Hello, Dean: Please read the bill *in its current form* again. So it doesn't make the cut -- your cut -- but hey, at least there's a need that's being addressed. Why not give your dissent -- formally and in writing -- on the particular points of the bill you dislike, and submit it to Congress? You can do that. You paid for their salaries, right?
I'm not being sarcastic, man. I just don't understand what your point is (forgive me for being thick or, in your words, *anal*): maintain the status quo, perhaps? The bill, which has the most obvious defect of being called the "FOSS bill" (they could have just as well named it "The Enforcement of Open Source and Standards in Government IT Initiatives" bill, but that's way too tedious), should really be seen as a way to promote -- and encourage, and *enforce* -- the use of technologies that are nonproprietary (using open standards, among other things) and not locked in to monopolies and single-owned entities. If you don't believe in FOSS, and don't want to write software with FOSS-related licenses, then that's your choice. You can opt out of bidding on government projects (which, I think, is really a profitable industry for some). The thing is, it's the State's choice to use FOSS. And biased for FOSS, you say? What, would you have it the other way around, like what is currently the case? Would you rather that all government information -- public and *ideally* accessible to all -- be locked to a single nonproprietary de facto standard that the State or the people would have no control over? There's a choice to make here: the State is exercising its freedom -- its mandate -- to choose. Better the devil you know, as they say. *shrugs* -- Ian Dexter R. Marquez http://iandexter.net | [EMAIL PROTECTED] (XMPP) _________________________________________________ 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
