the openness of the specifications. If the principle of openness is applied in full:

• All stakeholders can contribute to the elaboration of the specification and public review is organised;
• The specification document is freely available for everybody to study and to share with others;
• The specification can be implemented under the different software development approaches.

It is up to the creators of any particular specification to decide how open they want their specification to be.

Because of their positive effect on interoperability, the use of open specifications, characterised by the three features mentioned above, as well as sharing and re-use, have been promoted in many policy statements and are encouraged in the context of European Public Services delivery.

However, public administrations may decide to use less open specifications, especially in cases where open specifications do not meet the functional interoperability needs or the ones available are not mature and/or sufficiently supported by the market, or where all cooperating organisations already use or agree to use the same technologies.

Recommendation 22. Other things being equal, public administrations should prefer open specifications when establishing European Public Services.

I can certainly agree with that. There definitely are areas where open standards don't exist or aren't used enough to be helpful.

e.g. Flash for audio and video on webpages. Yes, Html 5 has the video-tag but it will be half a decade before it's supported by a similar number of browsers as have flash installed. And while flash exists at the whim of Adobe, just about any system under the sun can get it to work one way or other.

Re:They don't say what you accuse them of saying

[Dragonslicer]

I can't believe how far some people will go to twist the true nature of a thing until they can claim it stands for its exact opposite. What's even worse is that it gets by people whose only job is to check this stuff out before posting it to the front page of a widely read website.

Take a look at which "editor" posted this story. I'd be surprised if this even ends up being the worst article posted by kdawson today.

Re:They don't say what you accuse them of saying

[Tim C]

What's even worse is that it gets by people whose only job is to check this stuff out before posting it to the front page of a widely read website.

That is not and never has been their job:

How do you verify the accuracy of Slashdot stories?

We don't. You do. :) If something seems outrageous, we might look for some corroboration, but as a rule, we regard this as the responsibility of the submitter and the audience.

That's taken from the FAQ.

Now I'm not saying that that's how it *should* be, but that's how it *is*.

Are you serious?

[snikulin]

For government contracts:
Scribus does not do certifiable signatures.
It does not do US-government accepted encryption.
It is not FIPS-140-2 compliant.

For publishing gigs: no Pantone, no QuarkXPress imports, and no proper Unicode.

Re:Are you serious?

[JustinRLynn]

The difference between that and closed source software is that if you're willing to pay for developers to make it do so, it darn well will and you don't have to ask anybodies permission for it or depend on anyone else to do it. Also, if it's under the GPL and you don't distribute it outside your company or group, you don't even have to share. Sure beats relying on external support and development you may not even be able to get in the future. That said, if a publishing house needed the software to do what you describe, then it would be done -- so please, don't trot out the "current solutions aren't applicable to my domain therefore all open source solutions and benefits must be rejected" horse.. it's old and needs to be put out to pasture. Given a bit of money and time, Scribus and other solutions that don't /quite/ meet your requirements could have some serious clout and be much less expensive to boot.

Re:Are you serious?

[snikulin]

How can you implement legally Pantene in GPL source code?

Re:Are you serious?

[snikulin]

Come to think about it, GPL is meaningless with FIPS-140. Since FIPS process validates pre-built binaries only, hence even theoretically one can't have FIPS-validated GPL source code. Also cryptomodule should have certain anti-tampering protection which might not play well with GPL3.

Re:Are you serious?

[Anonymous Coward]

You're just making up imaginary reasons for not using scribus. :)

I don't work for goverment. Sounds insane to me to have different crypto for every document type you have. I wan't all my documents encrypted and signed, not just PDF files. There's another pretty good software for encryption, but that's just another discussion.

What comes to Pantone and QXP. There's no support in Scribus because some companies want to have closed patent encumbered file formats. These companies propably would sue Scribus dev team if they'd include Pantone without licencing.

http://docs.scribus.net/index.php?lang=en&page=faq2#19

I would avoid using Pantone and QuarkXPress for publishing work, because of reasons mentioned above. That's why we should use open color matching system to get colors right. I know it sound totally insane for someone tightly inside publishing world, where Pantone is defacto standard. If you wan't change you need to seek alternatives for the hammers and nails you're currently using.

And lastly I've never needed that "proper unicode" for my document publishing work, nor my clients. If someone needs unicode bells and all they can implement it freely to Scribus.

Re:Are you serious?

[snikulin]

> I don't work for goverment
I can see it.

> If someone needs unicode bells and all they can implement it freely to Scribus.
Good luck with your Chinese customers then.

Re:Are you serious?

[Anonymous Coward]

For government contracts:
Scribus does not do certifiable signatures.
It does not do US-government accepted encryption.
It is not FIPS-140-2 compliant.

For publishing gigs: no Pantone, no QuarkXPress imports, and no proper Unicode.

Using desktop publishing software (or fileformats) for contracts sounds pretty hilarious. Anyway govermental contracts should be public to tax payers, so there is no reason for encryption. Also as a tax payer I really want to know where my money is going. It helps me to decide who I'll vote at next election.

Goverments should also use standard XML formats for easy processing, publishing, comparison and archiving of documents.

BTW: What's this FIPS-140-2 anyway? My goverment does not recognize such standards.

Ditch Pantone, they're just making you pay for using "their colors". Just tell me who owns the colors?

Re:Are you serious?

[geminidomino]

How can you implement legally Pantene in GPL source code?

I hear shampoo has some ideas.

Re:Are you serious?

[Anonymous Coward]

Scribus uses ghostscript, like everything else GPL that needs to generate PDFs. It's not special in that regard. So most of the more advanced functions of PDFs that relate to printing workflow are not going to be available. Some of which snikulin mentioned, much of which he didn't.

Responding by basically saying "don't use those features"...just brilliant. You are what's wrong with FOSS. Not the attitude of putting openness first. I'd love to not have to pay Pantone hundreds of dollars for swatches. But the arrogance of deciding how the US gov't and the entire graphic design world should conduct business.

Were you one of those people culture jamming Apple stores, too? Find something to be zealous about that actually deserves zealotry. Software does not.

Seriously. "Just tell me who owns the colors?" is one of the most retarded things I've ever read. Ever.

Re:Are you serious?

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll all come out in the wash.

Re:Are you serious?

[Taxman415a]

I'm not sure you can legally implement that in GPL since it's a shampoo that I think either my wife or my girlfriend use, I can't remember which.

It seems you were thinking of the Pantone color matching system. Which I can't see how they can claim any intellectual property protection on, but such as it is.

Whiners

[Anonymous Coward]

They open up openness and you all whine. You just can't please some people

Cut out the "Idiocracy" tag, guys.

[bipbop]

Goddamn! Who are the idiots who keep tagging everything idiocracy? It's pretty annoying. Is it supposed to be clever?

I'm checking "No Karma Bonus" since I'm posting off-topic on purpose. Sorry, but after the last few articles randomly tagged "idiocracy", I couldn't hold it in anymore. Mod me how you will.

Re:Cut out the "Idiocracy" tag, guys.

[Xest]

"Who are the idiots who keep tagging everything idiocracy?"

Ironically, probably the people Slashdot's idiocracy is comprised of.

Re:Cut out the "Idiocracy" tag, guys.

[selven]

It's definitely overused. Back when the tag only applied to the dumbing down of our children's education, it made some sense. but now, it's completely irrelevant.

QQ moar

[Anonymous Coward]

/.ers can tag as they see fit. Why do you hate freedom? Are you a terrorist?

Nearly Pregnant, Nearly A Virgin, Nearly Rich

[syousef]

Nearly Smart, Nearly Sexy, Nearly Sauve, Nearly Adequate, Nearly Famous, Nearly Infallible, Nearly Safe, Nearly There....

EU "Union" As "Country"?

[bussdriver]

Given how fast the EU has progressed into being a country and how against the will of its people it moves quickly towards a federalized government its really just a game of line drawing - started a few years ago and will continue until we (the majority) write off the opposition for being an insignificant minority opinion.

Most of the world WAS a form of colony to the USA until the powerful who infected the king of nations outgrew their host and decided to start eating it from within. Will the same disease spread to the world... that is the important question to ponder.

Re:EU "Union" As "Country"?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Here's hoping the euros start assassinating their leaders. When the guys at the top are this out of touch, mortal danger is the only thing that they really respond to. And if not, you eventually run out of leaders.

Re:EU "Union" As "Country"?

[lordholm]

They are not out of touch. But people seem to think they are, this comes in the combination with the fact that the general population has a very bad knowledge of how the Union works.

I saw one comment in the line of: "damn the commission for forcing the Lisbon treaty on us", while it was in fact the European Council consisting out of the prime-ministers of the member-states who 1) took initiative for it and 2) signed the document.

Now, the other rather amusing thing is that, during previous EP elections, there was a poll in Sweden, where they asked people of whether they wanted the EU to grow into a sort of USE or whatever, in any case, the yes sayers where in the line of 15% for this (not really a majority, but still way over a million people), but when you start asking questions on the specifics and how they think the EU should be run, the solutions are almost always federal in nature.

The main point here is that people has in general no idea what they are talking about, and that the "out of touch" thing being that the top are using fancy words that their opponents have managed to get very charged from a political point of view. This include for example the word "federalism". In the now defunct constitutional treaty, the word "federal" was used in an early draft, but some head of state (think it was Tony Blair) in the negotiation got them to change the word to "supernational", technically they mean exactly the same thing, but the f-word is so charged with some people that they would not be able to stomach seeing it in a treaty.

You may of-course say that this just mean that the council is even more out of touch, but ask yourself:

The council consist of ministers from the member-states (executive officials who suddenly are law-makers), who are indirectly elected, do you think it is better that the directly elected parliament have more to say about any formed law?

Most people, even those who are opposed to an USE type organisation, say yes to the question I just wrote down, this is rather interesting, as that is basically support for a federal EU. A powerful council on the other hand makes the Union a more confederal styled organisation.

Re:EU "Union" As "Country"?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Out of touch, to me, is a result of seeing them push the same stupid pro-lobbyist things over and over in the face of popular opposition. Basically, the way things are set up, the politicos seem more accountable to bribery than the populace. Not that we're better or anything.

Re:EU "Union" As "Country"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Attack of the killer coins?

Re:EU "Union" As "Country"?

[Yaa 101]

I do not think they are out of touch, I do think that some have received a boatload of money, in whatever form.

Re:EU "Union" As "Country"?

[redhog]

Ahmen. I'd very much like to se an EU governed the same way e.g. Sweden is governed. That is:

A _short_ constitution (= a few pages), readable and understundable and read by the majority of the population.
A directly elected assembly with all the power (no council, no comission).
The constituition should only be changeable with two votes with absolute majority, with a general election in between.

As an addition to how Sweden works, the constituition should also directly govern what powers belong to the individual states.

So far, all the nasty surveilance laws have come from the council.

Re:EU "Union" As "Country"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Having a single legal framework for the EU won't work as there are too many different cultures and legal systems - just look at how inheritance and obligation of care of elderly relatives is handled across Europe. Look at the vast difference in pension rights and the facilities ofered by social security systems.

What makes more sense is for the EU to look towards a more USA-like approach. Texas is Texas, but it is also America. Likewise, Sweden is Sweden but it can also be Europe.

We should have the right to choose who represents us. This should be a fundamental right. But it is especially interesting to look at those in the UK complaining about unelected MEPs given that their current Prime Minister was *NOT* voted in. There are many people who despise him. The other guy, the one who was voted into office, either quit or was pushed (depending on who you ask) and the party elected Mr. Brown from a shortlist of... one. He has as yet refused to call an election as he knows that Labour may well lose and anyway, dammit, HE is the PM and HE is the only person qualified to lead the world to economic recovery! (yes, he really is that deluded, you might be able to find a clip on YouTube, he spewed this about a year ago while still denying a recession was on the cards). Oh, and did I mention we poor Brits didn't even get a vote on this guy?

There are many stereotypical differences and prejudices in Europe. Xenophobic Brits, smelly Frenchies, Polish plumbers, Romanian scroungers... to try to homogenise this into "Europe" as a single entity won't work, and neither will reforming laws across the union to be the same for all. It might be possible, but not in my lifetime. So a USA-like model seems like the most workable compromise. Individual countries with an overseeing council or something.

Re:EU "Union" As "Country"?

[ClosedSource]

I think it would be more accurate to say that a recent administration in the USA thought the rest of the world was a colony and treated them as if they were.

Re:EU "Union" As "Country"?

[shaitand]

"The constituition should only be changeable with two votes with absolute majority, with a general election in between."

That is interesting. I find the problem here in the US is how difficult it is to change the constitution. The big problem being that in only the elected officials can do it. There needs to be a way for the people to directly make and throw down laws like many of the U.S. states have. Elected officials have vested interests (generally serving the interests of the wealthy) and there are some things that will never happen with them at the helm.

Re:EU "Union" As "Country"?

[bussdriver]

Correct; however, the USA generally thought this way for generations not just since the Regan revolution or Bush regime. Arrogance just made it more overt.

The game has changed; nations are not the dominant powers any longer.

Reminds me of that Jon Steward quote:

[Hurricane78]

Bush: It's a different kind of war! They, 're a different kind of people!
Jon (Bush impression): They... they wear shoes on their hands! They eat with their butts! They call their Jesus Mohammad. Makes no sense...

I don't know how to turn that into a comment that is critical of this newspeak redefinition though...

How about you? A nice +5, Funny waits for you... coomee... catch it... ;)

Embrace, extend ... extinguish

[AHuxley]

Guess where the EU is now.
They went after the p2p format, now its on to "open source" Linux.
Amazing what can be pushed after a stay at a Rothschild family villa in Greece.
Did an American record executive put in a good word for US computing interests?

Twisting

[Eivind]

This is disingenious. The document actually says the OPPOSITE of what one might think if reading only the slashdot-introduction. It says that open-ness is not a binary proposition, but a continuum where (and I quote)

Specifications, software and software development methods that promote collaboration and the results of which can freely be accessed, resused and shared are considered open and lie at one end of the spectrum while non-documented, proprietary specifications, proprietary software and the reluctance or resistance to reuse solutions, i.e. the "not invented here" syndrome, lie at the other end.

This very clearly doesn't claim that proprietary software is open. Infact it does the oposite, it says directly that it lies on a spectrum, where ONE end can be called "open", and this lies at the *other* end. It doesn't directly say what that other end is called, but a reasonable guess would be "closed".

Re:Twisting

[Anonymous Coward]

The worst thing is that it looks like the issue is blurring of "standards" and "specifications" (a defensible position since everyone can implement e.g. W3C XML which is "only" a specification) but in fact the important issue is as you describe, creating a continuum out of "open" and "closed" thereby erasing the defensible position that "open" is the only reasonable choice for government-citizen interactions.

Re:Twisting

[Eivind]

Not really. I think we all can agree that open and closed really *is* a continuum, and not a binary proposition. Some things are totally open, some are totally closed, and many are somewhere in between. That's just (imho) objectively true.

We probably all also agree that everything else being equal, more open is an advantage.

Now, where one can reasonably differ, is on the priorities. If program A is evaluated as superior to B on some issues, but inferior on open-ness, how much weight should be placed on what ?

Most people on Slashdot would probably say open-ness should be evaluated as important. And I agree. But it's nevertheless not -infinitely- important. I.e. there *are* situations where I'd be willing to go with a less open program or protocol, due to other major advantages. That's an individual choice, offcourse.

Original article is misrepresented

[fredrikv]

This post is simply wrong. The poster has completely distorted the message in the original text by using unfair citing methods.
If you actually read the article, it defines the openness continuum as the range *between* "freely [---] accessed, reused and shared" and "non-documented, proprietary software". Not very groundbreaking or controversial.
Boring.

On the other hand, it is obvious that nearly all responders with strong opinions on the matter also have not bothered to read the article.
Interesting?

Re:Original article is misrepresented

[Anonymous Coward]

you're right but, read the article carefully, there is a clear shift taking place.

We, economically, can't afford to keep msft afloat... the innovation they bring to the market is pure bullshit.
I hope the EU and the USA will see the light soon

Openness sells itself

[petrus4]

(Before modding this post as Offtopic, please read it to the end. It is relevant; you just need to read the whole thing in order to see how it is)

Just in the last 24 hours, on another forum site that I read regularly, I know a guy who has private messaged me about migrating to FreeBSD.

He has done that because, in the past, he was using either Windows, or certain Linux distributions which were heavily GUI oriented and which, for various reasons, had a much less transparent and orthogonal design. He was having a lot of problems with those systems, in terms of both hardware driver and application stability.

He has started, as I mentioned, using FreeBSD, but despite X, he is also now using primarily text-based applications as well. One of his messages to me about this expressed his degree of happiness at having found such a greater level of reliability, speed, and flexibility, and thanking me for gradually causing him to become interested in FreeBSD.

My point, quite simply, is this. Openness, and openness as it specifically applies to UNIX design philosophy, has visible, tangible, practical benefits, and ultimately sells itself.

Corporations and government institutions can say whatever they want; we don't need to worry about it one way or the other. There is a certain demographic of users, who are increasingly becoming more and more derisive of every element of the practice of open source methodolgy, as well. Compilation from source, and use of text-based applications are considered by that group, to be anachronisms from the 1970s.

The point is, that when the proverbial crunch comes, FOSS proves itself, and suddenly the laughing stops; to generally be replaced by mute awe. Whether it's backpackers setting up an emergency c3 system in southeast Asia with gnuSense after the latest tsunami, Helios continuing, day in and day out, to build free PCs with Mint for underpriveleged kids, or a corporate sysadmin with a lone OpenBSD box, who along with his boss, watches Puffy dive into a phone booth and save the day when the local intranet has gone feet first, and business is threatening to grind to a halt entirely.

So if the EU's government have somehow been living in caves for the last two decades, it's not something any of us really need to get upset about. Let them voice whatever skepticism, or even outright condemnation they want.

If they want to find out the actual truth for themselves, however, the web and FTP sites are there, and they can replicate the benefits that other people have derived from FOSS UNIX, for themselves.

Eurospeak

[flaptrap]

It's all German to me. Or do I mean French. Or Czech. Or Polish...

You'd think the EU would understand that you can't translate without the dictionaries. You can't interoperate without the specifications.

What is peer to peer

[obarthelemy]

A fairly minor TV station did a (funny) disquieting gig a while back, about France's P2P 3-strikes law: they roamed the hallways of our national assembly, and asked congressmen what "peer-to-peer" was... that was right when the p2p law was being discussed and making daily headlines, mind you:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXHuxNeasvw&feature=related , very approximative translations, for fun

- "peer to peer is being able to talk directly to people in the same situation as you, so it's very good"
- "I don't know... I speak French, you'll have to excuse me"
- "protecting creativity via internet"
- 'I don't know, but my sons do, I'm wondering what they're doing on my PC, by the way"
- "It's downloading videos, like streaming but the bits get to you hard drive"

I'm guessing Euro MPs are getting heavily lobbied, and are more confused than purely evil. What can we do to change that ?

Re:What is peer to peer

[JustNiz]

Its scary that we have a system that requires the most technically uniformed self-serving toadies to make key decisions about the whole future of technology.

My new definition of paying taxes

[janwedekind]

Analogous to the EIF's definition of Open Source Software (OSS), paying taxes is the willingness of persons, organisations or other members of a mixed source community obtaining salaries to share information about their financial status and to stimulate a debate with the revenue authorities, having as ultimate goal a mutual understanding of the situation and a strong basis for a healthy debate. In that sense, paying taxes leads to a quick turnaround of our fiscal status and strengthens the economy.

Offtopic, but...THANKS!!!

[rts008]

Also, I turned off the classic index just so that I could vote this story down as 'stupid' and tag it...

*facepalm* Thanks. I was wondering why I could no longer tag stuff!

It's this kind of thing that's keeping me trying to be more humble as I age. :-)

what the original article really said

[viralMeme]

"This post is simply wrong. The poster has completely distorted the message in the original text by using unfair citing methods. If you actually read the article .."

I read both the article and the original and my reading is that the EIF went from supporting an open standard maintained by a not-for-profit organisation to a redefinition of 'openness' as meaning organizations willing to debate. And the only 'OPen Source Software' allowed is under a new EUPL license. Which I presume specifically excludes all other Open Source licenses.

The strategy is clear; It's not about 'open source' but about 'open standards'. Then get 'open standards' to mean proprietary closed source companies get control of the process and get real Open Source Software shoved off into a backwater.

"To attain interoperability in the context of pan-European eGovernment services, guidance needs to focus on open standards. The following are the minimal characteristics that a specification and its attendant documents must have in order to be considered an open standard:

The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties (consensus or majority decision etc.)"

--

"Within the context of the EIF, openness is the willingness of persons, organisations or other members of a community of interest to share knowledge and to stimulate debate within that community ..

Specifications, software and software development methods that promote collaboration and the results of which can freely be accessed, reused and shared are considered open ..

For the specific case of Open Source Software, the European Commission has set up the Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR) 14 and developed the European Union Public Licence (EUPL)"

Re:what the original article really said

[Anonymous Coward]

The EUPL is a OSI aproved license. It is also a free software license, since it is actually a copy of the GPL. It is also GPLv2 compatible.

I don't really know why they felt the need for the EUPL, but you can't really critizise the license itself.

European Interoperability Framework

[viralMeme]

Just who exactly was involved in drafting the 'European Interoperability Framework' ?

open standards and closed source

[viralMeme]

The document defines openness as companies/organizations collaborating, sharing and debating. No mention of who owns the knowledge. The simple fact is - that if the source ain't open then the 'standards' can't be open.

'Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria: Free Redistribution, Source Code, Derived Works, Integrity of The Author's Source Code, No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups, No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor, Distribution of License, License Must Not Be Specific to a Product, License Must Not Restrict Other Software, License Must Be Technology-Neutral ..'

--

Minion: We can't compete against open source
Boss: lets promote a paradigm shift and say it's not about 'open source' but about 'open standards' and then get 'open standards' to mean using our software.
Minion: That's so evil boss !
Boss: I know ..

Ubersoft

Re:open standards and closed source

[argent]

The simple fact is - that if the source ain't open then the 'standards' can't be open.

Yes, you can have open standards implemented with closed source. TCP/IP, for example, was a closed source open standard before KA9Q and others implemented their own versions.

An open standard, however, can't be defined by a closed source implementation (eg, OOXML), and an open standard can't require licenses for documentation or distribution. And it's the latter that this particular change is aimed at... letting European standards bodies that make money from licensing standards play in the sandpit along with kids who really DO share well with others.

Open Standards not Open Source

[PensivePeter]

The biggest issue for the European Interoperability framework is that its first version pissed nearly everyone off by failing at every definition.
The biggest hurdle was to support "open standards" with an objective definition that didn't cut the European Standards Organisations (ESOs) out of the institutional picture. Of the three ESOs, two of their business models are based on selling copies of their standards to make money - which flies in the face of the part of the "open standard" definition that requires free access...
The issue of a "spectrum of openness" is only a secondary issue, invesnted to help around that dilemma: instead of a boolean "this is | is not an open standard", the compromise was to have instead a scale. Who gets to judge where something sits on the spectrum? Well, that now is the sticking point. Best bets would be for an agreed set of criteria, but let any agency who wants to use a particular standard make up their own mind.
This will mean that some will conclude that MSFT Office OOXML is totally open and others that it sucks; or that IETF RFC 2616 is totally open and others that it's managed by a non-recognised standards body, and therefore is not a standard....
This will run and run...

Re:Open Standards not Open Source

[mahadiga]

I think interoperability without open source is oxymoron because we cannot debug.

Re:Open Standards not Open Source

[PensivePeter]

Not true. What are APIs and the whole SOA paradigm about? Being able to work between heterogeneous systems with predictable behaviours at agreed interoperability points. I don't always want nor need to know what goes on in the "black box" as long as it behaves according to spec. - For example, I don't need Bluetooth or GSM source code to know how to work with these specs - unless you are insisting on some moral right to be able to access whatever anyone else has created. That is then the debate about open source, not open standards.

Re:Open Standards not Open Source

[mahadiga]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Office_Open_XML_and_OpenDocument

It isn't "approaching", it's here now

[Anonymous Coward]

You make the common mistake of imagining that what you can see happening hasn't actually happened yet (it has).

The robber barons are thriving. They have the intellectual property, BSD license, Mono, and OOXML promotion bots deployed to keep the ball rolling.

Greed doesn't kill them in the end. If it did they would have died out long ago. They go belly up only when someone more greedy than them comes along.

Re:first

[Hognoxious]

If you read TFA you'll see that it envisages a continuum of primocity, ranging from frist to totally failing it.

Damn right!

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything not given the Richard Stallman Seal of Approval is obviously closed-source and evil, whilst that which has been deemed satisfactory by Lord Stallman is perfect and free.

Brace for News of backdoor Microsoft lobbying

[unity100]

in 3, 2, 1 ....

Ministry of Sharing

[darkvizier]

Welcome, welcome sir to the Ministry of Sharing! Here you can see our top programmers at work on the next version of Digital Rights Management. We're giving people an amazing amount of freedom with this. And over here... this is brilliant. One of our most cunning works to date if I may say so myself. It's a server, but wait... with no open ports!

Well, I hope you've enjoyed your visit. Please come back and see our open facility again! Oh no, carry on, nothing more to see here. We really must be going. No, put that down... You can't... SECURITY!

Obligatory python paraphasing

[Anomalyst]

"if you look at the statements of the Libertarians during the Bush administration I think you will find that we criticized Bush for many of the same reasons that we now criticize Obama."
Bullshit

Look, this isn't an argument. ... it's just contradiction.

You just need fuzzy logic

[ClosedSource]

Microsoft Word has a 100% membership in the proprietary software set and 0% membership in the open source software set. See, no problem!

OT - Re:Well, actually ...

[Anonymous Coward]

...the personal defense, target shooting, or hunting tests and even the NRA does not advocate for NO restrictions whatsoever on personal gun ownership.

The target shooting and hunting "tests" have nothing to do with the 2nd Amendment, although they are a significant part of the basis of the NRA's lobbying. Defense against government tyranny and, to a much lesser extent, personal defense comprise the core rationale for the 2nd Amendment. Look closely at the NRA's positions and you'll see very little regarding defense against an overbearing government - that idea is sadly quite out of fashion these days. Also, many forget (or intentionally ignore) that there were colonists with privately owned canon.

- T