Re: Proposed Letter Text to Decision-makers

I would say that using open formats is the most important point.  This
gives all software vendors/providers an even playing field whether they
are open source or proprietary.  Closed formats is how MS stays in
business.

V/R
Jan Depner

On Tue, 2003-01-07 at 01:10, Mahesh T. Pai wrote:
> 
> 
> One important point ignored in this thread - that of file format. 
> Free s/w file formats used by free s/w is transparent.  This is
> (or should be) as important as ease of use (and other things) so far
> s/w used by governments is concerned.  In fact, I consider that 
> keeping government data in a transparent file format is more important 
> than any other question.
> 
> Governments also have an obligation to ensure that their information 
> is accessible to the public; (except of course, classified info), and 
> when such information is in digital form, the governments should 
> further ensure that the format in which the info is provided is 
> accesible by the public without any further economic burden on them.
> 
> What use information, if the recipients have to shell out a pretty
> packet to just read it?
> 
> Even in case of classified information, free s/w is better equipped to
> ensure that it stays classified than any non-free s/w; but that is an
> altogether different story.
> 
> Regards,
> Mahesh T. Pai.
> 
> Sim Brigden wrote:
> > The following is a letter I'm drafting.  I propose that it be sent 
> > to non-technical decision-makers in Government.  I would very much 
> > welcome your views on how to improve/refine it.
> > 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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