On Sun, Jul 14, 2002, Muli Ben-Yehuda wrote about "Re: knesset meeting on open source":
> Today, only the Open Source advocates spoke and next time, the MS
> people will speak. That meeting should be very interesting, and I hope
> to see many of you commenting online during the discussion. Mindless
> zealots and MS bashers, however, need not apply...
This breaking up of the meeting really surprised me. First, it is really
unprofessional (it didn't seem there was any surprise in the length of
the discussion). Second it *defines* this discussion as a battle between
Microsoft and everyone else, which is really weird and quite inappropriate
(in my opinion) for discussion in the Knesset.
I think they made one major error in the focus of this discussion: they
kept going back to talking about what would be better for the Knesset,
instead of what is better for the country and OUR economy (even though
some of the people tried to steer the discussion back to this issue).
I think three major points need to be made in this regard:
1. Commercial software costs a lot of money that in 90% of the cases leaves
the country as foreign currency and gives jobs to people abroad and makes
Bill Gates reacher than the State of Israel.
On the other hand open-source software is basically free, and the costs
that *are* incurred (customization, new development, support, system
administration) stay 100% in the country, and give Israeli people jobs
and advanced high-tech training.
Buy Blue and White, anyone? This is a MAJOR consideration.
2. M.K. Eitan kept coming back to the fact that only Microsoft products can
read Microsoft formats with 100% compatibility (that's debatable too, but
never mind). SO WHAT? The Knesset has an obligation to reach everyone,
not only the majority (even if 95%) using Microsoft software. This is a
MAJOR democratic issue.
Open-Source software and open formats exist that work on close to 100% of
all computers out there (including Windows). HTML is the best example of
such format, but Postscript, PDF, OpenOffice, and so on can also be used.
HTML (properly used) is also suitable for people with disabilities, such
as the blind and dyslexic.
Microsoft formats can be used ad-interim, since there are open-source
software to read them (even in Hebrew).
3. Microsoft vs. Open Source are NOT the only two options, which is why
Eitan's breaking up the session into two doesn't sit comfortably with
me. Commercial software from other companies is a viable option too.
These options should be discarded because of their (lack of) merit,
expensiveness and (low) percentage of Blue-and-White development - but
never because of their "this is not a Microsoft product so it is not
commonly used". If some Israeli company produced some useful, relatively-
cheap commercial software (say, a Hebrew search engine for their site),
it might be decided to buy that software, for example.
--
Nadav Har'El | Sunday, Jul 14 2002, 5 Av 5762
[EMAIL PROTECTED] |-----------------------------------------
Phone: +972-53-245868, ICQ 13349191 |"Outlook not so good." Wow! That magic 8-
http://nadav.harel.org.il |ball knows everything! So, what about IE?
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