Re: looks like it's happening everywhere but the US.

On 27 Oct 2003, Jan C. Depner wrote:

> Don't confuse open standards with open source.  The two are not
> synonymous.

  I am not confusing them as they each offer a different level of solution 
to different types of problems.

> We could clear up a huge problem by mandating open standards.  

  We already do this in many countries, but loopholes are always found and
(ab)used.  Any day in Canada you can go to MERX.com and see an ACAN for
some Microsoft product claiming that it was the only supplier of this
"intellectual property".  The pro-standards, pro-competition aspects of
trade agreements (NAFTA and the Canadian AIT) are tossed out the door to
allow claims about an "installed base"  when even the initial procurement
of what became the installed base is suspect.

> Mandating open source is a mistake.  Sometimes the proprietary solution
> *is* the correct solution (at least until someone replaces it with a
> better open source solution).

  This is where moving away from thinking of the technological solutions
to looking at the methodology of creation is important.  Governments
should not be looking at software as something that is only procured as if
it were best to think of it as a product.  Often there is an important
place where governments should be resourcing open collaborative models for
the production of public goods (See WIPO meeting possibilities for the
origin of that term).

  Who is that "someone" who should be replacing legacy "software 
manufacturing" software with open source solutions?   Most governments are 
both the largest single creators of software in their country (vast 
majority not distributed of course) as well as the largest single procurer 
of software products and services.

  Governments recognizing the importance of the methodology used to create
software and having that as part of their "point systems" for procurement
would be a good start.  This will be seen as unduly favoring FLOSS for
those who (for vested interest reasons) don't want the methodology to be
evaluated along with the outcome, but we need to stop playing that game
with them.

  If the only existing solution to a problem is "software manufacturing"
solution then that is a special case that can be evaluated accordingly.  
Government resourcing a group to create and/or finish a solution using
open collaborative models should be weighed against the full long-term
costs of simply procuring the existing "software manufacturing" solution.  
Government should not be shackled into only being allowed to purchase
products, and should be encouraged to get involved in creating solutions
that have many more long term public policy benefits.

  I don't think anyone has yet suggested an outright banning of
government procurement of the outcomes from "software manufacturing", and
I wouldn't agree with that either.  I do think that procuring the products
of "software manufacturing" should be seen as a last resort, not on equal
footing with open collaborative models.

> Open source is not a religion for me, it just makes sense - in some
> cases.

  Why is it that when people talk of issues beyond treating software as a 
product to be procured that the "religion" label comes up?

http://weblog.flora.org/article.php3?story_id=493
      I also found Robert Gagnon's suggestion that this is a "religious 
    war" to be interesting. He may not realize that it is not Linux itself
    that is the innovation, but Free/Libre and Open Source Software
    methodologies and business models.  Nobody suggested that the electric
    light-bulb replacing candles was a "religious war".  Nobody suggested 
    that the Internet replacing most of the private vendor-dependent
    networks was a "religious war".  Most people consider these
    transformative and innovative changes to simply be progress.


  Open Source is not a religion for me either, but I do see this
methodology in a much larger context than just that of short-term software
procurement issues.

  Each week I read yet another paper such as "Coase's Penguin, or Linux
and the Nature of the Firm"
http://weblog.flora.org/article.php3?story_id=491 which suggests (my
words) that these open collaborative models may turn out to be as
important in the evolution of collective production of products/services
as the invention of the corporation.

  Each week I read news reports such as the Wired Magazine article "Open
Source Everywhere" http://weblog.flora.org/article.php3?story_id=488 which 
speaks of how the methodologies used by open source are applying to a lot 
of domains outside of software.

---
 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Governance software that controls ICT, automates government policy, or
 electronically counts votes, shouldn't be bought any more than 
 politicians should be bought.  -- http://www.flora.ca/russell/