Hi Jeff,
On 9/22/06, Jeffrey Ian Dy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Zak,
When I said "some arguments embodied that of Microsoft's" it was a
factual statement. It was not meant to define the intention of the
bill. The purpose of why a law should be written is in its (1)
explanatory note and (2) in its statement of principles. So please don't
misinterpret my post nor misrepresent my intentions. There is sometimes
a danger of quoting a line or two (or in this case a paragraph) then
lengthily discuss the merits of what was said. This is the reason why I
refrain from quoting people, though I try, in my best capacity to
explain. Way back in college, I remember constructors and deconstructors
(not in C++ or OOP, but in Philosphy). People tend to deconstruct
statements made and reconstruct them to fit one bias. To avoid that,
the context from which the language was used must be realized when
reconstructing.
I agree with your assessment that Microsoft's arguments are being
embodied in my reactions. I know, I've read the FUD documents and
press releases. However, please see the context of my opposition of
certain provisions of the bill regarding mandatory and preferential
use of *only FOSS*.
As for construction and deconstruction, of course that's how you
reason: you deconstruct whatever was said to concepts in your head,
and try your best to interpret what's being said and propose a
different/dissenting view or argument.
As for your non-quoting, it actually does more harm than good because
I for one could not understand what you're referring to when
presenting your arguments without proper inline quoted comments.
See http://plug.free.net.ph/lists/netiquette for more on the quoting issue.
Everybody knows that M$ campaigned globally against FOSS. Bill Gates
even called its lobbyists "communists" and the CEO of M$ (I forgot, not
Bill) in 2005 called FOSS a cancer and asked governments to stop FOSS
legislation. Hence, I was actually pointing out that some arguments
raised here, while I sincerely believed to be well-intentioned, are the
same arguments being used by M$ against FOSS in the global arena, and
echoing it, is like helping the anti-FOSS propaganda campaign globally.
Remember that the issue here is not FOSS advocacy but rather the FOSS
bill. I believe in FOSS, and am thankful for FOSS -- I even advocate
its use. But in government, I am not at ease with the thought of FOSS
being made the first choice for ICT projects in blanket policy. I'd
rather guidelines on the rights allowed to government be specified,
while not discriminating against the type of license software comes
with. I would also rather see FOSS be adopted because of the technical
merits of the solution, rather than the license the software comes in.
I have shown a case of how a software license beneficial to government
slapped on to software which fulfills the technical functional and
non-functional requirements of government can be non-FOSS and be seen
"unfit" merely because of a bias; instead as the bill proposes, "only
FOSS shall by used by government in ICT projects." regardless of
whether the FOSS is actually compliant to the technical requirements
of government.
Now, just to clarify because this may be used against us and say that we
are legislating discrimination (which we are not, please read my
previous post), we have nothing against M$. It was a factual statement .
It was even far from discriminatory. I did not call M$ fascists nor
Nazis nor anything of that sort. It was factual and I have evidence to
prove it. And the *intent* of the statement is to reiterate the
consequences of statements we will be saying in *public* because we
might find ourselves in the future involuntarily on the other side of
the fence.
But you are legislating discrimination: "only FOSS will be used in
government ICT projects". You are then already discriminating
solutions based on arbitrarily set properties and criteria _regardless
if you have exceptions_. Instead of putting down the acceptable
stipulations with regards to software licenses that government _ought_
to require from products developed by third party VAS providers or
software development firms (like access to source code, rights to
extend and modify, and rights to use for indefinite period of time),
you choose to classify the licenses the software come in and require
government to favor one class over the other.
IMO that's discrimination enough.
--
Dean Michael C. Berris
C++ Software Architect
Orange and Bronze Software Labs, Ltd. Co.
web: http://software.orangeandbronze.com/
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
mobile: +63 928 7291459
phone: +63 2 8943415
other: +1 408 4049532
blogs: http://mikhailberis.blogspot.com http://3w-agility.blogspot.com
http://cplusplus-soup.blogspot.com
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