[plug] Open Source win in Mass. not a closed shop

[Leon Brooks]

On Tue, 21 Oct 2003 10:39, Bret Busby wrote:
> Whilst I support open source, I believe that enforced closed shops of
> open source sites, will do more harm than good, to the open source
> movement. The "free" part, I understood, was supposed to be about
> freedom of choice. Closed shops do not have that luxury.

If it was universal, yes. However, the occasional State mandating Open 
Source for its own machines and services will do little harm, and at 
this developmental stage is a useful beach-head for OSS.

Also, have you actually read Massachusett's own take on the matter, or 
just the headlines?

AFAICT, they have only mandated open standards, which IMESHO is an 
absolutely grand thing, and a *preference* for Open Source, which will 
somewhat balance off against incumbency.

> I believe that it would be far better, to have a simple policy, to
> investigate all reasonable options, including open source, and select
> the most appropriate solution for the circumstances, without bias.

That would be nice, but it would also require all competitors to really 
play fair. Dream on. To name the obvious participant, Microsoft has 
lawyers, salesmen, political and financial clout, and is using all of 
them to the hilt.

You speak to a level playing field, but picture such a level field with 
a self-righteously enraged 400kg silverback eastern gorilla at one end, 
accompanied by few orangutan fellow travellers and so on, and at the 
other end a 150kg western gorilla (IBM), a handful of bonobos and a 
flock of capuchins, tamarinds and other teacup-sized pongidae. Let the 
fair competition begin.

Finally, even if they had required only Open Source, that doesn't close 
the shop. There are still masses of competing companies who can vie for 
their trade.

For the curious:

    http://www.capuchin-monkeys.com/ 
http://photosoc.wellington.net.nz/cgi-bin/slideviewer.cgi?list=wildlife&slide=14
    http://www.western-gorillas-eastern-gorillas.com/
    http://members.tripod.com/uakari/pan_paniscus.html

Cheers; Leon

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