The Return of Them

One thing that none of the commentators so far have remarked upon, is the use of 'framing'. Note the word 'dictating'. Nobody wants to be dictated to. Dictators give democratic people the shivers. Dictating is bad. Right? What is lost is, that what MA is doing, is simple rational customer behaviour. When you go to the shop, you make a shopping list. If you go buy a costly item, you make a requirements checklist. What the Commonwealth of MA is doing is just that -- collectively, on behalf of its citizens. As for requiring adherence to open standards, IMHO also requiring open source would have been a defensible position: you want to run a democratic government's operation on software that's on your side, software you can trust. But -- MA tactically chose a more conservative approach. Well, at least the writer isn't guilty of calling it 'regulation'. We've seen that too in the past...

mvermeer: >"As for requiring adherence to open standards, IMHO also requiring open source would have been a defensible position: you want to run a democratic government's operation on software that's on your side, software you can trust. But -- MA tactically chose a more conservative approach."

I agree. Every government should be able to disclose the source of software it uses to the citizens who foot the bill and whose data that government is entrusted to handle. For those few exceptions where making the source publicly visible might compromise the safety of people or the ability of the government to do its task in that area, the source should still be completely reviewable by appropriate representatives of the citizens.

And did you notice this new phrase: "Open Source Standards"?

What the heck is an open source standard?

Other than "license blessing" by the FSF and OSI, I'm not aware of a context in which the phrase could have meaning.

It's a formulation clearly intended to obscure the truth.

dinotrac:

Thanks, I missed that little gem! Jeez, they're sneaky.

They've been trying to obscure the truth since their campaign in MA, with "technology", "policy", etc. (http://edge-op.org/grouch/Yates-refute.html)

The one you point out seems aimed to make the reader think any open standard is limited to open source implementations, excluding all the poor, picked-on businesses that don't do open source. What a crock.

grouch:

Yes. Those damned open-source standards!!

All I can say is, where would the internet be if everybody had to use open-source standards like tcp/ip, http, html, etc?

mvermeer: > One thing that none of the commentators so far have remarked upon, is the use of 'framing'.

Actually, I haven't missed it completely. I'm considering a follow-up article to address this very issue. My immediate concern was addressing the misleading statements. That said, I do appreciate your commenting on this point - it's an important one.

"David H. Padden is President of Padden & Company Inc.[1] (http://www.taxcenter.com/), a Chicago-based investment securities firm. He plays a prominent role in a number of right-wing think-tanks:"

he probably has some investments in microsoft and he wants to protect those. how this qualifies him to write an IT article is beyond me. so of course he is going to put down anything that ruins his profit. odf levels the playing field and he won't see his illegal monopolistic profits. since he can't invest in odf he can't wrap his brain around the concept.

"how this qualifies him to write an IT article is beyond me."

okay he didn't write the article - sorry about that -

but it is obvious that one of the founders has stock to protect.

jsusanka:

I see his name at http://www.heartland.org/FAQArticle.cfm?faqId=3 as one of the Board of Directors of the Heartland Institute. It would be interesting to find out if there are direct ties to Microsoft by way of funding for that Institute or by way of any of the directors.