HI Arjen Thanks for the comment.
http://www.janstedehouder.nl/2011/09/28/make-the-use-of-open-standards-in-ed...
Perhaps we could try similar?
Related things have been discussed in OSIA and elsewhere. You actually misquote the issue and thus miss what the strategy actually is.
You refer to "Open Source". The article does not, and nor does the petition.
I think my link to Open Source Software was made reference in the article about how the use Microsoft software was affecting data openness and data sharing. Perhaps I should have made that point - but you said its been debated many times on newslist before! And the other motivation for sharing the link was to perhaps get a few more people sign the petition as I have. Anyway, while am here ... Steve Dalton mentioned to me that you may be available to give a presentation at the OSIA-OSDC MiniConf on 14 Nov - would you be interested in doing this? CFP for papers has been out, but we reserved the right to invite speakers. Would you please consider yourself invited? Cheers Daniel.
They focus on open standards (/formats) and getting away from product-specific skills. Both are defensible positions, and OSS does not have to come in to it. Indeed it tends to benefit OSS, but not necessarily exclusively so and it's up to vendors to decide whether they want to play by the more enlightened rules.
It's similar to when AGIMO published its acquisition policy which required departments to take cost-of-decomissioning into account. Essentially that comes to an issue about open standards/formats, as when you decomission product X and it is the only thing that can read that format, then you either need to keep the product and its runtime environment available (hardware and people with the necessary skillset), or engage in a conversion - both are costly, and that was the nifty bit. But it's a sane thing to consider even if you have no affinity for OSS.
As discused before, promoting OSS on its own tends to not do that well... but when focusing on open standards, formats and such, OSS benefits greatly and so does the environment in general. Aims and means...
Regards, Arjen.
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