City of Vancouver Adopts Open Standards 132
rbrander writes "Vancouver, Canada's third-largest city, has adopted a policy of 'open standards, interfaces and formats' for all public data. They will also consider open-source software on an even footing with proprietary for all new software purchases. Fifteen of the fifteen people who signed up to speak to city council on the topic spoke in favor. Their only criticism was, 'can't you do more?' with one advocating that free and open source software be given preference, not equal footing."
One good point about the Economical Crisis. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's good that in tough times, our elected people stop and think outside the box a bit.
Re:One good point about the Economical Crisis. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not so much thinking outside the box, as not forgetting what you put in it.
When you can't open documents from a decade and a half ago, because they were stored in some incompatible proprietary format, you can't help but get a bad taste in your mouth for the company that caused it.
Now if you can complete your required task by using free software instead, and you have a guarantee that format will always be supported... well, make the logical jump.
Even if it isn't always supported, you can save the sourcecode, and decades from now you just get some enterprising novice coder to create a plugin to load it, for some money and experience. ;)
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Re:One good point about the Economical Crisis. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a solution for accessing any legacy soft and hard format, given sufficient resources.
Reverse engineering a binary format from a decade and a half ago is harder than converting old source code into new source code.
One requires a skilled individual, or maybe even team. The other requires a less skilled individual. Converting between programming languages isn't exactly rocket science. (it isn't assembly, either)
The enterprising novice only has to understand the source, and then re-implement it as a plugin in his favourite language.
(Contemplate what happens when current source code formats become incompatible...)
Do you really think C will be gone in a couple decades? ;)
Those of us that love it do not. Those of us that do not love it, also do not. C is very resilient.
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It's not just the source itself. OpenOffice has a really nasty slew of dependencies. Do you see all of those, and all of their interfaces, still hanging around in 15 years? As it stands now you'll struggle to build recent OpenOffice on RHEL4, say, which is still widely in use - e.g. it needs a dbus API version you can't supply without upgrading half the OS packages beyond EL4.
And I don't think having the source is necessarily any help - you can't get a contributor-standard understanding of any large codebas
Re:One good point about the Economical Crisis. (Score:5, Insightful)
ummm...no. They can get a version of the distro it was built on and install it on that computer in the museum. That's the strength of open source. Every version back to the beginning is, and will be, available somewhere. Given the DRM contained in most closed source programs, good luck finding an activation server around that will allow the program to run.
VMs (Score:5, Interesting)
A lot of your complaints would be solved by saving the rendering software in binary form which runs under an open-source virtual machine like VirtualBox. Then no matter how many formats you want to preserve, you only need to deal with constantly porting the VM to current technological standards.
This idea also helps if, for some reason, you prefer to use a proprietary OS and proprietary formats --- however, in that case you are still more likely to run into some bug (a la Y2K38) which you will be much less able to fix compared to the open-source renderer/format case.
I suppose for something like Y2K38 you could just patch the VM to lie about the date, but that isn't going to help if your use scenario requires current date support.
Re:VMs (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of your complaints would be solved by saving the rendering software in binary form which runs under an open-source virtual machine like VirtualBox.
This doesn't solve the problem of an activation server for the OS. You boot into your VM and it can't activate because the server is non-existent. Any problem you have with open source software is magnified 10X with closed source.
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This doesn't solve the problem of an activation server for the OS. You boot into your VM and it can't activate because the server is non-existent. Any problem you have with open source software is magnified 10X with closed source.
So activate it before you archive it?
I still don't think re-using a 15-year old VM is non-trivial though. Why is porting the VM software easier than other software?
Depends (Score:1)
> Why is porting the VM software easier than other software?
Well, I agree with you that this is not obvious, but the advantage is that once you have managed to port the VM, you have automatically ported all of the software you preserve running under it. So, if that is many different pieces of software, you have almost certainly saved work. If it is only one or two pieces of software, it might be the opposite.
My opinion is that VMs are some of the more likely pieces of open-source software to be maintaine
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I still don't think re-using a 15-year old VM is non-trivial though. Why is porting the VM software easier than other software?Because porting the VM only has to be done once. Porting the other software has to be done for however many pieces of old software there are.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but too many iterations of changes in the VM and the OS wants to re-activate. It is == changing too much hardware and the OS re-activating syndrome. Again, you run up against an activation server that isn't likely to be there 10-20 years down the road.
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> too many iterations of changes in the VM and the
> OS wants to re-activate.
If by "OS" you mean "Windows" then yes, that is potentially true.
Just to be clear though: those two terms are not interchangeable. An "OS" is not by definition Windows
Some would argue that the reverse is also true: Windows is not, by definition, an OS :)
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I stand corrected...;-)
However, ANY program requiring activation and re-authorization would run against the server not being up. I know many such DRM schemes in the closed source world that simply won't run without the authorization from the company's activation server.
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ODF is a standard and more office suites read it [wikipedia.org] than just OO.o. (Just stay away from MS Office SP2!)
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DF is a standard and more office suites read it [wikipedia.org] than just OO.o.
Sure, but that doesn't mean any of them will still read or write it in 15 years time, which is the problem we're discussing here. And if you're arguing safety in numbers you're better of with .doc.
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You argued that getting OO.o to compile is a bitch so you can't count on ODF. I said that there are other options. Don't re-frame the argument.
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Reverse engineering a binary format from a decade and a half ago is harder than converting old source code into new source code.
That's often a safe assumption, given certain constraints on code quality. But see Quark and Adobe and the choices they made about using legacy code vs. starting over from scratch on apps to read/write their own file formats after periods of cycling entire developer teams every 12-24 months for a couple of years. See my previous point about TIFF/PS/HTML (globally, those are among the most common file formats in current use [faxes, PDFs/printers, internets] and yet we have not achieved consistency in interpr
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Even now, configure on any moderately sophisticated program or framework (take OpenOffice) can require dozens of minutes to run, and potentially several hours to compile, because of all the version/architecture/configuration/etc interdependencies that need to be resolved, and we have access today to the sourcecodes for every relevant version of the subsystems. Are you confident that you could compile the relevant parts of OpenOffice 1.1.3 to recover some of the swriter table layout details that versions 2
The compiler problem (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why the C compiler is required to be able to compile itself to a new target platform. If you're especially paranoid, you store a reference platform with the OS, compiler and compiler source as well as your escrow source. Then no matter how alien computers become, your code and hence your data can survive.
This problem was solved in the 1960's.
It's also why if it doesn't include a compiler and source that can compile both itself and the OS it's not an operating system - it's an operating environment.
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Do you really think C will be gone in a couple decades? ;)
How many languages do you know that have lasted, not significantly changed, since early 60s?
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Cobol? Fortran? ; )
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Cobol? Fortran? ; )
Given that both have got OO extensions in the 90s, not to mention the rest of it... I'd say neither moderl COBOL nor modern Fortran resemble the original languages out of which they have evolved much. Especially Fortran (Wikipedia has a few code samples of Fortran 95 vs Fortran 77 to compare, and F77 was itself a major change).
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Oh, my, they _resemble_ the old languages. But I've been involved in recovering 5 year old data, repairing and recovering the media, finding readers that can access old tapes, getting the code recompiled even though C standards have changed since then enough to stop compilation, etc.
That sort of necessary stability is one reason I _love_ C, though. The code remains legible, and within reach of modern compilers with backwards compatible changes.
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C let me buy a house and a car.
I've saved thousands of lives with C.
I love C... and come to think of it, I've spent more time with it than I have with my wife.
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(Contemplate what happens when current source code formats become incompatible...)
As I understand it, source code is either ASCII or Unicode plain text. Are you really saying that, even a hundred years from now, our computers won't be able to understand plain text?
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We can pull fields off magnetic tapes from the 60s with fairly generic kit, but can we interpret them? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/11/11/vintage_ibm_tape_drive_moon_dust_data/ [theregister.co.uk]
Heck, paper punchcards are compatible with current computers to the extent that we can OCR and assign discreet known values to the holes and represent their information in a binary format. Do you have a programmable loom from the 1800s I could borrow?
There's more to compatibility than being able to read raw data. Otherwise, we co
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The examples you're relating aren't germane. In all of the cases, the data isn't plain text. It's binary data that's been encoded to fit on the media. Moreover, the range of values represented by the data is large - moon dust readings, images, etc. Finally, for all the above data the sample size is small - there are only a few sets of moon dust data, the only Jacquard looms available are all museum pieces, etc, and the encodings are proprietary.
On the other hand, plain text is a fairly small alphabet, e
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You miss the broader point. The data is only useful if it can be operationalised, that is, if it can be understood by the relevant systems as *more* than an ordered collection of bytes.
In response to your original question, that I can edit the byte stream of a GW-BASIC source file using vi on Fedora does not imply that the computer can operationalise an instance of the algorithm represented by the byte stream. Fedora is in no useful way compatible with the huge pile of GW-BASIC source code from merely 20-30
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Even if computers are not able to operationalize the source code on their own in the future, I'm assuming that there will still be people who will be able to write compilers, interpreters, viewers, or whatnot in order to operationalize the bytestreams that we leave behind. The main issue will be specifications, of course, and that's where open standards come in. By spreading the specifications far and wide, rather than encumbering them with patents, copyrights, or treating them as trade secrets, we allow
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In the future, programming will all be in XML, as this is will prove more adaptable to change. Open source software will of course embrace this open extensible language.
for (i=0;i<10;i++)
printf("%d\n", i);
Will be replaced with the following code which is not only much easier to read, and type, but is also adaptable to whatever extra options may be added to for loops over the years.
<for>
<initialization><assignmentvariable="i"><int>0</int></assignment></initia
Re:One good point about the Economical Crisis. (Score:5, Interesting)
I do not equate complexity with sophistication, myself, but then I'm just a very old geek and I could be wrong.
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Technically the file format is a bit of a mess, and OLAP was it's name oh.
Do you often burst into song mid-sentence while discussing file formats? Must make things fun at your place of work. :)
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Do you often burst into song mid-sentence while discussing file formats? Must make things fun at your place of work. :)
You mean there are people who don't?
You should have been there during the RDB Rollback musical. "Locks, locks, distributed locks - nothing quite like it for cooling your socks"
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Five is a conservative number, as the issues with PS are well known.
If you're into it, try printing a moderately complex CSSed page in Firefox on Windows, any modern Linux and OS X. You'll experience up to three different printing engines and three different hardcopies. Bonus points if you use a font (or a part of a unicode font) that the browser supports, but the printing engine doesn't.
Also see what different programs (open source or not) do with/to multi-page TIFFs. Are the extra images layers, channels,
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It's good that in tough times, our elected people stop and think outside the box a bit.
Not really. It's just a slightly bigger box.
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Welcome (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm a male prostitute, you insensitive clod!
It is a cliche joke (Score:2)
And it was pretty dumb, so gotta wonder why someone would post it ..
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There's really no point telling you, but Funny isn't worth karma anymore.
Vancouver is Awesome (Score:5, Informative)
I am glad to see the city where I was born is leading the rest of Canada in adopting support for open standards. Hopefully this is a foot in the door that prompts the rest of Canada to follow suit.
Vancouver, and British Columbia in general has always had a very strong Linux community. Victoria (the provincial Capital) has always had a fairly strong LUG going for as long as I can remember.
Re:Vancouver is Awesome (Score:5, Insightful)
The UK did the "equal consideration" thing years ago (I think around 2002/3). A few years later, I was still seeing government contracts being awarded based on statements like (actual quote) "Your tender was perfect, except for one word we wanted to hear: Microsoft".
Equal consideration isn't enough; it's a weasel word to appease people who care, while continuing with the status quo. Government buyers take risks only when forced to do so be legal requirements.
Re:Vancouver is Awesome (Score:4, Interesting)
Unfortunately, as we can see now, the UK have some serious issues with their politicians flagrantly abusing the system. It really doesn't surprise me that they'd be stupid enough to openly admit they are biased toward Microsoft even though the policy states otherwise.
This really isn't a good example given the current situation in the UK.
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> Unfortunately, as we can see now, the [world has] some serious issues with their politicians flagrantly abusing the system.
Here, I fixed that for you. But the UK does have a spectacular example of such a disaster: Iplayer. The Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iplayer [wikipedia.org] is enlightening on how exactly to screw up a major technology project with bad "initiatives". Of particular foolishness was the Windows-only DRM preventing it from working with anything but Windows Media Player, and it suc
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Here, I fixed that for you. But the UK does have a spectacular example of such a disaster: Iplayer. The Wikipedia article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iplayer [wikipedia.org] is enlightening on how exactly to screw up a major technology project with bad "initiatives". Of particular foolishness was the Windows-only DRM preventing it from working with anything but Windows Media Player, and it sucking your bandwidth even after you turned it off to effectively bittorrent the material while refusing to admit that it was bittorrent.
I think you may be a bit behind the times. iPlayer has been multi platform for quite a while now. the streaming service runs on flash, and even does HD, and the downloader is now available for both Linux and Mac as well as Windows via AIR. Works just fine on Fedora 10. Not open source, but at least platform neutral.
I agree that they made a mess of it when they went the Microsoft route. It was at best, used by a few people. The Flash site however has been very successful.
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When you put open source and closed source solutions side-by-side on equal footing, you can make comparisons such as TCO, vendor lock-in, support options, timeliness of updates/upgrades, and so on. If you simply assume that open source should be preferential you're making as big a mist
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Equal consideration is all that is needed. Unequal consideration means that an open source solution is considered a better choice than a closed source solution, before the individual merits of each solution are examined.
Of course, this assumes that the tender that is written in a fair and unbiased manner. I've looked at picking up some public sector work, and the biggest problem is that tenders can be written in such a way that only one supplier will be able to win it... and they're written in such as way as to also appear totally open and fair.
It would be nice... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:It would be nice... (Score:5, Interesting)
No prefered treatment! (Score:5, Insightful)
Giving OSS preferred treatment means that it doesn't win because it's better but just because it got an "unfair" advantage. You'll end up with the same prejudice that many "affirmative action" projects face, claiming that they only got this or that position because of that "unfair" advantage, not on their own merit.
I'm convinced that OSS can "win" on its own. And nobody will be able to claim that the sole reason was preference.
Re:No prefered treatment! (Score:5, Informative)
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It's not about the best app for a given job, it's about avoiding vendor lock-in. When it comes to government documents, total format openness should be obligatory.
In theory, if you have an open format, then any app should be able to view/edit it. The issue is that not all open formats are created equally. The OpenOffice format http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML [wikipedia.org], IMHO, is a right mess (as in so complicated to grok). If you want something simple that will last a long time, people need to think more in terms of something like plain ASCII/UNICODE with lighweight markup... see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweight_markup_language [wikipedia.org]
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In theory, if you have an open format, then any app should be able to view/edit it.
Given a sufficiently precise spec, a computer with enough resources to support an application to use the spec, and someone willing to write the application to read/write the spec, then yes.
The issue is that not all open formats are created equally.
Sure -- just imagine a crappy format licensed under an open spec.
The OpenOffice format http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Open_XML [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org], IMHO, is a right mess (as in so complicated to grok).
Score one for Microsoft. Check the link you listed and you'll see that the confusingly named "Office Open XML" format has nothing to do with OpenOffice.org. OOXML is Microsoft's so-called "open" XML file format for MS-Office docs.
You might be thinking of the
Prejudice for freedom is entirely appropriate. (Score:5, Insightful)
A citizen's desire to ensure their freedom is entirely appropriate. With software the only way to do that is to exclusively use free software and open standards. Proprietors aren't stupid; sometimes they write powerful software. But no matter what that software does it is always non-free. Powerful proprietary software has a master, an individual or organization that controls its destiny and thus what the user can do and how the user can do that job. People accustomed to the idea that programs should be decided on certain vaguely-stated values ("their own merit") and not a user's freedom—the freedoms of free software—need to reevaluate their views in light of what public service means. Governments should not be under the thumb of proprietors, no matter how powerful their software. We are better off improving free software to make up for any technical limitations it has so that it can do what citizens need it to do; thus less powerful free software is preferable to more powerful proprietary software.
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But Vancouver is doing the right thing by enforcing open standards. It just mean
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I'm always suprised about how people are able to come up with new car analogies each time. :-)
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As far as I'm concerned, proprietary software is, by definition, not fit for purpose in public projects**. So yes, OSS and open formats can win on their merits, but yes, they should also be mandated.
** See Peter Quinn's "Sovereignty" arguments for why
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As far as I'm concerned, proprietary software is, by definition, not fit for purpose in public projects**.
My generalization meter just went from SWEEPING to OVERFLOW.
Yes, open software is better for government projects, all things being equal. But when they're not - which is often the case - you have to make a judgement each time. For example, I can think of several transportation management apps and several engineering apps which have no open source equivalent and likely never will (mainly because the "itch" you'd have to scratch is, for example, a large, multi-modal transportation network). Saying that pro
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What your "meters" are doing is your own business ;)
So that's not a problem then, since we're talking about which is PREFERRED.
Incorrect. There's nothing fundamental about the itch-license link, and plenty of large projects hav
Re:No prefered treatment! (Score:5, Insightful)
In some situations, being Open Source is a merit in itself.
Giving preference to Open Source is one way to let that merit influence your decision.
Exactly how much preference Open Source will have (and should have) is open to debate. Is it "all else equals", or is it "unless there's a strong compelling reason not to", or somewhere between?
Re:No prefered treatment! (Score:5, Insightful)
Merit is irrelevant. Microsoft has never won on merit alone. They bought their position wilfully and skilfully. That is hardly the issue. It would still be a problem if WordPerfect still ruled the word processor world and Lotus 123 the spreadsheet world. The issue is vendor lock-in.
If file formats are all the same AND COMPATIBLE, then the competing apps vendors will inherently have to compete on merit. You will get your wish. But until such a time that Microsoft stops playing games with their intentional monkey-wrench implementation of ODF, it would be best if everyone moved over to an implementation that DOES use an acceptable and compatible implementation of ODF. Once that happen, then if Microsoft were to try to play in that arena, they would have a harder time playing their old games. Not that they wouldn't try, but the very first time a government document was made available to the public and the applications that people use (something other than Microsoft Office) coughs and says it can't read it, then Microsoft will have to answer to the problem they created. If there is law that says "this government body will use only open and compatible formats" and Microsoft fails, then Microsoft either needs to provide a fix or a refund at that point.
But BEFORE that level and fair playing field can be established, a "standard" needs to be in place first... an open standard. Microsoft has already demonstrated bad faith with their first implementation that will READ all ODF documents just fine... but won't save them in a way that other software can read them. (That is exactly how their lock-in game works.)
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Merit is irrelevant. Microsoft has never won on merit alone. They bought their position wilfully [sic] and skilfully [sic].
That is true from the moment that Bill got the IBM contract for a product he didn't even have yet. Thanks, Mom!
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Sorry, that makes little sense. OSS isn't a genetically challenged underclass, held down by a bunch of bigot of another race. No affirmative action here.
OSS is a competitive alternative that saves big bucks in the long run. Open source standards documents are sufficient for transmitting and storing any type of data that government needs to transmit or store. There is no NEED to pay the monopoly hundreds of thousands each and every year for the privilege of using - what, exactly? A bunch of macros that
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Rational behavior (Score:5, Insightful)
They will also consider open-source software on an even footing with proprietary for all new software purchases. [...] Their only criticism was, 'can't you do more?' with one advocating that free and open source software be given preference, not equal footing."
Indeed, it seems irrational that open source software isn't always considered on an even footing, not just in Vancouver but everywhere. Do governments assume that there is some inherent advantage to the source code being kept secret and copyrighted—security through obscurity, perhaps?
And it seems at least as irrational that open source isn't already given preferential treatment on account of its price, which is generally zero. You always hear about governments automatically going with the lowest bidder, even to their own detriment. Yet, when it comes to software, it almost goes without saying that they shell out money for Windows and Office.
Re:Rational behavior (Score:5, Insightful)
It's more that governments are slow to react to changes, and it is only in the last 5-10 years that open source software has entered the public consciousness /at all/.
There are a lot of interest groups that want to make it sound like nothing of value is ever free.
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It's more that governments are slow to react to changes, and it is only in the last 5-10 years that open source software has entered the public consciousness /at all/.
Indeed. The people in government aren't the ones with the best oversight and understanding of technological issues. When computers started gaining wide adaptation those deciding upon what systems to use for state and government work tried to make the best choice from the options they had, or thought they had, available. Going with a system like Windows seemed to have been the safe choice, Microsoft making every effort on all fronts to make the deciders feel like that to I am sure. But for non-techsavy burea
Open source isn't free... (Score:2)
Lowest Bidder? (Score:3, Funny)
You always hear about governments automatically going with the lowest bidder
Really? Where are you from?
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TCO includes not having to retrain noobs from the street or the IT/HR department on the newfangled interface which has slightly different looking UI elements. Remember that employees and intended users may have knowledge ranging from wanting to load paper into the LCD through to what we know here. At present, part of IT's costs are hidden by the practice of power users (anyone under 30) in local offices performing (passable) first tier helpdesk functions for most of their common end-user applications (Windo
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Do governments assume that there is some inherent advantage to the source code being kept secret and copyrightedâ"security through obscurity, perhaps?
People usually go with the familiar. When your entire workforce knows how to use Microsoft software already, you aren't going to dump FOSS on them. Any money you saved would be lost to person hours learning the new software.
Does it seem irrational that your state continues to contract the same company to produce police cruisers? No, they just go with what already works.
Now if only the rest of Canada... (Score:1)
Only Criticism... (Score:5, Insightful)
FOSS shouldn't be given preference. It should be considered using the same criteria as proprietary software: functionality, cost, security, sourcing, etc. Considering that FOSS is generally less expensive than proprietary software, it's already got an advantage that proprietary software will have difficulty overcoming.
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Re:Only Criticism... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Well yes and no. One item on a checklist of pros and cons should be "Is it FOSS", since it is a known fact that given the exact same source code it is preferential and beneficial that said source code be open rather than proprietary. So in that one respect, yes, FOSS should be given preference.
Many moons ago when I developed commercial software we either had to put the code into escrow or supply it to our customers... I was working for small software house and our customers wanted the security-blanket that should something happen, they could get at the code and still support the software we developed. Now, the dirty little secret, is that even with the code, it wouldn't have done them much good. Just having the code isn't enough. You also need the knowledge behind the code and how it was construc
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Well yes and no. One item on a checklist of pros and cons should be "Is it FOSS", since it is a known fact that given the exact same source code it is preferential and beneficial that said source code be open rather than proprietary. So in that one respect, yes, FOSS should be given preference.
By your logic...
Does it meet my needs? No.
Is it FOSS? Yes.
Well it meets 50% of my criteria. I should choose it.
How about if 2 pieces meet all of your criteria or are closely matched and one is FOSS it should be a tie
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FOSS should not get preference (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:FOSS should not get preference (Score:4, Insightful)
Watch how long it takes for Toronto to do the same (Score:1)
somebody has been looking at maps??? (Score:3, Insightful)
Did the author just stumble on it or did someone tell him/her to identify which Vancouver?
Vancouver Washington and Vancouver BC are close (sort of) but are not alike.
Kind of makes a difference.
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Did the author just stumble on it or did someone tell him/her to identify which Vancouver?
I think the author realized he's writing for a primarily American audience, so it's not safe to assume that the audience would ever have even heard of Vancouver (either one).
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Only thinking about towns in your own country is silly. I know I specify "London, Ontario" when I mean the London there, but plainly "London" when I'm talking about the one in the UK.
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Vancouver is Canada's third largest metropolitan area, and eighth largest municipality.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_100_largest_metropolitan_areas_in_Canada [wikipedia.org]
also first on carbon tax (Score:1)
This news is a little dated... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh yes, "open standards" (Score:2, Insightful)
So Vancouver is "adopting open standards for that data and considering open source software when replacing existing applications."
Open standards, and one presumes primarily for reports, spreadsheets, etc. As for example ECMA-376 Office Open XML File Formats (2nd edition) aka ISO/IEC 29500?
(If you're a bit lost, just think filename extensions with "x" on the end: "docx", "xlsx", ....)
Let's consider open source software for the purpose. Well, plenty of it supports this "Open" standard. But somehow it's not q
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You're right that Microsoft is hoping to con people into thinking that OOXML is an open standard, but there are plenty of us here in BC who know the difference between OOXML and a real open standard like ODF.
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They can try to standardize on ECMA-376 (OOXML) if they want, but they may have trouble finding a single piece of software that supports it.
One is not the same is some ... (Score:2)
... and from the summary on /.:
It's not Open Source (Score:4, Informative)
Really, folks, RTFA. It's about open formats, not open source.
It seems to have been triggered by someone not being able to look at a WMV movie on the City of Vancouver site. They think you need IE to show a WMV. Gives you some idea of how intelligent the whole thing is.
Undoubtedly job#1 will be to convert all those WMVs to ...what?
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Undoubtedly job#1 will be to convert all those WMVs to ...what?
OGM, AVI, MPG, really, anything with an open format that plays in _everything_. WMV is a pain in the ass.
Microsoft have not yet begun to fight this one. (Score:2, Insightful)
As a Vancouver resident (well suburb, but maybe my municipality will follow the big boys) I applaud this step.
However be advised the Microsoft has a significant development facility here, and they have yet to be heard from.
Alderman can pass motions, but we havent seen anything real yet.
Where's the cream filling? (Score:2)
No, really! I want to see the meat of this decision and perhaps some analysis.
I haven't taken a swim over to Groklaw yet, so maybe Pamela's already busted this out, but if this were covered over there they'd have 1) a link to the full text of the decision and 2) a legal analysis of what the wording meant, mostly importantly: how good we've got it or how bad we can be screwed.
First, the full text is available on the City of Vancouver website here [vancouver.ca]. It's Matter #5, "Open Data, Open Standards and Open Source",
Re: (Score:1)