5 ms·

A hearing for a bill will take place in New Hampshire on February 16th, 2023, for a bill that, if passed, will require state agencies to accommodate libre softw

A hearing for a bill will take place in New Hampshire on February 16th, 2023, for a bill that, if passed, will require state agencies to accommodate libre software users in public-facing applications, so that people do not have to use proprietary software to access state services on the internet. Your help is needed. More information is available in the linked article.

CharlesW 4y ago
I read the article, but didn’t see a list of the proprietary software that’s required to interact with New Hampshirite state agencies. Are there examples of this problem?
- TylerE 4y ago
  It’s not as bad currently, but 10 years ago it wasn’t that unusual to find things like government and bank websites using freaking ActiveX. These days I would imagine it means things like not publishing videos with (only) proprietary codecs, or using some sort of non-standard non-open 2fa or something.
- kerkeslager 4y ago
  I'm not sure of New Hampshire's stage agencies, but the most common problem I've experiences interacting with government agencies is PDFs. The format is fairly well-designed to be easy to read so many libre software alternatives can view PDFs, but forms are another story. If a PDF form hasn't been tested in libre readers, it would be unwise to assume that it works in libre readers (or even some proprietary readers). And if testing discovers that it doesn't work, getting it to work isn't necessarily possible with the PDF editing tools available, as making their editors compatible with libre readers isn't exactly a priority for Adobe.
  - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
    The problem is new style PDF forms implemented with JS. Old style PDF forms should be handled by open source readers.
    - jxf 4y ago
      Truly had no idea there was JS in PDF forms now. Wild.
      - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
        It is bizarre considering they intentionally ripped out a lot of Postscript functionality from PDF to make it non-Turing complete.
  - gerdesj 4y ago
    I recently edited a pdf form using Okular (KDE app on Linux - Arch in this case). It was a pretty involved multi page bank mortgage related form. The app that designed this beauty was running on a Mac (can't remember more but I did see Mac in some metadata on it). One field went a bit odd - it would show one number and print another after I got my data entry a bit wrong and corrected it. Clearly a bug. I passed the form over to Chrome's pdf handler and got the same result. I also passed it through Windows based stuff - I run an IT company. Same result. I did eventually manage to clear the fault. If I recall correctly it was the day field for date of birth. My DoB is 7th December - I'm a Brit so 7/12. The field wanted 07 for single digit days and I entered 7 followed by the month numbers. So I ended up with 71 in the day field. Field validation was probably not a consideration for an admin in a bank tasked with knocking up a form used by millions of people! If that thing was from IT then they should look for another job. Anyway - Okular worked the same way as the rest and shared their faults. It did at least manage to look much prettier and work very, very quickly.
    - dotancohen 4y ago
      Okular uses the poppler PDF library under the hood - and probably do most other non-Adobe implementations. Each software package is not a complete reimplementation of the standard, so it is not unexpected that they share behavior (and bugs). If you can share the PDF we can file a bug report against poppler.
      - gerdesj 4y ago
        I'm not sure the fault is with Poppler but with the MacOS thingie that created this beast. However, you are best placed to deal with that. I'll see if I can find it ...
  - CharlesW 4y ago
    That hadn't even occurred to me, thank you!
Dalewyn 4y ago
>Your help is needed. With all due respect, speaking as someone not in New Hampshire, your (and the article's) request to me and others like myself is a subversion of democracy. This New Hampshire state bill is being deliberated in the New Hampshire state legislature, to be eventually voted on by New Hampshire state legislators voted in by and representing the people of the state of New Hampshire. As a strictly state matter, any influence from outside the state of New Hampshire is a subversion of democracy in the state.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway892238 4y ago
  Sometimes democracy gets things wrong. States have historically liked to do fucked up shit and then hide behind "states' rights".
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - tb84 4y ago
      jesus dude get a grip
      - steve_mcdougall 4y ago
        [flagged]
- AnthonyMouse 4y ago
  The people of New Hampshire and the United States have voted to protect free speech including by people who live outside of the state and the union. Corporations from other states and countries who don't like this bill make use of that. Proponents can too.

CharlesW 4y ago

I read the article, but didn’t see a list of the proprietary software that’s required to interact with New Hampshirite state agencies. Are there examples of this problem?

TylerE 4y ago
It’s not as bad currently, but 10 years ago it wasn’t that unusual to find things like government and bank websites using freaking ActiveX. These days I would imagine it means things like not publishing videos with (only) proprietary codecs, or using some sort of non-standard non-open 2fa or something.
kerkeslager 4y ago
I'm not sure of New Hampshire's stage agencies, but the most common problem I've experiences interacting with government agencies is PDFs. The format is fairly well-designed to be easy to read so many libre software alternatives can view PDFs, but forms are another story. If a PDF form hasn't been tested in libre readers, it would be unwise to assume that it works in libre readers (or even some proprietary readers). And if testing discovers that it doesn't work, getting it to work isn't necessarily possible with the PDF editing tools available, as making their editors compatible with libre readers isn't exactly a priority for Adobe.
- kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
  The problem is new style PDF forms implemented with JS. Old style PDF forms should be handled by open source readers.
  - jxf 4y ago
    Truly had no idea there was JS in PDF forms now. Wild.
    - kevin_thibedeau 4y ago
      It is bizarre considering they intentionally ripped out a lot of Postscript functionality from PDF to make it non-Turing complete.
- gerdesj 4y ago
  I recently edited a pdf form using Okular (KDE app on Linux - Arch in this case). It was a pretty involved multi page bank mortgage related form. The app that designed this beauty was running on a Mac (can't remember more but I did see Mac in some metadata on it). One field went a bit odd - it would show one number and print another after I got my data entry a bit wrong and corrected it. Clearly a bug. I passed the form over to Chrome's pdf handler and got the same result. I also passed it through Windows based stuff - I run an IT company. Same result. I did eventually manage to clear the fault. If I recall correctly it was the day field for date of birth. My DoB is 7th December - I'm a Brit so 7/12. The field wanted 07 for single digit days and I entered 7 followed by the month numbers. So I ended up with 71 in the day field. Field validation was probably not a consideration for an admin in a bank tasked with knocking up a form used by millions of people! If that thing was from IT then they should look for another job. Anyway - Okular worked the same way as the rest and shared their faults. It did at least manage to look much prettier and work very, very quickly.
  - dotancohen 4y ago
    Okular uses the poppler PDF library under the hood - and probably do most other non-Adobe implementations. Each software package is not a complete reimplementation of the standard, so it is not unexpected that they share behavior (and bugs). If you can share the PDF we can file a bug report against poppler.
    - gerdesj 4y ago
      I'm not sure the fault is with Poppler but with the MacOS thingie that created this beast. However, you are best placed to deal with that. I'll see if I can find it ...
- CharlesW 4y ago
  That hadn't even occurred to me, thank you!

Dalewyn 4y ago

>Your help is needed. With all due respect, speaking as someone not in New Hampshire, your (and the article's) request to me and others like myself is a subversion of democracy. This New Hampshire state bill is being deliberated in the New Hampshire state legislature, to be eventually voted on by New Hampshire state legislators voted in by and representing the people of the state of New Hampshire. As a strictly state matter, any influence from outside the state of New Hampshire is a subversion of democracy in the state.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
throwaway892238 4y ago
Sometimes democracy gets things wrong. States have historically liked to do fucked up shit and then hide behind "states' rights".
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - tb84 4y ago
    jesus dude get a grip
    - steve_mcdougall 4y ago
      [flagged]
AnthonyMouse 4y ago
The people of New Hampshire and the United States have voted to protect free speech including by people who live outside of the state and the union. Corporations from other states and countries who don't like this bill make use of that. Proponents can too.