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

[Darragh Sherwin]

I think Tim is right here, open standards are more important than open 
source.
I think one area were the government is promoting open standards is the 
SDEC from REACH http://sdec.reach.ie/.
This will provide the interoperability guidelines for the PSB ( Public 
Service Broker ) which is the largest e-government project.

As a developer one of the government projects, I think open standards is 
more important. I don't think it is wise to say the government will use 
   Microsoft in all cases.
On the project I am involved in, we are using open source software, 
OpenOffice.org and Mozilla Firefox and we are using open standards XML

Just my 2 cents

Darragh


Murf wrote:
> On Mon, 3 May 2004, Timothy Murphy wrote:
> 
> 
>>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.
>>
> 
> 
> If I can offer my 2c, Tim has hit the nail on the head here. A simple
> point, driven home well, can have a far greater effect. Also, by aiming
> for 'open standards' (by this I mean, they're fully disclosed,
> non-patented, and free, as in beer, to whoever needs to know them) one can
> avoid the charge of being 'anti-microsoft'.
> 
> Also, basing your position as being against microsoft is a very negative
> outlook.
> 
> Murf...
> 

-- 
Darragh Sherwin