Lobbyists Attack UK Open Standards Policy

superglaze writes "The Business Software Alliance, a lobbying organisation representing the likes of Microsoft, Adobe and Apple, has laid into the UK's recently-adopted policy of mandating the use of open standards wherever possible in government IT systems.The policy describes open standards as being "publicly available at zero or low cost" and having "intellectual property made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis" The BSA said this would "inadvertently reduce choice [and] hinder innovation", and even went so far as to claim open standards would lead to higher e-government costs, but open-source advocates say the policy reflects how much the European Interoperability Framework is weighted in favour of the proprietary software companies."

Comments

Free Software in Government

[Pricetx]

I'm personally full supporting a move away from proprietary software in government, it can only be a move for the good.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Fluffeh]

It has been tried in a few South American countries, with some success and some failure.

The problem is all about training people on how to use the new software. Using OO Writer instead of Word for example. Sure, sounds simple, the nerds can probably fgure it out without blinking, but it is all the NON-NERDS who make it a very expensive idea to test. They all have to be trained, they lose some productivity for a while, they have to learn how to do new tricks that might be application specific and the like.

The problem with government is that they rarely want to engage in a project that has a longer return on investment than the next election date. They don't want to be the government that lost 20% productivity during a financially difficult time for the net benefit of saving the next government a bunch of cash. Sad, but true.

Re:Free Software in Government

[digitig]

The problem is all about training people on how to use the new software. Using OO Writer instead of Word for example. Sure, sounds simple, the nerds can probably fgure it out without blinking, but it is all the NON-NERDS who make it a very expensive idea to test. They all have to be trained, they lose some productivity for a while, they have to learn how to do new tricks that might be application specific and the like.

How do you think the cost of cross-training from Word 2003 to OpenOffice.Org (or LibreOffice) Writer would compare to cross-training from Word 2003 to Word 2007?

Re:Free Software in Government

[bmo]

>The problem is all about training people on how to use the new software. Using OO Writer instead of Word for example. Sure, sounds simple, the nerds can probably fgure it out without blinking, but it is all the NON-NERDS who make it a very expensive idea to test.

It's a freakin' word processor. That's all it is. A word processor isn't some esoteric specialized piece of software.

If you can't figure out a random word processor and use it, you should just be given an old Underwood manual typewriter and an OCR document scanner instead (do I hear cheers for this from some people?).

It's not rocket surgery, people. Word is not the be-all/end-all of document creation software. And the people who claim "but Writer doesn't have $ESOTERICFEATURE" don't realize (or deliberately ignore the fact) that 99 percent of people who use word processors use them as glorified typewriters with spell and grammar check and $ESOTERICFEATURE gets used *maybe* once a year, if that. (I asked people at work how often they used pivot tables, and the answer was "twice a year, maybe" and pivot tables was supposed to be /the/ defining feature of Word97)

People today aren't any different from people 25 years ago using DOS based Word Perfect without any GUI whatsoever. We didn't have all this bitching and moaning about training when companies migrated from WP to Word. They just did it. Sure the WP users bitched, but that's because Word is (and shall always be) inferior to WP, but "training" was never an issue.

What a bunch of crybabies the anti-OO people are.

--
BMO

Re:Free Software in Government

[marcello_dl]

retraining is inevitable with proprietary software, too, only it`s perceived as inevitable. Office07 and vista needed retraining. Changing laptop brand means a different crop of preinstalled utilities. win8 has an announced new GUI.
Once in FOSS land, the personalization of user experience is almost never a goal.

Re:Free Software in Government

[gandhi_2]

In my experience, no one trains anyone on shit, which may be your point.

New computer, new OS, new office suite. It looks different? Tough shit, get back to work. Whether it was XP to Vista or 7. Or from Office03 to Office07 or Office2010... It may as well be OpenOffice, the same grumbling about menu items and behaviors that gradually subsides as people get back to work.

Hell, I deployed a bunch of ubuntu boxes in elementary schools for student use and purposely didn't tell anyone anything more than the logins just to see what would happen. They just figured it out, teachers and students alike. Not like they are doing VBA programming or something.

The "training" thing is a red herring MOST of the time.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Patch86]

The problem is all about training people on how to use the new software. Using OO Writer instead of Word for example. Sure, sounds simple, the nerds can probably fgure it out without blinking, but it is all the NON-NERDS who make it a very expensive idea to test. They all have to be trained, they lose some productivity for a while, they have to learn how to do new tricks that might be application specific and the like.

That is the problem with migrating to any new software, regardless of whether it's open or proprietary.

Unless we're really suggesting that UK government (and the rest) should never consider changing to a new software package, even a far cheaper and superior one, ever again (which I'm guessing is not what a business lobby group like the BSA wants) then that line of argument is moot.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Darinbob]

It can be even simpler than this. Ie, store documents in PDF format for instance instead of Word format. You can still use proprietary tools if you want to create them. It doesn't cut Adobe or Microsoft out of the picture as long as they use open and interoperable standards.

Re:Free Software in Government

[ancientt]

I did read the article, but I haven't read much more on the subject, still, I think there may be a misunderstanding here. If we're talking about open standards, we're not necessarily talking about training people to use different software, just different standards. You don't have to use Writer, just make sure that your people are saving their Word documents in ODT, XML, HTML or RTF. I know there is some argument over some forms of that and differing success rates, but when you move large numbers of people to an open standard, it makes the implementation tend to be better.

We have some of this in our own office, though without the government push, which I am grateful for even if it does make my job a little harder. We are currently allowing people to submit documentation only through the primary CMS system, but supporting files include HTML, XLS and PDF because it makes it easy to expect anybody in the future to be able to access them. It has been against the grain for some people but with the flood of emails being resent because they sent the first one with a DOCX attachment, the case has gotten easier with the passing of time. Nothing makes it easier to sell "use a format everyone can use" than Microsoft Word not being able to open something somebody else created with Microsoft Word.

I love my Linux distro's free software that I can use to do nearly anything, but I can sympathize with people who just want to keep doing the job they've been doing. It would simplify my life tremendously if Microsoft started offering an option to set the default file format to an open one, something that could come out of discussions like this.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Windowser]

The problem is all about training people on how to use the new software. Using OO Writer instead of Word for example. Sure, sounds simple, the nerds can probably fgure it out without blinking, but it is all the NON-NERDS who make it a very expensive idea to test. They all have to be trained, they lose some productivity for a while, they have to learn how to do new tricks that might be application specific and the like.

Every time somebody serves me the "training" bullshit, I ask them that simple question :
When you drive a new car, do you need to go re-take your driving lessons ?

Re:Free Software in Government

[WorBlux]

The solution is not to hire 8-year olds or 80-year olds for serious government work.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Kitkoan]

Guessing you've never worked for the government, have you? Most don't get their jobs because they are qualified, they got it because they knew the right people.

Re:Free Software in Government

[atomicbutterfly]

How do you think the cost of cross-training from Word 2003 to OpenOffice.Org (or LibreOffice) Writer would compare to cross-training from Word 2003 to Word 2007?

Apart from the fact no-one is trained to use a word processor anymore, keep in mind that the transition from Word 2003 -> 2007 would be easier as well on the file format. Open/LibreOffice parses .doc files more accurately in every new release, but nothing compares to the real thing. No-one uses .odt in the real world, except for perhaps a newer company who uses Open/LibreOffice and can use the format for internal documents which aren't designed to be sent to MS Office users.

Re:Free Software in Government

[RazorSharp]

No-one uses .odt in the real world, except for perhaps a newer company who uses Open/LibreOffice and can use the format for internal documents which aren't designed to be sent to MS Office users.

Yeah, that little upstart IBM is a nobody that exists in the fake-world.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Nursie]

And just who is sending all these word documents around anyway?

I never get emailed documents, I get emailed links to web pages, and occasionally pdfs, but 'doc' ?

Can't think of the last tim I had to deal with it.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Nursie]

I've seen that before and it *is* hilarious, and a testament to human stupidity.

OTOH, if you're that stupid or ill-equipped to deal with a computer, maybe you shouldn't be using one in a professional capacity to start with.

Re:Free Software in Government

[bmo]

And if anyone pulled that at work, they'd be out the door by Friday.

I've never had a job where management gave in because I'm incompetent in something.

--
BMO

Re:Free Software in Government

[Kitkoan]

I have when I worked with the government. I got written up for expecting a fellow worker to be able to keep up when I pointed out he had no problems doing the same amount of work when he was alone, but it somehow takes 3 times as long when he knew he'd get help.

Re:Free Software in Government

[jbolden]

Governments have longer time frames than industry. And certainly longer than consumers. They aren't so bad on this criteria.

Re:Free Software in Government

[jbolden]

Actually I have used open office to create structured documents. Since you mentioned LyX let me just point out that OO has a great export to LaTeX feature which allows for very structured documents, and in fact makes it easy to import into LyX.

That being said I agree with your basic point that MS software is quite a bit ahead.

Re:Free Software in Government

[jbolden]

LaTeX isn't a word processor. Its a typesetting system. The word processor its closest to is Adobe Framemaker.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Anonymous Coward]

How about we stop babying luddites and tell them to swim or sink. The ease of using a new model of same class of software has nothing to do with being a nerd. People buy new TVs with vastly different controls to their old TVs and adjust. Many of the same people they resist learning new tools of trade out of resentment of change in the workplace, which they hide behind a screen of technological difficulty. What's the difference between Word, Pages, Open Office Writer, etc. Function location and some workflow differences. None of it is technological, it's simply design.

Don't defend the dumb. Embrace change, it makes us smarter.

Re:Free Software in Government

[atomicbutterfly]

Yeah, that little upstart IBM is a nobody that exists in the fake-world.

One company using .odt does not outrank the thousands of others who don't. Yes I said "no-one", yes it's a little hyperbole, but the scale as to how many places use .doc as opposed to .odt is large enough to not really matter.

Re:Free Software in Government

[atomicbutterfly]

Companies sending documents to each other? I've had application documents for various services, invoices, technical reports, all in .doc format. Doesn't mean they wouldn't have been served better with PDFs, but I'm not going to tell people how to do their job. Better to have the tools available and ready to deal with them. I also work for a significant Government department and we use a shitload of .doc files.

Maybe you're just isolated (no offense, but geeks have a habit of not being in the environments where most of these issues appear, and hence think their experiences are typical).

Re:Free Software in Government

[rainmouse]

The problem with government is that they rarely want to engage in a project that has a longer return on investment than the next election date. They don't want to be the government that lost 20% productivity during a financially difficult time for the net benefit of saving the next government a bunch of cash. Sad, but true.

Not sure I fully agree, while as an office worker for a temping agency I saw a lot of different office environments and came to realise that the vast majority of Office users know only a few basic functions and a well written excel document could easily replace a few unnecessary staff (usually my own role) if only someone there knew how to use it. It really wouldn't take long to transfer those staggeringly limited skills to another very similar platform.

I mostly read the headline as "Beer Company Alliance speaks out against free beer and warns of health hazards".

Re:Free Software in Government

[Nursie]

Oh sure, I probably am isolated from it. It's why my previous post was only semi-rhetorical.

It does seem to me that a lot of the circumstances you describe have a better solution, be that PDF, web based forms or whatever else.

The few things I use office-style document editors for are my resume and running up labels for homebrew beer, and then the results are printed to either paper, labels or PDF.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Anonymous Coward]

This is about open STANDARDS, not open software. The whole point is that by using open standards you can actually CHOOSE the best software for the circumstances, instead of being locked to one product.

What do you do when the development of a proprietary product stagnates and all your data is in non-open proprietary format? You pay whatever the vendor asks for, and hope for a miracle. At least with open standards you have the choice to do something about it.

Re:Free Software in Government

[tsm_sf]

The "training" thing is a red herring MOST of the time.

Now we may never receive HTML email with fancy borders.

Re:Free Software in Government

[mwvdlee]

Fact is; the UK decision in no way hinders proprietary software (since they're all free and capable of supporting the open standards) and in no way benefits open source software (since many use non-standardized file formats). If anything, open standards level the playing field for both old and new companies.

This basically shows the true nature of the BSA. They don't represent "business software"; they represent "a few large companies". The BSA corporation should go back to fighting copyright infringement for their customers instead of acting like an industry lobbyist organisatiion.

The UK has made the only possible right choice in requiring the software tools they rely on to be exchangable and their data to be independant of the tools they use.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Anonymous Coward]

'course, the homebrew app that runs under Win32 and explicitly invokes Word to do its, say, letters and labels, that's not so red a herring. MS Office is pretty ubiquitous and with ubiquity comes people who code assuming you have it. Another insidious bit of the lock-in.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Compaqt]

Hear, hear. Somebody mod this up.

For all the crying and moaning about features, 90% of the people in most offices just use Word for writing dead simple letters or 2 or 3-page "strategy papers" if they can manage that.

Back in the day, they'd hand it off to the typing pool, but now companies give everyone a computer and expect them to come up with their own documents.

And if you're using Word for brochures, or books: Come on, people. Use a desktop publishing program (Adobe's, or at least MS Publisher), or FrameMaker.

Re:Free Software in Government

[FireFury03]

In my experience, no one trains anyone on shit, which may be your point.

Whether of not there is an official training course, there are still training costs associated with any change in the UI - you lose productivity while those staff are "training themselves". Of course, this applies whether you move to a new version of MS Office with a fundamentally different UI, or to Open Office.

Re:Free Software in Government

[FireFury03]

It does seem to me that a lot of the circumstances you describe have a better solution, be that PDF, web based forms or whatever else.

Just because there are better solutions doesn't mean that people will use them.

I have customers who *never* send me a plain text email - they send me a word attachment instead. Yes, it's stupid, annoying and wastes my time (waiting for OO Writer to fire up is a lot slower than just reading a plain text email in Alpine), but no amount of wishing will make them stop doing this sort of crazyness. Similarly customers who, when reporting an error, will send me a screen shot embedded in a word document rather than just copying/pasting the error text (or even a screenshot attached to an email rather than being wrapped in a word doc). Again, I have no clue why anyone would do this but the fact remains that they do and I have to deal with it.

Similarly, most people use closed systems such as MSN IM, Skype, etc. instead of the better (more open and therefore more interoperable) solutions such as XMPP and SIP. They simply know no different, and when it is explained to them they usually tend to think that this isn't important enough to them to bother changing. Personally I use XMPP and SIP for my communication needs... when people discover that they can't contact me via MSN and Skype they just end up phoning me instead.

Re:Free Software in Government

[gbjbaanb]

for you and me maybe, but for the likes of Doris, Sharon and Kylie in the administration call centre its a completely different story.

Ever wonder why companies are still running XP? This is the reason - training all thouse thousands of staff is a big deal.

After all, if training was something that no-one did, the training companies would all be out of business by now, wouldn't they.

Re:Free Software in Government

[FireFury03]

How about we stop babying luddites and tell them to swim or sink. The ease of using a new model of same class of software has nothing to do with being a nerd. People buy new TVs with vastly different controls to their old TVs and adjust. Many of the same people they resist learning new tools of trade out of resentment of change in the workplace, which they hide behind a screen of technological difficulty. What's the difference between Word, Pages, Open Office Writer, etc. Function location and some workflow differences. None of it is technological, it's simply design.

Don't defend the dumb. Embrace change, it makes us smarter.

The difference here is that when someone gets a new TV they are getting a benefit from it, which offsets the need to learn new stuff. I.e. you just upgraded your crappy old 24" screen to a shiny new 50" one so there is incentive in figuring it out (not to mention the fact that TVs are pretty easy to figure out compared to most desktop software). When your employer mandates that you are going to have to change to a new bit of software what essentially does exactly what the old software does then there is no "instant reward" for you, so you're probably going to resent having to learn this new thing (especially as, inevitably, you discover some functionality missing... and this isn't to say that one bit of software has worse functionality to another, but that the functionality has minor differences so that whichever way you go you are likley to find some functionality that you're used to is missing.)

Re:Free Software in Government

[Hognoxious]

Yes, if the steering wheel is replaced by a piece of string and changing gear is done by a trackball.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Dorkmaster Flek]

Again, I have no clue why anyone would do this but the fact remains that they do and I have to deal with it.

The reason they do it is because they don't have a clue either. For many of these users, MS Word is possibly the only thing they know how to work with any kind of proficiency, with the exception of a web browser. Even then, they probably think IE is the Internet.

Re:Free Software in Government

[nobodie]

let me ditto that. I did a 1 semester pilot study of OO.o use by the faculty study of my school in China (multiple languages. multiple use scenarios, multiple expectations of the software) and concluded that the best solution was to design a new icon set that vaguely mimicked a certain well-known companies icon set from the late nineties and just tell everyone that we were using "Office 3.2" a new product designed for schools. The IT department, however, screamed that they did not have the help desk to help people through the upgrade so we are still using 2003 crapware.

Open Office points out that conversion of files can be the biggest problem in switch-overs, and while this is true, most of the conversion problems were happening in the pilot from stuff that had been written in earlier versions of MS Office, and then had things adapted through cut and paste in later versions until any individual document had layers of tables and graphics that didn't fit on the MS pages either and required adaptation. The difference is that everyone is ONLY able to use 2003 now: they Hate 2007 and dread 2010 and didn't even want to consider that "Linux office thing".

People, the pimple on the ass of Progress. I welcome our robot overlords!

Re:Free Software in Government

[morgauxo]

When I saw how much 2007 was laid out different from everything that came before it I hoped there would be a switch to OO, which actually IS more like what a 2003 user would be used to. But it didn't happen. They just made the switch to 2007. And yet, the switch to OO would be too much trouble?

Re:Free Software in Government

[kwolf22]

I think there may be a misunderstanding here. If we're talking about open standards, we're not necessarily talking about training people to use different software, just different standards. You don't have to use Writer, just make sure that your people are saving their Word documents in ODT, XML, HTML or RTF.

I completely agree with your reasoning here. The original article claims that the BSA is getting all bent out of shape because of a new procurement policy note that recommends using Open Standards when "purchasing software, ICT infrastructure, ICT security and other ICT goods and services." For the most part, it seems that the note was well received & makes a lot of sense. However, the BSA seems to take issue with the part that states: "Government defines “open standards” as standards which... [among other items listed] have intellectual property made irrevocably available on a royalty free basis... "

Maybe, I'm having some difficulty parsing the meaning of this, but I interpret this as "any IP that you create using said product should remain viewable/usable in the future without having to pay additional money for another upgrade/version of said product." Maybe I'm wrong (I'm American and speak a different dialect of English)... Or maybe the BSA thinks that requiring customers to pay for upgrades in order to access their IP is important to their constituents...

Re:Free Software in Government

[milkmage]

c'mon now.. an elementary school is not the same as an enterprise.. they don't have the same needs.

speaking from personal experience, the "ribbon" in the new office kicked my ass for a while.. never got any official training, but I can tell you it took me a lot longer to perform simple tasks in the new XL than it did in the the old one

the core functions didn't change, but having to re-learn where they put "set print area" or even the god damn "save as.." was annoying - did I need to call the IT guys? no, but I did spend an 5-10 minutes poking at the ribbon.. multiply that by 5-10 separate functions, and you lose an hour.

just because your teachers didn't call you doesn't mean finding what they needed didn't take extra time - I'll bet half of them clicked on every icon until they found a browser because there are a lot of people who think the "internet" is the IE icon, and had NO IDEA what the "orange dog on the blue globe" is.

upgrade the school district administration's machines and see what happens:

hi, ghandi_2
where's my shit?.. I think my computer is broken - the kittens don't show in my signature anymore.
thanks -
random luddite admin.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Nursie]

There was a "dailywtf" the other week that covered the wrapped in word thing very well. Someone had taken a screenshot of their error, printed it, scanned it, then embedded it in a doc file....

That site does suffer from obvious fakes once in a while, but it's believable I suppose.

Thank god I don't have to deal with that sort of crap!

Re:Free Software in Government

[speculatrix]

having dealt with the stupidity of even supposedly clueful people, I can believe almost everything has some basis in fact, even the coffee cup holder story.
sometimes I read this site:
http://clientcopia.com/
but only when I've not had to do any IT support for a while!!

Re:Free Software in Government

[s73v3r]

Moving from Office 2003 to OO Writer can't be anywhere near as difficult as moving from Office 2003 to Office 2007 or 2010. The UI change is much more pronounced in the latter case.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Runaway1956]

That was exactly my thought. The poor boobs never learned any computer science, and they know nothing about the Windows (or any other) operating system. But, they DID sit through endless classes in high school, learning how to use MS Word, and MS Office. So, anytime they need to do ANYTHING, they sift through the dusty attics of their minds, trying to remember how the teacher said it should be done. Personally, I don't open attachments. Oh, it's probably safe for me to do so - nothing autoruns on my system, and I don't even run Windows, so I could open .doc or any other files sent to me. But, I don't. I won't. I've never seen anything in an attachment that I really wanted to see, so I stopped opening them. If that means I miss out on the contract of my life, so be it. I'm just not going to open an attachment.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Runaway1956]

People go shopping for cars all the time. They switch from a Ford to a Hyundai, to a Chrysler, to a Honda to yet something else again. And, every time they switch, they have to relearn where all the important stuff is. The accelerator and the steering wheel are always in the same place, but almost nothing else. If people can switch between cars, they can switch between applications, and 'gasp' even operating systems. A lot of this resistance to switching is the result of FUD, put out by microsoft, and microsoft fanboys. "Elmer, I'm telling you, if you switch from MS Office, it's going to cost you! It may take Ellie Mae a month or more to figure out how to open a document - and there's no telling how much business you might lose in the meantime!" Pure bullshit.

Re:Free Software in Government

[Runaway1956]

You may, or may not, be joking about calling tech support to plug the computer in. I work maintenance. About three years ago, I got a callout on the weekend. I got to work, to find a minor flood in a rear area of the plant. I looked around, fearing that I might have some real work ahead of me. About ten seconds into my looking around, I spotted an extension cord laying in the water. That extension cord powers a sump pump, which is supposed to keep the area dry. I wrote in the maintenance log, "Call out to plug in an extension cord." Somehow, that log book found it's way to the front office, where the big bosses discussed the call out. To make a long story short, I've never been called out again for something quite so frivolous or stupid. The techs tend to look for simple solutions now, before calling a maintenance man out on the weekend.

Re:Free Software in Government

[RockDoctor]

Hell, I deployed a bunch of ubuntu boxes in elementary schools for student use and purposely didn't tell anyone anything more than the logins just to see what would happen. They just figured it out, teachers and students alike

It was an uncommon day at my current workplace when no-one saw my Ubuntu desktop (on my personal machine, not the works machine) and then asked me what I thought of Windows 7. Not, I should say, because they thought I might know what Windows 7 was like, but because they thought that my (more-or-less-vanilla) Ubuntu desktop WAS a Windows 7 machine.

It didn't surprise me. Sad to say, it didn't surprise me in the slightest. At least one of them mistook my colleague's MacBookSomething for a Win7 box. I assume this means that few people have ever seen Windows 7 ; I don't recall having seen it.

Re:Free Software in Government

[gandhi_2]

"orange dog on the blue globe"

LOL! I've never heard that one, I will start using that from now on!

Re:Free Software in Government

[WorBlux]

Of course. Without a price system there is no way to rationally allocate resources, and price systems require voluntary exchange. However government has no customers, only subjects, so a great number of systems not based on productivity or value will be used to make decisions about how to use resources.

But my point is the only excuse for being that dumb when it comes to computers is if your mind is impaired in some way.

Logical

[markdavis]

Leave it to lobbyists to come up with their own unique and twisted logic....

Proprietary = choice
Openness = restricted
Freedom = anti-competitive
Free cost = expensive
Closed = innovation

I am sure the governments will do the "right" thing, and do whatever the lobbyist push on them, as has been seen time and time again.

Re:Logical

[pieterh]

The fight over what this goes back ages and is intensely political, given the sums of money involved. Internet, open standards. GSM, captive standards. No argument which generated more value, but which was more profitable for the people controlling the technology?

Here is an analysis of why firms like those the BSA represents want to capture computing standards, and how they do it.

Re:Logical

[exomondo]

Closed = innovation

That's about the only one that kind of makes sense on some level, i mean it's much easier to secure funding to develop IP when that IP itself has value.

Re:Logical

[nethenson]

They are simply very good at implementing the open standard "ISO-1984: Newspeak terminology".

Re:Logical

[markdavis]

And yet, you can build innovative products that still incorporate open standards and even open code.

And you can build innovative closed products that run on open systems.

And you can build profitable support and customization businesses on completely open products.

And you can incorporate open concepts and interoperability into closed products.

There are lots of options in today's world that can bring openness and standards into play. But one wouldn't know that listening to only what big corporations and lobbyist say and push.

Re:Logical

[dkleinsc]

It's really very simple. Any lobbyist for a business or industry has one message for their politician targets: "We want more money, and we'll make it worth your while to give us more money."

Any other message coming from lobbyists or corporate spokespeople is basically nonsense used to create a false explanation for the politician's actions which just so happen to benefit the lobbyist's industries.

Re:Logical

[jo_ham]

Note that they didn't actually say that. You have interpreted it that way, but this is slashdot. Microsoft open sourcing windows would be met with "it's a trap!".

They said the policy would reduce choice and hinder innovation, because it *does* place restrictions on choice. "Open only" is more restrictive than "Open or Closed, whatever works best for the task at hand".

Ideally for all public-accessible document and interchange formats, open is clearly strongly preferred, but whatever happened to "best tool for the job"?

Disclaimer: playing devil's advocate here but saying anything perceived to be "against" open software or supporting an "enemy" is dangerous around here.

Re:Logical

[mysidia]

Freedom = anti-competitive

Ubiquitous Vendor Lock-in = Competitive

Exorbitant Software License Fees = Lower e-government costs

Re:Logical

[youngone]

You forgot the most important one Bribes = Political Donations

Re:Logical

[exomondo]

And yet, you can build innovative products that still incorporate open standards and even open code.

So what's your point?

Re:Logical

[Em Adespoton]

This doesn't take into account the actual /guidelines/ which state that open is clearly strongly preferred, but closed is fine if there is no equal open alternative.

Looks like the lobbyists are playing snake to the government's apple.

Re:Logical

[marcello_dl]

Or worse they may switch from close to open and back every few years, for the vendors` and consultants` joy.
The argument about choice is the coolest: you want a wider choice of targets so you shoot yourself in the foot, right?

Re:Logical

[gmueckl]

If the processes involved are similar to what they are here (different country, so not sure), it is entirely possible to circumvent such guidelines by postulating requirements that only a single preferred vendor can meet. It's just the art of being specific enough. So if there is a "best tool for the job" it must have some properties that other don't and that you can simply require without alternative and even without decent explanation.

Simple example: want to buy only nVidia GPUs for some reason? Just state that you need CUDA support and you're set.

Re:Logical

[srobert]

Now you're getting it: War is peace, freedom is slavery, and ignorance is strength. Welcome to the party brother.

Re:Logical

[marcello_dl]

But ogg theora, a clean room implementation of a video codec, is just 10-20% less efficient than the closed h264. Are we sure that the barriers erected with excessive IP protection (silly patents) are worth the differential in innovation?
Internet explorer was good when fighting netscape, frozen when dominant, better adhering to standards when competition started defeating it...

Re:Logical

[marcello_dl]

double plus LOL

Re:Logical

[MightyMartian]

That's right. There's no reason you couldn't have a hundred word processors that write ODF files. I mean, there must be thousands of text editors out there that all right ASCII or Unicode. Advanced programming IDEs are filled with tons of extra features, but they all puke out text files.

The industry wants government to protect their proprietary business models, and, probably, the UK government will back down, because a) politicians by and large are fucking retards and b) are easily bought off by the industry.

Frankly, if I was a government, I'd gladly concede to their request, providing each company who planned on selling proprietary format-based software to the government must put in 100 million dollars a year into a contigency/insurance fund to make sure that documents and other files can be opened in fifty years, and to pay coders in that distant time to reverse engineer the proprietary formats.

Re:Logical

[MightyMartian]

The whole point of open formats is to assure the long-term access to file formats. If you allowed proprietary data formats through, the whole point of assuring the longevity of a viable file is discarded, all in the name of short-term profit.

Any government that had the public good at heart would tell these bastards to go fuck off. If they want to do proprietary formats, they don't get to sell to the government, period.

Re:Logical

[Anthony Mouse]

That's about the only one that kind of makes sense on some level, i mean it's much easier to secure funding to develop IP when that IP itself has value.

Your implicit assumption is that open source software has no value. Which is, of course, false.

Plus, it's easier to create something better than what exists when you don't have to start from scratch, e.g. LibreOffice from OpenOffice, Firefox from Netscape, Chromium from WebKit, all the various BSDs from the original Berkeley version, all the various Linux distributions plus Android from the underlying platform, etc.

Re:Logical

[exomondo]

But ogg theora, a clean room implementation of a video codec, is just 10-20% less efficient than the closed h264. Are we sure that the barriers erected with excessive IP protection (silly patents) are worth the differential in innovation?

I don't know, in terms of time-to-market i would say probably yes. The main problem as i see it is that technological patents seem to have too long of a life.

Re:Logical

[Anthony Mouse]

It's really very simple. Any lobbyist for a business or industry has one message for their politician targets: "We want more money, and we'll make it worth your while to give us more money."

Any other message coming from lobbyists or corporate spokespeople is basically nonsense used to create a false explanation for the politician's actions which just so happen to benefit the lobbyist's industries.

That's not true at all. There's at least one other kind of message that comes from, in particular, media companies: "Do what we want or we'll publish unfavorable things about you to media consumers in your constituency."

Re:Logical

[_merlin]

I don't know what you're trying to say there. From my perspective, GSM has been awesome. It meant that I could use one mobile handset in most of the world. There are standard codes for controlling network features (call waiting, forwarding, call restrictions, etc.). Roaming and swapping in a local SIM are both simple. GSM was a huge success for consumers.

Re:Logical

[Anonymous Coward]

but whatever happened to "best tool for the job"?

Standards aren't tools. Standards are what tools are built upon. If the restriction was "open-sourced software only," then that would indeed be a restriction on choice. Governments would be forbidden from using Word with such a policy in place. However, the policy only requires documents adhere to an open standard. This can only result in more choice as an open standard can, by definition, be implemented by anyone. If we standardize to the .DOCX format we can only use Microsoft Word because it is the only product that can guarantee full compliance to the standard. If we standardize to the .ODF format we can still use Microsoft Word provided that they release a version of Word with .ODF support. Since that standard is open Microsoft can guarantee full compliance in their implementation. The difference, of course, is that we could also use OpenOffice, LibreOffice, or Joe Blow's Document Editor.

Conflating "open source" and "open standard" is exactly what Microsoft and company are trying to do, but they are very different things.

Re:Logical

[exomondo]

Your implicit assumption is that open source software has no value. Which is, of course, false.

Wrong, that's not at all what i implied, in fact i didn't mention open source software in there implicitly or explicitly. Go back and read what i wrote since it's obvious you have derived something that clearly is not there.

Plus, it's easier to create something better than what exists when you don't have to start from scratch

Of course, i didn't say nor imply that it wasn't.

Re:Logical

[Ltap]

I'm not sure if this was said before, but...

WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH

Is that really so different?

Re:Logical

[Anne Thwacks]

I think you will find that political correctness requires "LOL++".

Re:Logical

[niteshifter]

Pssst .... Open Standards != Open Source Software.

Governments are obligated to hold a long term view on documents, public or internal. Think decades and centuries, not years. The means by which documents are produced is immaterial in such a long view: MSO / OOo will - if either entity survives - be very different software in 50 years than they appear now. But the documents produced by either will still need to be accessible. Portable Document Format, OASIS / Open Document - these (and their open successors) are the only rational choice for government, not merely preferred. MS .doc / .xls, nor the psuedo-open OOXML are not rational choices.

Re:Logical

[richlv]

"best tool" should be evaluated by taking into account long term expenses, flexibility, fostering competition in the marketplace (we're talking about public bodies), maximising the benefit to citizens and sooooo on.

so essentially, nothing happened to the "best tool for the job", it's just that some people have started to look at the job at hand and figured out that "moving papers around" might not be all there is.

Re:Logical

[FrankieBaby1986]

Ideally for all public-accessible document and interchange formats, open is clearly strongly preferred, but whatever happened to "best tool for the job"?

From TFS: ...mandating the use of open standards wherever possible in government IT systems.

They leave a loophole right there. Wherever possible. I'd imagine You could demonstrate that a closed solution is far superior to an open one, and be able to use it.

IOW,

[Anonymous Coward]

the otherwise good policy means some of the BSA's members will lose their monopolies, and opportunities to create new ones in the future.

We can't have the public interest taking precedence over someone's profits, can we?

Re:IOW,

[Anne Thwacks]

This is the UK. In about 1960, the infamous Christine Keeler explained it all with the simple expression "They would say that, wouldn't they!" A legend.

Re:long term security?

[0123456]

So what happens then if a particular "open" standard is abandoned and the existing viewers for the content grow insecure?

The same thing that happens when a proprietary standard is abandoned, except that the source code is freely available so the government can hire someone to maintain it.

Extended warranties

[Citizen of Earth]

Sounds a bit like extended warranties on consumer electronics. If the deal is really a benefit to you and not some money-grubbing scheme, then why do they try SOO hard to sell them to you?

Re:Extended warranties

[mjwx]

Sounds a bit like extended warranties on consumer electronics. If the deal is really a benefit to you and not some money-grubbing scheme, then why do they try SOO hard to sell them to you?

Depends if it's first of third party.

First party warranties, even extended warranties are worth their weight in gold, at least in Oz where it they cant give the court the run-around.

However 3rd party warranties are only useful as very expensive toilet paper and it's not very soft or adsorbent either. Unlike a first party, the third party can shift the blame back to the first party saying it's not their problem, the first party will of course claim it's not their warranty so not their problem and this can continue back and forth for ever in theory. It's a brilliant scheme, in a Machiavellian sense. Another popular one is "waiting for parts", I know someone who waited for parts for 9 months on a Harvey Norman (imagine Walmart but crappier) warranty for a HP laptop.

Re:Extended warranties

[greed]

And if their products are so unreliable that an extended warranty is a good idea, why do I want to buy it in the first place?

Saying that, turning, and walking out of the store is extremely fun, BTW.

To be honest, though, I got it from my grandmother: She was buying a washer, and the salesman was going through all the "Maytag is so reliable" things (back when they still were). Then, after writing up the sale, he started in on the extended warranty. My grandmother just said, "You just told me how reliable these machines are. Now you're trying to sell me a warranty? Forget it, I'll go somewhere else and get a different one." There was quite a lot of backpedalling and a Maytag did eventually turn up at her apartment, sans extra warranty.

Tax Payers

[DaMattster]

Ultimately, the BSA should just STFU and go away. Open Source reduces costs to the tax payer because the software plus licenses do not have to be purchased. In these economic times, it makes sense to cut costs in this way. Additionally, open source takes fewer people to support because it is generally more reliable. If Windows XP and Server families are any indication, it takes a veritable army of support personnel to keep it operational. Save money, ditch Microsoft!

Re:Tax Payers

[Yaa 101]

While I support you in ideological sense, the problem is that politicians are not judged on how many money they can save by slicing but by how many jobs they are able to generate.
Slicing money and jobs is not being perceived as a positive trait by the general public, also these unsafe Windows XP and Server families do generate an army of support personnel, which is seen as something positive.
I hope you see that reality in politics is often counter intuitive to what ideological makes sense.

b.t.w. I am a long time Linux user and would not use anything MS even if I were paid for it.

Re:Tax Payers

[westyvw]

You know what? I challenge this assumption:
First that cost is often associated with the training programs that the vendors themselves charge, and will not let you copy or distribute the training materials.

Second, and most importantly, if others join in this movement, we effectively have increased our knowledge and support base. Here the emphasis is on getting work done, contributions to the software, manuals, etc, are shared.

Third, and most important: If I am cutting costs, I would be willing to say to my employees, either help me save some money and learn to do things differently, or I will find someone who will. But dont be shy about it, be up front with cost savings, the bottom line, and how their contribution is saving all of our positions.

Re:Tax Payers

[hairyfish]

open source takes fewer people to support because it is generally more reliable. If Windows XP and Server families are any indication, it takes a veritable army of support personnel to keep it operational. Save money, ditch Microsoft!

You can easily run a server farm to support a $100million company on MS with one admin. Helpdesk numbers will depend on you level of service rather than your choice of client OS. I can only assume you have no idea what you are talking about, which seems to be typical of the linux zealots in this place.

Minority?

[SIR_Taco]

Maybe I'm a little bit in the minority here, but can you blame them?

If you owned a company, and one of your major clients was thinking about moving to another company, would you not try everything in your power to keep them?

Re:Minority?

[amanicdroid]

Can I blame them for blatantly lying?

Yup.

Can I charge them for ethics violations?

no.. :(

Re:Minority?

[PPH]

Including lie?

You assume your clients are, and always will be, uninformed. But if this isn't the case, you'll just poison the relationship and most likely lose future business that you could have had.

Re:Minority?

[marcello_dl]

But they don't try everything in their power. They don't try to make their product the best possible thing for the consumer at the most appropriate price. If they did, very few people would have ever considered to choose the FOSS path. They tried with FUD and who knows what other deals, instead.

Re:Minority?

[c0lo]

Maybe I'm a little bit in the minority here, but can you blame them?

On the same moral stands they use to spread FUD, I am allowed to (thus I can) blame them: it is called freedom of speech.

Re:Minority?

[Bert64]

Because actually competing is far less profitable, they would need to invest a lot of money into updating (their codebase is years old and probably very difficult to maintain), take big hits on pricing...
Meanwhile, open source competitors would still be improving at a gradual pace, and sooner or later will reach "good enough" status if not feature parity, at which point it all comes down to price and you cannot compete with free.

Don't underestimate the power of "Good enough", when the product is much cheaper (ie free) or well marketed it doesn't need to be the best, it just needs to be adequate... That has always been the MS selling point against proprietary unix, novell, wordperfect etc.

Re:Minority?

[gbjbaanb]

its not quite like that - if your customer was thinking of leaving, you'd ask them why and try to resolve the problem they had. If their problem was that they wanted to use open standards, then you'd probably start by telling them how much better your formats were, and if that didn't work, change your software to use the desired ones or tell them they could leave.

This is more like sending "Bonecrusher" and "Knuckles" round to tell them it wouldn't be in their best interests to change the status quo.

Still, I can't blame them for trying this, that's what they do. I can still criticise them for being that way though.

Re:Minority?

[GameboyRMH]

Forget that, lobbying is unethical. I don't care if corporations or unions are doing it, doing anything more than communicating (ideally via cheap correspondence, to level the playing field) with the government as a group is wrong to me. These groups are composed of people right? Well then they have the influence of their personal vote like everybody else. They can present their views on how they will use their personal votes as a group, that's fine. Allowing a group to exert any more influence than this is perverting the democratic process.

This is also why I think politicians meeting with business leaders is disgusting. For example, why should Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs be at a dinner with the President instead of, say, Joe who works at the Hot Dog stand and Amir the Cab Driver? They all have one vote to their name right? So what's going on? Why are these guys more important to politicians? We all know why but IMO they shouldn't be.

Re:Minority?

[Hognoxious]

What supporting open standards would mean is that large software companies would need to keep innovating and improving their products to keep the public interested. That would be good for everybody.

Everybody except the aforementioned software companies.

Keyword speak !!

[unity100]

Notice how keywords appear in corporations' or their lobbyists', or their lackey politicians speeches : "jobs, innovation, choice, market, consumer, economy"

sprinkle a few keywords in roundspeak, and you can issue a corporate statement portraying you as the innovator, despite you are doing everything in your power to feudalize intellectual activity on the planet through patents and make everyone pay to you as overlords.

gotta love roundspeak.

it is possible to crap in the middle of your granny's living room and then defend the action as an act of choice, liberty and act of cleanliness. (because you didnt crap in the fridge, instead of crapping in the middle of living room. that could be much worse - so, see, your better off !! )

Embrace the Reality and Logic of Choice

[Palestrina]

This is standard operating procedure for Microsoft. They use BSA or CompTIA to attack any open standards policy that is worthy of the name "open".

One way to point out the absurdity of their logic is to replace the reference to standards with references to any other useful technology that a government might adopt, like electrical standards.

For example:

http://www.robweir.com/blog/2008/04/embrace-reality-and-logic-of-choice.html

Re:Irony?

[jo_ham]

And what's wrong with that? They advocate on behalf of their members, but they don't say that their members' software and formats are the only option. Use whatever works!

The beauty of choice!

To be fair...

[Caerdwyn]

Are open-source advocates somehow NOT "lobbyists"?

Let's not pretend there's not money to be made by open source supporters. Windows admins might be replaced by Linux admins, but the money would still be spent. It's just going to someone else, and I'm not going to accept for one second that Linux admins somehow "deserve" to have a job more than Windows admins. As for licensing... just about any IT department can tell you that the license cost of a major software system is by no means the biggest cost of deploying and maintaining that software, particularly when scaled to the levels being discussed.

I'm not saying open source is "better" or "worse"... there are completely valid philosophical arguments in both directions, as well as completely valid financial arguments. What I am saying is that the automatic knee-jerk demonizing of any and all proprietary commercial software has no place in policy-making, particularly when the money you're trying to tell people how to spend is taken by threat of force from everyone around you. You do what works best, not what feels fuzziest.

Re:To be fair...

[canajin56]

Learn your terminology. An advocate is somebody who speaks in favor of something. A lobbyist is somebody who bribes politicians so they vote in favor of something.

Re:To be fair...

[h4rr4r]

In government FREE and open are needed so I the citizen is not forced to spend money I may not have just to interact with my government.

You should do what is cheapest, and what is best for your country.

Re:To be fair...

[Dcnjoe60]

Are open-source advocates somehow NOT "lobbyists"?

Let's not pretend there's not money to be made by open source supporters. Windows admins might be replaced by Linux admins, but the money would still be spent. It's just going to someone else, and I'm not going to accept for one second that Linux admins somehow "deserve" to have a job more than Windows admins. As for licensing... just about any IT department can tell you that the license cost of a major software system is by no means the biggest cost of deploying and maintaining that software, particularly when scaled to the levels being discussed.

I'm not saying open source is "better" or "worse"... there are completely valid philosophical arguments in both directions, as well as completely valid financial arguments. What I am saying is that the automatic knee-jerk demonizing of any and all proprietary commercial software has no place in policy-making, particularly when the money you're trying to tell people how to spend is taken by threat of force from everyone around you. You do what works best, not what feels fuzziest.

But, why should I have to purchase Office 2010 because my state government is now sending out informational requests in docx format? I believe that is what the UK is wanting to prevent on that side of the pond. To use government services, you should not be forced to purchase commercial products. If my bank requires me to have Windows for online banking, I can chose another bank. If my government requires it, it's kind of hard to switch that.

Re:To be fair...

[exomondo]

But, why should I have to purchase Office 2010 because my state government is now sending out informational requests in docx format?

Is there a government doing that? I don't think any government body could mandate such a thing, there would always have to be another option.

Re:To be fair...

[Dcnjoe60]

Our state standardized on MS Office years ago. Now, everything comes out in docx format (used to be doc). Do they specify that you must use Office, no. But if you want to do business with the state, you must have full docx capability and that requires MS Office.

Re:To be fair...

[exomondo]

Our state standardized on MS Office years ago. Now, everything comes out in docx format (used to be doc). Do they specify that you must use Office, no. But if you want to do business with the state, you must have full docx capability and that requires MS Office.

Which state?

Re:To be fair...

[ljw1004]

But, why should I have to purchase Office 2010 because my state government is now sending out informational requests in docx format?

You shouldn't! If you're on Windows, then use Microsoft's free Word Viewer to view the docx file. If you're on Linux, install the addin for OpenOffice to read the docx. if you're on a Mac, use one of the many online converters from docx format.

(The point that "no one implements docx with 100% fidelity" is irrelevant here. When your state govt sends out informational requests in docx format, they're not relying on subtleties of Word2003-style kerning vs Word2010-style kerning, or the other inadequately documented things. You'll be able to read the informational request fine even if pagination is slightly different.)

Maybe your point was: "What if my state requires me to submit tenders in docx format?"

Re:To be fair...

[Tim C]

In that case, how much has the BSA contributed to UK political parties?

Re:To be fair...

[hairyfish]

Maybe your point was: "What if my state requires me to submit tenders in docx format?"

Which still isn't such a big deal. You still have to buy a computer, and an internet connection. And before that you had to buy a pen and paper and some stamps. There is a cost to doing business, and if you're going to cry about the very simplest of tools required then perhaps life is just too hard for you and you should give up now. Linux freaks come up with really stupid shit sometimes.

Re:To be fair...

[SleazyRidr]

I still have to buy a computer, but I can choose which computer to buy, allowing the free market to do it's thing and get me the best computer for the best price.

It's not about money, it's about choice. Libre rather than gratis if you prefer.

Re:To be fair...

[Caerdwyn]

You can't discount licensing completely though. In any system where it's worth it, you'll likely be paying $50-$100k in licenses alone. That's a huge savings when you can do the same job with FOSS.

That's true only up to the point where you have to hire one more guy to administer/maintain/customize the FOSS solution than you would need for the commercial solution, or when downtime on the FOSS solution is greater by enough of a margin. I'm no Microsoft fan, but I will admit this: at a company I worked for recently, we had nothing but trouble with Zimbra, but all the problems that were generating downtime, support calls etc. which resulted in there being a dedicated "Zimbra admin" just went away when we went to Exchange + Active Directory (which didn't require an additional hire; we already had a good Windows admin). Sure, we could have also paid the Zimbra folks for a support contract, but that's still money out the door.

It's not always going to be that way, of course (why would anyone run IIS when they can run Apache + Linux?), but in THIS case, FOSS was demonstrably the wrong answer. Sometimes Windows + MSSQL is, in fact, a cheaper solution than Linux + MySQL/Postgres. You have to do your homework, every time, and rely upon fact not philosophy. Philosophy only matters when it's by-the-numbers a tie, and when you're authoritative to make that decision. Under those constraints, if the total cost of of FOSS is provably less, or if it's equal AND you're the one who has the authority/responsibility, by all means go for the FOSS solution. When it's other people's money you're spending (or in the case of government, everybody's money), you have a duty to be dry-eyed and completely objective in your decisions.

You have to add up all the money (including any advantages in uptime, speed of implementation, retraining end users if needed, support/personnel costs AND oh yeah, licenses), as well as taking into account interoperability with existing systems and planned systems. Commercial software has to prove it is better than FOSS by at least the cost of the license, and that it meets functional and interoperability needs.

And sometimes... it is.

Re:To be fair...

[Dcnjoe60]

But, why should I have to purchase Office 2010 because my state government is now sending out informational requests in docx format?

You shouldn't! If you're on Windows, then use Microsoft's free Word Viewer to view the docx file. If you're on Linux, install the addin for OpenOffice to read the docx. if you're on a Mac, use one of the many online converters from docx format.

(The point that "no one implements docx with 100% fidelity" is irrelevant here. When your state govt sends out informational requests in docx format, they're not relying on subtleties of Word2003-style kerning vs Word2010-style kerning, or the other inadequately documented things. You'll be able to read the informational request fine even if pagination is slightly different.)

Maybe your point was: "What if my state requires me to submit tenders in docx format?"

RFPs are very often 100 page documents. The reason they are in word processing format is so the responses can be included directly in the document. However, even the formatting is important and responses must be in the space indicated. The state then extracts the information from the document. If your docx does not match the exact format their program is expecting, your RFP is rejected. So, OpenOffice is not an option nor is the Viewer.

Now, this is just one specific case, but since the Office of Administration has standardized on docx (nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft), the other agencies are, too. For items that are just to be viewed, Microsoft Viewer, assuming you are running Windows, is fine. Simple documents that need to filled out and printed are, too. But as many have pointed out nobody fully implements docx and complex documents do not exchange well.

Microsoft is very influential in government. Even the Obama Administration caught flack for using silverlight to host videos and stuff because it only worked well with Microsoft.

Re:To be fair...

[Dcnjoe60]

Maybe your point was: "What if my state requires me to submit tenders in docx format?"

Which still isn't such a big deal. You still have to buy a computer, and an internet connection. And before that you had to buy a pen and paper and some stamps. There is a cost to doing business, and if you're going to cry about the very simplest of tools required then perhaps life is just too hard for you and you should give up now.
Linux freaks come up with really stupid shit sometimes.

What if the state says you must buy TurboTax to file tax returns? They, don't, but would that not also be the cost of doing business? Why should the state be dictating what I should be purchasing in the first place? Should that not be my choice? I thought that the government was supposed to work for me, not the other way around? They are the ones who should adapt to my format, not force me to adapt to theirs.

BTW, I'm not a linux freak, I'm pretty much OS agnostic. I did make my living via Microsoft consulting.

Re:Irony?

[sconeu]

<SARCASM>
Have they confirmed that all that FLOSS was properly licensed? Do they have the receipts as well as the COA's?
</SARCASM>

Yeah, right

[Dcnjoe60]

The BSA said this would "inadvertently reduce choice [and] hinder innovation",

You mean the choice for big companies to gouge others on the price of royalties? You mean like hinder the innovative ways that big companies come up with ways to gouge others on the price of royalties?

Corporate C*O welfare lobbyest

[OldHawk777]

Corporate C*O welfare lobbyist creating the global corporate-socialism state. Eliminate the unknowns of innovation and competition from the economy to provide a market with greater corporate-stability. May the godddds help them, not US or EU.

Re:long term security?

[exomondo]

The same thing that happens when a proprietary standard is abandoned, except that the source code is freely available so the government can hire someone to maintain it.

Sounds like you're confusing open standard with open source software. A standard has no source code that needs to be maintained.

Why is this posted as an Apple story?...

[kwolf22]

Sure Apple's consumer software is all closed up & proprietary, but come on most of OS X is Open Source & relies on open standards - that's one of the reasons that my government employer bought into Apple's enterprise offerings. Heck, even the text editor that is built into OS X supports the OpenDocument Text format (.odt).

Considering all of the other BSA members, this seems to me like it should have been posted in a different category...

Re:Why is this posted as an Apple story?...

[Ash-Fox]

Sure Apple's consumer software is all closed up & proprietary, but come on most of OS X is Open Source

Outside of webkit, the BSD toolchain, bits of the kernel and a few daemons... Not really that opensource, when the applications, libraries and frameworks that make the majority of applications "work" on OS X isn't available. It's a missleading form of lock in.

& relies on open standards

Considering what is going on with POSIX, OpenGL, IPv6 and so on in the OS, I'd more likely say it relies on broken implementations/versions of "open standards" rather than relying on it. If I were to put a tin foil hat on, it would seem like further attempts at lock ins. However, without a tin foil hat, I would feel it's just incompetence.

that's one of the reasons that my government employer bought into Apple's enterprise offerings.

I couldn't stand reading government decision making documents, usually most of it is just filler, throwing generic phrases around. I'll take your word on it.

Re:Why is this posted as an Apple story?...

[Bert64]

Apple software may be proprietary, but they are generally pretty good at implementing open standards...

The iPhone is another good example, they let you sync your email using imap, your calendar using caldav, your contacts using ldap... Most phones support imap, but does even android support caldav/ldap?

People should be free to choose proprietary tools, providing any point at which those tools interacts with others is based on open standards - ie choose what you want, but don't force that choice on me.

They accidentally the whole acronym

[elsurexiste]

The BSA said this would "inadvertently reduce choice [and] hinder innovation", and even went so far as to claim open standards would lead to higher e-government costs, but open-source advocates say the policy reflects how much the European Interoperability Framework is weighted in favour of the proprietary software companies."

The BSA inadvertently choose the right letters for Bull Shit Association. Was it on purpose or just a coincidence? You decide!

The issue is NOT training, cost, or difficulty.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

The problem is all about training people on how to use the new software.

The issue is NOT cost of the software, cost or difficulty of the training, or difficulty of operation.

The issue is whether bureaucrats, for their own convenience (or pocket-lining), can be allowed to lock up government documents and government interactions in the proprietary format of a US corporation.

Doing so puts the government and the people, from then on, at the mercy of the corporation. The entire population is faced with the choice of paying ongoing tribute to the corporation or suffering a severe impediment and competitive disadvantage when dealing with their own government or attempting to access its records. (They call certain licensing fees "royalties" for a reason.)

With open formats and FOSS tools there might be a learning curve and (if the corporations are to be believed) some reduced functionality or slightly increased difficulty of operation. But nobody is excluded or unnecessarily handicapped and all records stay accessible to all forever.

Internet

[Anonymous Coward]

What we see today as the Internet, it's only possible because of the Open Standards. I'm not even talking about Free Software, I'm talking about real open standards which provides intercomunication between different systems, different worlds. There is no reasonable reason to governments avoid open standards, when them do this you can be sure that 'someone' are profiting.

along those lines:

[Anonymous Coward]

war is peace
freedom is slavery
ignorance is strength

Re:long term security?

[Bert64]

If an open standard is still being used, then someone will write a viewer for it... Chances are there will be multiple viewers available and at least one of them will be available under an open license. If not, you can always hire someone to implement one (or a plugin to an existing similar program) from scratch based on the available spec, which is going to cost a lot less than also paying someone to reverse engineer the proprietary program to create a spec.

Puhleezee

[cheros]

The problem is all about training people on how to use the new software. Using OO Writer instead of Word for example

Applause for choosing the worst possible example. You don't really believe that yourself, do you? I have been writing documents for well over 30 years, using text editors, BRIEF, WordPerfect and practically every version of Word. These days I prefer to use OpenOffice for 3 reasons:

- it just works. It's slow to start, but it keeps working.

- it can handle corruption. I use OOo as a recovery tool when I get sent docs written by people using especially the latest version of Word. The "X" in .docx must stand for "scrameble at will", because the longer the docs get, the higher the probability that it'll crash, which is IMHO a result of cut & paste residue, a known Word problem

- its interface has remained stable, which is why I am looking with dismay at reports that some idiots are planning to copy the ribbon.

The MS Office ribbon has IMHO cost more productivity than all the other UI changes over the last decade put together

As for Open Standards in general, I was there when the first ones were established, and I also know why they were creatively "forgotten/adjusted" a few years later. Those who advocate Open Standards are right - it will save money.

Put bluntly, Open Standards were abandoned so consultancies could turn a profit recycling proprietary code. It's as simple as that.

What? No EU rant?

[Anonymous Coward]

What's going on /.? Used to be the most predictable thing on here; EU legislation infavorable to US companies => Hundreds of comments defending the poor US companies and damning the socialist EU.

BSA = Hypocrites

[pandrijeczko]

This actually shows the hypocrisy of the Business Software Alliance who also "police" software licensing in UK businesses also.

Surely they should be *supporting* and *publicising* Open Source software as a legal alternative to software piracy?

insert training FUD

[doperative]

"The problem is all about training people on how to use the new software"

Recently-adopted?

[Tim C]

Perhaps the wording has been changed, but preferring open standards has been part of eGif for as long as I've been aware of it (which has to be at least 6 years now).

Re:Parent is goatse, please mod down

[GameboyRMH]

Haha yeah this slasher15x guy is a clever troll. He makes an apparently good post with a link to something that you have an expectation of what it is, and then BOOM, goatse!