RE: [chat] Re: Federal Open Source Legislation Democrats tointroduce IT Bill

["Jon Biddell" <jon@xxxxxxxxx>]

-=> If by "OSS" they actually mean the software, then I
-=> agree. But there is
-=> a *very* strong argument that all government documents
-=> should be held in
-=> an open format. It is totally unacceptable that access to public
-=> documents should be at the whim of a foreign monopoly.
-=> I believe that
-=> this consideration was one that was driving the Chinese push.

Wasn't someone (in SLUG ??) ruinning a campaign to have this happen
with, I think, the ATO ?  I have a vague memory of the ATO refusing
to provide anything except Windows software for their on-line tax
system....

FWIW, I agree that all government publicly-accessable documents
should be held in, probably, XML format - and STANDARD XML, not M$'s
version of it...  But it'll never happen.

Why ??

As stated in a pervious post, the decision makers are all probably
in the Bahamas....

Having a "you will only use OSS" regulation is somewhat
self-defeating, as there could be occasions where OSS isn't able to
handle a particular task (can't think of any examples off the top of
my head), and then a "custom" solution will have to be found.

Better to say that OSS is the PREFERED platform - if "commercial"
software is used, it must be demonstrated to an independant panel to
have SIGNIFICANT technical and operation advantages over OSS...'

Again, probably never happen.....