[plug] [link] Open Source win in Mass. US

[James Devenish]

In message <3F949D2B.3090600 at postnewspapers.com.au>
on Tue, Oct 21, 2003 at 10:42:51AM +0800, Craig Ringer wrote:
> So ... open standards required, yes. Open source allowed, yes. Open 
> source required - no.

Just to keep this argument balanced and noisy, I'll object to that. Is
it really acceptable for government departments not to have a bias
towards contractual arrangements that provide access-upon-request for
source code / design documents / circuit diagrams? The Defence
department already has such "biases". Take, for instance, voting
machines. If Australia were to introduce electronic voting, would we
find it acceptable for closed solutions to be used? This is not to say
that every government department's employess have any immediate need or
expertise to see the nuts and bolts of the things, but shouldn't any
vendor be *willing* and *able* to accommodate such requests? I would say
something more along the lines of:

So ... open standards required, yes. Open systems required, yes. Free
source required - no.


_______________________________________________
plug mailing list
plug at plug.linux.org.au
http://mail.plug.linux.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug