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

On Mon, 2003-10-27 at 07:58, Russell McOrmond wrote:

>   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 hate to break this to you but "software manufacturing" is not a
special case.  At the present it is the majority of cases.  Open source
that can compete on merit is what we need not open source because "we
say so".  That way leads to the same trap as proprietary lock-in.  If
it's the best it will win, if it's not it will lose.  Let's leave it
that way.  I kind of like Darwinian software selection.  If open source
only makes it to the "horse and buggy" should we not buy an "automobile"
because it wasn't open source.  If you mandate open standards (in the
public interest) then open source will win in most cases.  Where it
doesn't win it doesn't deserve to.


>   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?
> 


	Ask Richard Stallman.



> 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.
> 

	You make my point for me.  If we make it a law that you must use (or
heavily favor) FLOSS then the candle wins.


>   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.
> 

	All great ideas and I agree with them - just don't mandate them.  Let
the victor emerge on it's own.  There are two things that are locking us
into Micro$oft right now - a monopoly and proprietary "standards".  Fix
the standards issue and the monopoly goes away.


-- 

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Jan C. Depner
Code N43T
Naval Oceanographic Office
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I'm a programmer with a soldering iron, and I'm not afraid to use it.