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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?"

14 of 164 comments (clear)

  1. Gay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    You're all gay.

    1. Re:Gay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

      You wish, chunnel-butt.

  2. Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    The less "open standards" clusterfucks designed by committees of self-righteous idiots the better.

    These people always want to tell you how you should do your stuff, but for some reason they seem less concerned with ensuring that you can accomplish your task without a bunch of insane workarounds to compensate for missing features.

    Case in point: HTML.

    Seriously, most of the "open standards" people i've had teh misfortune of working with have been total fucktards.

    1. Re:Good by MightyMartian · · Score: 0, Troll

      And look, the Redmond Whores come out to play.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  3. Re:Importance by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 0, Troll

    Glyn Moody is well-known for posting articles that lack much or any substance and getting them posted here at Slashdot is just a way for him to easily drum up page hits.

  4. Re:Importance by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 0, Troll

    Because these "open" standards aren't being predominately developed by multinational corporations that want to sell their own products? You must be profoundly ignorant of the real world if you think these supposed "open" standards aren't steered by and tainted by corporate greed as much as any "proprietary" standard.

  5. Re:Acta related? by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 0, Troll

    Seems to me open standards would hinder a closed-sourced DRM scheme designed to limit communication.

    Why? There's nothing stopping someone from taking any open standard format and slapping on a DRM scheme.

  6. Re:Spin doctor much? by boarder8925 · · Score: 0, Troll

    Lunix isn't trolling, he's making an observation, and one that's not too wrong either.

  7. Re:War by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    It's not "war". It's about non-violent totalitarianism, plain and simple. That's what the EU has always been about, and what it will always be about. It's about Germany and France controlling the rest of Europe, without having to resort to destructive wars like in the past. And for the most part, they've succeeded. Germany and France now dictate economic policy for countries like Greece, they dictate social policy, and now they dictate technological policies.

  8. Re:Importance by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 0, Troll

    This about me not having to pay rent to MS to interact with my government.

    So instead you pay it to IBM? How exactly are you some how better off?

  9. Yo0 Fail it? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll
  10. Re:War by ducomputergeek · · Score: 0, Troll

    Think about this: look at the vision of Europe laid out by Hitler in Mein Kampf then look at Europe today. Not to Godwin or anything, it's worth just taking a an objective look. While the finer details maybe different, the general picture is eerily similar. Makes one wonder just who really won WWII sixty years later...

    --
    "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
  11. Re:Desperation? by phantomfive · · Score: 0, Troll

    Wow, you are dumb

    --
    Qxe4
  12. Question by Linuxguy60 · · Score: 0, Troll

    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?