On Sun, Sep 07, 2003 at 12:07:11PM -0400, Lior Kesos wrote: > Shachar Shemesh wrote: > > >Lior Kesos wrote: > > > >>http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-2745601,00.html > >> [ ... ] > and preach about how microsoft was just wonderfull solving Israeli's > goverment issues with "mimshal zamin" .
I believe the minister should be asked to give as many details as possible, and technical ones as well, not just some general statements, about how MS helped open administration ("mimshal zamin"). I expect answers like "offered discounts for their products", "doing programming for the governments' servers free of charge", "gave some money to local software houses", "helped local software writers with an NDA information" and the like. And now comes the difficult part: how to convince the public that this is like giving a hungry man a fish rather then a rope to fish with? Another analogy might be a drug that is given, knowing that the user will get addicted to it, even though at the end using it is bad for him? Do note that getting addicted is probably considered acceptable in this case by most of the people. I believe the reason for this is that they don't see how it is bad for them at the end. As an aside, it could be that legalizing software patents in Europe will be discussed in the convention the minister is going to. In which case it is probably a good thing that a high Israeli official is present. Perhaps the minister should tell us if this is one of the reasons for the trip. -- Shaul Karl, shaulk @ actcom . net . il ================================================================= To unsubscribe, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word "unsubscribe" in the message body, e.g., run the command echo unsubscribe | mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]