http://orange.math.buffalo.edu/csc/resolution2_april2003
_approved.html
or http://tinyurl.com/pfh42
RESOLUTION FOR UNIVERSITY SUPPORT OF OPEN SOFTWARE AND
STANDARDS
Approved by the Faculty Senate,
University at Buffalo, State University of New York,
April 1, 2003.
1 WHEREAS, direct unmediated unfettered access to information
is fundamental and essential to scholarly inquiry, academic
dialog, research, the advancement of research methods,
academic freedom, and freedom of speech; and
2 WHEREAS, complete control by a computer-user of the
computer's operating system and hardware is essential to the
use and adaptation of computers in research and to the
preservation of privacy; and
3 WHEREAS, the free flow of information has for many years
been hampered by incompatibilities between Microsoft software
and non-Microsoft systems caused by Microsoft-specific
modifications to open protocols (such as Kerberos[1]),
document formats (such as HTML[2]), and programming languages
(such as Java[3]); and
4 WHEREAS, there appears to be significant risk that future
Microsoft operating systems will serve to curtail the rights
of scholars and the public to Fair Use of copyrighted
material, as is suggested by Microsoft's patent for a "Digital
Rights Management Operating System" (US Patent #6330670, Dec.
2001)[4], and its development of Palladium[5] and Secure Audio
Path[6], which are technologies that prevent direct access by
computer users to data on their own computers; and
5a WHEREAS, the restrictions imposed by the license agreement
of the web-page composition tool Microsoft Frontpage 2002,
which states "You may not use the Software in connection with
any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia, or
their products or services"[7], are an unacceptable
restriction of freedom of expression; and
5b WHEREAS, the "security patch" Q320920 for Windows Media
Player, which gives to Microsoft remote administration
privileges on the user's computer and the right to "disable
your ability to copy and/or play Secure Content and use other
software on your computer"[8], involves a substantial
surrender of control and privacy on the part of the computer-
user; and
5c WHEREAS, the fact that Windows Media Player logs and
reports to Microsoft every instance of access to a DVD by the
user[9] is a troubling invasion of privacy; and
6 WHEREAS, a closed-source proprietary operating system such
as Microsoft Windows cannot be modified by the user to
accommodate specific research or personal needs[10]; and
7 WHEREAS, excessive dependence of the University at Buffalo
on a single supplier of proprietary operating systems and/or
application software renders the University powerless to
resist unreasonable price increases for software licenses and
other unreasonable demands such as license changes forbidding
benchmarking[11] or reverse-engineering for compatibility; and
8 WHEREAS, the use of closed proprietary document formats and
information management systems to store the work of faculty,
students, and staff limits the ways these works can be
accessed and archived, and jeopardizes access itself in the
long term; and
9 WHEREAS, open-source, or "free" software provides an
alternative to proprietary operating systems and application
software that is robust, reliable and trustworthy, and
provides a means for the University community to retain
complete control of its computer hardware and software, and to
retain the rights of Fair Use of information, and preserve the
means to adapt computer systems to specific research and
personal needs; and
10 WHEREAS, significant savings can be achieved by the use of
open-source software, which has (in almost all cases) zero
licensing costs, and requires no involuntary upgrades such as
are an integral part of the current UB Microsoft Campus
Agreement; and
11 WHEREAS, for the reasons enumerated above, the exclusive or
predominant use of proprietary operating systems and
application software is detrimental to the core missions of
the University at Buffalo; and
12 WHEREAS, open-source software provides an alternative
through whose use the core missions of the University at
Buffalo can be preserved, nurtured, and enhanced; now,
therefore, be it
13 RESOLVED that the Faculty of the University at Buffalo call
on the University to provide support for the use by interested
students, faculty, and administrators of the GNU/Linux
operating system; and be it further
14 RESOLVED that the Faculty of the University at Buffalo call
on the University to provide support for the use by students,
faculty, and administrators, of OpenOffice and/or other open-
source productivity suites; and be it further
15 RESOLVED that the Faculty of the University at Buffalo call
on the University to provide support for the use by students,
faculty, and administrators, of open-source alternatives to
proprietary application software wherever possible; and be it
further
16 RESOLVED that the Faculty of the University at Buffalo call
on the University to implement a policy of promoting open
document formats and communication protocols wherever possible
and, in the case of broadcast announcements and other
documents intended for a general audience, discouraging the
use of secret and proprietary formats (such as Microsoft Word
format) in favor of open formats (such as plain text or HTML)
that are universally accessible.
NOTES AND REFERENCES:
[1] See The Industry Standard, May 11, 2000:
http://www.thestandard.com/article/display/0,1151,14996,00.htm
l.
[2] "It was in this meeting that Microsoft executives said
they intended to "embrace, extend, extinguish" competing
technologies, including Internet standard HTML, McGeady [Intel
Vice President and Government witness] said.", ZDNet News,
November 8, 1998, http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-512681.html?
legacy=zdnn.
[3] See, for example, Java World, December 1998,
http://www.javaworld.com/javaworld/jw-12-1998/jw-12-
injunction.html
"...the injunction requires Microsoft to stop shipping
incompatible versions of the virtual machine and to support
the standard native-language interface (JNI) in any versions
it does ship. It requires Microsoft to stop shipping the
current version of its language development environments, to
make the standard-Java mode of its language compiler the
default mode, to issue a warning to developers if they enable
the non-standard mode, and to include a note in that warning
that the Microsoft extensions they are enabling "may be
disallowed by court order" in the future."
News.com, January 22, 1999,
http://news.com.com/2100-1001-220539.html?tag=bplst
Specifically, the court required programming tools to be set
by default to disable Microsoft extensions to Java.
[4] US Patent Office,
http://patft.uspto.gov/netahtml/srchnum.htm. Search for
6330670. See also 6327652.
[5] From Microsoft Developer Network website, 2/26/2003:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-
us/wmrm/htm/understandingthesecureaudiopathmodel.asp
"In the Secure Audio Path model, applications cannot be used
to modify packaged music in any way. For example, when an
application is used to intercept a music signal, the signal
sounds like random noise. As a result, applications used to
modify signals (such as an equalizer) cannot change the sound
of the music."
[6]
http://www.epic.org/privacy/consumer/microsoft/palladium.html.
[7] Infoworld Jan 10, 2001
http://archive.infoworld.com/articles/op/xml/01/10/01/011001op
foster.xml
[8] InfoWorld, July 12, 2002,
http://www.infoworld.com/article/02/07/12/020715opestrat_
1.html
[9] ITworld.com 2/21/02
http://www.itworld.com/AppDev/1471/IDG020221mediaplayer/
"Serious privacy problems in Windows Media Player for Windows
XP" by Richard M. Smith,
Details at
http://www.computerbytesman.com/privacy/wmp8dvd.htm:
"Each time a new DVD movie is played on a computer, the WMP
software contacts a Microsoft Web server to get title and
chapter information for the DVD. When this contact is made,
the Microsoft Web server is given an electronic fingerprint
which identifies the DVD movie being watched and a cookie
which uniquely identifies a particular WMP player. With this
two pieces of information Microsoft can track what DVD movies
are being watched on a particular computer."
See also "Microsoft WinXP Update spies on other PC software",
The Inquirer, 2/25/2003, http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=
7980.
[10] For example, there is no real-time patch for Windows for
experimentalists and musicians who need
sub-millisecond latency. In contrast, there are such patches
for Linux: see http://www.ittc.ku.edu/kurt/.
[11] SQL Server benchmarks prohibited, ITWorld 4/17/2001
http://www.itworld.com/AppDev/136/IWD010417opfoster/
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