Recommendation or Requirement

Recommendation or Requirement

Posted Sep 28, 2005 16:12 UTC (Wed) by darktjm (subscriber, #19598)
In reply to: Recommendation or Requirement by man_ls
Parent article: Peru Passes Free Software Law - That's Free as in Free Speech (Groklaw)

Even a legal mandate can be bypassed. Ada was required for military contracts for a while, but the mandate had giant loopholes, like "where cost effective" and "unless specially exempted by a designated official". Contractors could bypass this law by implementing in the language of their choice, and then saying upon submission that it would be too expensive to change to Ada. Or, they could just get their friends in high places to waive the requirement. Nonetheless, the mandate did promote greater use of Ada far more than a recommendation would have, so a free software mandate would probably have the same effect.

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