EU Wants To Redefine "Closed" As "Nearly Open" 239
Glyn Moody writes "A leaked copy (PDF) of Version 2 of the European Interoperability Framework replaces a requirement in Version 1 for carefully-defined open standards by one for a more general 'openness': 'the willingness of persons, organizations or other members of a community of interest to share knowledge and to stimulate debate within that community of interest.' It also defines an 'openness continuum' that includes 'non-documented, proprietary specifications, proprietary software and the reluctance or resistance to reuse solutions, i.e. the "not invented here" syndrome.' Looks like 'closed' is the new 'open' in the EU."
Well, actually ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Looks like 'closed' is the new 'open' in the EU.
Actually, it looks like "corrupt" is the same old corrupt that it's always been. Gotta wonder just what changed hands to make that happen.
Re:Well, actually ... (Score:5, Insightful)
nothing has to change hands... this is how the lobbyist sycophants work. "Open Sources" was the new buzzword the pleb bureaucrats want.... so lobbyists continually re-spin words until something sticks... like little kids begging daddy for candy it goes from "no candy" to "how many pieces to get you to shut up so I can work". Unfortunately lobbyists aren't treated like begging children.
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In my family, for non essentials (lollies) the more you begged the less you got. We start with none.
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Well yes, I suppose that is one way of looking at my statement, and what happened. Any lollies that would have come to us got absconded for a higher purpose.
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Money, wealth, power, flattery and the occasional sexual favour. The usual.
Re:Well, actually ... (Score:5, Interesting)
No, the article looks like a troll.
An openness scala needs to have two extremes to be useful, which is why it also needs to included the worst of the worst in closedness, which reflects the minimum of openness.
Re:Well, actually ... (Score:5, Insightful)
USA! FUCK YEAH!
How's your education system going? Any improvements?
Re:Well, actually ... (Score:4, Funny)
How's your education system going? Any improvements?
Obviously not, or he'd know that there are more than 4 countries in the world.
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How's your education system going? Any improvements?
Obviously not, or he'd know that there are more than 4 countries in the world.
Or that Europe's not a country?
Re:Well, actually ... (Score:5, Funny)
The USA is the only country in the world.
Everything else is just a proxy state.
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Re:EU "Union" As "Country"? (Score:5, Insightful)
They are not out of touch. But people seem to think they are, this comes in the combination with the fact that the general population has a very bad knowledge of how the Union works.
I saw one comment in the line of: "damn the commission for forcing the Lisbon treaty on us", while it was in fact the European Council consisting out of the prime-ministers of the member-states who 1) took initiative for it and 2) signed the document.
Now, the other rather amusing thing is that, during previous EP elections, there was a poll in Sweden, where they asked people of whether they wanted the EU to grow into a sort of USE or whatever, in any case, the yes sayers where in the line of 15% for this (not really a majority, but still way over a million people), but when you start asking questions on the specifics and how they think the EU should be run, the solutions are almost always federal in nature.
The main point here is that people has in general no idea what they are talking about, and that the "out of touch" thing being that the top are using fancy words that their opponents have managed to get very charged from a political point of view. This include for example the word "federalism". In the now defunct constitutional treaty, the word "federal" was used in an early draft, but some head of state (think it was Tony Blair) in the negotiation got them to change the word to "supernational", technically they mean exactly the same thing, but the f-word is so charged with some people that they would not be able to stomach seeing it in a treaty.
You may of-course say that this just mean that the council is even more out of touch, but ask yourself:
The council consist of ministers from the member-states (executive officials who suddenly are law-makers), who are indirectly elected, do you think it is better that the directly elected parliament have more to say about any formed law?
Most people, even those who are opposed to an USE type organisation, say yes to the question I just wrote down, this is rather interesting, as that is basically support for a federal EU. A powerful council on the other hand makes the Union a more confederal styled organisation.
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I do not think they are out of touch, I do think that some have received a boatload of money, in whatever form.
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What's there to improve?
What about Europe's educational system? Is it improving?
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>> Suck it, Europe! What with Canada...
>> USA! FUCK YEAH!
> How's your education system going? Any improvements?
Not bad [arwu.org]. How does yours compare?
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The U.S. has the freest internet access in the WHOLE WOILD!
If true, that's pretty sad.
Fortunately, I'm pretty sure it's not true.
Re:Well, actually ... (Score:5, Insightful)
[citation needed]
And If you start a sentence with "in fact", [citationS needed]. Do you really mean to say that you believe your Bush family today isn't at least as nepotist as "our (hidden, because I can't say I can think of too many offhand) old elites? I'm curious, what do you call buying a representative's allegiance through "campaign contributions"? Because I suspect that if you were to correlate donations with voting behavior, you'd be pretty shocked and appalled. And yet, the fact that that happens has nothing to do with "big government", just with people creating rules that are to their own advantage rather than to another's, and nobody caring enough to protest as long as they keep it hidden from view.
In any case, "The libertarians amongst us" are a bunch of twits who use banal stereotypes in order to support their own beliefs, fearing to actually look for sources for their idiotic claims about "Europe" or "communism" because all they're interested in is pushing their own agenda, and for that you need fear of government. You rail against this "socialism" shit, yet you're afraid to look for confirmation from sources other than Glenn Beck's writing (because fuck knows he's the poster child of academic rigour in his research). If you want to see what deregulation did for the American consumer, go read Elizabeth Warren's "The Two-Income Trap". If you deregulate banks, they're not suddenly going to be nice to you, as though the 2500 year old usury laws/taboo was utter nonsense. They're going to try to suck you dry for all you're worth, and even if they don't succeed with you, they will succeed with your friends and neighbors. Only they won't talk about it because they feel it is their personal failing that they couldn't get better rates from the bank. Yet "libertarians" suck it all up and say "this is a risk of the free market. What the fuck is free about it? The relative bargaining power of the bank vis-a-vis the lone consumer is enormous. Of course there's going to be abuse of power there, resulting in terrible deals for the consumer. Remember that slogan "everyone is equal under the law"? You need regulation to enforce that. The open market won't create it. [hanover.edu] Why would they? There is no incentive whatever to do so, as there is nobody who can check their power except the government.
Have you not been watching the news in your country? How, pray tell, do you maintain this idiotic notion that the USA doesn't suffer from high prices? Try talking to anyone who's needed to go in for some sort of medical treatment, and see if they didn't go bankrupt afterwards because of lost income, or somesuch. as for high unemployment, again, [citation needed]. You kept the entire automobile industry alive through huge tariffs and subsidies, not least of which through actually subsidizing gas prices so that manufacturers didn't feel the need to try for better mileage. That industry's dead now, and you've got at least 10-15% unemployed atm. Think they'll be going away soon?
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"Punishing the wealthy" is a strawman perpetraited by those born with a silver spoon in their mouth who never had to do any real work in their life.
Get a clue. It's about leveling the playing field. The goal isn't to make everybody equal, it's to give everybody a fair shot at success as far as this is possible.
And you're deluding yourself if you think Europe is any more corrupt than the US.
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If "punishing the wealthy" was a strawman that the rich were perpetuating then wouldn't that mean they would argue how punishing the wealthy doesn't actually exist or is easily disproved and then use that to incorrectly claim some entire argument is therefore invalid?
A view or claim that a person is perpetuating that they themselves subscribe to is not a strawman, it's just that, a view or a claim. A strawman is when a person sets up a false or flawed claim for their opponent, and then knocks that false cl
How hard is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
A) Open specs
B) An open implementation of those specs both on
C) Not patent encumbered
For just about everything there is a suitable open format. Lets see here:
Images? There are many
Audio? Ogg Vorbis
Video? Ogg Theora
Document? ODF or PDF (not sure how "open" PDF really is but its pretty universal)
There isn't a single thing that governments really need that isn't open or can be created for less cost than contracting it to proprietary vendors.
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which is why if your the eu you adopt an open format and declare that it doesn't infringe on any patents.
Re:How hard is it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed. Governments are the one entity that can actually defend an open standard by simply saying that no patents apply to it. If someone thinks they have a claim, then they can raise the issue before it gets that far. But even then, if given the choice between denying someone a sanctioned monopoly (patent) or denying the entire world a viable standard, it's hard to justify the monopoly. Even reasonable patents are generally more an inevitable result of the state of technology than of some unique, singular leap. People are denied patents all the time. For every granted patent, there are any number of people doing equivalent work that are not only denied the patent but may be denied even the right to use their own work since it then violates the patent. Limiting patents as they apply to open standards hardly seems like a high price to pay.
It is pretty clear that the real impediments to open standards are a matter of "follow the money".
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Re:How hard is it? (Score:5, Informative)
There is no software patents in Europe.
Wrong. There is no directive requiring member states to recognize software patents, but member states can do so if they wish. According to e.g. the Swedish patent office, software can be patented, but whether this has any basis in the law is unknown to me. In other words, the Swedish Patent Office may grant you a software patent, but if the law doesn't recognize software patents, the patent is a worthless piece of paper since you cannot sue anyone for infringement.
Re:How hard is it? (Score:5, Interesting)
not sure how "open" PDF really is but its pretty universal
Wikipedia says "Formerly a proprietary format, PDF was officially released as an open standard on July 1, 2008, and published by the International Organization for Standardization as ISO/IEC 32000-1:2008". It also says Adobe has patents on it "but licenses them for royalty-free use in developing software complying with its PDF specification".
even if that wasn't the case there has long been a lot of fully compatible implementations of it (unlike Word).
Re:How hard is it? (Score:5, Informative)
There has been a lot of compatible PDF viewers, but the pool of PDF creation software is limited. Most OSS solutions implement a subset of the features. Even now, there really is nothing to complete with the feature level in Adobe Acrobat.
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There has been a lot of compatible PDF viewers, but the pool of PDF creation software is limited. Most OSS solutions implement a subset of the features. Even now, there really is nothing to complete with the feature level in Adobe Acrobat.
Hey, that means it's "nearly open"!
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You may well want to check out scribus.
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How can you implement legally Pantene in GPL source code?
I hear shampoo has some ideas.
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It seems you were thinking of the Pantone color matching system [wikipedia.org]. Which I can't see how they can claim any intellectual property protection on, but such as it is.
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There has been a lot of compatible PDF viewers, but the pool of PDF creation software is limited. Most OSS solutions implement a subset of the features. Even now, there really is nothing to complete with the feature level in Adobe Acrobat.
I'm not sure what all the features are, what I need (and probably what 99% of the population needs) is "convert some non-PDF document to PDF". Mac OS X does this natively, and I have used several free/cheap PC utilities to do the same. I've never had a document they couldn't do. They generally plug in through the print utility, so if you can print it you can convert it to PDF.
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You're right, if all anyone wants to do is use an editor program to store a static content document in a portable format that will have the same layout everywhere, the existing PDF generators work great.
If you want to take advantage of the advanced PDF features like embedded javascript or forms that submit to the web, you're basically SOL without Acrobat and even if you could create them, most of the OSS readers don't support the advanced features.
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The non-Adobe PDF creators do not implement feature that no-one uses.
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If you want to take advantage of the advanced PDF features like embedded javascript or forms that submit to the web, you're basically SOL without Acrobat and even if you could create them, most of the OSS readers don't support the advanced features.
How are those "features", advanced or otherwise, in a format that was supposed to be about making sure the document looks like it's supposed to anywhere it's viewed?
Just because adobe wants to hang a bag on the side of it doesn't mean that if they're trying to use that crap, they're using the wrong tools.
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NOT using the wrong tools. Yay insomnia.
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If you want to take advantage of the advanced PDF features like embedded javascript or forms that submit to the web, you're basically SOL without Acrobat
Actually, pdfTeX lets you do both of these quite easily, and I believe Scribus does, too. There are features of pdf that you do need Acrobat for, but the two you mentioned are not among them.
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I have encountered PDF forms where acrobat wouldn't let you save, it would only let you print, and it would not let you print to a file...
As the form was rather long, and i didn't have all the information immediately, or access to a printer at the time it just rendered itself unusable.
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Is there a reason "print to PDF" isn't sufficient, for anything you'd use a Word document for?
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Yes...
When you do that, you lose any metadata... The PDF output i've seen from "print to pdf" options in programs like word is usually pretty nasty, there are no hyperlinks or clickable indexes, it's just a series of pages...
If you're going to have an electronic file, you want to take advantage of features inherent to it being electronic, since a printed document won't have such features the print option doesn't export any such information.
Try using openoffice to save a pdf file with hyperlinks and a table
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That is because proprietary vendors don't stick to the protocol in a lot of cases, so any other group that does stick to the protocol has an incomplete spec.
Re:How hard is it? (Score:5, Interesting)
PDF is pretty open, but that's not open enough for my liking. The standard mandates that any implementation honour the dopier "protections" in PDF documents ("Conforming readers shall respect the intent of the document creator by restricting user access to an encrypted PDF file according to the permissions contained in the file.") Honour them means you're bound to write a stupid implementation of DRM; fail to honour them and you get sued.
For example, I have a PDF file on my computer for which I do not have permission to save a copy (or print, etc.). That's right, I don't have permission to save the file. Fortunately I have a ready work-around for "saving" the file (i.e. copy it within the Finder), but seeing the Finder itself is (or, embeds) a capable PDF reader, I wonder if Apple isn't in violation of the standard by allowing their OS (which can interpret PDFs) to copy such files.
A file format is a structure for exchanging information between programs; a standard should be limited to describing that structure. The problem is that Adobe &c have extended the notion of "file format" to cover their intentions for behaviour of programs making use of that format.
Now I really wouldn't care if there was simply some kind of branding/trademark that allowed Adobe and mates to honour DRM within PDF readers and writers. If I want to make my own PDF reader/writer that doesn't fully honour the standard, then I have the option and can't use the trademark... but the fact that patents could be used to enforce the intent of the standard author means that the standard is not open enough. The GP's requirement needs to be that the standard not be patent encumbered in any way whatsoever.
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If Apple's PDF viewer does not allow to ignore DRM restrictions, maybe you should just use a different one that allows to do so?
Obviously. Until Adobe starts suing people, it's a theoretical threat. But it is reasonably likely that at some stage in the next 15 years or thereabouts, Adobe goes all SCO-like... self-destructive perhaps, but painful for all concerned.
For me as an individual, it makes sense to take my chances and "get it done" using software that might be in a technical breach of patent law. But it is irresponsible for the EU to expose themselves in the same way.
So my point is that a file format should only be conside
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PDF is very open -- although there are still extensions that are difficult to work with without proprietary software. As an electronic document medium, PDF is pretty much what I demand from people who send me formatted documents; it is, in my opinion, something of a lingua franca for formatted documents. There is also DVI, though it is not as popular, and if all else fails, Postscript (which can, in the worst case, simple be sent to a pr
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The problem is that many companies see no problem with paying RAND patent fees, and fail to see why that would make it not open. The is especially true in areas where patents are pooled, so if you have even one patent that might apply you add that to the pool, and either get a partial refund on the fees by being part of the pool, or having the fees waived entirely. (Depends on the specific patent pool).
Also what is an Open Specification? Is it one that is publicly available without fee? In that case the C p
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How hard is it to define open as
A) Open specs
B) An open implementation of those specs both on
C) Not patent encumbered
Apparently not trivial, since two thirds of your requirements adopt recursion.
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You seem to be under the false assumption that they had any interest in defining "open" that way. Ask yourself: Who would befit from something?
And then ask: What control over the government do those ones have?
Then you will know what will happen.
But don't make the beginner's error of thinking that the "general public" had any control! Because they can only choose which of the groups of straw-men that are offered to them they will take.
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here isn't a single thing that governments really need that isn't open or can be created for less cost than contracting it to proprietary vendors
How about project management software, 3d rendering tools, Production Ready video editing tools, and automated translation middlewear?
There are definitely needs out there which are non-trivial and which Open Source software hasn't fulfilled. There are a lot that are, and many times better than paid options. But you can't just broadly blanket mandate OSS on princip
Continuum (Score:2, Insightful)
" also defines an 'openness continuum' "
So - just like Creative Commons, then?
(IHNRTFA)
Re:Continuum (Score:5, Insightful)
First of all, 'open' formats has nothing to do with source code.
Second, "open source" is not synonym with "free software" (like software that uses the GPL as license). This has nothing to do with the discussion. And open source does not even means giving work away for free. If somebody sells their code, it is open source, for example.
Creative commons is another example of "opening" stuff that is not code.
I agree that there is a continuum from completely closed to completely open, but any format demanded by governments should be open and non encumbered by patents or other licenses.
There is nothing stopping someone or some company form writing a proprietary piece of software to read/write some open format. But in many cases it is not possible to have a open/free/whatever version of a software to read/write some closed format. This causes an artificial restriction on access to the information made available in that format, what should be inadmissible in certain scenarios.
Why should someone need to license or buy a piece of software form specific companies to have access to government data? This is unacceptable.
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The folks your talking about are interested in FREE software, libre not gratis, open has very little to do with that.
Even FREE software can be sold.
Re:Continuum (Score:5, Insightful)
Alternative viewpoints are great. Alternative definitions, however, are intentionally misleading. This is an alternative definition.
You see, the viewpoint that closed-source and proprietary standards are great already exists. The viewpoint that open-source and non-encumbered standards are great also already exists. There is no new viewpoint being proposed here. That's beacuse this is not a matter of viewpoint. It's a not-so-subtle attempt to blur the definitions that distinguish two existing viewpoints. There is only one reason for accidentally doing this: sheer incompetence. There is only one reason to deliberately do anything like that: the desire to equate things which are inherently distinct; that is, the desire to confuse. It's either incompetence or it's deception and neither of those are worth defending.
Whether you're offended that some people care about the GPL more than you would like them to has nothing to do with it. Whether commercial/proprietary software gets a bad rap more than you want it to also has nothing to do with it.
That's absolutely correct. I can develop a program, or a protocol, or a format, and I can lock it away in a safe and bury it if that's what I feel like doing. I can copyright it and restrict it on that basis, or I can try to patent it. I can hoard the source code and release it only as a black-box binary. However, if I do that and then refer to it as "an open standard" then that would make me a liar. This is really simple.
I never understood why you and so many others want to equate the desire that things be called what they are with telling others what they should do with their work. They are not remotely the same. If I don't want to use a program because it's proprietary, I am not forcing that program's author to do anything. Nor am I telling him how he should use his programming talents. He is free to find someone else who does want to use his program. This is just another thinly-veiled "accept this thing and like it, or else there's something wrong with you" and I'm not buying it.
There is also a question about the morality of governments releasing public information in proprietary formats. My tax dollars have already paid to produce whatever documents the government releases. It belongs to we the people. Why should I have to pay a second time to obtain a proprietary program to access this public information that my tax dollars have already paid for? I celebrate the right of private citizens and private businesses to use whatever format pleases them, whether it's freely available or not. But when we are talking about governments there is a perfectly valid objection to the use of proprietary software, whether or not anyone finds that convenient.
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Are you sure they're really scrapping the previous definition? It sounds like they're just supplementing it with additional guidelines on how to recognize these non-evil-but-patented formats.
The information is free, the medium is not. If you wanted paper copies of the records your argument wouldn't apply to paying a small fee for the
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I think the misunderstanding in your post is that the stand is not necessarily against not "paying for electronics records".
One can pay or not and receive or not the data in an open format.
If I pay for the electronic record, one can argue if I should pay as my taxes kind of already paid for that, but that is not the issue here.
The thing is, especially if I need to pay for the records, if I receive the data in a proprietary format then I need to pay for a piece of software to access that data.
In this case (c
Re:Continuum (Score:5, Insightful)
Scrapping and replacing it would be less sophisticated than what is being done here. You could say they are extending it, or you could say also that they are blurring it. If it were a great unknown, or new territory, or something like that for which there were not already clear and well-understood definitions, then that may make it excusable or at least understandable. However, that's not the case here.
It wouldn't apply there because paper is not inherently free. Someone has to cut down the trees, someone has to process the wood into paper, someone has to ship that paper from the paper mill, and someone has to print on it. The printed copies are a limited resource. If you have 100 printed copies, you cannot sell or give away 50 of them and still have 100 copies. Any that you sell must be replaced with more or else you will run out and be unable to sell or give away any more.
Electronic records are nothing like this. The government already has computers and Internet access because it has used tax dollars to pay for those. Now that it owns them, those can be reused to distribute infinite perfect copies of electronic records at no additional charge. There is no ongoing cost of acquiring more paper and using more ink.
Yet people around the world are willing to release both those formats and software that can work with them for free. Maybe those individuals are taking one for the team and bearing that cost themselves. The end result is that all of the rest of us do have formats available that don't cost us anything at all. The people who produced those formats and that software have specifically and deliberately taken steps to make sure of that, examples of which include their decision to use open licenses and their decision to seek no patents for their creations.
There's something about taking a moral stand that makes many people uncomfortable. I suspect that's because it goes against their beliefs that convenience is everything by providing a counter-example. Can I prove that? No. Does it seem rather obvious to me? Yes, it does. Just as people who follow a religion can fail to adhere to its tenents without deliberately and consciously deciding "hey, I think I'd like to be a hypocrite," people can believe that immediate convenience is the only worthy criteria for decision-making without necessarily being aware that their choices reveal this pattern. This means you must use introspection and cannot correctly assume the reality of your stated intentions, however sincere and heartfelt they may be. It's the reason why all of the differing views about wisdom and what it actually is generally agree on one thing, and that's the importance of truly knowing yourself.
If you really want a mundane response, I will say this much. A government that is wasteful when it is capable of not being wasteful is, in fact, taking advantage of its people. This is much worse when it behaves this way because of financial and political interests that stand to profit from said waste, because then it is no accident. However, it's still pretty bad when it's an innocent mistake, and we the citizens should expect better. I believe this to be the morally correct, or if that is really an obstacle for you, I also believe it to be ethically correct.
Doublespeak and Redefining (Score:4, Insightful)
The older I get the more I realize how powerful those in power are. Not a conspiracy, just a bunch of greedy SOBs who will do whatever they can get away with to control and own more. From marketing being used to dilute meanings to out and out bribery of committee members to swing votes or bypass procedures. The worst part is that they get their power readily from another group, far more numerous than they, of individuals too lazy or too overwhelmed to pay attention to what is being done to them.
Our history is full of cycles. Are we approaching another age of the Robber Baron in another form? Did the age ever truly leave? Nah. The rich and powerful and greedy have always been and always will be the rich and powerful and greedy. Only now, they are immortal corporations. They can die, but not in ways we can, nor are they truly limited in years. The funny part, like a good tragic comedy, is that the greed that makes them so powerful and dangerous is often the very thing that kills them in the end.
But the carnage they leave behind.
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It sucks to have to face the reality that in an almost infinite universe, a spiral galaxy's arm (one of many) of which an insignificant blue planet, (third from the sun), spins that there are such small minded individuals that are incapable of seeing future generations and simply not caring for the inhabitants that they're borrowing resources from. All to get a few material possessions or to feel that they have importance. Yes, they even think that digital watches are still pretty neat.
To the future generat
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Where did the gp even indicate that he believed in an afterlife let alone God?
Being bound by ethics is the dilemma of the civilised free man. Without civility, man has and can only extended the animal characteristics into new dimensions. This is meaningless too. With civility man is able to dream of improving both one's own progeny and the progeny of others. *
While obsessing with "better future" is meaningless to the individual, in evolutionary terms it makes sense to spread the wealth so that both progeny
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To answer your request, I quote myself, "The rich and powerful and greedy have always been and always will be the rich and powerful and greedy".
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Did you ever read something and just know it's true, well this is one of those times
To quote Beavis and Butt-head (Score:5, Informative)
Butt-head: Uhhh, well, if nothing sucked, and everything was cool all the time, then, like, how would you know it was cool?
Essentially, that's what they're saying here. They include closed software on the "openness" spectrum because it's necessary as a basis for comparison. Zero openness is still a value of openness.
Maybe there's an attempt to redefine open source software to the benefit of companies who sell proprietary software, but this particular bit isn't the proper evidence for it.
Open is the pinnacle of ambiguosity. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Open is the pinnacle of ambiguosity. (Score:4, Funny)
free as in freedom
Yeah, that's certainly not ambiguous at all.
If you're going to care about something, care about freedom, not openness.
So, we should care about the freedom screw people over? After all, that's a freedom.
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Stop being cynical (Score:3, Interesting)
I see it more as an anti DMCA.
AKA: "We won't force you to be open, but if someone figures out your proprietary protocol, or someone writes a program that supports your proprietary file format, well... c'est la vie!"
Re:Stop being cynical (Score:4, Insightful)
Which begs the question of whether or not it should be illegal to implement technological measures to prevent others from doing so, or to intentionally remove access/compatibility that once existed.
Open standards committees inhibit innovation (Score:5, Insightful)
The previous version required that interoperability standards be owned by non-profit committees. Having worked with a number of such organizations I can tell you that as a customer, being locked into a committee-owned standard is as great an obstacle to innovation and efficiency as is a closed de facto standard, especially when the government is involved.
It will continue to be far better for the customer over time when the customer can pick and choose which standards and vendors they will use. This allows customers to choose the balance they want to strike between compatibility and richness of functionality.
I do agree that a reasonable criteria for use by government agencies is that a standard specification be free and unencumbered, but no thank you to design by committee.
Because Almost Late (Score:2)
They don't say what you accuse them of saying (Score:5, Insightful)
By placing open on one and of the spectrum, and closed on the other, they very clearly are stating that the two are opposites. And to me, that seems like a perfectly fair and accurate description of the range of openness that exists in information systems and standards. Moreover, they conclude the section on openness with this recommendation:
Do you not see that by distorting their words to advance your own agenda, and attributing to them malicious intent without any basis in fact, you undermine the very cause which you pretend to champion? Is that what you want to do? Do you really want to undermine the credibility of those who advocate for free and open standards, especially in the public sector?
Here is the full text of the section on oppenness, so that everyone can see it in its entirety, and draw their own conclusions.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Ok, my conclusions:
1. You should put the previous version's text too, if you want people to "draw their own conclusions"
2. The definition of "openness as a feeling of persons" still makes waters. It uses deliberatively weak wording - "willingness to share knowledge" doesn't actually mean that they are legally obligated to do it, for example.
3. They have invented one new euphemism ("on the other end of the openness continuum") to replace a very valid existing word: "closed" - which is not used a single time
Re: (Score:2)
In specific terms, my own definition of openness, is whatever allows the work in question to replicate/propogate itself.
So for a computer program, that primarily means source code. However, it can often mean specific elements of documentation as well. If you've got a program which uses conf files, generally speaking, downstream uses are going to need documentation of the conf file format before they can use it.
In the case of protocols, it means available, readable, implementable specifications.
When I made
Re: (Score:2)
Now would you describe standards patented with "reasonable and non-discriminatory" royalties as open or closed or "a bit to the less-open side of the openness continuum"? Because that category of standards is a superset of "RAND and royalty-free" and thus not guaranteed to work well with GPL'ed software..
The ideal scenario with software patents, is one where they don't exist at all. I don't always agree with the FSF, as anyone who has read me on here for any length of time will know, but in trying to erradicate software patents, I think they're doing the right thing.
I am more of a supporter of the BSD license (non-discriminatory freedom of use + attribution + copyright + disclaimer) personally, but patents are no more desirable in association with that license than it is with the GPL.
Re:They don't say what you accuse them of saying (Score:5, Interesting)
Thank you. I would have modded you as Informative, but you're already at 5, and I wanted to respond anyway. I'm getting really sick at how often not just the headline is inflammatory and just plain wrong, but even the summary. I can't believe how far some people will go to twist the true nature of a thing until they can claim it stands for its exact opposite. What's even worse is that it gets by people whose only job is to check this stuff out before posting it to the front page of a widely read website. If this is the answer to print journalism dying, then maybe I should start up a subscription to my local newspaper, because the alternative is apparently much worse.
Also, I turned off the classic index just so that I could vote this story down as 'stupid' and tag it as both 'badheadline' and 'badsummary'. I suggest others do the same. Next to just not reading slashdot anymore, it appears it's the only feedback we can supply.
Offtopic, but...THANKS!!! (Score:2)
Also, I turned off the classic index just so that I could vote this story down as 'stupid' and tag it...
*facepalm* Thanks. I was wondering why I could no longer tag stuff!
It's this kind of thing that's keeping me trying to be more humble as I age. :-)
Re: (Score:2)
I can't believe how far some people will go to twist the true nature of a thing until they can claim it stands for its exact opposite. What's even worse is that it gets by people whose only job is to check this stuff out before posting it to the front page of a widely read website.
Take a look at which "editor" posted this story. I'd be surprised if this even ends up being the worst article posted by kdawson today.
Re: (Score:2)
What's even worse is that it gets by people whose only job is to check this stuff out before posting it to the front page of a widely read website.
That is not and never has been their job:
That's taken from the FAQ [slashdot.org].
Now I'm not saying that that's how it *should* be, but that's how it *i
Re: (Score:2)
Hell yeah! The man deserves a job with the New York Times or other mainstream media. Come on, don't even pretend that the pros don't use this tactic when they have an agenda to push.
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And even then it's not true that the draft doesn't t
Cut out the "Idiocracy" tag, guys. (Score:5, Insightful)
Goddamn! Who are the idiots who keep tagging everything idiocracy? It's pretty annoying. Is it supposed to be clever?
I'm checking "No Karma Bonus" since I'm posting off-topic on purpose. Sorry, but after the last few articles randomly tagged "idiocracy", I couldn't hold it in anymore. Mod me how you will.
Re: (Score:2)
It's definitely overused. Back when the tag only applied to the dumbing down of our children's education, it made some sense. but now, it's completely irrelevant.
Nearly Pregnant, Nearly A Virgin, Nearly Rich (Score:2)
Nearly Smart, Nearly Sexy, Nearly Sauve, Nearly Adequate, Nearly Famous, Nearly Infallible, Nearly Safe, Nearly There....
Reminds me of that Jon Steward quote: (Score:2)
Bush: It's a different kind of war! They, 're a different kind of people!
Jon (Bush impression): They... they wear shoes on their hands! They eat with their butts! They call their Jesus Mohammad. Makes no sense...
I don't know how to turn that into a comment that is critical of this newspeak redefinition though...
How about you? A nice +5, Funny waits for you... coomee... catch it... ;)
Embrace, extend ... extinguish (Score:2)
They went after the p2p format, now its on to "open source" Linux.
Amazing what can be pushed after a stay at a Rothschild family villa in Greece.
Did an American record executive put in a good word for US computing interests?
Twisting (Score:2)
This is disingenious. The document actually says the OPPOSITE of what one might think if reading only the slashdot-introduction. It says that open-ness is not a binary proposition, but a continuum where (and I quote)
Specifications, software and software development methods that promote collaboration and the results of which can freely be accessed, resused and shared are considered open and lie at one end of the spectrum while non-documented, proprietary specifications, proprietary software and the reluctanc
Original article is misrepresented (Score:3, Insightful)
This post is simply wrong. The poster has completely distorted the message in the original text by using unfair citing methods.
If you actually read the article, it defines the openness continuum as the range *between* "freely [---] accessed, reused and shared" and "non-documented, proprietary software". Not very groundbreaking or controversial.
Boring.
On the other hand, it is obvious that nearly all responders with strong opinions on the matter also have not bothered to read the article.
Interesting?
what the original article really said (Score:2)
I read both the article and the original and my reading is that the EIF went from supporting an open standard maintained by a not-for-profit organisation to a redefinition of 'openness' as meaning organizations willing to debate. And the only 'OPen Source Software' allowed is under a new EUPL license. Which I presume specifically excludes all
Openness sells itself (Score:2)
(Before modding this post as Offtopic, please read it to the end. It is relevant; you just need to read the whole thing in order to see how it is)
Just in the last 24 hours, on another forum site that I read regularly, I know a guy who has private messaged me about migrating to FreeBSD.
He has done that because, in the past, he was using either Windows, or certain Linux distributions which were heavily GUI oriented and which, for various reasons, had a much less transparent and orthogonal design. He was hav
What is peer to peer (Score:2)
A fairly minor TV station did a (funny) disquieting gig a while back, about France's P2P 3-strikes law: they roamed the hallways of our national assembly, and asked congressmen what "peer-to-peer" was... that was right when the p2p law was being discussed and making daily headlines, mind you:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXHuxNeasvw&feature=related [youtube.com] , very approximative translations, for fun
- "peer to peer is being able to talk directly to people in the same situation as you, so it's very good"
- "I don'
My new definition of paying taxes (Score:2)
Analogous to the EIF's definition of Open Source Software (OSS), paying taxes is the willingness of persons, organisations or other members of a mixed source community obtaining salaries to share information about their financial status and to stimulate a debate with the revenue authorities, having as ultimate goal a mutual understanding of the situation and a strong basis for a healthy debate. In that sense, paying taxes leads to a quick turnaround of our fiscal status and strengthens the economy.
European Interoperability Framework (Score:2)
open standards and closed source (Score:2)
'Open source doesn't just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open-source software must comply with the following criteria [opensource.org]: Free Redistribution, Source Code, Derived Works, Integrity of The Author's Source Code, No Discrimination Against Persons or Groups, No Discrimin
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The simple fact is - that if the source ain't open then the 'standards' can't be open.
Yes, you can have open standards implemented with closed source. TCP/IP, for example, was a closed source open standard before KA9Q and others implemented their own versions.
An open standard, however, can't be defined by a closed source implementation (eg, OOXML), and an open standard can't require licenses for documentation or distribution. And it's the latter that this particular change is aimed at... letting European st
Open Standards not Open Source (Score:2, Insightful)
The biggest hurdle was to support "open standards" with an objective definition that didn't cut the European Standards Organisations (ESOs) out of the institutional picture. Of the three ESOs, two of their business models are based on selling copies of their standards to make money - which flies in the face of the part of the "open standard" definition that requi