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Open Source and Open Standards under Threat in Europe
- gizmo 17y agoI can't make heads nor tails from this rant. It reads as if the author is very upset about something, but he never quite explains what it is that's so upsetting to him. The arguments he does make are nonsensical (such as the rant about openness being a continuum according to MS.) Low quality, low content, if you ask me.
- ZeroGravitas 17y agoDid you read the second and third pages? It's not obvious that it continues, and most of the explanation is there. Basically, the EU was going to say that open standards and open source were good things that should be promoted for the benefit of the citizens and businesses of the EU. Not a particularly controversial position as various US governmental organisations such as the Department of Defence, and various other national bodies like China have said similar things. This has, naturally, been lobbied against by Microsoft. Privately of course, because it, at the very least, appears shady to be arguing against open standards and free competition. And it seems they may be on the verge of getting what they want, which would be a bad thing for almost everyone but them. Regarding the openness continuum, do you really want a government document on interoperability to say that one way to achieve "openess" is for everyone to use the same proprietary product? "While there is a correlation between openness and interoperability, it is also true that interoperability can be obtained without openness, for example via homogeneity of the ICT systems, which implies that all partners use, or agree to use, the same solution to implement a European Public Service." Note this seems to contradict common sense as well as many of these definitions which indicate you need at least two systems to "interoperate": http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define:interoperability http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=define:interoperability