[OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Sign the Hague declaration

[Landon Blake]

I thought it might be wise to point out that this discussion seems to be
getting a little aggressive, and possibly a little personal.

All sides have made valid points. It's obvious that Mr. Fee isn't going
to agree with many of us on this particular issue, and his opinion is
worth considering.

I would remind Mr. Fee, very humbly (of course), that he is on the OSGeo
mailing list, so in some respects he's chosen a fight in which he is
very outnumbered. I don't know how productive it is to aggressively
defend something like the .doc format on a mailing list for proponents
of open source software. :]

You'll probably have about as much success as you would touting the .odt
format on a mailing list for the Microsoft Word fan club. :]

Landon

-----Original Message-----
From: discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
[mailto:discuss-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of Fee, James
Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2008 9:40 AM
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: RE: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Sign the Hague declaration

Chris Puttick wrote:

>>  I'm sorry. In what way does requiring digital information to be in
an 
>>  open standard force or exclude anyone? Be very sure those companies 
>>  desperately resisting the development and/or support of digital
standards
>>  would provide support for government mandated ones really, really
fast.

I thought we were talking about forcing governments to offer up
information in a "open standard" format.  Are you saying that if a city
has standardized on MS Office, it would be ok for them to continue to
post .doc?  I got the feeling that folks are saying these cities need to
abandon their software and move to other platforms someone arbitrarily
says is open. 

>>  Let's take the example of mandating OpenDocument Format. There you
are,
>>  either moderately well-off or using an illegal copy of Microsoft
Office
>>  and suddenly you would be unable to read/write documents provided by

>>  government bodies. 

What is the difference if OpenOffice supports a standard such as the old
doc format?  I see nothing in the MS argument that forces folks to use
illegal copies of MS Office (heck use Google Docs).

>>  So sure, in the interim you might be forced to download one of
several free
>>  (as in beer, some free as in libre) applications to access those
documents.
>>  Terrible imposition, my apologies. This is somehow worse than being
forced
>>  to either have second rate access because you have too old a copy of
Microsoft
>>  Office, use an operating system for which Microsoft Office is not
available or
>>  choose not to break the law by using illegal copies of software?

I fail to see the problem here.  Either you have a copy of MS Office, or
you use OpenOffice already to view Word documents. 

This isn't about users of the information because there are several free
(as in beer, some free as in libre) applications to access those
"proprietary" documents.  This is about forcing governments to either
buy software that produces "open" documents (that are readable by less
software than the proprietary formats), or forcing them to pay
consultants to install, train and debug "open" solutions. What a
complete waste of everyone's time.  

Sharing of data happens because the system at large demands that it
happens, not because a couple of folks sign some non-binding document on
the internet.

--
James Fee, GISP
Associate
TEC Inc.
voice:  480.736.3976
data:  480.736.3677
internet:  jmfee at tecinc.com




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