Comment De-Facto vs. Desire vs. Disparaging... (Score 2, Insightful) 310
Yes, we all want OSDN "stuff" to win out in as many possible applicable sectors, buisness, personal, government, etc. because we believe is is The Right Way on many levels.
I concur with folks expressing the opinion that legislating Open Source alternatives into government budgets is incorrect, because it is on principle - at no time should we ever, as a society, legislate any single thing as the "right way". Only GM for cars? Only Apple for music? Only MS-terminals for voting? We'd all revolt against this.
However, this isn't legislation - it's a directive from a state official, which isn't the same. Your elected official in your state of Massachusetts has made a determination and pushed forward a directive s/he feels is in the best interest of the state's citizens. Do I agree? Yes. Why? Simply on the principles that OSDN projects use open standards anyone can code to. Microsoft only opens standards when they see money-making opportunities in licensing, which is, well, buisness - they're supposed to make money, they're a company! :) I think the people are best served by a government that uses tools that came from the people themselves unfettered with political or monetary influence. Linux & OSDN projects have offered this alternative to humanity for the first time in force, as have all other open-source type projects.
The "correct" place for this debate I think, is in the courts. Someone needs to file for a public injunction against a government agency buying Microsoft products to force the question of "were alternatives considered?" with an independant investigator that has the authority to disqualify Microsoft if they try to use their money or influence to force purchasing decisions through monetary ends. This is no different from anything else the government buys - cars, military hardware, paper, staples, etc.
A base problem that boggles me is that software is a commodity as I think of it - the best producer with a solution is just that. MS of course doesn't want you to believe this, but I think the reality of "software" as a whole is that we're moving to software as a commodity item that doesn't make it bland, but specialized and much more creatively rich through the adoption of common contexts and languages to express out programming needs. MS wants to "own" those contexts, and therein lies the sin most would like to accuse them of.
We could use a whole force of small companies going to the courts claiming legitimately they have been picked on by Microsoft because they dumped several gazillion into the re-election coffers of the Congress critter on the Committee for (X) and the obvious results.
Microsoft is a de facto standard, so of course, *anything* that isn't Microsoft will be perceived as good - we need to be careful netizens about that and make sure the public understands we're offering an alternative that needs to be examined, not a replacement bourne out of hate.
I concur with folks expressing the opinion that legislating Open Source alternatives into government budgets is incorrect, because it is on principle - at no time should we ever, as a society, legislate any single thing as the "right way". Only GM for cars? Only Apple for music? Only MS-terminals for voting? We'd all revolt against this.
However, this isn't legislation - it's a directive from a state official, which isn't the same. Your elected official in your state of Massachusetts has made a determination and pushed forward a directive s/he feels is in the best interest of the state's citizens. Do I agree? Yes. Why? Simply on the principles that OSDN projects use open standards anyone can code to. Microsoft only opens standards when they see money-making opportunities in licensing, which is, well, buisness - they're supposed to make money, they're a company!
The "correct" place for this debate I think, is in the courts. Someone needs to file for a public injunction against a government agency buying Microsoft products to force the question of "were alternatives considered?" with an independant investigator that has the authority to disqualify Microsoft if they try to use their money or influence to force purchasing decisions through monetary ends. This is no different from anything else the government buys - cars, military hardware, paper, staples, etc.
A base problem that boggles me is that software is a commodity as I think of it - the best producer with a solution is just that. MS of course doesn't want you to believe this, but I think the reality of "software" as a whole is that we're moving to software as a commodity item that doesn't make it bland, but specialized and much more creatively rich through the adoption of common contexts and languages to express out programming needs. MS wants to "own" those contexts, and therein lies the sin most would like to accuse them of.
We could use a whole force of small companies going to the courts claiming legitimately they have been picked on by Microsoft because they dumped several gazillion into the re-election coffers of the Congress critter on the Committee for (X) and the obvious results.
Microsoft is a de facto standard, so of course, *anything* that isn't Microsoft will be perceived as good - we need to be careful netizens about that and make sure the public understands we're offering an alternative that needs to be examined, not a replacement bourne out of hate.
