Open Source Throws in the Towel

Posted 11 Aug 2002 at 02:02 UTC by garym Share This

Maybe it's the sour grapes over spectacular evaluation failings, or maybe it's just desperation, but it seems hardly a day goes by when there's not some new item that makes me want to distance myself ever more from the mainstream of the "open source" movement. Today's nugget was the utter inanity behind the CNET article Open source's new weapon: The law? and, with apologies to CNET authors Kanellos and Shankland, I offer this fictional retelling of the story, freely transliterating the rosy oss double-newspeak.

before the flames start spewing, I'll state up front that I applaud the recent UK and German policies which give open source equal footing in their purchasing, and even those clauses which give preference where all other factors are equal. Any law which forces a pure oss ploy solely for the sake of license purity, especially at the current state of the art, is stupidity at its finest. Pardon my French.

Open source gives up: We can't win on merit.
Staff Writers, CNOT News.cc
August 9, 2002, 4:09 PM PT

Open-source software advocates conceded today that they are just as baffled by what people really want from computers as are the other proprietary vendors, and have launched a lobby to enact laws to instead force the use of their software regardless of the technical merits.

A legislative proposal to be unfurled next week will force employees of the state of California into using whatever pre-alpha or amateur coded offerings each open source vendor chooses to bundle, and prevent all government departments from buying equivalent or even functional proprietary software from Microsoft or any other company.

Named the "Design Suppression in Software Act," the proposal essentially would make California the "Take it or leave it" state when it comes to software. If enacted as written, state agencies would be constrained to buying from open source software vendors regardless of the usable state of that code or the usability of proprietary alternatives.

"The legislative intent is that for software to be acceptable to the state, it is not a question of the software being technically superior or even of the suitability or usability of the software for fulfilling a task, but only that the contractual condition for purchase and/or licensing must satisfy a series of irrelevent requirements regarding the license," the proposal states.

Programmers and other open-source fans plan to march Thursday in San Francisco during the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo to promote their argument that legal constraints forcing Linux and other open-source projects can be used to prevent free-market advances in user-interface design by proprietary software companies, even Microsoft, thereby avoiding the expensive and annoying question of exactly why it is real people don't like the desktop from any vendor.

"Having had great success in gaining the support of several legislators, we are making a public announcement," said a San Diego attorney specializing in tort who is the driving force behind the bill. "We have planned several Sacramento meetings to surreptitiously lobby for this legislation."

Linux sellers will be among those backing legislation. "If we can get the open-source movement just as excited about stiffling usability complaints through oppressive legal code as are Microsoft, Sony and Disney, I think the lobbying will take off itself,"

The point of the proposal isn't to punish developers of proprietary software. Instead, advocates point out that "closed" buying legislation reduces the need to spend their dwindling resources on trying to figure out just what it is that people actually want from computers, and those issues just add cost and bother to what is otherwise a beautiful creation of naiive engineering principles, two problems the vendors need to reduce. Since we can't get a grasp on the end-user requirements, the next best thing is to just legislate around them.

The proposal won't be delivered to the legislature just yet.


Bad interpretation, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 03:22 UTC by ftobin » (Journeyer)

You aren't seeing the bigger picture. Choosing software is not simply a matter of asking "what has better technical merits for doing thing X", because that is a short-sighted view. Let me offer an analogy.

Let's say that NYC needs to choose a contractor to handle its garbage. There are two competitors, companies X and Y.

Company X will give detailed instructions of how it handles the garbage, and allows the government to audit them. Because they use standard, open systems, NYC, if dissatisfied, can hire another company to take over what Company X is has developed.

On the other hand is Company Y. Company Y might be more proficient at handling the garbage, and even might offer it at a slightly lower price, but they require that all of NYC's garbage system be overhauled to their proprietary system. Company Y keeps secret how it handles the garbage; noone but Company Y actually understands how they work. Company Y also owns all the roads that can be used to take garbage along, for 'proper control and efficiency'. This is okay for the first year, but next year, company Y is planning on doubling its price, and searching through the garbage of important people for 'interesting' things. Unfortunately, when NYC is presented with the bill for the the second year, they think it's too high; however, their entire garbage system is locked up under Company Y's control. Even if they just stopped Company Y's operations, Company Y still owns all the roads that are used to transport garbage; NYC can't use these roads without being subject to paying Company Y. Even worse, NYC never hears about Company Y's searching through the garbage, because they keep their secrets so well…

The sad thing is, in non-research sectors of government, people making purchasing decisions simply can't be trusted to make solid technical decisions, much less consider long-term impacts of technical choices. I certainly don't want my tax dollars going solutions that lock governments into proprietary solutions, or hold them beholden in any way. I'm perfectly willing to pay more to ensure that those with power over me aren't themselves subject to a corporation, an amoral entity.

Realize that this decision is not about Open Source, which is a development paradigm. This is now about Free Softare.

I recommend that you read Peruvian Congressman Dr. Nunez's letter to Microsoft for why Free Software is what governments should choose.

features and requirements, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 03:32 UTC by graydon » (Master)

can't get a grasp on user requirements? I think the point of this bill is just that: that the "requirements" of government software -- stability, security, availability, accessibility, customizability, interoperability and price -- justify standardization on free software wherever possible. putting it into law is just making note of this fact in a clear and unambiguous way.

in other words, being "free software" is a feature. it's not the sort of feature most proprietary vendors mean -- not a button or a wizard or something -- but it's the feature that most people lack in their software. nobody thinks it's right for file formats to be incompatible. nobody thinks it's right for operating systems to crash. nobody thinks it's right for a private company to control increasingly fundamental communications infrastructure for the world. all these are the unspoken "requirements" proprietary software satisfies, and many users (public institutions especially) are increasingly waking up to the desire to be free from them.

Let's stick with the meritocracy, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 03:38 UTC by garym » (Master)

Your parable assumes Company X can actually dispose of garbage. What if Company X can only carry it as far as the Hudson or has a lossy process that leaves 10% every 15 miles, or what if it requires every home to use a new spherical garbage can that does not accept tin, aluminum or banana waste?

I am not saying governments should not choose open source. I am not even saying that all things equal they should side with proprietary.

All I am saying is simply that a choice based on license religion instead of the free-market meritocracy is embarrassing, and it is embarrassing to me to be associated with thinking like that. Where software is more open, secure and does the job is a very, very different issue than a legislation that says "we have to use the GPL accounting package regardless of the negative impact in human factors" ... that's the sort of thinking which has most governments and educational institutions today requiring participants to be Microsoft based (ok, Microsoft used other strong-arm tactics rather than legislation).

Besides, the PalmOS has proved without a shadow of a doubt that given a new solution that actually works, people will choose what works; any argument that believes the end-users are mindless sheep is, well, doomed.

It's like what Richard Bandler means when he said "When people do something that works, they do it again. When they do something that doesn't work, they do it again HARDER" ... when we design KDE and Gnome/Sawfish almost verbatim off Win98, and then MS designs WinXP almost verbatim off KDE2/Gnome2, we are perpetuating each other's design mistakes instead of really, really asking "is this the way people want to use computers?". Just as Apple virtually usurped the Office PC in 1984 by asking that question, I guarantee that no amount of monopoly would save Windows if just one Linux company cracked the nut of why it is people (not geeks, but the 98% of the rest of the buying public) hate all computer interface choices currently on the market ... and there's probably a lesson to be had in asking why, after nearly a decade of neglect by its vendor, people were still using the Mac.

Besides ..., posted 11 Aug 2002 at 03:51 UTC by garym » (Master)

Besides, isn't it patently clear that the original CNET story is not to be taken for anything more than a publicity stunt to promote the Linux expo and the vendors? The bill itself does not even have a draft let alone actual support sufficient to present it, and even when it does, does it have even a snowball's chance in hades of being passed in, of all places, California? The bill and the march are cheap PR, a media stunt, and that makes it twice as embarrassing. Give me booth babes/studs over junk like this anyday.

OSS <> GPL, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 03:57 UTC by garym » (Master)

Oh, let's also remember here: There's no mention in the news item about free software, only software that fits the description by opensource.org and that is a very different kettle of fish that has almost all of the trappings of the above parable's Company Y. There's no way any government of a free-enterprise economy is going to escape powerful lobby against any mandate to enforce pure-GPL purchasing; as the CNET authors put it, should it ever come close (and it's not by any stretch) we can expect a flood of MsFreebies (as happened in Peru IIRC).

I like Free Software, not Open Source, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 05:07 UTC by Omnifarious » (Journeyer)

So, by your argument, if slavery were a more efficient system for growing cotton, that's what we should do. In fact, the government should always buy the cheapest, highest quality cotton regardless of whether or not it was produced with slave labor. After all, it would be embarassing for slavery to not fail on its merits.

For me, Free Software, especially in the government, is a moral issue. I don't want the government using Microsoft Word. It makes the government significantly less accessible unless I pay Microsoft a several hundred dollar license. Govenrment use of software that implicitly or explicitly makes use of proprietary lockin techniques is giving the corporation that owns that software the power to tax. It's that simple.

if Company X can't do the job..., posted 11 Aug 2002 at 05:58 UTC by ftobin » (Journeyer)

Your parable assumes Company X can actually dispose of garbage. What if Company X can only carry it as far as the Hudson or has a lossy process that leaves 10% every 15 miles, or what if it requires every home to use a new spherical garbage can that does not accept tin, aluminum or banana waste?

I submit that if Company X cannot do the job to the satisfaction of NYC, then NYC should invest in developing a solution itself, or put it out to bid again. However, contracting out to Company Y is intolerable. Under no circumstances do I want my government beholden to corporations. Your arguments work better for how a business, which has different goals and accountability from the government.

BTW, California is known for being a liberal state, so I would suspect that such a law would have a greater chance there than in most states. Not that I believe it has a good chance anyways, however…

I also please ask that you refrain from throwing around the notion that persons such as myself would want GPL-only solutions. I am open to all software libre.

As to whether or not the CNET article was talking about Open Source instead or free software, or whether it was merely media coverage, we here know what we're arguing, so let's please not attack the poor journalism.

Re: I like Free Software, not Open Source, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 06:08 UTC by Omnifarious » (Journeyer)

I meant that phrase as a statement on the ideals of Open Source vs. the ideals of software libre. The author of this article seems to be a big Open Source, not software libre fan. He doesn't seem to be buying into the biggest reasons why software libre is a good idea. He seems to be seeing it (as the Open Source movement likes to frame it) as a simple short-term economic choice.

Read Dr. Villanueva's letter again, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 06:29 UTC by tk » (Observer)

I thought this whole issue has already been hashed out in Dr. Villanueva's recent letter to Microsoft Peru...?

I can't care less if private companies get into trouble because a certain proprietary software company goes bust. Government agencies, however, are a totally different ball game altogether: they should not be tying themselves to any private corporations, whatever the reason.

Also, mandating free software does not (and should not) mean using substandard code. A program used in a government agency should satisfy the usual quality requirements, in addition to being free software.

I wonder if the CNET people are deliberately making the free software folks look more clueless than they really are. The title itself suggests that this is part of some sort of silly crusade, but the truth is more subtle.

I forgot..., posted 11 Aug 2002 at 06:34 UTC by tk » (Observer)

Besides, the license requirements of free software are emphatically not irrelevant. They mean a few things which are important for any reasonable government agency:

  • Transparency. What, are you supposed to trust that a certain software works as advertised, when you can't even see what's in it? How can you tell that the software isn't spying on government secrets?
  • Modification rights. In case an agency finds a bug -- or even a security trapdoor -- in a program, it should be allowed to modify the program to fix the problem, instead of waiting until some private company gets in the right mood to solve the problem.

Licensing *is* a technical grounds, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 06:46 UTC by neil » (Master)

Would the state buy a fleet of cars it couldn't maintain itself? Of course not. That would be terribly inefficient, and would probably be investigated for a kickback. Likewise, why shouldn't the state always use software it can maintain itself?

Usability means usefulness, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 06:58 UTC by garym » (Master)

Under no circumstances do I want my government beholden to corporations.

Interesting. To tell then, which government do you pay your taxes to? Have they no corporate ties? I know of no governments on this planet which are not beholden to corporate interests or intimately tied to who actually wins the government tenders. In other words, the assertion that free software (ok, not only the GPL is free, I concede that) is somehow going to gain exclusive status with any government on this planet is evidence of too much peyote somewhere.

Equal status I can accept and endorse in a bill, and as I've said, even preferred status where all other aspects are equal, and I also maintain so far without challenge that the best way to get free software as the preferred software for any demographic is to make the software 'better' in the eyes of that demographic; it may even be the only way. A faster encryption algorithm or cool skins mean nothing to someone who computes waterworks test result charts, but software they actually like to use? That's the only acceptable goal.

We've done it before, but only selfishly: IMHO GNU (and by extension Linux) is the only user-friendly software but only if you accept that the users of GNU are it's builders. If you love to hack code, Linux, FreeBSD, these are amazing playgrounds. If you want to run a recording studio, do video editing, run a veterinary or any other non-coding use, you're going to find yourself on the outside until you either become a coder, or switch to OS/X ;) What we need is to apply that same Linus principle to the rest of humanity: Linus says the guiding principle in Linux is that "it is fun for me to use it" and all we have to do is to make that statement true for the Senator's personal secretary, for the Comptroller and for the Land Survey office ... I don't think any one distro can do that, which is why Windows can't do it, so we have an edge here that Apple and MS can't match precisely because we can tailor to the task.

But instead we pump out knock-off WinClone desktops jammed with oodles of stuff we like, and now we want to march to demand legislation that our civil servants should like them too? That's just wrong. Its short sighted and narrow minded, and it's elitist. Either we beat MS on the strength of our code, or we go back to playing nethack and leave the legislative office computers to someone who will meet the requirements.

Legal bullying for acceptance isn't going to get us anywhere.

Dr. Villanueva, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 07:00 UTC by garym » (Master)

Do tell, what was the result of Dr.Villanueva's letter inside the Peruvian government? Did they adopt his proposals? Did they adopt any of his proposals? Is there a transcript somewhere of the debate in their legislature over his proposals? I'm just curious because the whole thing seemed to vanish from the news after the last offer from Microsoft.

Gross misunderstanding of what free software is, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 07:27 UTC by tk » (Observer)

To tell then, which government do you pay your taxes to? Have they no corporate ties?

This is a confusion between "is" and "ought to". Even if people are dying of starvation every day on this earth, it doesn't mean that people should be allowed to starve.

But instead we pump out knock-off WinClone desktops jammed with oodles of stuff we like, [...]

This is a misunderstanding of the nature of free software. Free software doesn't have to look like Unix. It doesn't even need to look like anything we've seen before.

Custom-coded software can also be free software. A government agency contracts a software house to write software for a particular task, pays the software house for the writing and only the writing of the software, and also requires the software house to release the source code. (Yes, the result is still free software.) Is this not a workable model?

Do tell, what was the result of Dr.Villanueva's letter inside the Peruvian government? Did they adopt his proposals? Did they adopt any of his proposals? Is there a transcript somewhere of the debate in their legislature over his proposals? I'm just curious because the whole thing seemed to vanish from the news after the last offer from Microsoft.

Does it matter? Does the correctness of an idea depend on what other people think about it? Anyway, last I know, the issue is still ongoing, it's too early to tell.

The CNET article borders on cluelessness, but I think the current interpretation of it goes one step further.

Governments have huge purchasing power, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 11:33 UTC by broonie » (Journeyer)

If there are no acceptable solutions with a free license already avaliable then the U.S. government is in a relatively good position to pay or help pay for the development of a something which fits their needs. One of the many reasons for putting requirements like this into government specifications is that it's a way in which the government can use its purchasing power to benefit as many people as possible.

It is your civic duty to promote such laws, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 11:46 UTC by abraham » (Master)

If you really believe that free software on the long provide better value for the money, you should promote laws that require the use of free software in government. As a citizen and a tax payer, it is your duty to help the government make the best possible use of the tax money.

This means the "letter" in the story really misses the point. It is only if you believe free software provides a *better* solution one should support such laws.

Not that this is totally different than laws that require private companies or indiviuals to use specific licenses. You, as a citizen, is a co-owner of your government, and should have a say in how it uses its tax money. If you have stock in a company, you can similarily try to get the other stock holders to agree on a similar free software policy, and should do that if you believe it will benefit the company, and make your stock worth more.

I'm not quite sure what my opinion on the matter is. Making technical requirement for large organizations from the top, like requiring all defense software to be written in Ada, usually gives worse results than letting smaller units optimize their policy for themselves. However, given we have a de-facto monopoly in many areas, a top down approach may be the only option. For example, if a single office should choose between Open Office and MS Office, the later would be the best solution because it is more compatible with what the other offices use. But if all offices choose Open Office, that would be optimal because it is cheaper, and make the whole organization less dependent on a single supplier.

Wha Wha What!, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 18:54 UTC by mglazer » (Journeyer)

Maroooons!

Do you want ownership

or not?

If you don't, who cares who steals it?

Ever hear of a book titled 'Steal This Book?'

The dissemination of software is freedom. Freedom for and to all whether for good or bad. That doesn't mean software should go to terrorists and that doesn't mean if a commerical company uses they should be sued either.

There is a mellow freedom middle-ground there, you just have to be cool enough to find it and not such a whiny uptight dick.

If someone interprets free software differently than yourself its ok don't have an cow man! Free software is not supposed to be organized or big time its supposd to be free, loose, and carefree. That being said soem will take advantage but who cares thats why it is free to being with. The definition of free is something of lesser value.

Being uptight about 'free software' can be as restrictive as commercial software.

Be your own man and stop worrying about what other people do it sounds very facistic and communistic otherwise and we all now how that ended up just look at Europa and Russka...

Frredom is free access too..., to good and bad, for good and bad.

Doesn't mean be totally loose and that doesn't mean be totally uptight.

Be Buddha, center yourself, a bit of each Ying/Yang.

It is a peson's life journey to find that happy medium which does not come in a bottle, so relax, take your time and check yourself at every occasion you lose your cool.

re: Dr. Villanueva, posted 11 Aug 2002 at 21:11 UTC by graham » (Journeyer)

garym wrote:

Do tell, what was the result of Dr.Villanueva's letter inside the Peruvian government? Did they adopt his proposals? Did they adopt any of his proposals? Is there a transcript somewhere of the debate in their legislature over his proposals? I'm just curious because the whole thing seemed to vanish from the news after the last offer from Microsoft.
Its vanished from the US news because American news providers have a short attention span. They've 'done' Peru. It's still in the news in most Spanish speaking countries (largely because of the US ambassador having been proved to be pimping for Microsoft). The bill (and a second similar one) is in the committee stage, so the debates in the legislature haven't happened yet. But it certainly hasn't gone away, even if it's going to take some time to be done properly.

Re: Wha Wha What!, posted 12 Aug 2002 at 00:36 UTC by Omnifarious » (Journeyer)

mglazer wrote:

The dissemination of software is freedom. Freedom for and to all whether for good or bad. That doesn't mean software should go to terrorists and that doesn't mean if a commerical company uses they should be sued either.

RedHat is a commercial company. Their goal is profit. They have my blessing.

Microsoft has essentially packaged up some of the work of the BSD community and sold it back to them at a fat profit. They do not have my blessing. I consider the BSD license to be inferior because it permits this kind of stupidity.

RE: Besides..., posted 12 Aug 2002 at 17:22 UTC by bstpierre » (Journeyer)

The bill itself does not even have a draft let alone actual support sufficient to present it, and even when it does, does it have even a snowball's chance in hades of being passed in, of all places, California?

I thought California was where they like to pass all kinds of laws. You must be confused by the "Live Free or Die" phrase which appeared in the article; that's New Hampshire, where we wouldn't dream of passing ridiculous laws like this. We won't even pass seat-belt or motorcyle-helmet laws.

Anyway, they'd be much better off simply lobbying/selling the people directly in charge of the IT purchasing budgets for the state.

Seems someone was thinking exactly the same ..., posted 13 Aug 2002 at 15:16 UTC by garym » (Master)

OEOne is both open source and fundamentally different in their approach to Linux-for-Everyone, so maybe there's hope yet!

Peru Watching, posted 13 Aug 2002 at 16:49 UTC by garym » (Master)

graham wrote:

The bill (and a second similar one) is in the committee stage, so the debates in the legislature haven't happened yet.

I do hope you will keep us posted on the progress. It will be interesting to see if anything comes of it. I was especially encouraged by the German parliament's situation where the Ministry of the Interior first promised to give open source the fair right to bid on projects, only to be echoed by the opposition party promising to apply that rule across the entire government should they be elected.

Let's be clear here on the intent of my article: I never said free software was inferior or even hinted any endorsement of opensource.org ideals over those of gnu.org. What I said was the call for legislation to force the choice implies that we have given up trying to impress people with our talent for making computer systems they want to use and now see to bully and intimidate their compliance through inane political 'rallies' like this publicity stunt farce in aid of an largely irrelevent Linux expo. Is that clear enough?

I have already said elsewhere that free software will prevail, but only when it is ready. The current state-of-the-art is, Xandros, Lindows and even OEOne considered, most emphatically not ready for prime-time ... it is getting closer but it still has a long, long way to go to step out of the geek-box and into the hearts of the average computer user. That said, I stand by my original estimate of mainstream-readiness sometime in 2003.

RE: Besides..., posted 13 Aug 2002 at 22:40 UTC by Omnifarious » (Journeyer)

I thought California was where they like to pass all kinds of laws. You must be confused by the "Live Free or Die" phrase which appeared in the article; that's New Hampshire, where we wouldn't dream of passing ridiculous laws like this. We won't even pass seat-belt or motorcyle-helmet laws.

I would think that New Hampshire of all states would want to pass a law like this then. After all, it's a law that protects citizens from a rampaging government. It's not like it mandates that all private parties Open Source software or anything of the sort.

Understanding English should be a prerequisite for using any software, posted 14 Aug 2002 at 01:33 UTC by tk » (Observer)

I have already said elsewhere that free software will prevail, but only when it is ready. The current state-of-the-art is, Xandros, Lindows and even OEOne considered, most emphatically not ready for prime-time ...

Statements like these lend credence to the theory that a population tends to elect a government it deserves. Repeat, the... well, never mind.

The Aftermath , posted 16 Aug 2002 at 16:46 UTC by garym » (Master)

ZDNet's report of the march just has to be my validation, and a fitting epitaph to close this thread:
But open-source guru Bruce Perens, who marched alongside Tiemann, lamented that most technologists simply aren't paying attention. "It's obvious only a tiny bit of people from (LinuxWorld) turned out, and that presents a problem," he said. "Either they don't understand the issues or they have a business partnership that doesn't allow them to talk about it."
A zen monk once told me "one choice is a psychosis; two is a neurosis" and Perens' stark with-us-or-agin-us gung-ho never even pauses to ponder a third possibility: That maybe they think it's a counter-productive waste of time.

The Aftermath , posted 16 Aug 2002 at 16:46 UTC by garym » (Master)

ZDNet's report of the march just has to be my validation, and a fitting epitaph to close this thread:
But open-source guru Bruce Perens, who marched alongside Tiemann, lamented that most technologists simply aren't paying attention. "It's obvious only a tiny bit of people from (LinuxWorld) turned out, and that presents a problem," he said. "Either they don't understand the issues or they have a business partnership that doesn't allow them to talk about it."
A zen monk once told me "one choice is a psychosis; two is a neurosis" and Perens' stark with-us-or-agin-us gung-ho never even pauses to ponder a third possibility: That maybe they think it's a counter-productive waste of time.

ooops .... , posted 16 Aug 2002 at 16:47 UTC by garym » (Master)

sorry for the dup posting ... my browser timed out without confirming the first (damn dialup!)

How it's done, posted 16 Aug 2002 at 17:54 UTC by garym » (Master)

Want Linux in the government? CNet's report on the Cyberspace Policy Institute may point out a feasible path: Government can't use what they can't certify, and as it is, only RedHat is big enough to fund the certification process. The CPI is hoping to work around that while also probing the murky waters of government process. My guess is that their few warm bodies will have a far greater historical impact than Tiemann's media stunt.

Everybody has to deal with the government, posted 24 Aug 2002 at 18:27 UTC by riel » (Master)

What that means is that you cannot use proprietary data formats for government infrastructure. If you do, you're effectively forcing the population to also shell out $$$$ to buy software from the same commercial software vendor the government bought their stuff from.

From an earlier comment:

the best way to get free software as the preferred software for any demographic is to make the software 'better' in the eyes of that demographic

One of the goals of 'better' has to be uses only data formats and communication protocols that are open, well documented and free for everybody to implement.

Proprietary data formats that are locked in by secrecy and/or patents are not an option, at least not unless the government has suddenly decided to ignore the constitution and help enforce Microsoft's monopoly position ;)

IMHO any software that guarantees that the data formats and communication protocols it uses are out in the open would be acceptable for government use. Having said that, I don't know of many proprietary software packages that would fulfill this requirement and just going open source completely might be easiest for now.

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