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UK Gov't Says Open Standards Must Be Royalty Free

Posted by timothy on from the does-the-queen-still-use-red-hat? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The H reports on an interesting development in the United Kingdom's procurement policy. From the article: 'New procurement guidance from the UK government has defined open standards as having "intellectual property made irrevocably available on a royalty free basis." The document, which has been published by the Cabinet Office, applies to all government departments and says that, when purchasing software, technology infrastructure, security or other goods and services, departments should "wherever possible deploy open standards."'"

1 of 91 comments (clear)

  1. Open source is a conspiracy to rip off programmers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    Do you get free food, free rent, free gas, free cars? I hate the whole open source thing. Torvalds and Stallman are communists. They are enemies of IT. They have damaged the pricing power of my industry.

    Once laptop per child. Need anymore examples what happens when open source gets even close to delivering it's socialist Utopian fantasy?

    Intellectual Property. That is a fantasy created by legal parasites. Look at Coca Cola. They just kept their IP secret. No need for lawyers and tricky dicky words on reams of dead trees.

    You are being exploited. Torvalds and Stallman are communist infiltrators.

    Please. Stop doing stuff for free. Don't even fix your mom's computer unless there is cold hard cash upfront.

    No pay, no play. Then they wonder where all the experienced IT people are, and where the next generation of IT people are to come from. PAY THEM. THEY WILL COME.

    I don't work for free. You should not work for free either. I have not earned one dollar supporting open source. I piss on that business model.