Quoting Erwin Olario <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> This is interesting. > > Mandating opensouce is tantamount to discrimation against proprietary > software. Each software (FLOSS, proprietary, whatever else is out > there) has their own place in the IT ecosystem. Imho, governments are perfectly entitled to choose whatever solution it would lean to, as governments are subservient to the interests of their citizens foremost, and not to the interests of the corporations. The same types of preferential treatment that we in business can do isn't really applicable in some cases to governments. That being said, it would be preferrable if government would at least start with open standards, and retain the push towards Free / open source software. If government can best serve the public interest better using FOSS then that would be better. If proprietary software would be necessary (such as large-scale RDBMS or some really niche areas) then let government use it. It's a tough balance between functionality and preserving the interest of the public... -- Paolo Alexis Falcone [EMAIL PROTECTED] I agree that it is preferrable for the government to use open source as a way to better serve public interests. However, by outright preferring opensource software, that would be discrimination. What is best is to impose open standards and have the proprietary software companies follow the standards like what has happened in the case of microsoft and odf. That would be a better solution. By law, the government cannot simply mandate open source software, that would be capricious on its part. Even if we do not agree with proprietary software, their rights are protected by law as well. Charles _________________________________________________ Philippine Linux Users' Group (PLUG) Mailing List [email protected] (#PLUG @ irc.free.net.ph) Read the Guidelines: http://linux.org.ph/lists Searchable Archives: http://archives.free.net.ph
