Open Source For America is a coalition organized to support and promote Open Source Software use by the US Government. (They are a bit inconsistent in deciding if it is “Open Source” or “Free and Open Source” – both terms are used, the former much more than the latter).
One of the strongest arguments against proprietary formats is public use, such as goverment records. It seems ridiculous that one must pay a corporate 3rd party to do government business, but that’s how things are done in far too many cases.
I can’t say if OSFA will make a difference in this area or not, but they have recently called for comments on their Proposed Guidelines for Open Government Plans. I encourage you to read the draft.
Of course I have some thoughts
Here’s the thing about OSFA and similar organizations focusing on promoting “Open Source” to the US Government (and to a lesser degree other governments):
“Open Source” was supposed to be a synonym for “Free Software”, the whole trick was to make it more acceptable to commercial interests. It is easy to see how a company might be skeptical of anything “Free” being good business.
But, consider this situation now: Government is not a commercial interest and the concept of “Free as in Freedom” should be quite attractive to the government of a country that likes to pride itself on being “Land of the Free” and all that!
So the strange thing here is that proponents of the “Open Source” label have so lost sight of the the core aspect of “Free Software” – Freedom – that they can’t even bring it up when it is applicable! They talk about “open standards” and “royalty or patent encumbered formats” without talking about individual freedom.
That is what is important! Why so much focus on the how, and so little on the why?!
We see a similar failing of “Open Source” when someone brings up the argument that “users don’t care about seeing the source code”. This may be true, but it is a problem of focusing on the development model. It’s harder to argue that “users don’t care about freedom from vendor lock-in, 3rd party control, outrageous licensing agreements, unwillling upgrade cycles, the inability to access their own work as they see fit, etc.“.
It’s much harder to argue that “users don’t care about Freedom”, because they most certainly do!
#1 by The Mad Hatter on January 22, 2010 - 4:47 am
Free Software is a philosophy.
Open Source – well I’m not sure what it is, or what good it does, if any.
#2 by saulgoode on January 23, 2010 - 4:02 pm
I certainly agree that the naming is sub-optimal, taken either from the standpoint of attracting supporters or in lobbying efforts with the government.
Nonetheless, if they have any success whatsoever in promoting a government (esp. common law) acceptance of the term “open source” as incorporating rights to modification and distribution (per the OSD), it should be a step in the right direction. Even though I prefer the term “Free Software”, I still don’t wish to see “Open Source” further usurped by those who’d have it equated with “Shared Source” (or with Jason’s neologism, “Faux-pen Source”).
#3 by Jason on January 24, 2010 - 11:46 am
Saul,
Just a side note here: I have a special affinity for the term “faux-pen source”, because it first came around in the sense that I use it (“pretending to be open source”), but there was a brief attempt by some of the usual chuckleheads to push “fauxpen source” as a term for those who are not in the “real” FLOSS community (i.e. those who don’t kneel at the altar of Microsoft and worship Mono/Moonlight/Novell, and may even –GASP!– raise inconvenient questions).
It didn’t catch on of course, but I am constantly amused by how hypocritical and un-self aware a segment of that fan club is! I always get a chuckle when Person A accuses Person B of being guilty of the exact thing Person A is engaged in.