New Hampshire mandates State use of Free and Open Source software and file formats

I think

Quoting:(d) Avoid the acquisition of products that do not comply with open standards for interoperability or data storage; and

(e) Avoid the acquisition of products that are known to make unauthorized transfers of information to, or permit unauthorized control of or modification of a state agency’s computer.

I wonder who those two items apply to? :-)

Yes, this is a good thing. Now we need other states to follow and do the same.

This is what happens when a company doesn't keep up with political gratuities. The politicians start making uninformed decisions. :D

I take it the "uninformed" part was sarcasm :)

Let us hope that this isn't a stunt to get Microsoft to the bargaining table.

It's happened before on numerous occasions.

New Hampshire's state motto: "Live Free or Die."

(as in speech, or beer?)

Oklahoma is in the process of considering such as law as well, if I get a lead on it I'll post it.

Skelband, Seth Cohn, who sponsored the bill, is a friend of mine. I'll let him know how warm was the reception his work received here. And knowing him it had nothing what so ever to do with a shell-game to entice Microsoft.

Gus, While complacency has changed the working motto to be more like, "Life Free or Be Mildly Inconvenienced", the general attitude of reliance on one's own resources helps immensely.

Sounds like a good step in the right direction. Well done that man.

Just to require that open source software be favorably considered is a different approach than Massachusetts mandating the OpenDoc standard across the board,which opened the door to objections on the basis of legacy Office applications needing to be rewritten,and unreadiness in certain situations like features for disabled.

Quoting:Just to require that open source software be favorably considered is a different approach than Massachusetts mandating the OpenDoc standard across the board,which opened the door to objections on the basis of legacy Office applications needing to be rewritten,and unreadiness in certain situations like features for disabled.

Agreed. Although New Hampshire's bill is a step in the right direction, it doesn't really mandate open file formats, like the Massachusetts bill would have. The AMENDED ANALYSIS section states:

Quoting:This bill requires state agencies to consider open source software when acquiring software and promotes the use of open data formats by state agencies. This bill also directs the commissioner of information technology to develop a statewide information policy based on principles of open government data.

(emphasis added)

How strongly they "consider" and "promote" depends on the commissioner of information technology, if that person really understands the issues I'm quite sure consider will be prefer, and promote will be promote strongly (by making it less easy to do it any other way)