MESSAGE
| DATE | 2002-08-23 |
| FROM | Ruben I Safir
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| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Why is it these people are SOOOOO Stupid
|
>From NewsForge
Tuesday August 20, 2002 - [ 03:46 PM GMT ] Print this Article Topic -
Government - - By Thomas C. Greene - -The Register - We'd be hard
pressed to identify a person with better Open Source advocacy
credentials than Tim O'Reilly. So it came as a mild surprise to read his
column over the weekend lamenting the politicization of software by a
radical fringe.
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He characterized the efforts of Peruvian Congressman Edgar Villanueva
Nuñez to mandate Free Software in government as "great theater," but
ultimately misguided. Particular IT solutions should never be mandated,
he argued quite reasonably.
He also dismissed the Digital Software Security Act, a (halfhearted?)
"proposed law" written chiefly to draw attention to Open Source
alternatives for government bureaux, delivered to the SanFran City Hall
during the recent LinuxWorld Conference by Red Hat honcho Michael
Tiemann and our own occasional guest columnist and evangelist-at-large
Bruce Perens, along with a few stragglers.
Perens wrote a good column for us here, in which he advocated not
specific mandates for government, but a few basic principles for
government to consider in choosing software. Personally, I found them
modest and sensible: maintaining open standards, using Open Source
development as a way to keep publicly-funded research in the public
domain, that sort of thing.
There was nothing "radical" about it. Perhaps the DSSA was a bit much;
but surely one can indulge in a bit of theater like it or the Villanueva
proposal to dramatize an important issue without actually being a
maniacal all-or-nothing insurgent.
Where are these "radicals" O'Reilly is concerned about? Apparently he's
been frightened by a handful of teenage Slashdot trolls. Meanwhile the
grownups are making sense, so far as I can tell. So what if they get a
bit dramatic to make their point? Drama, like Open Source software (and
skateboarding), is hardly a crime.
Common sense Ensuring a citizen's right to communicate electronically
with the vast bureaucracy which regulates his life from cradle to grave,
involving everything from his indoor plumbing to his public behavior,
certainly doesn't depend on forcing every bit of software in use to be
GPLed. It does, however, require that open standards be mandated.
Suppose a government decided to accept only document files "certified"
in some way (think Palladium). Fine if the certification mechanism is
open and available to all document files, and the formats are open and
interchangeable.
Let's use Palladium as an example. MS says the certification standard
will be open, and that's grand. Perhaps they're even telling the truth
(though their past inclination to use secret little coding land mines to
thwart competitors isn't encouraging). But for the sake of argument,
let's give them the benefit of the doubt: the Palladium standard will be
open, and there will be no tricks. This means OpenOffice.org can
incorporate this certification scheme into their own, open document
format. So far, so good.
But there's more to it; suppose MS keeps its Word format closed. This
might well mean it won't be possible for an "open" document application
to create a Word document with the required certification, so it becomes
useless if the government or business entity one wishes to communicate
with insists on a certified and proprietary file format like Word.
That's how I see Palladium working in the end (if it ever succeeds); and
that's how I think MS sees it working, the sneaky bastards.
Currently there's no legislation in effect anywhere in the world that
I'm aware of which would prevent government bureaux from using
proprietary standards for documents and Web services. I really don't
care what software they use, so long as they take it easy on taxpayers
by doing an honest cost of ownership analysis (none of this mickey-mouse
MS marketing propaganda) and choose the least expensive solution that
addresses their needs adequately; and so long as whatever software they
buy interoperates with "alien" files, browsers, software apps and
hardware.
Even with the best of intentions, e-government may end up shutting out
citizens through some unforseen "catch" buried within reams of cheerful
marketing and lobbying propaganda eagerly proffered by certain software
behemoths with the resources and inclinations necessary to pile on the
distractions until it's too late.
The answer is legislation demanding -- yes, demanding -- open standards
for Web access and document formats. Not particular standards, mind;
that would be just another drag on innovation. I'm merely saying that
whatever IT solutions a government chooses, costs have got to be
calculated rationally and standards have got to be open so that citizens
aren't paying more than necessary or getting locked out of the public
debate merely because they've chosen their own software.
Government should never be forced to choose a particular brand of
software or type of licensing scheme; but it should certainly be forced
to pinch pennies and consider open-source alternatives seriously. And
that's all I hear the "radical fringe" saying.
Fancy being frightened by a proposal like that.
All Content copyright 2002 The Register
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