[ILUG] email sent to potiticians about Mary Hannafin's decision not to use open source

[Timothy Murphy]

On Monday 03 May 2004 18:17, jm at jmason.org wrote:

> XML and XSD are open, sure.   However I think the use of "open standards"
> here is immaterial if, at some point in the future, competing word
> processor products may have to pay a license fee to interoperate, or may
> be blocked outright from using this *idea* due to incompatibilities with
> the software's own licensing scheme (as is the case with the GPL).

It seems to me that if this happened then the word processor
would not be following "open standards", at least as I understand that term.

So I would suggest that the term "open standards" needs to be defined.
It is perfectly reasonable to ask Ms Hanafin what she understands by this term
since she has said government policy will rely on it.

Sadly, I haven't seen anything on the ILUG mailing list so far
that I would consider likely to change the government's mind.
May I suggest that ILUG should take a leaf out of ICTE's success.
Margaret McGaley, Colm MacCarthaigh et al
were endlessly courteous, never insulting ministers
or suggesting that they had secret agendas.

Also ICTE had one simple message - VVAT -
backed by rational argument.

In my opinion, open standards - strictly adhered to -
will allow Linux to compete on a level field.

-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland