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Open Source, Open Standards Under Attack In Europe
Glyn Moody writes "A battle for the soul of European IT is taking place behind closed doors in Brussels. At stake is the key Digital Agenda for Europe, due to be unveiled in a month's time. David Hammerstein, ex-Member of European Parliament for the Greens, tweeted last week: 'SOS to everyone as sources confirm that Kroes is about to eliminate "open standards" policy from EU digital agenda; Kroes has been under intense lobbying pressure from Microsoft to get rid of interoperability and open source goals of EU.' This is confirmed by the French magazine PC Inpact (Google translation), which also managed to obtain a copy of the draft Digital Agenda (DOC). It's currently supportive of both open source and open standards — but for how much longer?"
This is terribly exciting and I'm not even sure why...
"Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
Is it me or does Microsoft seem to be getting more and more desperate for control?
War was beginning.
IT, whether European or otherwise, has no soul
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
I dont know much about this and am curious why it is so important. Wont open source continue to be open source independent of what the EU decides? Or is this saying that the EU gov'ts will only use open source programs, and that is defined by this document? More info would be appreciated, the article didnt really touch on the importance.
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
That's clearly very positive about open standards and open source. And then, back in November of last year, a draft version of the revised EIF was leaked [.pdf]. It revealed a staggering re-definition of what openness meant by suggesting that “closed” was part of the “openness continuum”:
Except that your claimed new definition doesn't claim that proprietary software is considered "open" and actually spins proprietary software in a very bad light:
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 definition is funny because one can come up with a number of examples of poor or non-existant documentation, NIH syndrome, a resistance to code reuse within OSS.
With the global slump politicians are under pressure to spend money on software, not use open source.
Of course, the layman doesn't always understand that open source software is sold commercially as well.
Under freedom of information laws surely we're entitled to see information in a format anyone can read?
As opposed, I suppose, to Silverlight(TM)?
The less "open standards" clusterfucks designed by committees of self-righteous idiots the better.
And how "open" is a standard really when the only people allowed in the committees are the representatives of multinational corporations? And let's not even get into the fact that if you want to get a copy of this "open" standard you usually have to pay hundreds of dollars.
... fuck sakes, somebody stop them!
Even europeans can be bought this easily?
NO SIG
Correct.
HTML = Widely used around the globe
Silverlight = Used at Microsoft HQ and a small number of prefailed web projects
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I wonder if the ACTA plays into this?
Seems to me open standards would hinder a closed-sourced DRM scheme designed to limit communication.
"The military order Havoc! was a signal given to the English military forces in the Middle Ages to direct the soldiery (in Shakespeare's parlance 'the dogs of war') to pillage and chaos."
ideopath @ play
"...which also managed to obtain a copy of the draft Digital Agenda (DOC). It's currently supportive of both open source and open standards — but for how much longer?"
Why am I even surprised that the agenda is in MS-Word's old binary file format? Maybe they're just supportive of open standards for other people, or for hypothetical people in a hypothetical world, perhaps.
coding is life
And look, the Redmond Whores come out to play.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So, as a person living in the EU - any ideas where I should go (preferably online) to complain and raise my voice against this?
EU is more like US than y'all think.
The EU Corporate-Welfare government is against you.
The US Corporate-Welfare government is against us.
Government politicians and appointees are well paid (in trade or money) to provide substantial and legal Corporate-Welfare too FuckUS and FuckEU.
It ain't people democracy or merit capitalism in the US, EU, RURU, China.... Yep, life is hard, but you can always eat-shit die before or after the next global-recession (that ain't their darn fault).
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Apparently the European Digital Agenda Commissioner (2010-2014) is a 70 year old woman who according to her webpage has "an ongoing interest in mental health issues." Seriously? They couldn't find anyone more qualified? How many 70 year old people are there who even know what open source means? I'm not an ageist nor a sexist, but I'm pretty sure about all of my friends would have been more qualified to this particular job.
Open means no patents, RF
+ open technical true and fair documentation
Except for Microsoft, there is means patent cartell,
+ tons of paper without any useful documentation
You don't understand the mind of a MS apologist. Bill Gates does not need a reality distortion field like Steve Jobs has. Each MS apologists comes with one pre-installed. No reality can enter their world.
The guy you are responding hasn't read the article because he can't. He sees nothing. It is not even a void. A void is an absence, to him there is not even nothing to not exist.
They pretend Bing is going to kick googles ass, then just a few months later when MS itself says they lost, they ignore it. They ignore everything that doesn't suit them because it doesn't fit into how their world works.
And really, you got to feel sorry for them. At least Jobs fanboys get Apple goodies. What do MS apologists get? The zune. Whee! But don't worry, version X+1 will fix it all. Like windows mobile 7. No multi-tasking (unlike promised) and no copy&past. But don't worry, this is not actually a problem. A true MS apologists can smoothly go from claiming that WM7 is superior because it has multi-tasking to how it is superior because it doesn't.
You got to admire an apologists who can claim in a story were MS is trying to chance favoring opensource and claim they are not worried about it in the same post. Amazing. I for one applaud him. Or pity. Or ridicule. My English is not that good, which is the one where you point and go "HAHA"?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In my experience, Europe, sadly, is more strongly in corporate hands than the US. The EU effectively hands out many billions in subsidies to corporations. (That's in addition to all the agricultural subsidies, which are an evil that is as prevalent in the EU as it is in the US.)
Standards should be decided by the free market, of which Microsoft is a very successful part, and not by government bullies with guns, which is exactly what you advocate!
If Hitler had marketed his government's means to power as "open source standards" then you'd be heiling him to this very day!
(Signed: Alex Libman's sock-puppet.)
"Bill Gates does not need a reality distortion field like Steve Jobs has"
Bill Gates has very little to do with the running of MS these days.
And they sell themselves at rock bottom prices!!!
Just look at how many Republicans are still angry about 9/11 or how many Jews are still pissed about the Holocaust or how many Southerns are mad about the Civil War.
Zero Wing has lots of life left in it.
We, the IT people in Seoul, South Korea believe otherwise...
The French magazine cited for confirmation doesn't say anything about Microsoft.
So all that leaves is with is that some guy twittered that the bogeyman^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HMicrosoft is coming, and when we look at the latest draft of the Digital Agenda document--its still fine.
Flash - What Silverlight is seeking to replace.
Flash currently makes up for HTML's shortcomings.
You people are so blind it's pathetic. No wonder it's so easy to compete against you at work.
It's like shooting lemmings falling off of a cliff in to a barrel.
Irrelevant. How an open standard is defined is not the point (unless it's seriously lacking in functionality - but then it would never be used anyway).
If a standard is open it means that
a:) Somewhere there is publicly available definition of how to implement that standard. Like a list of all HTML tags, what they mean and guidelines on hwo to render them.
b:) No patents or licencing restrictions. A particular library or implementation may be protected (Opera's paid for web browser, for example), but I and others are free to choose other software that also follows the standard or implement our own.
c:) Documents and data based on the standard are interchangeable - I can view an HTML document in nearly any browser and still read and view it.
Ultimately, encouraging the use of open standards limits noone (be it company or individual) and empowers end users and society in general. In the case of a format like ODF for example, nothing at all prevents MS fully supporting it - that they do so half heartedly is their choice.
What a widely used open standard does do, however, is force sofware implementations to compete - be it on value for money, features, reliability, speed etc. That's only bad for those companies or groups that simply lack the ability to compete fairly.
So no, it matters not how the standard was defined - if it's solid, useable and open then it's all good. Needless to say, it's often better to have multiple open standards for certain things to allow competition between the formats themsleves.
"...So I hung back and lurked. For 18 months. Can't beat a good old-fashioned lurking."
Most of HTML's shortcomings are Microsoft's fault. Just sayin'.
Neelie Kroes nowadays is the European Commisioner for Digital Agenda. Up until last year, she was European Commisioner for Competition. If she'd be siding up with MS in the "war against everything 'open'", she'd be siding up with her old enemy. She cost MS billions in the six years she was commisioner for competition. ;-).
Besides, this Digital Agenda thingy isn't all too bad. It's in favor of open standards, promotes fast internet (with all european bureaucracy, it's actually saying absolute goals to achieve) and innovation. It doesn't mention a single word about propietary software.
Nelie Kroes is pretty annoyed with them. They got a very, very big fine for misbehaving and tried to get away, using all kinds of tactics, from paying. Now they are trying to apply corruption, to the same person which fought long and hard to give them that fine? I wonder how long it'll take Microsoft to figure out that she's not very charmed by their behavior.
Here's for hoping that "favor open" turns into "require open". It would be consistent with her earlier behavior; making the right choice even when all kinds of pressure are applied to her.
She's the right person in the right place, lets just hope Microsoft applies enough pressure that she gets really pissed.
That's a bit like replacing perl with assembly, on the grounds that perl is too hard to read.
Now stop wasting everyone's time.
Living next door to Redmond in Seattle, I have met many current and former Microsoft employees. I hear 3 things from most every current employee: 1. Linux is... (insert term of derision) 2. You would not have the problem if you would just use Windows. 3. You have to use Windows, you don't have a choice. Is the attitude of the employees a reflection of the corporation they work for?
To: "Cry havoc and unleash the dogs of war" or rather "Cry havoc and unleash the slashdot hordes".