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Well, it would be nice, but...Well, it would be nice, but...Posted Aug 11, 2002 8:05 UTC (Sun) by Russell (guest, #1453)In reply to: Well, it would be nice, but... by rknop Parent article: Open source's new weapon: The law? (News.com) And, also, while I sort of like the idea of forcing the world to be free, I'm not sure that I really do agree with legislating this. Don't think of it as forcing the world to be free, but instead removing the force put on your citizens to buy non free software to interact with your government.
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Well, it would be nice, but... Posted Aug 11, 2002 11:59 UTC (Sun) by rknop (guest, #66) [Link] Don't think of it as forcing the world to be free, but instead removing the force put on your citizens to buy non free software to interact with your government. Except that a law mandating that Open Source be used goes further than that. Mind you, I'm entusiastically in favor of legislation that all software used by the government must use open standards and open protocols, and that all protocols and formats approved as official "standards" for the internet must be open, documented, and completely royalty-free standards. That is what forces people to buy non-free software, since free software can't implement royaltied standards legally at all, and maybe not even proprietary standards any more (since the DMCA has all but outlawed classical reverse engineering). Any other legislation is oppressive and stupid. However, making the next step that the software itself purchased by the government must be Open Source is less obvious to me. As an extension to this: Microsoft was found to be a monopoly. As such, it should be forced to open and fully document its standards for Word and other file formts, and it should be legally prevented from marketing new versions of any of those applications without first publishing the file format. Additionally, Micorosft must ensure that those formats may be implemented by anybody in a royalty free fashion (even if that means Microsoft has to purchase patents so as to make them royalty free). Those formats are de facto standards, and if the government had any clue, any teeth, or any honor left, after it found Microsoft was a Monopoly it would recognize them as standards and ensure that the playing field was level. This won't happen, since Microsoft has more power, influence, and money than the concept of reasonableness and sanity does. It should also whack Microsoft around *really* hard for their recent strongarming of Dell and others preventing them from selling computers without OSes. If that's not monpolistic behavior, I don't know what is. -Rob
Well, it would be nice, but... Posted Aug 11, 2002 16:24 UTC (Sun) by pointwood (subscriber, #2814) [Link] Yes, I agree 100% - we/they should lobby for open and royalty free standards. That would also (IMHO) have a much better chance of becomming a law.
Well, it would be nice, but... Posted Aug 11, 2002 21:46 UTC (Sun) by Russell (guest, #1453) [Link] In the extreme I see it like this example. Let's suppose that a government makes a law that outlaws slavery. Is this a good law because it frees people? Or is this a bad law because it takes away the choice of the slave owners to have slaves? Or is this not wildly not applicable? I think it is somewhat applicable. But I do see your point that open, free, ... standards do accomplish the same thing without taking away government freedom. But consider this. It's your tax dollars, it's your government, and both should be working to meet your communities needs and desires. Shouldn't the people be able to craft the society they would like to live in?
Re: Well, it would be nice, but... Posted Aug 18, 2002 4:11 UTC (Sun) by BobRobertson (guest, #2048) [Link] There's no "but". People get the government they deserve.California politicians do what they do because it gets them re-elected. If they thought that mandating 100% OpenSource software would get them re-elected, they would do it in a heartbeat. It has nothing to do with the "will of the community", unless or until that "will" translates into votes or bullets. The citizens of California have been decieved, robbed and murdered. Do you really think they're going to stand up for "software"? As individuals, they certainly do. That independence is being actively crushed, it should be intersting to see which breaks first. Bob-
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