On Wednesday 04 February 2004 13:25, Shlomi Fish wrote: > I don't oppose recommending the use of open source software, but dislike > laws requiring them very much. What I do support are laws requiring the > government to use only software with open, documented formats and > protocols. Other than that, laws that mandate the use of open source > software stiffel competition and may actually reduce the quality of open > source software. I think many vendors can legitimately produce proprietary > software, and I will happily use it if the formats and protocols that it > uses are open and documented.
Thinking it over again, you've convinced me that this position is better. Certainly if I had to choose between a law that enforces FOSS and a law that enforces free&open standards and formats, I'd prefer the latter. Thanks for reminding me of the value of rational arguments ;-) However, if the only choice were between requiring FOSS and nothing at all (proprietary software and formats), I would still have to choose the former, even though it's unpleasant in itself. It's something over nothing. -- Dan Armak Matan, Israel Public GPG key: http://dev.gentoo.org/~danarmak/danarmak-gpg-public.key Fingerprint: DD70 DBF9 E3D4 6CB9 2FDD 0069 508D 9143 8D5F 8951
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